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June 2016

Fix Firefox resource URI leak

Any website can access a selection of Firefox resource files to find out more about the web browser that is used to connect to the site.

Firefox and add-ons use the resource:// scheme to load resources internally, but some of the information are available to sites the browser connects to as well.

It is unclear why websites would need access to resource:// resources.

How to handle lots of browser tabs

Browser tabs are a useful feature supported by all modern desktop browsers. They enable you to open multiple web pages and applications at the same time in a single browser window.

Most browsers seem to be optimized for low to medium numbers of tabs, and companies are using different means when certain thresholds are crossed to deal with tab overload.

Mozilla Firefox and Firefox-based browsers add scroll icons to the tab bar for instance, while Google Chrome squeezes icons more and more until they don't even reveal the site's favicon let alone any title  anymore.

Firefox page search improvements

Mozilla rolled out a new feature in Firefox 50 Nightly today that improves the page search functionality of the web browser.

Firefox users can tap on F3 to run searches for words or phrases on the active page.  The first search results is highlighted by the browser once you start typing, and controls are provided to jump to the next in line or the previous one, or to highlight them all at once.

SMPlayer 16.6 brings exciting new features

SMPlayer 16.6 is the latest version of the popular media player for Windows that introduces a new touch screen mode, options to send video signals to external screens, and support for high DPI screens.

The media player SMPlayer is one of the two programs that I use for the purpose of playing media files on Windows devices (the other is VLC Media Player).

The reason why I use two instead of just one is simple: while both deliver good performance and support for the majority of formats out there, one does better than the other when it comes to specific formats such as wmv.

Why Firefox will continue to lose market share

Mozilla Firefox is a great browser. Not everyone may agree with me on this but that is fine and expected. Firefox is the browser that gives users the most control over their browsing experience. It has the strongest add-on ecosystem of the three, and is backed by an organization that for the most part seems to be on the user's side of things when it comes to rights and such.

Opera launches News and Search app for Android

Opera Software launched a new application for Android devices called Opera browser - news & search that moves away from the classic web browser concept.

The company has experimented with news feeds and personalized news in Opera browsers both on the desktop and mobile devices for some time, and it seems that the new app marks the next step in the company's journey.

Opera browser - news & search is not a classic web browser anymore even though it comes with functionality to load web pages.