Mozilla Releases Firefox 21, Updates Thunderbird

Not wishing, apparently, to be left out of the Patch Tuesday festivities, Mozilla today released the next major version, 21.0,  of its Firefox browser for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.  This version fixes eight security vulnerabilities, three of which Mozilla rates as critical.  The new version also incorporates some new features, including:

• Enhanced “Do Not Track” interface
• Support for multiple providers in the Social API
• Suggestions on how to improve application start-up time, if needed

Further information on the new version is available in the Release Notes.  You can download installation packages, in a variety of (human) languages.

Mozilla also released a new version, 17.0.6, of its Thunderbird E-mail client, for all platforms.  The new version provides an update to the Twitter API is uses, and also fixes six security vulnerabilities, three of which Mozilla rates as serious.  Further information is available in the Release Notes.  You can download installation packages for all languages and platforms.

Because of the security content of these releases, I suggest updating your systems as soon as it’s convenient.

Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 17.0.5

In addition to releasing the new version 20 of Firefox, the Mozilla organization has released a new version, 17.0.5, of the Thunderbird E-mail client for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.   The new version includes fixes for eight identified security vulnerabilities, threeof which Mozilla rates as critical.  (These vulnerabilities also affected Firefox, and were fixed in release 20; the two applications share a considerable amount of code.)   This version also includes a bug fix for a font size adjustment issue.  More details are available in the Release Notes.

Because of the security fixes incorporated in this release, I recommend that you update your systems as soon as you conveniently can.  You can use the update mechanism built into the software (Help / About Thunderbird / Check for Updates), or you can get a complete installation package, in a variety of languages, from the Thunderbird download page.

Mozilla Releases Firefox 20

Today, the Mozilla organization released a new version, 20.0, of its Firefox browser for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.  The new version incorporates bug fixes, performance improvements, and some new features, including

• Per-window private browsing
• An improved download facility
• Ability to close “hanging” plugins without causing other problems

The new release also includes fixes for 11 identified security vulnerabilities, all of which Mozilla rates as Critical.  Further information in available in the Release Notes.

Because of its security content, I recommend that you move to the new version of Firefox as soon as you conveniently can.  You can get the new version via the built-in update mechanism (Help / About Firefox / Check for Updates), or you can get a complete installation package, in one or more of 70+ languages, from the Firefox download page.

Security Update for Thunderbird

Mozilla has released a new version, 17.0.4., of its Thunderbird E-mail client, for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.   This is primarily a security-fix release; the new version corrects a critical vulnerability in the HTML editor component.  The Release Notes don’t say much more.

Because of the security fixes incorporated in this release, I recommend that you update your systems as soon as you conveniently can.  You can use the update mechanism built into the software (Help / About Thunderbird / Check for Updates), or you can get a complete installation package, in a variety of languages, from the Thunderbird download page.

Firefox 19.0.2 Released

Mozilla has released a new version, 19.0.2, of the Firefox browser for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.  This is a security driven release, which provides a fix for a vulnerability [MFSA 2013-29] in the HTML editor component.  More information is available in the Release Notes.

Because of the security content of this release, I recommend that you update your systems as soon as you conveniently can.  You can use the update mechanism built into the browser (Help / About Firefox /Check for Updates), or you can download a complete installation package.

Mozilla Releases Firefox 19

The Mozilla organization released a new major version, 19.0, of its Firefox Web browser, for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.  In addition to the customary updates to the Gecko rendering engine in a major release, this version incorporates several new features and improvements.  Probably the most significant change for most users is the inclusion of the new, built-in PDF viewer.  (The plan to include a viewer was first discussed back in October, 2011.)  Other significant changes include:

• Improved start-up performance
• Better HTML 5 support for cascading style sheet (CSS) capabilities
• Fixes to bugs in WebGL processing, plug-in rendering, and private mode startup
• Fixes for eight identified security vulnerabilities, four of which are rated Critical

Further information is available from the Release Notes.

You can get the new version using the update mechanism built into the browser, either automatically or via Help / About Firefox / Check for Updates.  Alternatively, you can get a complete installation package, available in more the 70 languages, from the download page.

Update Wednesday, 20 February, 14:53 EST

The “Webmonkey” blog at Wired has a short article on the new version of Firefox.