Firefox 38.0.5

Mozilla continues to shovel more features into Firefox. This week we have Firefox 38.0.5, which adds support for Pocket (a ‘save for later’ service) and Reader mode, which provides simplified views of any web page. Version 38.0.5 also fixes a couple of nasty performance and display bugs that were introduced in recent versions. The 38.0.5 release notes provide additional details. No security issues were addressed in this update.

Mozilla is re-evaluating Firefox’s release notes, even going so far as to ask the community for feedback. Now if we can just get them to do something about the total lack of new version announcements. As usual, there was no proper announcement for this new version, although there was a post on the Mozilla blog that discusses Pocket and Reader.

Update 2015Jun10: I recently encountered an article on a site that displays everything as white text on a black background. I can only read a site like that for a few seconds before my eyes start to go blurry, so I decided to try Firefox’s new Reader mode. The near-unreadable text was transformed into beautiful, uncluttered, easy-on-the-eyes text. So apparently my offhand dismissal of Reader mode was a mistake: it’s actually a very useful feature, especially for those of us past a certain age.

About jrivett

Jeff Rivett has worked with and written about computers since the early 1980s. His first computer was an Apple II+, built by his father and heavily customized. Jeff's writing appeared in Computist Magazine in the 1980s, and he created and sold a game utility (Ultimaker 2, reviewed in the December 1983 Washington Apple Pi Journal) to international markets during the same period. Proceeds from writing, software sales, and contract programming gigs paid his way through university, earning him a Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) degree at UWO. Jeff went on to work as a programmer, sysadmin, and manager in various industries. There's more on the About page, and on the Jeff Rivett Consulting site.

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