News
Want to be informed when I add something here? Follow me on twitter:
| 2021-11-08 | Updated webpage Firefox Policies and this news |
| 2021-11-02 |
Firefox 94 is offered as MSIX file download link: https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-msix-latest-ssl&os=win64&lang=en-US but not the ESR variant |
| 2021-09-07 |
Firefox 92 tells others what you enter in the address bar, and shows advertisements They call it Firefox Suggest at least it is opt in |
| 2021-07-13 |
Firefox 90 introduces background updates but not if a language pack is installed |
| 2021-03-23 |
Firefox 87 no longer ignores policies in the json files if any policies are also set via GPO. If there are conflicting settings, the GPO setting wins.(source) |
| 2019-10-22 |
GPO-Templates for Thunderbird https://github.com/thundernest/policy-templates The first is official, but just a copy of the Firefox templates. The second is unofficial, but works. Update: The first one appears to have been fixed, and is now more recent. |
| 2019-03-01 |
Thunderbird 60.5.2: FileVersion of thunderbird.exe is 60.5.1.6991 Tell your monitoring tool check the variable ProductVersion. |
| 2019-02-25 |
Java still needed? The best alternative appears to be Corretto But web-start is mostly dead, get rid of it. |
| 2018-05-20 | Mozilla offers Enterprise Policies to ease configuration of Firefox. |
| 2018-01-07 |
Mozilla mitigates Spectre in Firefox:
(Chrome already reduced the resolution of performance.now() years ago) |
| 2017-06 | XP-Updates |
| 2017-03-09 |
Firefox 52 is the last version to support
|
| 2017-02-08 |
Firefox: The preference to disable Pocket was renamed:
|
| 2017-02-01 |
Firefox removes support for NPAPI plugins, except Flash:
The same preference can be used to disable them in 52-ESR. |
| 2017-01-28 |
Firefox will drop
addon-support for all XUL & SDK based addons by end of 2017. Firefox 57 will only allow WebExtension. WebExtensions cannot modify the UI much, only add buttons or menus |
| 2015-09-25 | Flash19.msi: GPO does not auto-detect previous versions, you must add them manually to have them uninstalled |
| 2015-08-08 | Project Mozilla.msi abandoned |
| 2015-06-16 |
Thunderbird 38.0.1 was released (version 38.0.0 was skipped, version 31.8 is delayed) For a list of changes see this blogpost and the release notes. |
| 2015-06-15 |
Firefox List of Changes relevant for Admins preliminary additions for version 38 start to become visible here |
| 2015-05-12 |
AdobeReader 11.0.11: no full installer available because Adobe wants us to upgrade to version 12 alias "Document Cloud". |
| 2015-05-12 |
Firefox 31.7 and 38 (the next ESR) available. Thunderbird 31.7 not yet released, and 38 delayed a couple of weeks. |
| 2015-01-04 | VirtualBox: versions 4.3.14 to 4.3.20 have lots of issues with antivirus software, better stay on version 4.3.12 |
| 2014-09-17 | Java 8: what is different? A lot! |
| 2014-08-21 | Firefox 31 steals the pdf file association |
| 2014-07-22 |
Firefox & Thunderbird 31 were published, will be next ESR. Will update my msi-scripts soon, already added a note regarding two Thunderbird issues. |
| 2014-07-19 |
LibreOffice 4.2.5.2 exists in two variants with identical version number but different sha256 checksum. They published a hotfix without bumping up the build number. This is only visible in the archive. The release notes continue to claim that the release is identical to the last release candidate. |
| 2014-06-12 |
Firefox 24.6-esr: Mozilla has updated the files after the announcement to fix a bug. The developers could not immediately refresh the Content Delivery Network, it continued to deliver the wrong files. The bug report points to the auto-updater, but a later posting on the enterprise mailing-list cites "issues interacting with Flash content". The build number of the file Firefox.exe (the 4th digit of the version number) changed from 5267 to 5273, the date of many files changed from June 3rd to 10th. |
| 2014-06-11 |
Firefox 24.6-esr from ftp and web server have different checksums! The one from ftp contains newer versions of several files. |
| 2014-05-14 |
Firefox 31 is in alpha-test, will become the next ESR. Check my list of changes to avoid surprises. |
| 2014-03-23 | Firefox 29 will offer an option to not erase the profile after 60 days. |
| 2014-03-01 |
Firefox will block all plugins (except the latest flash) with "click to play", starting April 1st. Update: This will not affect versions 24.x because ESR. |
| 2014-02-20 | Firefox: list of changes between ESR versions, that I regard relevant for admin or helpdesk. |
| 2014-01-22 |
iTunes 11.1.4 WARNING: Unplug all Apple devices and manually uninstall Apple Software Update, iTunes, Bonjour, Apple Mobile Device Support, and Apple Application Support (in this order) before updating to this version, because "MSVCR80.DLL Missing". |
| 2014-01-14 | Flash & Air switch to new version numbering scheme (like Chrome & Firefox) |
| 2014-01-13 | Java 1.7u51 plugin refuses to run unsigned applets. |
| 2013-12-21 |
Firefox-manual for Enterprise-IT started https://etherpad.mozilla.org/r3eYJXEyhp Everybody is welcome to help improve it. |
| 2013-12-11 |
Patch-Day Windows, Flash, Air, Firefox, Thunderbird. If Windows Update of XP or Server 2003 scans forever with svchost.exe at 100% CPU, manually install latest cumulative IE update. Save time by killing svchost.exe with the command 'net stop wuauserv'. |
| 2013-10-31 |
Firefox 24.1-ESR: language localization partly broken Some texts in the UI are english, regardless of which language version you install. Mozilla refuses to issue a fix, because they can "count the number of ESR user complaints on one hand". Update: fixed in version 24.1.1 (released on 2013-11-15). |
| 2013-10-29 | Firefox 25 and later sometimes erases profiles. |
| 2013-10-26 |
Java: many applets will stop working in January due to new signature requirements. If you want to keep using the current version, note its expiration date in February. Btw. Google even plans to completely remove NPAPI (the plugin architecture needed for Java) from Chrome. |
| 2013-10-23 |
Firefox does
not block Java any more. It came too surprisingly, caused too many problems, and whitelisting was broken. Mozilla plans to reactivate the lock in version 26, after fixing the UI. |
| 2013-10-18 |
Firefox will from now on always block all Java, even the latest version. Click-To-Play allows manual permanent override for specific sites, but no general override for all sites. Does also affect version 24ESR, despite of this. Isn't this effectively a break of the ESR-promise? |
| 2013-09-19 |
Thunderbird 24 is RR and ESR in one. Mozilla recombined the two builds, because both get new features only when a new ESR cycle starts. |
| 2013-08-07 |
Firefox: I updated my scripts for creating msi-files. They now auto-detect the new directory structure that was introduced in version 21. |
| 2013-08-04 |
Firefox 26 will be able to do silent automatic updates. ESR will get it with version 31 in July 2014. |
| 2013-07-23 |
Adobe has released Air 3.8 two weeks after fixing the same bugs in Flash What about Adobe Reader? It also contains Flash, and that even cannot be disabled. |
| 2013-07-19 |
Java: vulnerability found in current version 7.25. Oracles next scheduled update: October 15th. |
| 2013-07-02 | Quicktime: Apple has fixed three bugs, but only in MacOS, not in Windows. |
| 2013-06-28 |
Mozilla added Java 7.21 to the blocklist of Firefox. You should update to 7.25, which came out ten days ago. |
| 2013-06-22 |
Java: Oracle has silently replaced 7.25 build 16 with build 17. This probably fixes crashes that many people have experienced. Redownload to get the fixed version. Updating from build 16 to 17 with GPO must be manually reconfigured to update, not replace! |
| 2013-06-05 |
Firefox 25:
major design overhaul planned for future version 25. Will not affect next ESR, that is planned to be version 24. But will affect plugins. |
| 2013-05-14 |
Firefox 21: again
major
changes in directory structure. The file 'override.ini' and the directories 'defaults/preferences', 'defaults/profile', 'extensions', 'plugins', and 'searchplugins' have been moved to a newly created subdirectory 'browser' (the directory 'distribution' was moved as well in the beta version, but this was reverted in the release). The function of the directory 'plugin' can be restored by setting the pref 'plugins.load_appdir_plugins' to true. It is still possible to set the AutoConfig-prefs 'general.config.filename' and '.obscure_value' in defaults/pref. |
| 2013-05-11 | Adobe Reader 11: Customization wizard 11.0.3 fixes the bug |
| 2013-11-11 |
Adobe Reader 11: Customization wizard now available. It has a serious bug |
| 2013-10-16 |
Adobe Reader 11:
Adobe offers GPO ADM templates The templates are incomplete, and the Customization Wizard it not yet available for this version. |
| 2012-10-01 |
Flash version 11.4.402.278 has a bug in the msi-file, do not install this! Will fail to uninstall because of wrong version number in table 'CustomAction', element 'CallExeUninstaller'. This version has no code changes compared with the previous one, and the next is already underway. |
| 2012-07-17 |
Firefox 14: directory structure changed, ignores your preference settings. Some config files from defaults/pref must be moved to defaults/preferences to be effective. That new directory does not exist, you must create it. It is still possible to set the Autoconfig-prefs 'general.config.filename' and '.obscure_value' in a file in defaults/pref. By the way its filename should start with letter a, for example 'autoconfig.js'. |
| 2012-04-24 |
Firefox 12: now has a maintenance service to install updates without requiring admin-user. But it still cannot do silent automatic updates. |
| 2011-12-20 |
Firefox 9 refuses to start if your config file sets the preference 'toolkit.telemetry.prompted'. This variable has been changed from type boolean to integer. Set it to the value '2' instead of 'true'. |