Enterprise IT Unhappy With Firefox 4’s Retirement
Several corporate IT managers have displayed discomfort with Mozilla’s decision to deliver new editions of Firefox every six weeks with its new rapid release program. This discomfort centers around the retirement of Firefox 4 from security support as well as their inability to test any new version beforehand.
The Firefox 4 EOL (End of Live) is a kick in the stomach. I’m now in the terrible position of choosing to deploy a Firefox 4 release with potentially unpatched vulnerabilities, reset the test cycle for thousands of internal apps to validate Firefox 5 or stay on a patched Firefox 3.6.x. – John Walicki of IBM
How Many Firefox Users Install Extensions?
Recently, Mozilla has revealed some of the Firefox add-on installation statistics for curious people to check out.
According to the blog post, an incredible 85% of Firefox 4 users have add-ons installed, excluding Personas or other extensions that are bundled with other software packages aka forced installations. Mozilla has also stated that due to upgrades, the number varies but managed to stay at 85-89%.
To put it into perspective: more than 60 million Firefox users use add-ons every day with the average of 5 add-ons per web browser install.
[Thanks fforever, Ichan]
How Does A Web Browser Work?
Assuming your web browsers curiosity is through the roof and you have a plenty of time to dedicate, here is a useful web page to try.
Taligarsiel.com includes thousands upon thousands lines of text to explain (mostly) everything you ever wanted to know about the web browsers, from rendering engines to the structure itself.
Furthermore, it covers four major web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari.
Microsoft Sends Cake To Mozilla
The cake is not a lie.
With the release of Firefox 5, Microsoft’s IE team has decided to spoil Mozilla with a sweet surprise and sent them a cake.
As Firefox release cycle picks up the phase, we are wondering if the software giant will continue its delicious tradition.
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Sexy Improvements Coming To The Opera UI
Windows Screenshot
Opera Software has revealed the first phase of Project Featherweight. What this project entails is to make Opera as user friendly, bright, and light as possible whilst not sacrificing flexibility or power.
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No More Security Updates For Firefox 4
Along with the release of Firefox 5 on Tuesday, Mozilla showed off the vulnerabilities that had been patched in that version of Firefox as well as in 2010’s Firefox 3.6, making no mention of any bugs fixed in Firefox 4, however. The reason for this is that Firefox 4 has reached its EOL, short for End of Life, with regard to vulnerability patches according to Mozilla.
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Coming Soon: Real Time Chat In Google Chrome
Opera is a supporter of WebRTC as well.
Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype, it looks like the search giant has video chat plans of its own.
Turns out, Google is integrating its WebRTC software into the Google Chrome web browser, which will allow users to talk in real-time without having to install Skype or similar chat clients.
Rian Liebenberg, Google’s engineering director wrote:
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Google Chrome 14 Includes MHTML Files Support
MHTML (MIME HTML), a web page archive format introduced with Internet Explorer 5 and used to combine various images, animations along with the source code into a single (.mht) file, will be supported by the upcoming Google Chrome 14 release.
In fact, as of June 13th, Canary Chrome and WebKit builds already include such feature.
According to Wikipedia, MHTML file format is already supported by a few web browsers, including:
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Download Firefox 5 Final
With the acceleration of the Firefox release cycle, Mozilla has released Firefox 5 Final ahead of the official release date that is June 21st.
Furthermore, with the release of Firefox 5 Final, you can expect to see the Firefox 6 Beta within two weeks.
What’s New?
According to the official changelog, the following version includes new web standards support, improves performance as well as memory usage and depending on how you look at it, no new usability features.
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Weekly Browsers Recap, June 21st
- Microsoft Labels WebGL A Fundamental, Unacceptable Security Risk
- Dangerous WebGL Flaws Haunt Chrome and Firefox
- Google Chrome Stable, Beta Channel Updates
- Google Chrome Beta Channel Update
- Offline Google Docs starts playing peek-a-boo
- Google bypasses admin controls with latest Chrome IE
- Chrome OS Beta Channel Update
- Apple iPad Safari users must pay to read New York Post
- Opera Allows Bookmark Sync With Windows Phone 7
- Facebook Is Taking A Special Interest In RockMelt’s Social Browser
- Deep Shot transfers open websites from desktop to mobile, sans wizardry
- Windows SkyDrive Says Sayonara To Silverlight, Embraces HTML5
[Thanks, Ichan]
