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Firefox explorers By Nigel McFarlaneMarch 22, 2005 Bill Robertson... "Firefox has the best pedigree, with an active engineering community, wide community support and long history." Photo: Marco Del Grande When Bill Robertson decided last year to switch 450 workers and 100 desktops at De Bortoli Wines to the open source Firefox web browser, he had the company's future in mind.In moving to the free Firefox, he did more than just install a web browser that rivals Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which comes for free with every PC running the Windows operating system. The CIO defined a radically new desktop interface for...

Before you start reading, fire up the printer, and get the scissors. You may want to clip this one out and give it to your friends and colleagues who are still in Windows land. There are times in life when you actually hear words coming out of your mouth and even as they're coming out, you realize how stupid they sound. I realize that in my own personal and professional life, this sort of thing happens a bit more than the statistical average, but this morning I uttered words that sounded so completely insane, I had to share them. After...

After several days of confusion about the future of its open-source browser suite, the Mozilla Foundation called it quits, and announced that it would stop development of its namesake. All development efforts will instead be focused on Firefox, the foundation's stand-alone browser, and Thunderbird, its e-mail client. Supporters of the Mozilla browser suite, however, aren't ready to throw in the towel, and it appears likely that it will live on under a new name and under the aegis of an independent developer community. The Mozilla suite, now five years old, is a collection of browser, e-mail client, and HTML editor,...

Development problems concerning the Mozilla Suite have led to some soul-searching in the Foundation, with some calling for Firefox to be spun off The survival of the original Mozilla Suite is very much in doubt as developers question whether the success of stand-alone products Firefox and Thunderbird mean the death of the integrated suite that spawned them. Mozilla developers on the 'netscape.public.mozilla.seamonkey' newsgroup have been in fierce debate over the future of the open source suite since the minutes of the 28th February mozilla.org staff meeting were posted online on the 7th of March. At that stage the demise of...

Microsoft Internet Explorer is reported prone to a remote buffer overflow vulnerability. This issue presents itself when the application handles a malformed CSS file. A typical attack would involve the attacker creating a Web site that includes the malicious CSS file. The attacker may then entice a vulnerable user to visit the site. If successful, this attack may result in granting the attacker unauthorized access to the affected computer in the context of the user running Internet Explorer.

Just a day after one security firm warned of a vulnerability in Firefox and Mozilla, a rival disclosed that another eight threaten the open-source browsers. The Danish security firm Secunia on Tuesday laid out the flaws, most of which could be used by criminals to spoof, or fake, various aspects of a Web site, ranging from its SSL secure site icon to the contents of an inactive tab. Other bugs can be exploited remotely by hackers able to introduce code of their own choosing on the vulnerable machine, possibly taking control of it or giving them access to files. For...

Mozilla's Firefox keeps chipping away at Microsoft's massive lead in browser usage, two Web metrics firms reported Monday. San Diego, Calif.-based WebSideStory, which last released usage numbers in January, said that in the last five weeks, Firefox has gained an additional 0.74 percent to account for 5.7 percent of all browsers used in the U.S. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, meanwhile, now stands at 89.9 percent, a drop from January's 90.3 percent, and the first time WebSideStory pegged IE as falling under the 90-percent mark. "That 7/10s of a point compares well with previous increases," said Geoff Johnston, an analyst for WebSideStory....

Sometimes I feel like it gets hung up on something. Does anyone know what the problem is?

FEBRUARY 26, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Several security vulnerabilities in Firefox and the Mozilla Suite of Internet software put users of the open-source products at risk of hacker attacks, the Mozilla Foundation warned this week. The organization released Firefox 1.0.1, which fixes 17 security flaws in the popular Web browser. The most serious flaws could allow an attacker to gain full control over a victim's PC, the Mozilla Foundation said in a statement. Firefox 1.0 was released in November and has since been downloaded more than 27 million times. Firefox 1.0.1 also includes several fixes to guard against spoofing...

The Mozilla Foundation on Thursday released an update to the Firefox Web browser to fix several vulnerabilities, including one that would allow domain spoofing. The open-source project released Firefox 1.0.1 to fix a vulnerability in the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), a standard for handling special character sets in domain names that could let an attacker spoof Web sites on non-Microsoft browsers. The standard allows companies to register domain names that appear to be the same in different languages.

Mozilla Firefox project (formerly Firebird, which was formerly Phoenix) is a redesign of Mozilla's browser component, written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. It includes a popup blocker, tabbed browsing, a smarter search, hassle free downloading, and improved privacy and security.

Netcraft has the story that Mozilla has decided to drop support for international domain names in future versions of its Firefox Web browser. The decision comes after demonstrations by the Schmoo Group that the feature can be used to aid in phishing scams and other browser naughtiness." From the article: "The attack can be disabled in Firefox and Mozilla by setting 'network.enableIDN' to false in the browser's configuration (enter about:config in the address bar to access the configuration functions). The Mozilla development team today made this the default setting. Users who want IDN support will be able to turn it...

Security experts are advising that spyware that targets browsers from the Mozilla Foundation has been spotted--a threat that could worsen as its Firefox browser takes market share from Microsoft. Stu Sjouwerman, the founder of Sunbelt Software, said on Tuesday that the anti-spyware company has discovered what it believes is the first spyware to take aim at surfers using Mozilla browsers. Richard Stiennon, the vice president of threat research at Webroot Software, which also develops anti-spyware tools, said that the malicious software does not target Firefox specifically. "According to my research team, this site does not target Firefox, but it does...

Experts: International domain names may pose threat The new trick is a variation of the 'homograph attack' The new trick is a variation of a known technique called the "homograph attack" and takes advantage of loopholes in the way some popular Web browsers display domain names that use non-English characters. It could allow malicious hackers and online identity-theft groups to trick unsuspecting users into divulging sensitive personal information, according to an advisory from The Shmoo Group, a hacker collective, and from Secunia. snip For example, attackers could register a Web domain "bloomberg.com," which looks identical to the popular business news...

Phishers are taking advantage of Microsoft’s new software anti-piracy initiative by launching a wave of phishing e-mails in an attempt to get credit card numbers from Microsoft customers. The rogue e-mails also allow phishers to install spyware and adware on users’ machines. Last month Microsoft said it would not allow users in some countries install software updates online unless they could prove that their Microsoft software was legitimate. Security company Websense said it has received several reports of two new versions of spoofed e-mails that are being used to install spyware/adware onto end-user's machines and steal credit card details. The...

"We're thrilled to be the first broadband service provider to adopt Firefox," Speakeasy chairman and founder Mike Apgar said. "We plan to continually enhance the browser with features that will benefit Speakeasy's home, business and gaming subscribers." Speakeasy, a national broadband Internet service provider (ISP), said it will be the first to distribute a customized version of the Mozilla Foundation's Latest News about Mozilla Foundation Firefox browser to its customers. The development was immediately being called significant because it stands to open up an entirely new distribution channel to help get Firefox into the hands of users. To date, the...

(COMPUTERWORLD) - There has been a lot of buzz in the past few months over the arrival of Firefox, the open-source browser published by The Mozilla Foundation, and how Microsoft's Internet Explorer is starting to lose some of its share of the browser market to this new competitor. Out of the ashes of Netscape, Mozilla has built a solid browser that supports features such as tabbed views, Google for native searches and direct support for RSS feeds. But business users need to think twice about making the switch from Internet Explorer, since Firefox lacks the ability to run Microsoft ActiveX...

Firefox breaks 20,000,000 downloads!

I noticed a few Firefox threads here have people complaining about how much memory Firefox takes up. This is a known memory leak, and the Mozilla guys haven't gotten around to fixing it for whatever reason. But there's no reason your Firefox should take up 70,000K in memory, so here's how to fix that memory leak and keep Firefox from bloating up. 1. Open a new tab. Type "about:config" without quotes into the address bar and hit enter/click Go. 2. Right-click anywhere, select New, then Integer. In the dialog prompt that appears, type: browser.cache.memory.capacity 3. Click OK. Another dialog prompt...

I've been using Mozilla's Firefox browser all week, and it's GREAT... and it's FREE! I love it and recommend it highly. My pop-ups, freezing and general computer problems have pretty much disappeared. Mozilla I like having the Yahoo Game Channel up for NFL games. You get the stats, and within seconds, the current play. Just went there and here's the message: "In order to use the new NFL GameChannel, users will need Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher and a Windows operating system. If you do not meet the minimum requirements, you can check out our NFL scoreboard instead." From a...