Mozilla Plugs 11 Flaws With Firefox 3.6.13
Mozilla has released Firefox web browser version 3.6.13, fixing at least 11 security issues, nine of which are rated as critical.
This version fixes multiple memory safety hazards, a buffer overflow security issue that affects Windows users, a critical fix for a crash and remote code executing issue while using HTML tags inside of a XUL tree and more.
IBM Using Firefox As Default Browser
Technology giant IBM is telling all their staff to use Firefox as their default browser. IBM said that Firefox is now the gold standard for what an open, secure, and standards-compliant browser should be.
Bob Sutor, Vice President of Open Source and Linux at IBM adds:
- Firefox is stunningly standards compliant, and interoperability via open standards is key to IBM’s strategy.
- Firefox is open source and its development schedule is managed by a development community not beholden to one commercial entity.
- Firefox is secure and an international community of experts continues to develop and maintain it.
- Firefox is extensible and can be customized for particular applications and organizations, like IBM.
- Firefox is innovative and has forced the hand of browsers that came before and after it to add and improve speed and function.
Firefox 3.6 Released – Faster And With New Personality
Mozilla today launched a new revamped website and also released Firefox 3.6 with improve performance and some new features.
The new features are:
- Available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
- Support for a new type of theme called Personas, which allow users to change Firefox’s appearance with a single click.
- Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
- Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
- Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time.
- The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
- Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
- Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
- Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow for more interactive web pages.
- Changes to how third-party software can integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.
Google Chrome Took Safari Spot At Number 3
The latest web browser statistics from Net Applications indicates that Google Chrome has sneaked past Apple’s Safari to claim third place. This is impressive because Chrome only appeared on the market about 16 months. Chrome’s 0.7% increase from November to December can probably be attributed to the beta versions of the web browser for Mac OS X and Linux finally being released.
Currently, Firefox is in second place and Microsoft’s IE 8 in first place.
Firefox Turns Five
Mozilla celebrated Firefox’s fifth birthday and Mozilla communities are hosting parties all over the world in a special campaign called “Light the World with Firefox”.
From Mozilla blog: In just five years, that number has swelled to over 330 million users worldwide; almost a quarter of Internet users worldwide choose Firefox. Today, Firefox ships in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to help customize their browsing experience.
Mozilla Blocks Insecure Microsoft Plugin For Firefox
Mozilla has disabled Microsoft’s .NET Framework Assistant add-on and Windows Presentation Foundation plug-in for Firefox to stop a vulnerability that allows an attacker to take over Windows machines.
Users are not happy the Microsoft has introduced add-ons/plugins for Firefox that are almost impossible to remove.
From Mozilla Blog: Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted Microsoft today to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plugin for all users via our blocklisting mechanism. Microsoft agreed with the plan, and we put the blocklist entry live immediately.
Secure Firefox With New Plugin Check
Mozilla has launched a new Plugin Check web service where it is able to check if your Firefox plugins are up to date.
From Mozilla Security Blog: …old versions of plugins can cause crashes and other stability problems, and can also be a major security risk.
Firefox Counts Down To 1 Billion Downloads
Mozilla Firefox will hit 1 billion downloads this Friday. Currently the download counter showing 999,397,143 downloads.
You can find out more from Mozilla’s Firefox Billion Downloads celebration page.
Mozilla plans revealed www.onebillionplusyou.com website on Monday.
Firefox 3.5 RC Out
Mozilla has now made available Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate for users to download and try. The final version will be out at the end of June.
- This release candidate is now available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
- Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
- Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
- Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
- Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
Download: Firefox 3.5 RC
Firefox Introduces New Logo
Firefox will be using a new logo for version 3.5. It looks similar to the current one but it has some subtle changes. More depth and more fiery!
Source: New Firefox Icon
