Mozilla: Rust Compiler (rustc), TenFourFox FPR13b1 and Keeping Add-Ons Safe for Users
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How to speed up the Rust compiler in 2018
18 months ago I wrote about some work I did to speed up the Rust compiler (rustc). I’ve recently taken this work up again. Also, in the meantime rustc’s build system has been replaced and its benchmark suite has been overhauled. So it’s a good time for an update.
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TenFourFox FPR13b1 available (now with WebP and AppleScript)
TenFourFox Feature Parity Release 13 beta 1 is now available (downloads, hashes, release notes). I took a different tack on this release because I still don't have good solutions for the missing JavaScript features currently affecting Citibank, Github and a few other sites, so I've chosen to push out some side projects I've been working on in order not to make this a wasted release. Those features are support for WebP images and support for AppleScript automation.
WebP images are an up-and-coming format based on the WebM VP8 codec, another way Google will consume the Web from the inside out, but they do have image size advantages and Firefox now supports them in Firefox 65. Google has two demonstration WebP galleries you can use to view some samples, and there are colour-managed examples in the Skia test suite. TenFourFox's WebP support currently can display lossy, lossless, transparent and colour-managed images, and will properly use any embedded colour profile. However, it is not currently AltiVec-accelerated (we do have some AltiVec VP8 code, so this should be possible at some point), and it does not yet support animated WebP images, which will appear blank. For this reason we don't pass an Accept: header indicating we accept WebP images like mainline Firefox and certain other browsers, though we will naturally try to display it if we get one. If you encounter issues related to WebP, you can try setting image.webp.enabled to false, but I'm planning to ship this support in FPR13 final, so it defaults to true.
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Mozilla Future Releases Blog: Keeping Add-Ons Safe for our Users
We’ve seen many changes in the tech landscape since we launched addons.mozilla.org (AMO) in 2005. A few add-ons have millions of users, while there are many add-ons that have smaller audiences with specific needs. One add-on I really like is AddToAny, which lets me share on social networks. It is similar to a feature we used to have in Firefox that we removed due to lack of use, and I’m sure the 5,000 Firefox users of AddToAny are happy to have it. Unfortunately, the same system that allows privacy and security extensions to work can also make people vulnerable to data mining and malicious activity. While our users love how they can make Firefox theirs, they also look to us to maintain their safety and privacy on the web.
Now more than ever, we need to deliver on the trust our users place in us and the expectations we place on our users to understand the choices they make with regards to the software they install. In many ways, we’ve mitigated risks by adopting WebExtensions as our means for extending Firefox, but as more and more functionality migrates to the cloud, policing this ecosystem through code review and policy is impractical.
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