Firefox ditches Leopard, gets more social

Mozilla last week launched version 17 of its Firefox browser, featuring blocks for outdated versions of popular plugins such as Adobe Reader and Flash, and Microsoft Silverlight.

 

The new version for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android will prompt Firefox users on Windows with old versions of Reader, Flash, and Silverlight to update, tech site The Next Web reported.

 

"The prompt tells you that the plugin is vulnerable and thus Firefox has stopped it from loading automatically. If there is an update available, you will be prompted to update the plugin, but you will still also be able to use it, if you want to, by clicking on the blocked grey box," it said.

 

"While this is not an all-purpose plugin management system, it should still be useful as a prevention mechanism against drive-by attacks (such as urging users to click on a video link that is almost never what it claims to be or hiding in ads on a legitimate website) targeting plugins that are known to be vulnerable," it added.

 

It said click-to-play blocklisted plugins consist of a list of plugins that Mozilla deems unsafe for its Firefox users.

 

But instead of completely disabling the items on the list, Mozilla merely prevents them from running automatically when the page loads.

 

Users can also set the feature to apply to all plugins by going to the about:config preference function.

 

Also in Firefox 17, the Social API made its debut. When activated for Facebook, icons related to the social network will appear on Firefox's toolbar.

 

Other Firefox 17 features include:

 

 

However, Mozilla said the new Firefox will no longer support Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

 

On the other hand, there were some 20 performance improvements, including fixes around the New Tab page, The Next Web said. — TJD, GMA News