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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Firefox 14 Launches With Secure Search | WebProNews

Firefox 14 Launches With Secure Search

Firefox 13 may have been the most substantial release of Firefox since moving to the new rapid release process and it will probably be the last one we’ll see for a while. The launch of Firefox 14 on Tuesday only brought a few new updates, but what’s there is good.

The big update for Firefox 14 is that Google searches are automatically sent through HTTPS by default. Here’s how team at Mozilla explained it when they introduced HTTPS search in Aurora two months ago:

Enabling HTTPS for these searches shields our users from network infrastructure that may be gathering data about the users or modifying/censoring their search results. Additionally, using HTTPS helps providers like Google remove information from the referrer string. While Google users may expect Google to know what they are searching for, Firefox users may not be aware these search terms are often transmitted to sites they visit when they click on items in the search results; enabling HTTPS search helps sites like Google strip this information from the HTTP referrer string, putting the user better in control of when and to whom their interests are shared.

Of interest for Mac users, Firefox now has full screen support on Mac OS X Lion. Here’s hoping that they add retina display support to Firefox soon. Chrome is already testing it and Firefox obviously doesn’t want to fall behind Chrome in features.

Another great security update is that Firefox 14 features opt-in activation for plugins. What does that mean? When you visit a new site, Firefox will give you the option of allowing only the plug-ins that you trust to be activated. If you visit the site often and trust it fully, you can allow Firefox to load all plug-ins automatically.

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http://www.webpronews.com/firefox-14-launches-with-secure-search-2012-07

About Zach Walton
Zach Walton is a Writer for WebProNews. He specializes in gaming and technology. Follow him on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Google+ +Zach Walton

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I'm Running Firefox 14.0.1 in Fedora 14 Linux. And I haven't noticed the change, at all. Guess I'll have to check out what's happening when I search...

Yep, there it is... https://...

Actually, come to think of it... I did notice the "https://..." A couple of weeks ago, while doing some Google Searches. But, I just thought that it was something that Google had implemented. Good to know...

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