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Firefox 26: Find out what is new


tezza

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Firefox 26 What’s New

Firefox 26 introduces several new features and changes to the Firefox web browser, of which some will affect a lot of users.

All plug-ins default to click-to-play except Flash

Mozilla announced back in September that it would default all plug-ins but the Adobe Flash plug-in to click-to-play in Firefox 26.

What this means is that plug-ins will not be loaded automatically when websites load, but only on user request. This improves the security of the connection significantly, as websites cannot exploit old plug-in code or vulnerabilities in the last version of a plug-in anymore.

It does mean however that users will face challenges when it comes to accessing legit sites that require plug-ins. Instead of being able to use them right away, they need to allow the sites to load plug-ins.

For visual elements such as videos, an activate box should appear on the location of the element on the page. Firefox indicates that a plug-in is required by displaying the activate link in the center of the element.

In addition to that, you also find the plug-in indicator at the top of the page near the address of the website.

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Clicking on the activate link has the same effect as clicking in the icon in the browser's main toolbar. Here you can select to allow the execution right now, or allow it and remember it for future sessions.

If you select the second option, it means that plug-in contents will be loaded automatically on the website from that moment on, so that you are not bothered anymore by the feature.

Tip: While all plug-ins default to Ask to Activate in Firefox 26 with the exception of Flash, it is possible to change that state in the plug-in manager. Do the following to do so:

1) Load about:addons in the browser's address bar.

2) Locate the plug-in that you want to change the activation state for, it should either read "Ask to Activate" or "Never Activate"

3) Click on the menu and change it to the desired activation status. If you want it to load at all times automatically, select "Always Activate".

Password manager now supports script-generated password fields

The default password manager in Firefox did not support script-generated password fields until now. Basically, what users did experience was that while passwords could be remembered by the password manager, auto-fill did not work out because of the dynamic nature of the login form.

This issue has now been resolved, and Firefox should not have any issues anymore saving and filling out passwords if script-generated are used.

Updates can now be performed by Windows users without write permissions to Firefox install directory (requires Mozilla Maintenance Service)

The update fixes issues where Firefox was installed for limited user accounts on Windows. The main issue here was that Firefox could not be updated by the user of the account directly due to the limited rights of the account.

This meant that Firefox would not be updated until a system administrator would run the update, which in turn meant that the browser would be vulnerable to attacks targeting known vulnerabilities in the meantime.

The change allows updates to be performed if the Mozilla Maintenance Service is being used on the system.

Support for H.264 on Linux if the appropriate gstreamer plug-ins are installed

This improves HTML5 video compatibility on Linux, as H.264 contents can now be played using HTML5 Video provided that gstreamer plug-ins are installed.

Previously, support for this was added to several Windows operating systems as well.

Mozilla cannot distribute the necessary codecs with Firefox, but decided to use them if they are installed on the host system Firefox is running on.

Support for MP3 decoding on Windows XP, completing MP3 support across Windows OS versions

This is another one of those changes mentioned in the last paragraph. Native mp3 support has been added to Firefox running on Windows XP systems.

CSP implementation now supports multiple policies, including the case of both an enforced and Report-Only policy, per the spec

Mozilla implemented Content Security Policy (CSP) in Firefox 4. Back then, it was not based on W3C specification as there was none at the time.

Back in June 2013, CSP 1.0 was implemented in Firefox. The feature is used by webmasters to specify which domains are allowed to run scripts and styles on the web page a user is connecting to. It prevents cross-site scripting attacks among other things.

The update adds support for multiple policies to Firefox.

Other changes

When a standalone JPEG image gets loaded in Firefox, the browser will now use EXIF orientation information to display its correct orientation.

The page loading times have been improved as Firefox is no longer decoding images that are not visible when they are downloaded. They are instead decoded when they become visible in the browser.

Developer changes

Social API now supports Social Bookmarking for multiple providers through its SocialMarks functionality
There is no longer a prompt when websites use appcache
Support for the CSS image orientation property
New App Manager allows you to deploy and debug HTML5 webapps on Firefox OS phones and the Firefox OS Simulator
IndexedDB can now be used as a "optimistic" storage area so it doesn't require any prompts and data is stored in a pool with LRU eviction policy, in short temporary storage

Other development related changes are:

Several changes to CSS properties, --moz-text-blink has been removed, support for the image-orientation property, or position: sticky among others.
Several changes to HTML elements, like HTMLInputElement.width and HTMLInputElement.height returning 0 now if the type is not an image.
New EcmaScript 6 features like support for Generators (yield).
Lots of changes to interfaces, APIs and DOM
The Inspector supports remote now.

Firefox 26 for Android

Firefox 26 for Android follows the same release schedule as the desktop version of Firefox.

about:home interface updated with top sites thumbnails, and ability to pin browser tabs to the Firefox homepage.
The built-in password manager supports script-generated password fields now.
Performance has been improved on some NVIDIA devices.
CSP now supports multiple policies.

http://www.ghacks.net/2013/12/10/firefox-26-find-new/

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Thanks Tezza, good information. I always use Firefox and don't usually complain about changes, but there's one that really annoys me (you didn't mention it)...the old style download box has been eliminated and instead you have that green arrow at the top right of the screen, The download box was very convenient (are you listening Firefox?), it let you see at a glance the speed, duration and state of downloads and you could leave it on your desktop or on the task bar even with the browser closed. I repeat, it was CONVENIENT and I don't see why it had to be changed. On previous Firefox versions it was also gone, but you could go into "About;config browser.download. use Toolkit UI". and set value to "true" to have it back. Some people suggested the same fix for this version 26...but set to "true" or "false" it doesn't work. I hope that Firefox give us back the option to have the old download box again. Meanwhile I drag the HIstory-Downloads box onto my desktop and minimize it to the taskbar so that I can keep an eye on the progress of my downloads.

As I'm a noob if anyone has a better solution I'd be extremely grateful if they would share it with us.

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Thanks Tezza, good information. I always use Firefox and don't usually complain about changes, but there's one that really annoys me (you didn't mention it)...the old style download box has been eliminated and instead you have that green arrow at the top right of the screen, The download box was very convenient (are you listening Firefox?), it let you see at a glance the speed, duration and state of downloads and you could leave it on your desktop or on the task bar even with the browser closed. I repeat, it was CONVENIENT and I don't see why it had to be changed. On previous Firefox versions it was also gone, but you could go into "About;config browser.download. use Toolkit UI". and set value to "true" to have it back. Some people suggested the same fix for this version 26...but set to "true" or "false" it doesn't work. I hope that Firefox give us back the option to have the old download box again. Meanwhile I drag the HIstory-Downloads box onto my desktop and minimize it to the taskbar so that I can keep an eye on the progress of my downloads.

As I'm a noob if anyone has a better solution I'd be extremely grateful if they would share it with us

Download Statusbar add-on

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/

very light and simple... :rolleyes:

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Thanks Tezza, good information. I always use Firefox and don't usually complain about changes, but there's one that really annoys me (you didn't mention it)...the old style download box has been eliminated and instead you have that green arrow at the top right of the screen, The download box was very convenient (are you listening Firefox?), it let you see at a glance the speed, duration and state of downloads and you could leave it on your desktop or on the task bar even with the browser closed. I repeat, it was CONVENIENT and I don't see why it had to be changed. On previous Firefox versions it was also gone, but you could go into "About;config browser.download. use Toolkit UI". and set value to "true" to have it back. Some people suggested the same fix for this version 26...but set to "true" or "false" it doesn't work. I hope that Firefox give us back the option to have the old download box again. Meanwhile I drag the HIstory-Downloads box onto my desktop and minimize it to the taskbar so that I can keep an eye on the progress of my downloads.

As I'm a noob if anyone has a better solution I'd be extremely grateful if they would share it with us

Download Statusbar add-on

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/download-statusbar/

very light and simple... :rolleyes:

Thank you very much Rivenson. I just had a look at the "Statusbar" add-on details. Since I have my configuration set to "not remember history" and "use private browsing mode" it warns that Statusbar will not work properly...so I'll wait for version 2 that is coming soon. Thanks again for your suggestion though, much appreciated.

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I don't mind the toolbar download button so much (and you can click on Show All Downloads or Ctrl+J to see the full window), but one thing I miss dearly is the pause/resume option besides each download. I know it's still there in the context menu, but why remove it? So I asked on Bugzilla and one Mozilla dev said it wasn't used much. What a bunch of idiots.

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Totally agree with you.

Some buttons are not meant to be used very frequently, but that does not mean these buttons are not important functionally.

Therefore, it really does not make any sense to remove some buttons just based on how often they are used.

I don't mind the toolbar download button so much (and you can click on Show All Downloads or Ctrl+J to see the full window), but one thing I miss dearly is the pause/resume option besides each download. I know it's still there in the context menu, but why remove it? So I asked on Bugzilla and one Mozilla dev said it wasn't used much. What a bunch of idiots.

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Frankly speaking i never observe and realize the changes of a new version of a Firefox. But i am really surprised that new updation all come up with a remarable hard work only for the ultimate users.

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