A new version of Opera was announced on November 2. Version 33.0.1990.58 is mostly about fixing a few user interface and stability (i.e crashing) issues. The change log has all the details.
Oddly, the version of Opera running on the computer I’m using right now is 33.0.1990.43. I have no record at all of that version, and there’s no mention of it on the version 33 change log page.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Joe Belfiore has finally admitted what we’ve known all along: Windows 10 talks to Microsoft servers even if you’ve disabled every available privacy-related setting.
Of course, Belfiore says that this is nothing to worry about, since it’s being done to make Windows 10 work better for everyone. He’s probably not lying about Microsoft’s intentions, but all the same, I don’t want my O/S to do this kind of thing. And I don’t care if blocking this unwanted communication makes Microsoft’s work more difficult.
Unless Microsoft relents and provides a method for disabling all of this anti-privacy communication, your choices are: a) give up and stop worrying about it; b) avoid Windows 10 completely; or c) use one of the available third-party methods, such as Spybot Anti-Beacon, to block all of this ‘phone home’ behaviour.
Normally, I’d go for option C. But I’m running Windows 10 as part of the Insider Preview program, and blocking all communication to Microsoft would almost certainly result in my being kicked from the program. So it’s option A for me.
Mozilla seems determined to keep us guessing with new versions of Firefox. New versions that are not assigned a major new version number (e.g. 41, 42) are not announced in any way. When a new version is (apparently arbitrarily) assigned a major new version number, Mozilla publishes a post on the Mozilla blog. This post never includes any mention of the new version identifier, and typically doesn’t even say that there’s a new version.
For example, the post associated with Firefox 42 says this: “We’re releasing a powerful new feature in Firefox Private Browsing called Tracking Protection” and “We hope you enjoy the new Firefox!” What new version? When will it be released? We’re left guessing the answers to these rather obvious questions.
According to the release notes for Firefox 42, it was released on November 3. The Mozilla blog post describes changes to Firefox’s Private Browsing mode, including the new Tracking Protection, which “actively blocks content like ads, analytics trackers and social share buttons that may record your behavior without your knowledge across sites.”
Firefox 42 adds a small speaker icon that appears next to the caption for any tab that’s currently playing audio. You can mute a tab’s audio by clicking the speaker icon. The Login Manager has been improved in several ways. Performance has also been beefed up for sites that perform a lot of restyling. HTML5 support was improved.
Firefox 42 includes fixes for at least eighteen security bugs, according to the Security Advisories page. Recommendation: update Firefox to version 42 as soon as possible.
boot13