Mozilla is rolling out updates for specific versions of the web browser. If you are running a non-stable build you may have already received updates last week as Mozilla postponed the release of the stable version and the ESR version by one week to get additional development time to stabilize development.

This means that stable users will receive the upgrade to version 34, Beta users to 35, Developer Edition (former Aurora) users to version 36, and Nightly users to 37.

In fact, some version have already been upgraded by Mozilla in the past but the stable update is definitely coming this week.

To find out which version and channel you are running type about:support in the browser's address bar and hit enter. You find the information listed under Application Basics there.

Firefox 34 Download


Mozilla will make available the update to Firefox 34 in a bit. As always, it is already available on the official (and public) ftp server from where it can be downloaded.

Several third-party downloads sites are also hosting the Firefox 34 download already.

It is possible that Mozilla will push another version out to users if last minute changes demand it. It is best usually to wait for the official release announcement before the new version is downloaded.

Most users of the browser will receive the update via the built-in automatic update functionality but it will be made available on the official Mozilla website as well.

Firefox 34 Changes
Firefox 34 introduces several changes and improvements to the browser. The following paragraphs list the most important of them.

New Search Bar Behavior


I have reviewed this when it landed in Firefox Beta. It changes Firefox's separate search form that is displayed by default in several ways.

Most notable is the display of other search providers installed in the browser so that you can run searches using them instead of the default search engine with just a click.

Mozilla added a search tab to Firefox's options which you can use to manage the search providers more comfortably in the browser.



You can change the default search engine there and select which search engines you want displayed as one-click options in the search form.

Firefox users who don't like the change can disable it in the following way:

Type about:config in the browser's address bar and hit enter.
Confirm you will be careful if the prompt appears.
Search for browser.search.showOneOffButtons and set it to false.
Note: This is currently only available in the US version of Firefox.

Firefox Hello



This is a new real-time communication feature of Firefox using WebRTC. It enables you to communicate with friends, family and colleagues using the browser and nothing else.

What you may find interesting about it is that it does not require the creation of an account to communicate with other users. You have to exchange a link then. Users who don't mind the creation of accounts can use their Firefox account to save contacts and other information so that they are always available right away in the browser without having to exchange links first.

Firefox Hello supports voice and video calls and requires no additional software or plugins.

Mozilla is rolling out the feature gradually. To get it right away, set the preference loop.throttled to false and restart Firefox. Hello should be available then,

Check out my full review of Firefox Hello here.

Theme switching in customize menu



If you switch themes regularly you may like the option to do so in the new customize menu. You find five default "light" themes that Firefox ships with there that you can switch between.

You find installed Personas themes there as well so that you can switch between them. Please note that this does not include so-called complete themes in any way as they are not listed there at all.

It is still possible to enable, disable or uninstall themes in the add-ons manager.

Firefox is already running on Windows fix



Firefox is already running can come up when you try to open Firefox when a browser process is still running on the system. This can happen when the Firefox profile is locked for example and can be caused by Firefox running exit processes in the background before the process itself is terminated (say you have configured it to delete temporary data on exit for example).

From Firefox 34 on, Windows users receive a different message that they can use to close that Firefox process which terminates it on the system.

It is like you opening the Task Manager and killing the Firefox process manually, only faster.

I have reviewed the new feature here in detail.

Other Changes

• Default search engine changed to Yandex for Belarusian, Kazakh, and Russian locales.
• Disabled SSLv3.
• Firefox signed by Apple OS X version 2 signature
• HTTP/2 (draft14) and ALPN (Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation) implementation.
• Proprietary window.crypto properties/functions re-enabled (to be removed in Firefox 35)
• Wikipedia search is using https now (US-only).

Developer Changes

• New Storage Inspector. This needs to be enabled in the Firefox Developer Tools (press F12) first before you can use it. Locate Storage in the options and check the box next to it to enable it. Additional information here.
• WebIDE enabled by default. Shipped in Firefox 33 but was disabled by default. You can use it to run and debug Firefox OS apps. Additional information here.
• Performance tool revamped Profiler interface and frame rate timeline.
• jquery events visible in Page Inspector
• console.table support
• CSS Fonts Level 3 progress.
• WebCrypto: RSA-OAEP, PBKDF2, AES-KW and ECDH support.
• ECMAScript 6 Weak6.
• JavaScript Template Strings.

Firefox 34 for Android

Firefox for Android and the desktop version of Firefox share improvements. This part of the review looks only at Android-specific changes.

Chromecast Mirror Tab support


Firefox for Android users who also own a Chromecast can mirror tabs displayed in the mobile browser now. This is done by tapping on the menu button on the device and selecting Tools > Mirror Tab from the context menu that opens up.

All devices are displayed on the next screen and all that is left to do is pick one of them to start the mirroring process. To stop the process tap on the menu button again and select stop mirror from there.

• Added support for Prefer:Safe HTTP Header - If parental controls are enabled, Firefox will send a Prefer:Safe header to every site and service that is visited using it. Sites that support the header may deliver different contents or restrict access to some contents.
• Device Storage API for privileges apps enabled. Additional information here.
• Public Key Pinning support enabled - This allows sites to specify certificate authorities on first connect. Firefox will then use these information on future connections to those sites.
• Theme refresh
• Redesigned first run experience
• Fixed: mp4 videos on Android L
• Unresolved: Flash and mp3 does not work on Android L.

Security updates / fixes
Security updates are published after the release of Firefox. We will add those once they become available.

• MSFA-2014-89 Bad casting from the BasicThebesLayer to BasicContainerLayer
• MSFA-2014-88 Buffer overflow while parsing media content
• MSFA-2014-87 Use-after-free during HTML5 parsing
• MSFA-2014-86 CSP leaks redirect data via violation reports
• MSFA-2014-85 XMLHttpRequest crashes with some input streams
• MSFA-2014-84 XBL bindings accessible via improper CSS declarations
• MSFA-2014-83 Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:34.0 / rv:31.3)

Additional information / sources

• Firefox 34 release notes
• Firefox 34 Android release notes
• Add-on compatibility for Firefox 34
• Firefox 34 for developers
• Hacks Mozilla on Firefox 34 developer changes
• Site compatibility for Firefox 34
• Firefox Security Advisories

Source: GHacks

 

What a great post. Thanks for ALL of the info! I have been thoroughly edumacated!

 

My pleasure. Some nice features in this build. Firefox Hello for communicating (cool feature), a fix for the maddening Firefox is already running message and being able to search other providers easily (including Duck Duck Go). Mozilla does some fine work. Wish they could make it more resilient from crashes. That's one area where Chrome 64 (and SRWare Iron for the privacy minded) shines. When they first released it there were still crashes happening (and more often than in the 32 bit build) but once they finally got those kinks worked out, that thing has not crashed even when I was sure it would. Mozilla needs to catch up in this area. Hopefully the release of their 64-bit build will help bring some much needed stability to the platform as well as their development of their mutli-processor architecture. That's all coming soon. *yes*

 

I'm joining theDingus, and have to add :
"what a great post, deeply informative !"

Thanx mate

 

While I like several features Mozilla added to Firefox in these last updates, I get the feeling that it is slowly getting really bloated with unnecessary stuff.
It's of course possible to deactivate most of those features, but they are still in the code and affect Firefox to a certain degree.
Maybe they should have made them available as add-ons which you can install on your own if needed and keep the vanilla Firefox as clean and simple as possible.

Why use Firefox in the first place if I want something simple? Well, the adjustment, add-on and design possibilities are incredible!

(nevertheless awesome post )

 

I use Chrome, but my grandpa uses Firefox. Thanks, Catalyst! Updated it from the shitbuggy 13.0.1 to the latest 34.0
=)

 

Thank you Catalyst for a nice rundown on new Firefox features!

Something regarding stability of browsers on different OSes, in my experience. I've been using Iceweasel [Firefox 2x-3x esr x64, now at 32] in Linux Debian for a year and had only one crash this year when I noticed that the memory is filling [memory hole in Firefox] and I had to bring down Firefox to recover it. My experience is, though, that it's far more stable in Linux than in Windows XP. Well, it's a different version, too [Linux x64, Windows x86]. I don't use FF or Internet in Windows 7, nor in XP any more for security reasons, so I cannot speak about personal experiences for these OSes any more [only experiences from clients], but at the time I had FF crash on me quite more often on XP. Say once every week or so.

Users of Chrome that I know report more frequent crashes with Chrome lately on Linux Debian, and Windows 7, too. Seems like Google Chrome's stability went downhill for some reason lately. So your grandpa must know what's better to use, mild pump milk. As they say: grandpa is always right!

Cheers!

 

So the freezing issues starting after Firefox 33.0 is still not solved https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/33.1/releasenotes/ if we have to believe the release notes of Firefox 34 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/34.0/releasenotes/

The more Firefox updates the worse the browser will be.
More CPU hungry and packed with nonsense bullshit every release.

I switched back to 32 because 33.* was killing my system and totally freezing over and over again.

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

 

The Firefox Flash "plugin container" is total crap as well.
The plugin container is constantly crashing.

Adobe Flash itself is always up to date and no issues on IE (except the tons of ads and popups in IE lol)

 

I'm still on an older vers of FF - before the dumbed-down UI.

When I enable Java-script on a website eg. Audioz, and open multiple pages in tabs, it gets itself in a knot and... "Opps this is embarrasing... Forefox had to close"
I suspect it's that bloody plugin container at fault, but could also be some buggy code in the Audioz pages as well?

Anyway - my conundrum is that I'm afraid to upgrade to the latest (stable? 'huh') version because of so much bad feedback reviews !
What to do

 

Oh yes, Dalmation, the FF UI is one thing I've been constantly bitching about since v24, but especially this v32. It's just insane, what are they doing? I liked the way every older version looked in comparison to this v32 UI, and they were all more functional and more easy to use before this. I'm speaking of usability/functionality, of course. I don't get how can burying controls deeper into the GUI, so it takes up to 2 clicks more to get to something be called progress?! I feel like they're just moving things about just for the sake of change, it's of no real value, just annoying users and avoiding tackling the real issues, not much unlike Microsoft and their Windows. Sometimes things are just perfect enough, so just leave them that way!

A sidenote: People who mix and master could also use some of this "perfect enough philosophy". It helps with productivity, a lot!

They should all put more effort into programming practices, efficiency, patching the memory holes etc. because all of the browsers are becoming less stable now than they used to be. Stop playing with the stupid menus, icons, and buttons fffs!

 

An example of Mozilla bullshit I am talking about. A user wrote this on an Ubuntu forum: "Ugh. I do not like being w/o the drop-down menu in the search. That's a step backwards. I like to see what search is selected before I start to search. This way, I can keep doing right-click searches w/o having to resort to typing terms into the bar."

So v34 does away with easily selectable "search" that I'm so fond of. What are they thinking? No, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

All while so many users are complaining about more frequent crashes, memory leaks, etc. and all while Firefox keeps losing it's market share justifiably so. They removed a button that was actually very usable. And they keep doing shit like that. [like putting the refresh button on the address line instead of where it used to be for 15y+]

Fuck me in the arse and call me Mary if this travesty continues I'm going to just use some other browser. No, not Chrome... I'd stay with FF 28 because I liked it, but you know - security issues... I'll probably try PaleMoon as it seems conservative enough for me [GUI].

 

I think the main problem was that Mozilla didn't focus on the stability and efficiency of their software first and forgot about the other stuff. If a browser crashes all the time then who cares if it has some new feature you likely don't even care about. I do however appreciate for example the ability to communicate with someone through the browser, that's actually really useful for me. Hopefully they will make the transition to 64 bit and better stability and efficiency. Time will tell.

Dalmation
Highly doubt that it's our code that's the problem. Works on Chrome with no issues. Actually AudioZ has pretty sweet performance compared to comparable sites I've been on and we're still adding in some nice features.