Mozilla has good news for Firefox users -- the upcoming Firefox 66 release will block websites from automatically playing those obnoxious audio clips and noisy videos. The change will apply only to media that plays sound and it will be on by default, though users will have the option to enable auto-playing audible content if they want. Mozilla will bring the feature to Firefox on both Android and desktop.
Mozilla's latest Firefox update makes it easier for users to control their privacy level, the company has announced. The browser's Content Blocking section has been redesigned to offer two different view options, making it easy to see what settings are available and what each one offers. As well, the update brings improved performance management and support for video compression tech AV1.
A recent study by the University of California, San Diego, showed four new ways to expose Internet users' browsing histories. They also showed the ways in which these histories could and can be used to target internet users with various attacks. Most of these attacks take aim psychologically, targeting the trust users have in details to which they believe only their closest friends and family have access.
You can say what you want about Mozilla’s attempts at earning money but you can’t criticize it for lack of trying. In fact, the non-profit open source organization has a knack for throwing out ideas and experiments and getting users to be their guinea pigs. Or brave testers, if you will. Those experiments all came from the Firefox Test Pilot garage, which is sadly now closing up shop. Mozilla assures fans of the browser, however, that experiments will stop. In fact, it promises there will be even more.
Mozilla, the not-for-profit organization behind the popular Firefox browser, is always searching for ways to keep the lights on while developing and distributing a complex and sophisticated piece of software for the price of free. Many of those, especially the ones that involved sponsored content, a.k.a. ads, have been met with criticism and opposition. It seemed that Mozilla was taking yet another stab at it without telling anyone and the reactions were unsurprising.
Cookies may sound delicious but, in the World Wide Web, they can also be dangerous. To your privacy at least. Sites and ads have long abused these piecemeal bits of data to go beyond improving user experience and improve advertiser profits instead. Since website owners seem less inclined to care, web browser makers are taking matters into their own hands. In the latest update to the privacy-focused Firefox Focus, users can specify the kind of cookies they can allow into their experience or, at their own risk, accept them all.
Mozilla has released Firefox 64 for desktop, giving its users access to better tab organization and a contextual feature recommender (CFR), among other things. The changes make it easier for users to organize the dozens of browser tabs they may have open, as well as discovering Firefox features and add-ons that they may be otherwise unaware of.
They call it the holidays but for some people, those days are even more nerve-wracking than regular days. From the travel accommodations that have to be made to the presents that have to be bought, people are flooded with more information than they would normally get during any other day. And since most of that information is coming from the Web, Mozilla is trying out some new tricks to let Firefox help rather than add to the problem, like keeping track of prices for you or helping you email links to yourself.
They may sound delicious but like their sugary and carb-filled real-world counterparts, browser cookies can be bad for your digital wellbeing. Especially when said cookies come from third-party sites that want to track your every move, even when you ’ve moved away from that site. These tracking cookies leave crumbs that vendors and even hackers can follow to potentially violate your privacy or even influence your mind. Firefox version 63 will finally put a stop to that but only if you tell it to.
Among the major web browser makers, Firefox is still hailed as the most open and most privacy-respecting option around, despite a few hiccups in its history and some problems with performance. Its parent organization, Mozilla, however, doesn’t have the same near limit-less resources as, say, Google or Microsoft or Apple. The not-for-profit organization is always looking for ways to stay afloat, not all of them successful or warmly received. Its latest attempt doesn’t involve ads, fortunately, but does involve users forking a bit of money if they want.
This week a new Google Search easter egg was discovered in the wild, complete with a whole bunch of adventurous paths one might take. To play Google's most recently-discovered in-product game, one must drop in on the English-language interface for Google Search. To find the game, on a desktop computer, in Google Search, search for the terms "text game" or "text adventure."
Everyone should be concerned about keeping their various online identities secure, and today, Firefox made that a little bit easier. Working alongside Have I Been Pwned, today Mozilla launched Firefox Monitor. You can use this to see if your email address has been involved in any security breaches, so in that regard, Firefox Monitor mirrors the functionality of Have I Been Pwned pretty closely.