Firefox 3 – The awesome bar

A new update to Firefox has just been made available. An up-to-date version should now be at 3.0.2. Update soon if you have not been auto updated already.

Incase you are  still on the 2.x version for Firefox, you should know that the 3.x versions have greatly improved performance for JavaScript based apps (besides other things) and that means things like GMail, Yahoo Mail, Google Reader etc. that you use regularly.

It also has this great new address bar called the “Awesome bar” because it’s…awesome. It remembers the frequency with which you visit URLs and predicts the site you want to visit from just the first few characters you type in. It doesn’t even have to be characters of the URL from the begining. It can be keywords which occur in the middle of the URL as well. And it can be a word in the title of the page as well! And you have to do absolutely nothing to configure it since it is enabled by default and gets more accurate as you use it.

Awesome, isn’t it?

Yes, Google Chrome, Google’s official entry to The Browser Wars, has come along and it may have some fine features as well. But it’s just not mature enough for me yet. Most importantly, it doesn’t have all the addons that Firefox does at present. But if Google is backing it, Mozilla will sure need to work hard to keep the users that have migrated to Firefox from IE over the last few years.

What Google would now like is that Chrome improves to the point that full fledged browser based applications start replacing desktop based apps. Apps, which are not dependant on the OS or browser that they are running on. Apps, which result in revenue to Microsoft.

Firefox 2.0.0.8 released

I wonder why I have to post about every new update to Firefox. Maybe I’m just lazy.

Oh well, in case you haven’t done so already, stop using Internet Explorer, start using Firefox today! Go get the latest version (2.0.0.8) at http://www.getfirefox.com/.

Do try out the excellent addons as well. My favourite is Ad Block Plus. FoxMarks seems useful. And FireBug is awesome if you are developer working with browser based apps.

Try using some of the keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+T for new tab, Ctrl+W for closing a tab and Ctrl+Shift+T for reopening the last closed window. They are real time savers!

Update : Seems like 2.0.0.8 was a major update and caused some regression problems which have been fixed with 2.0.0.9 which came along rather quickly.

First person to comment on Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog post

Being the first one to comment on a blog and then feeling elated that you are the first one to comment is lame. Very lame indeed. I agree.

But what if it’s the blog of the CEO of a company that has annual revenues of $4 billion and that gave the world Java?

Yeah that’s right, I read a whole lot of blogs in the tech scene including that of the CEO of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz.

And on the post about IBM partnering with Sun on OpenOffice.org, I happened to be the first one to comment.

Kind of reassures me that, yes, I do keep myself up-to-date on what’s happening where. Yay!

Firefox 2.0.0.7 released

Firefox 2.0.0.7 is out. It fixes a security flaw in dealing with QuickTime files.

Go on, update.

Firefox updates released (2.0.0.5,1.5.0.12)

Update : Firefox 2.0.0.6 has also been released. A rather quick update! 

Better safe than sorry, eh?

Your web browser is what is your gate way to the Big Bad Web. Better get it upgraded to the latest. Firefox 2.0.0.5/1.5.0.12 is out. It should automatically update soon. If it doesn’t, you better do so manually.

Yet again, a bunch of bugs and leaks have been fixed. So get updated and ensure safety for all those banking transactions you do from your PC. Here is a quick list of what they fixed:

MFSA 2007-25 XPCNativeWrapper pollution
MFSA 2007-24 Unauthorized access to wyciwyg:// documents
MFSA 2007-23 Remote code execution by launching Firefox from Internet Explorer
MFSA 2007-22 File type confusion due to %00 in name
MFSA 2007-21 Privilege escallation using an event handler attached to an element not in the document
MFSA 2007-20 Frame spoofing while window is loading
MFSA 2007-19 XSS using addEventListener and setTimeout
MFSA 2007-18 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption

Yes. I love good, free, open source software. Don’t you too?

Firefox updates released (2.0.0.2,1.5.0.10)

What!

You are not running the latest release of your browser?!!!

Mozilla has finally released fixes for several newly discovered security flaws in Firefox. Upgrade to the latest version right away. The latest versions are 2.0.0.2 for the Firefox 2 branch and 1.5.0.10 for the Firefox 1.5 branch.

Infact, I hear that more flaws have been discovered after the update was released so expect another update soon.

I first realized that an update must have been released when I saw that the number of people searching for a way to update Firefox manually using a .Mar file had jumped up quite a bit in the last couple of days (I can see the search terms people used to get to my blog). So I guess I can expect a jump in traffic everytime Mozilla releases a new update now.

Fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.2
MFSA 2007-08 onUnload + document.write() memory corruption
MFSA 2007-07 Embedded nulls in location.hostname confuse same-domain checks
MFSA 2007-06 Mozilla Network Security Services (NSS) SSLv2 buffer overflow
MFSA 2007-05 XSS and local file access by opening blocked popups
MFSA 2007-04 Spoofing using custom cursor and CSS3 hotspot
MFSA 2007-03 Information disclosure through cache collisions
MFSA 2007-02 Improvements to help protect against Cross-Site Scripting attacks
MFSA 2007-01 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.10/1.8.1.2)

Official Download Site [getfirefox.com]

Firefox updates released (1.5.0.9,2.0.0.1)

Mozilla has just released security update for Firefox. The latest version is now 1.5.0.9 for the Firefox 1.5 branch and 2.0.0.1 for the Firefox 2 branch.

Make sure you have the latest version to stay secure and for a better browsing experience. Auto-update should take care of the updates by default. You can check the version you have manually by “Help->About Mozilla firefox…“.

Fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.1
MFSA 2006-76  XSS using outer window’s Function object
MFSA 2006-75 RSS Feed-preview referrer leak
MFSA 2006-73 Mozilla SVG Processing Remote Code Execution
MFSA 2006-72 XSS by setting img.src to javascript: URI
MFSA 2006-71 LiveConnect crash finalizing JS objects
MFSA 2006-70 Privilege escalation using watch point
MFSA 2006-69 CSS cursor image buffer overflow (Windows only)
MFSA 2006-68 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.9/1.8.1.1)

Official Download Site [getfirefox.com]