Archive for the ‘Browsers’ Category

I use Firefox for everything. On my PC and my Mac, Firefox is my browser of choice. I use it for everything from ordering pizza to looking at truck accessories.

Mozilla developers have blocked a Firefox plugin that was quietly pushed out by Microsoft, saying that it presents a security risk.

It makes you wonder how bad the plugin has to be in order for Firefox to pull it without warning.

What will happen to the browser wars when Microsoft has to open it up to choice?

Microsoft Corp. will offer computer users a choice of Web browsers to ward off new European Union antitrust fines, EU regulators said Friday.

The European Commission has charged the company with monopoly abuse for tying the Internet Explorer browser to the Windows operating system installed on most of the world’s desktop computers.

Only time will tell, but I bet Internet Explorer won’t be on the top of the heap much longer.

There’s talk about a new feature in Firefox…

Firefox has had a feature that lets you re-open recently closed tabs for a while. But what if you accidentally close a whole Firefox window with several running tabs. Now you can restore that too… as long as you’ve got the latest nightly build of Firefox 3.5 installed.

I fell for this once before, when I was told that a couple newcell towers were installed in my area to give me better coverage. Well, they did install them, but my service didn’t get any better. I guess this is nothing like that then, is it?

I don’t know about them, but with the help of the Tab Mix Plus plugin, I have had this feature for a very, very, long time.

I am looking forward to seeing the new Firefox. I’m a little worried about their “changes to the way tabs are handled” but we’ll see what they have planned.

Mozilla is inching closer to the release of Firefox 3.5, which includes a faster Javascript engine, a private browsing mode, faster page rendering, and changes to the way tabs are handled. Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is due to be released within the next week or so.

Firefox is busy patching holes again.

Mozilla published a critical security upgrade for Firefox Friday evening. Version 3.0.8 for Windows, Mac, and Linux fixes two security holes listed as “critical.”

One patched an arbitrary code execution hole through an XUL element, and the other corrected an XSL stylesheet exploit. Both fixes patch crash-based security holes in which remote codes could have been run.

Funny, I didn’t notice. Oh yeah, because I have been testing Safari 4.

Fresh out the door, users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 are complaining of glitches one day after the IE8 final build was made available at noon Eastern time on Thursday. Dozens of posters are complaining about printing from Web sites, search functions, and disappearing images.

The browser, which was supposed to make navigating a Web site easier and faster by adding a new favorites bar, address bar, and tabs bar, is instead making the user experience not so easy.

And this surprises who? Anyone, who’s anyone, especially anyone who enjoys the wine of the month knows that this is just another typical Microsoft release.

Developers just got used to all the quirks of IE7 and now they have IE8 on their hands. Wonderful.

Microsoft publicly launched Internet Explorer 8 on Thursday, the latest version of its market-dominating Web browser.

The application, an integral part of Microsoft’s eagerly awaited Windows 7 operating system, could be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific time, free for people using licensed Microsoft operating systems.

IE8, as it is commonly referred to, has been in public beta testing for about a year, but Thursday’s launch marks its full public rollout.

After the last beta release, I have been hesitant to try any Firefox beta for a while.

Mozilla on Thursday released the third beta version of Firefox 3.1, aka Shiretoko, one of the frontrunners in the current race to improve Web browsers.

According to the Firefox 3.1b3 release notes, the new version includes better “Web worker” multitasking abilities, a faster Gecko rendering engine for showing Web pages, and upgrades to the TraceMonkey engine for faster, more stable execution of Web sites’ JavaScript programs. (Follow these links to download Firefox 3.1b3 for Windows and Mac OS X.)

I’ll wait for the full release, and until then, I will keep testing Safari 4, so I can compare the two when the time comes.

Are you using the beta? If so, how is it working out for you?

I wondered why my installation of Firefox updated itself. Now I know.

The latest update to the open-source browser shores up a number of security risks, including some that Mozilla says could be exploited by an attacker to run commands on a vulnerable computer. But the flaws still affect the current Thunderbird release, 2.0.0.19.

One of the bugs involves a library used for PNG images, and could presumably be triggered by a poisoned image on a Web page. The second would be harder to exploit, as its description says you’d have to reload a page specially crafted to target a memory management flaw to get hit.

I hope Thunderbird updates itself soon.

Warning. Your Firefox will probably update sometime today.

Mozilla developers released the latest version of their Firefox browser Tuesday, version 3.0.6, which fixes several security bugs in the software.

The most critical issues are bugs in the browser’s JavaScript and layout engines that could be exploited by attackers to run unauthorized software on a victim’s PC, Mozilla said. The flaws also affect Mozilla’s Thunderbird e-mail client and SeaMonkey Internet software suite.