firefox Firefox 14.0.1 released

[James_A]

Firefox 14.0.1 has been released.

There was no 14.0 release, but the version has jumped straight to 14.0.1 to sync with Fennec version numbers.

What's new? According to the Release Notes:-

The latest version of Firefox has the following changes:

• Google searches now utilize HTTPS
  
• Full screen support for Mac OS X Lion implemented
  
• Plugins can now be configured to only load on click (requires an about:config change)
  
• The Awesome Bar now auto-completes typed URLs
  
• Improved site identity manager, to prevent spoofing of an SSL connection with favicons
  

What's been fixed? According to the Release Notes:-

• Various Fourteen security fixes
  
• GIF animation can gets stuck when src and image size are changed (743598)
  
• OS X: nsCocoaWindow::ConstrainPosition uses wrong screen in multi-display setup (752149)
  
• CSS :hover regression when an element's class name is set by Javascript (758885)
  

Downloads: Firefox 14.0.1 | All builds

View: Release Notes

Homepage: Firefox

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[Eldmannen]

The auto-complete URL thing you barely notice but its great!

It's such a small incremental feature that you don't notice it when you start using it.

But then you cant imagine going back to not using it.

I also like that Google now use HTTPS.

The click-to-load plugin is a nice idea, right now its an initial implementation that will get refined in the upcoming versions.

[James_A]

One of the more controversial things that Mozilla did with Firefox 14 (and above) was to kill off the site icons (a.k.a. favicons) in the Address Bar. They are still present in the tab bar, if you have multiple tabs open, but not everybody does.

There's an extension available on AMO (addons.mozilla.org) to put them back again, called Favicon Inserter, written by Sonny Razzano, which puts the favicons back again and also restores the colour-coding for secure sites. Here's a link to the extension as, for some reason, it does not show up if you search for it on AMO. Maybe that's because it has not yet been reviewed, or maybe the AMO search is just broken

Favicon Inserter

I first installed a pre-release version of Favicon Inserter before it appeared on AMO, which works to restore the icons, but the current version (2.3 at the time of posting) has other enhancements, too.

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[Eldmannen]

I guess it is because some sites would use a lock icon as a favicon and then people could be mislead to believe that the site was secure.

[James_A]

I think that is pretty much what the Firefox developers said, althought the only site I have ever seen using a padlock icon as a favicon was actually a Bank. The irony of a Bank using a padlock so that "people could be mislead to believe that the site was secure" is really quite funny.

The big problem is that this is now yet another complete U-turn Mozilla have made in designing this part of the interface.

• Way back in Firefox 2 there was a padlock in the address bar AND a prominent padlock in the status bar AND the address bar was coloured.
  
• Then they ripped it out of the address bar, stopped colouring the address bar and left just a toned-down no-colour padlock in the status bar
  
• Then they ripped-out the status bar.
  
• Ooops! Now there's nothing left because they ripped it all out.
  

Now they are ripping out the favicon and putting a padlock back in the address bar. I wonder what will happen next?

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[James_A]

The Favicon Inserter extension to Firefox has been removed, but a new extension by the same author can now be found as Site Favicon in Urlbar.

It's now reached version 3.0.

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