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Mozilla is bringing modern video games to your browser
Modern 3D video games require a ton of processing power to look good and respond to player input quickly. That's why most of the web-based games you see today are at best stripped down versions of their PC or console counterparts. The team behind the Firefox web browser would like to see that change, however. Mozilla released a version of the browser that includes WebAssembly - a new technology that enables high-resource apps like games, computer-aided design, video and image editing and scientific visualization to run in a browser almost as fast as they do on your local computer. It will also speed up existing web apps that use JavaScript.
Mozilla buys Pocket, an app for saving articles
More than one save-it-for-later service is finding a new owner these days -- Mozilla has acquired Read It Later, the developer behind Pocket. The service will be treated as a product separate from (but of course, complementary to) Firefox, and will fold into Mozilla's open source project. It's also poised to give a boost to Mozilla's Context Graph strategy, which uses related knowledge to help you find what you're really looking for on the web.
Mozilla shutters its connected devices division
Mozilla will close its gadgets division, laying off some 50 employees working on products for connected devices (like smart TVs, for example) in the process. While the company wouldn't comment on the specific number of employees affected, it offered the following statement:
Apple, Microsoft and Uber help staff stranded by Trump ban (update: Airbnb)
President Trump's restrictions on immigration from Muslim-majority countries is affecting many, many more tech companies besides Google. Apple, Microsoft, Uber and others are rushing to accommodate employees who suddenly find themselves isolated by the new ban -- and in some cases, pressing for change at the highest levels. Apple, for instance, is both providing staff with support and "reaching out" to the White House to discuss the "negative effect" of the ban. Microsoft, meanwhile, says it's offering "legal advice and assistance" to workers. Uber, meanwhile, is discussing a very specific solution.
Mozilla's new logo is kinda ://
It's been six months since Mozilla, the non-profit organization in charge of maintaining Firefox, announced it was putting the future of its brand in users' hands. Kinda, at least. The plan was to solicit entrants for a new wordmark or logo, before handing them off to in-house professionals to finish off the job. After some pretty out-there submissions -- including one that would have seen a revival of Mozilla's once-famous dinosaur -- the winning design is markedly plain.
Firefox will support Windows XP and Vista until September 2017
Numerous web browsers have already stopped supporting Windows XP and Vista, but not Firefox. To this day, Mozilla's latest software can work with your decade-old PC. However, even that team has its limits -- it's phasing out support for XP and Vista starting next year. Mozilla will start by moving users on these operating systems to the Extended Support Release in March 2017, limiting them to feature updates that can be "several cycles" behind the curve. And while the company plans to unveil a final support end date in the middle of that year, it'll effectively cut the cord in September, when it stops delivering security updates.
Firefox's multi-process mode is coming to more users soon
Over the last few months, the developers of Firefox have been slowly rolling out technology that will bring the browser up to par with competitors when it comes to speed, security and reliability. Others like Chrome, Safari and Edge are already designed using multi-process, to separate tabs, add-ons and even rendering from the main browser. As it stands, Firefox 50 users with extensions approved for multi-process are already using the technology, which the team says has increased responsiveness by 400 percent, and 700 percent while pages are loading.
Mozilla helped build a gallery-style exhibit on data security
For a few moments after stepping in from the cold, it was easy to forget I wasn't in a ritzy SoHo holiday pop-up shop. The room was stark white. Cheerful staffers huddled around display tables in matching hoodies. It wasn't until I spotted a set of tomes filled with stolen LinkedIn passwords -- just feet away from a pair of Air Yeezy 2s purchased off the deep web by an automated bot, naturally -- that the space's true purpose became clear. Welcome to the Glass Room.
Firefox Focus brings easy private browsing to your iPhone
Many modern smartphone web browsers have private modes. They're rarely turned on by default, however, and you may have to wade through settings just to make sure you're a ghost online. Mozilla wants to try something different: it's launching a browser for iOS that revolves around privacy. Firefox Focus isn't very sophisticated (you don't even get multiple tabs), but it blocks ad, analytics and social trackers by default, with simple sliders used to turn tracking on and off. Also, see that conspicuous "erase" button up top? Hit that and it immediately wipes your current browser history -- all the evidence of your gift shopping goes away in a moment.
Browser add-on caught selling identifiable web histories
When you include the word "trust" in your internet company's name, you're under more pressure than most to respect the privacy of your customers... and one firm is learning that lesson the hard way. Web of Trust Services' browser add-on has left the extension libraries for Chrome, Firefox and Opera after a German broadcaster's investigation revealed that Web of Trust was collecting and selling users' web histories to third parties. While the company said that it was anonymizing data, that didn't hold up under scrutiny. The broadcaster managed to identify over 50 people from sample data, and uncovered everything from active police investigations to the implied sexual orientation of a judge.
Firefox adds a 'Narrate' mode to take your eyes off the screen
Mozilla's latest Firefox adds a couple new and refined features intended to improve the time you spend reading online. While Firefox released an ad-stripping, layout-simplifying Reader Mode way back in 2012, the newest release brings a new "Narrate" feature and additional tweaks for a better reading (or listening) experience.
Latest Firefox update will help stop your browser from crashing
If Microsoft's anniversary update and Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 launch weren't already enough excitement for you in one day, then hold on tight. Mozilla's rolling out an update that brings a multi-process version of Firefox to some users. Trust us, it is exciting.
Firefox for iOS just received a slew of new updates
Firefox has rolled out some brand new features for its iOS browser, including the ability to add website-specific search engines and tab recovery.
Firefox will leave Flash off by default in 2017
Add Mozilla to the ranks of web browser developers giving Flash the boot. While it previously blocked Flash over security issues, it's phasing out regular use of Adobe's often-criticized plugin, starting with one of its next major releases. As of August, Firefox will block some Flash content that's "not essential to the user experience." And in 2017, it'll leave Flash off by default -- much like what other companies are doing, you'll have to click to activate any Flash-only material.
Mozilla's 'Context Graph' finds the website you'll want next
How much of your content do you find while scrolling through Facebook or searching Google? To counter a small number of companies controlling what parts of the internet get exposed to users, Mozilla is announcing a solution: the Context Graph. By studying browser activity at scale, they want to build a 'recommender system' that aims to provide personalized search results based on previously-found solutions to similar problems. Until they release more details than the aspirational hopes for what it will do, however, it sounds like a first-party version of StumbleUpon.
Mozilla made a game to teach you the basics of encryption
Sure, people will tell you that encryption is important to maintaining your online privacy, but how do you wrap your head around the concept? Mozilla wants to help. It's introducing a web-based game, Codemoji, that illustrates how ciphers work through emoji. Type in a phrase and Codemoji will both shift the letters and replace them with emoji. The challenge, as you might guess, comes when you get your friends to guess the meaning without turning to the Codemoji website. Mozilla stresses that you shouldn't use this as an honest-to-goodness secure communication system (it isn't). However, it should illustrate just why you'd want to protect your chats -- if your friends can't easily read your data, spies and thieves can't either.
FBI moves to keep its Tor hacking tool secret
In the legal back-and-forth surrounding the FBI's hack and subsequent arrest of 1,500 users of a dark web child pornography site called Playpen, the FBI has now moved to classify the Tor Browser exploit they used, Motherboard reports, citing reasons of national security. Last month, Mozilla -- whose code much of the Tor Browser is based on -- asked the FBI to identify the exploit the agency used to install location-tracking malware on users' computers. That request was approved and then quickly thrown out by a judge in Washington state, who reversed his decision when the Justice Department also convinced him that the exploit was a matter of national security.
Mozilla's next logo will be shaped by its users
It's time for Mozilla to get a new look and, true to its open-source roots, the Firefox developer is turning to the community for feedback on what its redesign should entail. The nonprofit has launched an Open Design process to "modernize [its] brand identity."
Tech alliance asks the FCC to investigate data cap exceptions
Some big names in tech don't believe that the FCC's net neutrality rules do enough to keep internet providers honest. A group of dozens of companies and advocacy groups (including Etsy, Foursquare, Kickstarter, Mozilla and Reddit) has sent a letter to the FCC asking it to publicly investigate the practice of zero rating, or exempting services from data caps. While the strategy isn't strictly illegal, the alliance is worried that internet providers are using zero rating to make an end run around net neutrality. After all, the ISPs are favoring certain sites over others -- you may be less likely to try that new video service if it cuts into your data allotment.
Mozilla fails to get the details on the FBI's malware hack
Mozilla has to take another approach if it wants to discover and fix the vulnerability feds exploited to infiltrate a child porn website. Washington US District Judge Robert Bryan has thrown out the organization's request for the security flaw's details. If you'll recall, the FBI seized the server of a child porn website on the Tor network called Playpen in early 2015. They then used a flaw in the Tor browser, which is based on Mozilla Firefox, to install malware that pointed agents to users' locations. They nabbed over a hundred people from that sting, including a defendant in one of Bryan's cases.
