hello jaman57, i presume you're referring to plugins in particular?! the "always activate/never activate" do nothing else then the enable/disable buttons did before. however this change was made in preparation for a third option which will be available in this panel (always ask) which allows you to control on each site which plugins should be executed and it is also possible to store this choice on a per-site basis.

if you want to enable this third option, enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named plugins.click_to_play. double-click it and change its value to true.

Thanks - yes in particular it was the Java, where there are sites where I want to use it sometimes, though most times I don't. I made the change and I see the "ask to activate" option is there. Thanks again!