How about New Private Window? Is that in the Tools menu?

Private browsing just moved, How do I open a new Private Window?

the-edmeister, No. Nothing with the word "private" in the Tools menu.

Tylerdowner, Thank you.

Go to "FILE" and then select "New Private Window" The Private browsing is improved, whereas you can now have a logged in page, but browse in PRIVATE MODE in a different window. Hope it helps.

Everyone seems to be having this issue. It seems that Firefox Mozilla should of left Private Browsing in the tools menu, But it makes sense to the software engineers to to add it in "FILE", Why not just put it in "EDIT, or VIEW" for that matter. It seems like the appropriate place to put it, it it needs to be moved at all.

No, is is not.

You now open a new window (New Private Window), so it now belongs under File where you also open a new tab or new window. Future Firefox versions will also support private tabs.

Note that some menu entries in the main menu bar are hidden if you use the mouse and only appear if you use the keyboard to open the menu (e.g. Alt + F -> File)

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Hi linuxvegas,

If you use the built-in Firefox home page (you can view it by typing about:home in the address bar and pressing Enter), there are tips/messages below the search box. The upgrades to private browsing are currently featured as one of the two rotating messages.

If you are not using this page, you would need to be curious enough to scroll to the bottom of the "you've updated" page and click a link to see what's new. I'm not sure why the extra step, but it's there for the curious who aren't in a big hurry to get back to what they were doing before.

I would love to find a way to get users more involved in upcoming changes so they are not only ready for them, but can comment on them. Any thoughts on a good way to get the word out that would draw people in? Spam, obviously, is out of the question.

jscher2000, Thanks. It would be nice if Firefox would bring back the private browse next to the open private browsing window, Sometimes I use the computer at work (yes, I'm allowed) and don't always empty the browsing cache after shopping or using log ins for sites. and If you're coming from a Private window and select open new window (Option+N on default OSX keyboard layout) Guess what? A new window opens, But it's no longer a private browsing window. Just a bit annoying, I might switch to the DEVIL, I meant Google. Instead of helping others locate the new location of menus or sub menus, people here instead go off topic and how they know what's best and everyone else should keep up. But from my line of work it's always a good idea to get customer input when changes are made, Change is good, But not when it leaves others to fend for themselves.

Well, We don't always have the time to learn a new menu layout.  It would be nice if the welcome screen had a quick start/tips guide on how to use features, and where the new or improved features are nested. But I might not be using Firefox for long. So this might no longer apply to me. j/k

I like the Mozilla code, they put out a nice clean interface for end users and they get clicks ad revenue, Everybody wins.

Jef,

I would love to find a way to get users more involved in upcoming changes so they are not only ready for them, but can comment on them. Any thoughts on a good way to get the word out that would draw people in? Spam, obviously, is out of the question. 

I keep suggesting that Mozilla, Marketing & Sumo should promote at least the Beta channel much more strongly. At one time that seemed about to happen, but now the idea seems to have been dropped.

At least we would stand a chance of getting feedback from users doing day to day browsing with the new features enabled. Such users would probably be the types likely to comment on problems.

Most importantly trying the putative Release in the wild in many varied situations and configurations is probably the only way we will breakout of a cycle of six weekly Releases that nearly always require a Chemspill fix. That is a costly problem in terms of the effort to fix and the damage to our reputation.

As for actually promoting that, we could do that with articles and messages on the support forum, even adding something in the new Sumo HTML email replies.

I have been using Firefox for years. I use it because I dislike using any browser connected to Microsoft, Google or Apple. I do not trust them.

However, one of my least favorite things about Firefox is that upgrades appear to be done without any concern for users. Features we like vanish and ones we may not like or want appear without so much as an if you please.

For my part I find myself rolling back to previous versions as often or more often than I download upgrades. My single biggest dislike is for those things that get labeled as being "smart", I find myself having to disable features or to find apps that work around them.

Smart history is a perfect example. I had my system working fine. My history setup was exactly what I wanted. And then suddenly here is smart history. Well I am sorry but the programmers at Mozilla have no right tp decide what is good for me to keep in my history nor for how long I should keep it.

I would ask that when you folks decide to make some of these "smart' features that you also make a big prominent switch that allows users who do not want them to disable them. Right now my alternative is not to do the upgrades to avoid ceding more and more control of my system. If I am patient enough somebody usually comes along and creates a new app that undoes or turns off this type of stuff.

I do not accept automatic updates from any site- Windows and Mozilla taught me not to do so. I do not want maintenance programs that run in the background. They cause more issues than they fix it seems.

Right now I will not upgrade to version 21 because I do not want: 1. Firefox will suggest how to improve your application startup time if needed. I have good independent software that already does this. I do not trust Mozilla in this regard. 2. Preliminary implementation of Firefox Health Report. I also have good software for this too. I do not trust Mozilla on this either.

I believe the absolute worst step any Firefox user can take is to click on the "Check for Updates" button in the About Firefox area under the Help Links.

Please guys, start using some focus groups, and do so before you start coding the changes. That way you may find out they mostly appeal to you and not to very many users. Consider making some of them add-ons instead of features built into the browser.

First off, this is a rant that doesn't really belong in this forum and is off topic to this thread. Second of all, you are mistaken in many areas:

Smart history. There is no such feature. Not sure what you mean by that.

Suggesting application startup time improvements: Firefox will only show you a small infobar if Firefox takes 60 seconds or more to startup at least 5 times. This bar will provide you either with a link to our support site with suggestions on how to speed Firefox up, or a button for you to ignore it and never show it again. This isn't about "trusting" us, this is about Firefox giving power to the users who don't know how to speed Firefox up. For power users, yeah, it's a feature you won't use but that's ok, if you eve see it, tell it never to appear again and it won't. Simple as that.

Firefox Health Report: This is again, a way for you to see how fast your Firefox is performing, and how you can improve it. It is also a way for you to share this non-personally identifiable information with Mozilla if you so desire. You can turn this off with one click of a checkbox, and never have to worry about it.

There is no reason that those two, small and easily disabled features, which do help millions of people, should prevent you from updating to Firefox 21 and gaining the significant speed improvements, support for new web standards, and most importantly, security fixes, that it offers. Firefox isn't like most other browsers, you do have choise, and while not everything will have a checkbox (though these two features you call out do) almost everything has an about:config pref or add-on that can be used to change the behavior.

Updating is unfortunately something that must be done, whether it is your OS, your browser, your plugins, or your drivers, software is made by humans and so is imperfect. Security flaws are released almost daily, and software patches are the only way to combat many of them (and don't say your security software makes you invulnerable, it doesn't and it won't). Add on top of that the performance and stability improvements, and updates are not something that should just be lightly pushed away because you don't want to take 5 seconds to turn off one feature.

TwoTankAmin wrote: I believe the absolute worst step any Firefox user can take is to click on the "Check for Updates" button in the About Firefox area under the Help Links.

This is poor advice as one of the main reasons for updates is for security fixes. Http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html

James- I never told anybody not to update. I suggest you search the forum for this thread."Can I maually check for updates but prevent them from being automatically installed if it turns out one is available?"

I stand by my Post- if people want their system to update automatically, it is set to do so and they have no need to "Check for Updates" and would never try to.

If one prefers to decide whether to do an update or not, then they probably want to check to see if there are any and then what they might include before downloading.

Tylerdowner- it most certainly does relate to this thread. My comments address the tendency for changes to occur which add, remove or move functions and features. In regards to smart history, I do not know what else to call it. It used to be that one could choose how long, in days, to keep things in their history. That functionality vanished. Now the option is keep or don't keep. I recall reading the explanation for why this was and how it worked and that it entailed Firefox somehow deciding for how long anything should be kept in history.

To me that is 'smart" technology even if not labelled as such. So I will plead guilty to using the term despite it not being part of the official name for how history now works. However, I stand by my "rant" and thank you for supporting my point so well with your post.

The way to know the features I mentioned are optional is to see that stated prior to downloading, it is only known here because you posted it in response to my comments. This is a perfect example of where the update process is weak. How hard it is it to add the words "Optional" or "Can be turn off" to the description? Heck it could even have a color code to denote that similar to the ones used now.

If the programmers believed it was important enough or required to move or remove a feature, doesn't that make it important enough for users to know in advance?

On balance Firefox offers one of the more user friendly browsers in terms of being able easily to block tracking and advertising to the extent we can reasonably expect. I am old school. I wont let my book keeper have access to the bank accounts. Similarly I won't allow a software provider to provide the monitoring and optimizing software etc, I use an independent provider for that. I do it for Firefox and I do it for Windows as well. And surprise- I don't get my car fixed at the dealer facility either :-)

Where you get your car fixed is your business. I'm going to lock this thread as it has turned into a rant and not a call for support. Please know that by running old versions of Firefox you are leaving yourself at serious risk for attack and infection.