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Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla today launched Firefox 40 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Notable additions to the browser include official Windows 10 support, added protection against unwanted software downloads, and new navigational gestures on Android. Firefox 40 for the desktop is available for download now on Firefox.com, and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play. Changelogs are here: desktop and Android.
because Chrome version is 44. This is 10% better.
After using windows 10 edge i felt that without ad blocker was useless in this ad ridden web, so which are the options?, a slow and bloated firefox, or the alphabet privacy nightmare and memory hog Chrome.
I installed the latest Opera and was surprised, is fast, based in chromium so is very compatible and has the gestures and usual goodies of every opera install, it is even a universal app in windows 10, so it looks great too.
For me Opera is my alternative browser for years to come
OMG, When Firefox one came out we used to to view webpages. 40 major revisions plus numerous increments we can still view the same webpagf but with a much larger footprint. Have we really gained anything worth while over 40 major revisions.
"New: Improved scrolling, graphics, and video playback performance with off main thread compositing (GNU/Linux only)."
I did the upgrade to 10 (finally!), and now Firefox doesn't come back from sleep properly anymore. It gets weird visual glitches that look like refresh issues, and none of the tab gadgets are visible (or clickable). I pretty much have to kill it and restart it every time I wake my PC. Hopefully the "supported" version won't do that.
We’ve made thoughtful tweaks to the interface to give Firefox a streamlined feel. You’ll also notice bigger, bolder design elements as well as more space for viewing the Web.
Translation: We tried to hide more buttons and functionality from users with Firefox 40, but in the end people complained about the lack of a field to enter addresses into and the removal of the back button. Users, tsk, tsk... Rest assured that in the future we will continue to add more useful buttons and features like Pocket and voice chat.
Regards,
The Firefox "UX" Team
In all seriousness the "new look" for Windows 10 doesn't look all that different from FF 38 that I've been using for months in the Tech Preview. I can't wait to try and find what other menus, options and functionality they have "designed" out of FF 40.
Here's how to disable it. Not sure yet how this is implemented. https://support.mozilla.org/en...
"Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection"
That seems like a contradiction, given what I've read about Windows 10.
Don't allow any downloading from any link that is flagged as an "AD" on google.
99% of the time I have to clean someone's computer it's because, "I searched for XXX and installed it from the first link from a google search."
Google sponsored links from a search needs to have dark red borders around them with "WARNING DO NOT CLICK ON THIS"
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Apparently version 3 of the API downloads the hashed list to the client side rather than sending URL's to mother Google: https://developers.google.com/... So I think I'm going to leave it enabled on my machines. This is reasonable and actually a fairly decent service if that's true.
I've found bugs in Firefox that date back to not only before it was called Firefox but before Firefox even existed.
My personal favorite is this bug which is over 15 years old now. The practical effect is that if your screen resolution ever changes, Firefox breaks and you have to restart it. (Basically tooltips start appearing over the wrong areas and anything that's supposed to not go off the screen uses the wrong screen values.)
A practical example of why that might happen is projecting, say, a web app in a meeting. Doing that means you have to restart Firefox after hooking up the projector and then again when done. Another example is docking a laptop. 15 years with absolutely no progress.
No, only URLS that return executable downloads.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
You expect every button in an application to have text on the button itself fully describing what it does?
Yes. Most people only read what is on the button itself, if even that. Expecting them to have read the entire page to know what it is that they will be doing (it's not even mentioned in the page title) is too much.
No, I think it's just you... you must have a huge problem when using any GUI interface these days--"OK or Cancel? OK to what?? Cancel what??? I have no idea what it's talking about!"
I also remember when Firefox was toted as the light and speedy version of Mozilla.
I remember when I could run Firefox on a USB stick with less than 100MB memory usage! And 200MB with the flash plugin!
They've always had customization, addons, extensions, and everything else. As time went on however, in handling all those APIs, it slows down. Then, some of the addon authors slow it down even more. Maybe it's because they use Javascript for everything?
I know this is a totally vague question, but it went from slim to bloated fast.
"I'm a well-wisher, in that I don't wish you any specific harm."
Debian just looked into this, while considering how to appropriately hack FF into Iceweasel. The URLs are hashed, and a partial hash is sent to Google. Google then sends back a list of dangerous URLs (if any) which match that partial hash.
One can quibble about how long the partial hash should be (too short, and you waste time and bandwidth downloading lists of false positives all the time; too long, and Google may be able to start inferring which sites you're visiting by looking for patterns), but overall, it seems like an excellent compromise between the contrasting needs of security and privacy. Debian ultimately decided to keep the feature, and keep it enabled by default, which says a lot to me. But, of course, you can disable it in either FF or Iceweasel, if you're unhappy with it.
Even in Firefox 39 (possibly earlier), Google gets to set a permanent cookie if you have malware/"web forgery" detection enabled (which is the default). Even with an addon like 'Self-Destructing Cookies' you still can't get rid of the Google cookie. You can even try for yourself in Settings > Privacy > Show Cookies on a fresh install of Firefox. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/s...
It took Firefox forever to get to 4. Now we are at 40. How soon until 400?
Firefox is still far more insecure than Chrome due to lack of a sandbox feature and multiprocess. Instead of spending so much time on pocket they needed to get the sandbox done. They should have had the sandbox in 3 years and are only dragging their feet on it being forced to keep up with Chrome on this matter.Still a very insecure browser. Total negligence. Whats ironic is they would mainly need to plugin into infrastructure that was already implemented for Chrome on Linux, as it was Chrome that pushed implementation of a process sandbox on Linux.