Hasta La Gadget!

This is rather odd. Mozilla has reportedly discontinued the 64-bit version of Firefox for Windows. The 64-bit version of the browser was available for Windows computer users in testing. The announcement was made by Mozilla via one of its Google Groups titled “Turning off win64 builds.”

As for why Mozilla is ending the development of this particular flavor of Firefox, despite the fact that reports indicate is much is 50% of testers were using the browser, Mozilla offered some specific reasons. One reason was that many plug-ins were available in 64-bit versions of the browser. One Mozilla manager also said that many of the plug-ins that were available didn’t work correctly in Firefox because certain features hadn’t been implemented.

Those features including things such as windowproc hooking, which made browser hanging more common. Mozilla said that any crash reports submitted by users of the 64-bit browser weren’t going to receive high priority because Mozilla is working on other things. Mozilla also noted that its crash-status report doesn’t distinguish well between 32-bit and 64-bit browsers.

Mozilla admits to ignoring a set of nightly “topcrashes” because they were specific to 64-bit browsers. In the end, Mozilla simply decided to disable Windows 64-bit nightly an hourly builds for the browser. The developers consider the “discussion closed” unless critical new information is presented. There will reportedly be a custom update that moves 64-bit browser users over to 32-bit builds of Firefox.

[via The Next Web]

Mozilla kills 64-bit Firefox browser for Windows despite lots of users is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We’ve just seen an update to Firefox for Android, but that’s not the only revision that Mozilla has had in the works. Today also sees the release of version 17 of the desktop browser, which brings with it a number of changes and one noticeable omission. The latter is a lack of support for Mac OS X 10.5 (a.k.a. Leopard), which Mozilla first announced last month — those on Leopard can of course continue to use Firefox 16, they just won’t receive any updates. Otherwise, you can expect a new “Awesome Bar” with larger icons, more than 20 promised performance improvements and a new click-to-play functionality for dealing with outdated or potentially vulnerable plug-ins. Also receiving the bump to version 17 is the Extended Support Release (or ESR) version of the browser, which disables the automatic updating to cause less headaches for those dealing with mass deployments. You can find the full change log at the source link below.

Update: As TechCrunch notes, version 17 also adds the new Social API to Firefox, although Facebook is the only site to take advantage of it so far — it now lets you add Messenger to the browser’s sidebar.

Filed under: Internet, Software

Comments

Via: WinBeta

Source: Mozilla

Firefox on Android has been a luxury that devices running Google’s mobile OS with ARMv7 processors have had, but now Mozilla is broadening its browser’s horizons. Now, the latest version of Firefox’s mobile incarnation adds support for phones sporting ARMv6 processors with minimum speeds of 800mhz alongside at least 512MB of RAM. With those specs, that brings the HTC ChaCha and Status, LG Optimus Q, Motorola Fire XT, Samsung Galaxy Ace and others into the fold. In addition, the browser’s latest version brings Explore by Touch support on Jelly Bean and hardware and software decoding of H.264, AAC and MP3 formats on Android 4.0 and 4.1 devices. Fixes that address instability on Android 4.2 and text deletion issues also tag along in the release. To get your mitts on the download, simply tap the second source link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

Comments

Source: Mozilla Blog, Google Play

As cutting-edge as Google can be, its Chrome browser has trailed in supporting Do Not Track by default; all its major challengers already have the option to cut off tracking cookies. At least that’s where Google’s fast-track development process comes in handy. Following a short beta, the stable release of Chrome 23 includes the DNT protocol to both safeguard privacy and prevent a few eerily well-targeted ads. The update is more fine-grained still with a quick drop-down menu to selectively turn off access to cameras, location and other sensitive details on a site-by-site basis. Even those who live their life in public get something: Windows users at last have graphics hardware acceleration for video, giving a lift to battery life on laptops and smoothing playback for those on borderline-acceptable PCs. More details are available at the source link, so get to clicking if you’re not a fan of small text files shadowing your web visits.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

Google Chrome 23 in finished form brings Do Not Track, graphics boosts for Windows users originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Next Web  |  Google Chrome Blog  | Email this | Comments

Back in 2009, Microsoft announced support for Do Not Track in Internet Explorer 9. Soon after, DNT support was added by Mozilla, Apple, and Opera to each company’s respective browser. With Internet Explorer 10, Microsoft has DNT enabled by default. Yahoo! doesn’t like this move, and released a statement that it will ignore the browser’s DNT signal.

Do Not Track is a technology aimed at addressing privacy concerns that lets Internet users opt out of being tracked by websites. Do Not Track is like the Internet version of the Do Not Call registry, according to donottrack.us. DNT works via a simple HTTP header, and is the by-product of a collaboration by several advocacy groups, tech companies, and researchers.

In the announcement, Yahoo! stated that it supports DNT “in principle,” and that it is working with partners to create an opt-out standard for users. It followed this by stating that Microsoft’s unilateral decision to enable DNT by default in Internet Explorer 10 makes it “hard to deliver on our value proposition” to users. As a result, the company says that it will still offer Ad Interest Manager and related tools, but will not recognize the Microsoft browser’s DNT signal on its properties.

Yahoo! is working with W3C in the pursuit of a Do Not Track standard that, it says, is in line with user expectations and an optimal Internet experience. “Ultimately, we believe that DNT must map to user intent — not to the intent of one browser creator, plug-in writer, or third-party software service.” W3C recommends that DNT be an opt-in preference.

[via Yahoo! Policy Blog]

Yahoo! refuses to recognize Internet Explorer 10′s Do Not Track is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.