Tag: firefox

Wow, this week has to be one of the worst for the people over at Mozilla. There has been tremendous backlash to the organization’s updated Terms of Use.

Maybe not has big of a deal to Mozilla’s Mr. Robot blunder or the announcement to drop Firefox’s custom extensions system for that of Chromium, but still.

To recap: Mozilla announced terms of use and an updated privacy notice for Firefox on Wednesday. These were worded in lawyer-speak and included the following sentence:

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

Tech sites wrote about it and users were up in arms over the wording. Mozilla tried to calm users in an update, stating that the new terms did not give it ownership over user data or the right to use it for anything, even things not mentioned in the privacy notice.

It appears to have helped little. Mozilla published a new statement yesterday saying that it has updated the wording in the new terms of use to make things clearer for users.

The new wording includes the following paragraph now:

You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. 

Mozilla says it has also removed the “reference to the Acceptable Use Policy” because it seemed “to be causing more confusion than clarity”.

The Privacy FAQ was updated as well to better provide information on terms like “sells” according to the update.

This is a fairly common statement. Google, for example, has a big section of its terms of service dedicated to the worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license that users give it.

If you check the terms of other browsers, you probably encounter something similar.

Was it an overreaction? Even with all the explaining, it seems likely that Mozilla won’t convince everyone that it was.

What is your take on this? Do you use Firefox currently? Let everyone know in the comment section below.

Mozilla plans to release a second point update for Firefox 134 later today. Firefox 134.0.2 is another non-security update that addresses a few pressing problems in the browser that had to be fixed early.

Most Firefox installations will be upgraded automatically once the update is released. As this does not happen in real-time, some users may want to trigger the update manually instead.

How to update Firefox: One easy way of doing so is to select Menu > Help > About Firefox. The browser displays the current version and runs a check for updates. It should pick up the latest, download it and install it. A restart is required to complete the process.

Good to know: Firefox 134.0.1, released last week, fixed an issue on YouTube and a crash issue.

Firefox 134.0.2: the changes

The official release notes are not available yet. Mozilla will publish them later today on this page.

Here is a quick overview of the included fixes:

• After a crash, the crash reporter was not displayed for some localized builds.
• Anchored links in HTML framesets pointing to local files did not work.
• Network requests could not be resend in the Developer Tools when debugging extensions.
• Data consumption from service works could unexpectedly halt.

Most Firefox users should not be affected by any of these issues, as they apply mostly to edge cases or development related cases.

Suggested course of action: Since the release does not fix any security issues, most users should not feel pressed to install the update immediately.

The next major release happens on February 4th, which is about two weeks from today.

Mozilla plans to release a point update for Firefox 134 later today. Firefox 134.0.1 is a small non-security update that addresses three main issues.

The details:

• Fixes a startup crash that prevented some users from upgrading from Firefox 133.
• Fixes user interface hangs on YouTube and Google Docs.
• Fixes an issue with the search engine menus.

Firefox 134.0.1: the fixes

The big fix of this update is the crash fix. A bug prevented some Firefox Stable users from upgrading the browser to the recently released version 134.

Mozilla found out during an investigation that the bug affected some Firefox 133.0.3 users only. Once Firefox 134.0.1 gets released, it should be downloaded on those systems automatically and the update should run through without issues. Note that it is also possible to download and install Firefox manually from Mozilla.

The second issue affects some Firefox users who open YouTube or Google Docs in the web browser. The issue is caused by ghost windows being opened on the Google properties, according to Mozilla. Each of these windows is using between 30 and 100 megabytes of memory and memory usage could go up to several gigabytes as a consequence.

The third and final issue that Mozilla fixed in Firefox 134.0.1 impacted the selection of search engines in the browser. Some users reported that they did not see any search engines in Firefox, others that they had issues interacting with search engines.

Mozilla says that the issue has been caused by a search settings migration that it ran and that failed for some users.

All three bugs appear fixed in the new update. Note that it may take hours or even days after the release of the update before it reaches most Firefox Stable users. You can run a manual check for updates going to Menu > Help > About Firefox after the update has been released to install it as soon as possible.

Now You: do you use Firefox? Did you ran into any of the issues mentioned?

Mozilla has released the first Firefox update of 2025. Firefox 134, Firefox 115.19.0, and Firefox 128.6.0 are already available.

The details:

• Firefox 134 is a smaller release with just a few new features and changes.
• It is also a security update.

Tip: Most Firefox installations are configured to update automatically. You can speed up the process by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox.

Firefox 134

The official release notes list just a few changes. The new version introduces two new features:

• Support for hardware-accelerated HEVC video playback.
• Touchpad hold gestures support on Linux.

Hardware-acceleration should improve resource usage when that specific type of video is played in Firefox. The Linux feature works by placing two fingers on the touchpad of the computer. This stops any momentum scrolling happening at the time.

Other than that, search engine Ecosia is being added to more regions as an option.

Another change is being rolled out to users from the United States and Canada only. It changes the New Tab layout of the browser. The main difference is that Firefox displays “thought-provoking stories” now there as well, plus the obligatory sponsored stories.

Here is a sample image that Mozilla released that shows the new tab page:

Mozilla lists the applied security fixes on the advisories website. The aggregate severity rating is high and 11 security issues rated high and moderate have been addressed in the update.

Firefox ESR updates

Mozilla maintains two Firefox ESR versions currently. Firefox ESR 115.19.0 is only available for older versions of Windows and macOS.

The current branch version, Firefox ESR 128.6.0 is only available for newer operating systems and versions.

Both release notes pages list just security fixes.

Now it is your turn. Do you run Firefox? If so, which version? How happy are you with the browser currently? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Firefox users who run outdated versions of the web browser will run into troubles in March 2025 according to Mozilla.

The details:

• A certificate used by Mozilla for various services, including Firefox, will run out on March 14, 2025.
• Recent versions of Firefox are unaffected, as they include the new certificate.
• Old Firefox installations are affected. Issues include that add-ons will stop working and that DRM-content may refuse to play.

Firefox installations on all supported platforms but on iOS are affected, if they do not meet the following minimum versions:

• Firefox Stable 128 or higher.
• Firefox ESR 115.13 or higher.

Upgrading Firefox is the only way to prevent issues caused by the expiring root certificate.

Firefox users may select Menu > Help > About Firefox to run a check for updates. The browser should display the newest version automatically so that it can be downloaded and installed.

Firefox users who do not update the browser may run into several issues, according to Mozilla.

• Installed add-ons will be disabled.
• DRM-protected content, may fail to play “due to failed updates”.
• Features that rely on remote updates will stop working.
• Systems “dependent on content verification could stop functioning properly”.

Firefox will still run if it is not updated, but some functionality won’t be available anymore. Mozilla notes that outdated versions of Firefox may also have security issues that were fixed in newer versions.

Mozilla explains that the issue is caused by an expiring root certificate. Root certificates are used mainly for verification purposes. Expired certificates cannot be used anymore, which results in the issues.

Firefox users who run outdated versions should consider upgrading to a newer version that supports the new root certificate. (via Sören Hentzschel)

Firefox Translate is a built-in translation feature of the Firefox web browser that is special. It is special, because its translation engine runs locally. That’s great for privacy, as no translation service needs to be contacted on the Internet with information on the site you visited or the content that you want translated.

The main downside to Firefox Translate is that it supports fewer languages. One of the main shortcomings was missing support for the languages Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Good news is, that Mozilla has added support for the three languages to Firefox Nightly. In other words: you can now translate webpages that are in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean using Firefox’s built-in translation feature. Yes, that works offline as well.

Once you have installed the latest Firefox Nightly version, you have these languages at your disposal. Note that you need to download language packs for these languages in the settings before you can get started.

Here is how that is done:

1. Load about:preferences in the Firefox address bar or select Menu > Preferences.
2. Scroll down to Translations on the page.
3. Select the Download button next to any language that you want to translate using Firefox.

The languages become available immediately after the downloads complete.

Firefox may either suggest to translate a webpage when it is opened, or you may select the translate icon in the address bar to display the translate interface.

Hit the translate button to translate the webpage to the selected language. A click on the translate settings icon displays the usual options. These include never translate a specific language or always translate it.

Closing Words

It will take some time before support for the new languages arrives in Firefox Stable. Still, the integration is a major milestone for Mozilla and part of the Firefox user base.

While there is still work to be done, as major languages are still unsupported, translate functionality is a major win for users of the Firefox web browser.

Have you tried Firefox’s translate functionality? What is your take on it? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Mozilla has released another Firefox extension after Orbit. Deep Fake Detector is a free beta extension for Firefox that determines whether text has been created by AI or humans.

It is part of Fakespot, a service that Mozilla acquired some time ago. Fakespot checks reviews on popular shopping sites to determine whether they are legitimate.

The new browser extension uses Fakespot’s ApolloDFT Engine, but it works with text on any website.

Using the extension is quite simple: You select some text and either right-click on the selection and select “Scan for Deepfakes”, or activate the add-on’s icon in the Firefox toolbar to do so.

The extension needs an active Internet connection and the text that you have selected is passed on to the detection engine. The result tells you the AI’s assessment in regards to human or AI authorship.

It is interesting to note that the extension queries multiple services. It does rely on Fakespot’s own engine, but also three additional ones (ZipPy, Binocular, and UAR). These may not always come to the same conclusion, as you can see on the screenshot below.

You may disable models in the settings of the extension. There you find ratings for each of the used models and options to disable them.

Ratings include the speed of analysis, domain versatility, short and long text handling. If you have a preference, you can disable the others to focus the analysis on that one engine.

What is it good for?

The Internet is flooded with AI-generated texts already. Be it reviews on shopping sites, blog posts, comments, posts in forums or on social media sites, and in many other places.

Finding out if a text has been generated by AI can be useful to determine trust. While that should not be the only factor, it may be useful to weed out AI-generated content to focus on the human-generated content instead.

The developers have big plans for the extension. They want to add image and video analysis in the future, which would make it more versatile and useful.

Closing Words

All in all, Deep Fake Detector is a useful extension that may help you detect AI generated text on the Internet. While it may be wrong at times, use of multiple models may decrease the chance.

Most models rely on Internet connectivity as computations are run on servers and not on user systems. This is the case for the extension as well. This may change in the not-so-near future, but for now, it is the norm and little can be done about it.

What is your take on the extension? Would you use it to check text? Feel free to leave a comment down below.