The announcement for Chrome 48.0.2564.103 doesn’t shed any light on what’s new, but it does point to the (mercifully brief) change log, which lists about twenty-seven changes. None of the changes are particularly noteworthy, but several address crashing problems.
Chrome typically updates itself within a day of any new release.
Two serious security vulnerabilities are addressed in the latest version of WordPress: 4.4.2. Anyone who runs a WordPress site is strongly encouraged to update their site as soon as possible. Sites that are configured for automatic updates should get the new version automatically, but there are sometimes delays in automatic updates, so you should make sure.
The new version fixes seventeen bugs in total. The release notes have all the technical details.
Opera 35 features tab audio muting, improvements to download management, a separate search box, and access to more settings. The Webkit-based version of Opera is finally starting to look like the browser it replaced, although we’re not quite there yet. Tab control is still somewhat lacking: there’s no setting to switch to a new tab automatically, for instance.
The new version includes numerous other changes and bug fixes, including several related to stability. The unified change log for Opera 35 provides a brief overview of the changes, while the full change log gets into the technical details.
Oracle is finally throwing in the towel for Java browser plugins. A never-ending source of security problems, the Java plugin will be phased out in the near future. Browser software developers like Mozilla and Google made this move inevitable when they started removing plugin functionality in recent months.
This will cause headaches for organizations that use a lot of browser-based Java. They’ll be faced with a decision. Many will presumably stall for time, and continue to use existing Java applets in increasingly-outdated browsers. Others may decide to switch to another platform entirely, which is likely to be very costly. The best alternative is to – where possible – change browser-based Java applets to use the Java Web Start technology. According to a white paper from Oracle (PDF): “The conversion of an applet to a Java Web Start application provides the ability to launch and update the resulting application without relying on a web browser… Desktop shortcuts can also launch the application, providing the user with the same experience as that of a native application.”
Regular users will only notice the loss of the Java browser plugin if they happen to use one or more Java applets. Site operators have been aware that this change is coming for a while, and have been scaling back their use of Java applets, but they may still be found on some banking and financial sites, web site builders, and so on. One Java applet-based service that I find extremely useful is Berkley’s ICSI Netalyzer, which analyzes your network connection and reports on any issues it finds. I’m hoping that Netalyzer’s developers will convert it to use Java Web Start, or do something else to keep the service online.
Duo Security has additional related information.
When Windows 10 updates itself, in the final stages, we’re treated to a series of screen-filling messages, like “We’ve updated your computer”, and “All your files are right where you left them.” I can understand why Microsoft is showing messages like this: to reassure users who would otherwise be wondering what’s going on as their hard drive thrashes away. As a more technically-minded person, I would prefer an indication of exactly what’s happening, and how long it’s going to take, but I can live with these messages instead.
On the other hand, sometimes these messages are misleading. Take this one: “We’ve got some new features to get excited about.” Apart from the grammatical issues, this message simply isn’t usually true. The most recent Preview builds, for example.
Build 11102, released on January 21, includes only one new feature of note, and it’s hardly exciting: you can now “right-click on the back and forward buttons in Microsoft Edge for quick access to your recently visited websites in the current tab.” Woo hoo.
Note that this build still has the problem with WSClient.dll error dialogs popping up at inconvenient times. At least the build announcement describes a workaround.
Build 14251, released on January 27, has the distinction of generating a lot of discussion regarding the large jump in build number. It turns out that the big jump is the result of Microsoft trying to synchronize builds across platforms, which is actually a good thing.
Meanwhile, the announcement for build 14251 actually says “This build doesn’t have notable new features in it”. And sure enough, it’s mostly bug fixes.
I’m a fan of Firefox’s ‘Reader Mode’ feature, because it allows me to read web pages that use light text on dark backgrounds. My eyes have always been pretty good, but in recent years I’ve noticed that reading white text on a black background gives me blurry vision within a few minutes. All I have to do is click the Reader button, and I see a nice, clean view of the page, with black text on a white background.
Unfortunately, Firefox’s Reader mode is only available for some pages. I’ve yet to discern a pattern. For example, the home page of this site (boot13) doesn’t show the Reader button, but navigating to an individual post, or to one of the post archive pages or category pages does.
Luckily, I stumbled across a Firefox add-on that does what I want: Page Colors & Fonts Buttons. There’s not much to the add-on; it simply adds two buttons to the toolbar: one to toggle the default colours off and on, and another to toggle the default fonts off and on. It doesn’t give you the fancy view you get with Reader mode, but it does work on any page.
Any Firefox user who’s ever had trouble reading text on a web page should install this add-on. Highly recommended.
With traditional (aka standard, normal, common, sensible) software version numbering, moving from version 43 to version 44 would normally signal big changes and (hopefully) improvements. This is no longer the case with Mozilla’s version numbering scheme for Firefox.
Case in point is Firefox 44.0, made available by Mozilla on January 26. According to the release notes, there are no major new features. A few bugs were fixed, including about twelve security issues. Many of the changes are related to encryption and video handling. Several improvements to the developer tools also made it into this release.
In other words, there’s really nothing in this release that makes it worthy of a major new version number (44). How is Mozilla making these decisions? Your guess is as good as mine.
Meanwhile, of course – and despite assurances from Mozilla – this release, somehow worthy of a major new version number, was not even announced by Mozilla. At least not anywhere I looked. I discoverd the new version because of (yet again) a post on the US-CERT site.
There don’t seem to be any security fixes in the latest version of the Chrome browser, 48.0.2564.97.
The announcement doesn’t include any details to speak of. The full change log lists sixty-eight changes, most of which are minor bug fixes. A few of the changes are related to stability and performance.
There’s also a related post on the Chrome blog. Most of that post is about new features related to mobile users, so it may not be of much interest.
On most computers, Chrome will silently update itself to the new version.
According to the announcement, Chrome 48.0.2564.82 includes 37 security fixes, as well as an unstated number of other fixes and improvements. Looking at the full log (basic list view), I count 8044 separate changes.
The announcement for Opera 34.0.2036.50 states that the new version consists of stability and performance improvements. The change log provides very little additional information.
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