Firefox 20.0.1 update
Mozilla is about to release an update for the stable version of the Firefox web browser bringing the version of the program to 20.0.1 after the update. This may or may not come as a surprise for some users of the browser as Firefox 20 has just been released a week ago. Some criticize Mozilla for the lack of quality control and base that judgement on the number of updates the company releases after a new version of Firefox stable is released. Others applaud Mozilla for releasing fixes to issues that users encounter after updates in a short period of time.
Firefox 20.0.1 fixes to issues that some Firefox 20 users are experiencing when they work with the web browser. Reports started to come in shortly after the release of the latest stable version of Firefox that some users were experiencing issues with the browser's address bar. In particular, the address bar would not work at all for those users. While they were able to enter data into it, they could not load the address that they entered this way.
According to an initial analysis of the issue, it affected only enterprise users who are using roaming profiles in a Windows Server environment. Tests confirmed that Firefox worked fine if those users switched to a local user instead. The issue seems to affect a wide variety of combinations including those with or without folder redirection and also UNC stored profiles.
The second bug prevented SPNEGO (Simple and Protected GSSAPI Negotiation Mechanism) from working correctly. Now, most users have probably never heard about that before and it appears that the bug only affects a small number of corporate Firefox users. It is used to negotiate an authentication protocol with a remote server when it is not clear which protocols the server supports.
Firefox 20.0.1 is already available for download at the official Mozilla ftp server. It is also available on various third party download portals, such as Softpedia or Major Geeks where it can be downloaded to the local system. The release is expected to go life today which is when the automatic update feature of the browser should kick in automatically.
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The “Restart Firefox” extension stopped working and I had to remove it and replace it with the beta version, 0.6b3, which does work.
I’ve noticed that page resizing is taking a long time.
also i am transitioning from chrome (because i am boycotting google) but so far it seems chrome has a much better bookmarking tool (called super startup page) – which lets you arrange dozens of favorite bookmarks with icons all on the one page – i have been looking for days in firefox addons but cant find one that does the same thing as Chrome’s superstartup page. Anyone know of an add-on that will do it? (NO I A NOT TALKING ABOUT ORGANIZING BOOKMARKS INTO FOLDERS, OR ELIMINATING TEXT FROM ICONS OR VIEWING “MOST FREQUENTLY VIEWED’ LISTS, OR ANY OTHER USELESS ADD-ON LIKE THAT – I JUST HAVE A SET LIST OF 30 WEBSITES I WANT DISPLAYED WITH ICONS ON ONE PAGE – LIKE A TABLET, PREFERABLY WITH SUBFOLDER OPTIONS. HOW THE HELL CAN THIS BE SO HARD TO FIND IN 2013?
how can i make the homepage a new tab page automatically (because the home page has google as the default search engine on the main page (though it has my preferred search engine in (or rather next to) the address bar) but i dont even want to see any mention of google at all – which seems locked into the homepage search bar. Note i DONT want to select a bookmarked site as my homepage – i just want a nice clean new tab page as home page – old skool – is that so much to ask for?
No offense to Martin, but this can be done without entering about:config, which will be safer and easier.
Open up Firefox’s options/prefs window
Under the General tab there is Homepage text area, replace its contents with about:newtab
Hit OK
It sounded like you wanted the new tab page which gives you a “speed dial” of thumbnails. If you just want blankness, instead of about:newtab, put in about:blank
Good point, did not think of that.
Ken, do the following:
1. Type about:config in the address bar.
2. Confirm you will be careful.
3. Search for browser.newtab.url
4. Double-click it.
5. Change value to about:blank
Since upgrading to version 20.0.1, Firefox no longer downloads my files to the previous download directory, and I cannot locate them anywhere on my disk. If I select “Open Containing Folder” after a file has been downloaded, it does nothing.
Where is the default download directory/folder been moved to in version 20.0.1, and why does the “Open Containing Folder” button not work?
I figured out where the files were being downloaded to… It appears as though after I did the upgrade to Firefox 20.0.1, Firefox re-opened as user Admin (as opposed to my logged in userid). So files were being downloaded to …\Admin\Downloads as opposed to …\MyUserid\Downloads.
I still haven’t figured out why the “Open Containing Folder” button isn’t working. But I’m assuming it has something to do with permissions and will resolve itself as soon as I close Firefox and start it back up again.
The new download manager takes a bit of getting used to, and it could certainly do with a higher visibility on the browser when active, but I’d like to know if anyone else is experiencing huge increase in memory use since the upgrade, I now start at 150mb on homepage one tab, and easily get up to 350 with about five tabs…. not good!
This can also be add-on related, try running Firefox without add-ons enabled and see how that goes. I do not see big memory jumps in the latest Nightly versions.
thanks Martin, I’ve tried disable all addons and startup homepage window was 140mb, rose and settled to 190 on reaching this page. another tab (http://www.guardian.co.uk/) gives me 220… and a very slow but steady 10-20k rise incrementally.
It sounds like these issues were affecting a fairly narrow segment of users. Alpha and beta users are voluntary, so it’s probably harder to find enterprise users running windows servers to run prerelease software.
After update to 20.0.1 TabMixPlus didn’t work any more. I had to go back to 20.0.
When my firefox updated I can´t no longer do a private session. Is it supposed to be that way? Private Session doesn´t exist in the tools….
If you are looking for the feature to make your session doesnt remember browning history, try the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P. It works for me.
I like the little download icon idea, but I HATE that there’s no option to use the separate download window anymore. Everytime I close the browser, now the DLs are stopped as well, and with large files, unable to continue the downloading process, I have to start over and over again evrey single time… Hope they change it!
Elni,
you can disable the new download manager
1. Open a new tab.
2. Type about:config, then press Enter.
3. Paste the following into the search field: browser.download.useToolkitUI
4. Under the Value field, right-click false and then click Toggle. That should set the Value to “true.”
5. Restart Firefox.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!
People don’t need links to the downloads. If they are running some version of Firefox, then all they need to know is how to run a manual update from within the browser, which these days is a case of clicking on the orange Firefox button and then hovering over “Help” and then clicking on “About Firefox”. That’s all I do once a week or so, and if there are any updates out there that keep me secure, then I’ll get them.
Failing that, about 50% of the time the silent update beats me to it and I’m up to date before I know about the new release. I for one am glad that Mozilla take care of this stuff quickly.
Have you used DownloadHelper?
This new version sucks. The download window disapeared. Now you get a horrible icon the bar. Because of this you can’t manage your downloads. Let’s go back to 19….
I appreciate Mozilla issuing updates so rapidly after a major release, but I’m kind of getting used to there always being problems they have to update.
@Gabbar Singh, no you don’t use the problem you are talking about.
Well, interesting, because the two biggest problems with Firefox 20, memory leaks and runaway file descriptor polling aren’t even mentioned. Do you even use the programs you write about?
My current version of FF is 19.0.2 as of 4/11/13. I’ve set it to update automatically, but the Help>About screen says it’s up to date. Any ideas about why I didn’t get updated to v. 20?
No idea, but I highly suggest you update manually.
Windows :
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-20.0.1&os=win&lang=en-US
You linked to your FF20.0 article,
You linked to a bug report,
You linked to the second bug report,
You linked to your newsletter and your RSS feed,
How about a link to the actual subject of the article?
I no longer link to Mozilla’s ftp server directly as Mozilla asked me not to do so. You can download it from here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download8146.html?2013-04-10