Also in today’s open source roundup: Get started with a VPN in Linux, and Google Voice updated Firefox 51 released The Firefox developers at Mozilla have been hard at work on a new version of the popular web browser. Firefox 51 has just been released, and you can download it from the official Firefox site. Michael Larabel reports for Phoronix: Firefox 51 isn’t a big feature release for end-users but notably does have support for FLAC audio, at long last! Great to see the web browsers finally shipping support out-of-the-box for this open-source audio codec. Also notable for Firefox 51 is WebGL 2.0 by default. Also, they have enabled Skia content rendering by default in the Linux build too. Some other changes include improved video performance when not using GPU acceleration, the zoom indicator is now shown in the menu bar, turning on e10s multi-process Firefox for users with extensions that are not explicitly marked as incompatible, improvements to Firefox’s password manager, and various CSS/JavaScript/ES2015 developer improvements. More at Phoronix The news about Firefox 51 hit the Linux subreddit and the folks there shared their thoughts about it: Charwinger21: “Interesting that Firefox and Chromium are both making such a big push for codec support right now. FLAC, WebP, WebM/VP9 (and soon AV1), APNG (lots of activity on the Chromium bug tracker), Opus, etc.” Elocutionisto: “FLAC is not your typical web standard, interesting.” Juser6553591: “It is the best lossless audio format, with smaller file sizes than WAV and good surround sound support.” Bubblethink: “Do chromium and firefox both have flac now ? This might push streaming services (google music, spotify etc.) to use flac as well. Right now, they all top out at mp3 320 kbps. Not a big difference audibly, but nice to have.” Natanael_L: “The real reason to have it is for music libraries, where you have the bandwidth and support to not need re-encoding.” RedditCantBeTrusted: “…for the past year it’s felt like they’ve just been running in circles making unnecessary changes like adding pocket and hello. These are changes that have very real impacts and feel innovative and I hope Mozilla has more in store for 2017.” More at Reddit Get started with a VPN in Linux A VPN can be an invaluable tool for many Internet users, including those who run Linux on their computers. A writer at TechRadar has a helpful overview on how to get started using a VPN in Linux. Arthur Baxter reports for TechRadar: The internet was supposed to be open and permissionless, transcend borders and make the world a smaller place. Some of that has been achieved, but there is also a creeping feeling that ISPs (Internet Service Providers), nation states, and web services are increasingly locking down their networks, imposing censorship and discriminating based on computer, browser, and IP address. Many technologies aim to free information from censorship and geo-restrictions. Most restrictions are only placed on the internet artificially and superficially, and can easily be circumvented. Even poorly configured networks are something that often have to be bypassed using tools otherwise created to break censorship—as anybody knows who’s had trouble connecting to their server via SSH with airport Wi-Fi. The most popular way to circumvent censorship is with a VPN (Virtual Private Network). More at TechRadar Google Voice updated Google Voice is one of Google’s most popular services. It has gotten a significant update, including a visual overhaul that puts it in the same league as Google’s other apps. Chris Welch reports for The Verge: Google just announced the new and improved Google Voice that the company teased a few weeks ago. Today you’ll find updated versions of Voice available for Android, iOS, and on the web. The service has been given a much-needed visual refresh, bringing it in line with Google’s other apps. According to Google’s blog post on the changes, “your inbox now has separate tabs for text messages, calls and voicemails. Conversations stay in one continuous thread, so you can easily see all your messages from each of your contacts in one place.” Aside from simply bringing Voice up to date aesthetically, the upgraded app carries over some features that until now were only available for users who had switched to Hangouts for some Voice functions like texting and voicemail. For one, photo MMS is now supported by Google Voice on all platforms and across pretty much all major carriers. Images show up inline in your conversations, and firing off your own is as easy as any other texting app. That sounds like basic functionality, but MMS has been a longtime sore spot for Voice. No more emails with MMS attachments or other weird workarounds. Group texting has also been added to the main Voice apps — no Hangouts required. This is another crucially important feature to many people that Google Voice has been bad at until now. With today’s update, group conversations are labeled very clearly and should work as you’d expect them to. More at The Verge Did you miss a roundup? Check the Eye On Open home page to get caught up with the latest news about open source and Linux. Software DevelopmentOpen Source