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the browser improves its security and performance with Public Key Pinning and new function caching
Faithful to the rhythm of publication new versions of Firefox, Mozilla Foundation makes available to Internet users a new version of its browser.
Firefox 32 is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android mobile devices. This version shows little visible change for the end user. The main improvements are under the hood.
The first interesting novelty is the safety aspect. Firefox 32 introduced the Public Key Pinning feature, which should improve the protection of users against attacks "man in the middle" (the man in the middle attack) through the enhancement of the control of certificates that are used to verify the identity and security of a Web site. As a reminder, an attack "man in the middle" is designed to intercept communications between two parties, although neither one may suspect that the channel of communication between them has been compromised.
Public Key Pinning is an extension of the HTTP protocol, still ongoing standardization, which allows sites to specify what are the certification authorities which issued them valid certificates. For each domain, this information is prefixed in Firefox. Currently, sites for which this information is populated are those of Mozilla and Twitter. In the next version, it will be extended to popular sites such as Google, Facebook and Dropbox.
The performance of the browser have been optimized through default activation of its new system's HTTP cache. The feature will allow a faster loading of Web pages, because it is more efficient, allows the recovery after a technical incident, and uses less memory than the previous version.
On the side of the interface, password manager now displays the metadata for the connections (date of last use and last change), while the search bar will now display the number of items found. Textual context menu buttons (previous, next, refresh, share, put in Favorites, etc.) have been replaced with icons for more usability.
For developers, the browser provides an update of tools intended for them, with particular support for the completion of code for the Scratchpad tool and HiDPI support. Support new HTML5 and ECMAScript 6 elements are also at the venue.
With regard to the Android version, it brings the ability to change the language without having to restart the browser, supports completely the Gamepad API and introduces a new control to clear the history.
Firefox 32 is available for download on Mozilla's FTP servers and will be installed via the silent update function on the posts that already have a version of the browser.
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/32.0/
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/32.0/
Faithful to the rhythm of publication new versions of Firefox, Mozilla Foundation makes available to Internet users a new version of its browser.
Firefox 32 is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android mobile devices. This version shows little visible change for the end user. The main improvements are under the hood.
The first interesting novelty is the safety aspect. Firefox 32 introduced the Public Key Pinning feature, which should improve the protection of users against attacks "man in the middle" (the man in the middle attack) through the enhancement of the control of certificates that are used to verify the identity and security of a Web site. As a reminder, an attack "man in the middle" is designed to intercept communications between two parties, although neither one may suspect that the channel of communication between them has been compromised.
Public Key Pinning is an extension of the HTTP protocol, still ongoing standardization, which allows sites to specify what are the certification authorities which issued them valid certificates. For each domain, this information is prefixed in Firefox. Currently, sites for which this information is populated are those of Mozilla and Twitter. In the next version, it will be extended to popular sites such as Google, Facebook and Dropbox.
The performance of the browser have been optimized through default activation of its new system's HTTP cache. The feature will allow a faster loading of Web pages, because it is more efficient, allows the recovery after a technical incident, and uses less memory than the previous version.
On the side of the interface, password manager now displays the metadata for the connections (date of last use and last change), while the search bar will now display the number of items found. Textual context menu buttons (previous, next, refresh, share, put in Favorites, etc.) have been replaced with icons for more usability.
For developers, the browser provides an update of tools intended for them, with particular support for the completion of code for the Scratchpad tool and HiDPI support. Support new HTML5 and ECMAScript 6 elements are also at the venue.
With regard to the Android version, it brings the ability to change the language without having to restart the browser, supports completely the Gamepad API and introduces a new control to clear the history.
Firefox 32 is available for download on Mozilla's FTP servers and will be installed via the silent update function on the posts that already have a version of the browser.
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/32.0/
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.or...releases/32.0/