900 fixed bugs with Mozilla Firefox 3 beta 2

Firefox 3 developers are taking all the time that they need to accomplish their new Firefox. After the Beta 1 Mozilla has released Firefox 3 beta 2 to get more feedbacks about bugs from its testing community. Bugzilla was a little bit busy lately since the beta 1 thousands of bugs fortunately 900 of them are fixed. Firefox developers are trying to reveal more bugs to make their Firefox 3 better. The Beta 2 features are very promising and the Firefox 3 will definitely beat all competitors.

What's new in Firefox 3 :

Security :
I think that the previous reported vulnerabilities in Firefox made them more determinant to improve the security of Firefox users. The most important improvements in this issues were the the protection against cross-site JSON data leaks,anti-virus integration, malware protection, add-ons version check and the one click site info.
Easier to use :
developers added new buttons to save time when bookmarking. The ability to put some tags about the page you're bookmarking. You can also search your bookmarks through a Places Organizer.Tabs will also be easier to locate and better integration with Vista, Mac and Linux.

Performance :
Mozilla developers are dealing with Firefox's appetite for Memory. Around 30 memory improvements were included in the Beta 2 and developers are still working on optimizing the Firefox memory use, speed and reliability.

Related links :
SDZ news article by misterti (Fr)
All the features presented by Mozilla
The Beta 2 release notes
Firefox security add-ons

Mozilla Weave... Mozilla is trying to be more social

The newest Project of Mozilla labs was "Weave". It allows the user to save his browser settings on Mozilla servers (Favorites, sessions ,passwords...etc..) and be able to load it wherever he is.

What are they preparing ?
Mozilla labs are trying to make some Mozilla-hosted online services which means that Mozilla is trying to be more social. Weave project still a prototype and Mozilla labs are planning for the future. Early in 2008, Mozilla Labs will try to offer some initial Web service APIs for developers to build on and will enable sharing on applicable interfaces.

Privacy : The biggest challenge
Many visitors asked about Privacy in Mozilla Labs Blog. Developers were very conscious of this issue because putting such important individual data on the web is risky. Weave developers answered these questions:

• We currently encrypt on the client all data that gets placed on the server, with an encryption passphrase that only the user knows.
• We kept the server intentionally dumb and standards-based, so that anyone can set up a server for themselves and/or their friends or company.

How to use it?
First you have to create an account in this website https://services.mozilla.com/ then you download Weave extention. Once you sign in you can install the extension then you need to save your settings on you hard disk. You risk loosing them. It's still a prototype!
Second, The software will ask you to put your email and password. Then will ask you to put a passphrase to encrypte all your data.
Finally, you make your first synchronisation then it will be automatically done every 30 minuts.

Related Links
Create a Mozilla Weave account
Introducing Weave

Firefox Security add-ons

When it comes to security, Firefox is the best browser. Not only because of the way that browser is built and how fast all bugs were fixed in it, but also because of its add-ons. Security add-ons are very effective to detect viruses before download, stop any sort of malicious scripts that could be injected to your computer. It also advice you which site you should avoid in order to be away from any bad cookies that could come from it.

Dr.Web anti-virus checker
This add-on will put an end to your doubts. If you're hesitating whether to download a file found on the Internet or not. You have just to check it with this add-on if it's virus-free or if it's infected.
Download


NoScript
IT blocks Java and javascript form being executed only for trusted websites. It's very effective against XSS attacks (cross-site scripting attacks).
Download


Mcfee Site advisor
It allows you to identify potentially dangerous websites. Mcfee rely on a bot that download files from websites and check if there are any malware.. It uses a small bar in your browser that turns into green if the site is clean, Yellow: if you have to be careful and RED if the website is potentially dangerous.
Download

Vulnerability found and fixed in Firefox and Seamonkey

It is the reason behind the new Firefox update (2.0.0.7). It's sort of an infecting code could be excuted in the browser via QuickTime links. This vulnerability is described as critical because it could shut off your system. It allows the attacker to inject and execute codes into your computer, install malware...

On his blog Petko D. Petkov reported that QuickTime Media-Link files contain a qtnext attribute that could be used on Windows systems to launch the default browser with arbitrary command-line options. When the default browser is Firefox 2.0.0.6 or earlier use of the -chrome option allowed a remote attacker to run script commands with the full privileges of the user. This could be used to install malware, steal local data, or otherwise corrupt the victim's computer.

How to fix it? just update your Firefox browser to 2.0.0.7

The reporter's blog
Mozilla foundation security advisory
Update your browser

A useful Firefox extention : Foxycode

What is your text editor.. MS. Word? ...OpenOffice Writer ? imagine that you have all the tools you want in your Browser .. Helping you typing and editing texts in forms ... Like those in Wikipedia ( using WikiCode) or in ordinary forums (using BBcode for example )...


The author's Overview:

FoxyCode is an extension for Firefox, Mozilla’s Web browser. This extension offers you many ways to insert advanced tags into your forms in order to format easily your posts in forums and blog. FoxyCode supports 5 languages:

• BBCode
• NCode
• WikiCode (WikiMedia/DokuWiki)
• ZCode
• XHTML

FoxyCode appears either as a context menu, or in the form of a toolbar. The context menu is a heritage from other extensions like BBCodeXtra. Toolbar is a more innovative concept which offers an access even faster to insertion functions. It is particularly useful in quick reply forms where there are no javascript functions to insert tags.

In addition to basic functions like centered text, bold and italic, FoxyCode offers you functions enabling youto insert combinations of tags, like a centered image with a clickable link, and this, in only some clicks, as the screen shows it hereafter.

You can get this extension for free here.

The Browser Wars

We have to take for granted the existence of a navigators war ! And before we choose which side we will be let's take look at the history of that war...
How things got started
In 1993 , it was the first web browser that have ever seen "light". It was the NCSA Mosaic.. But it didn't last for long.. Because June 1994 was marked by the appearance of new Web browser that made an end to mosaic by recruiting most of its developers !


Netscape is taking over !
In 1995 Microsoft was preparing for the big move : Windows95 with launching the "Microsoft Network" .. In the same period of time Internet is moving with big steps.. Specially after the appearance of the JAVA language that made Netscape Navigator more sophisticated.. Microsoft felt the threat of having this navigator taking over so they bought the liscence of the "SpyGlass Mosaic" ( not to mix with NCSA Mosaic) to create the Internet Explorer 1.0 included in the Windows95 Plus Pack in August 1995 .. Three months later , the IE 2.0 was declaring the war with Netscape navigator...

The Real War (I) :


The Browsers race went crazy for some years.. New versions were appearing every two or three months. Both Netscape navigator and IE developers were so hurried with making new version and their work lacked many essential details ; many errors and security holes appeared on surface !
The scene of war marked an act made by IE developers while the IE 4.0 release on 1997.. A huge "e" Logo was hanged in the Netscape local.. Netscape employees reacted and posted a huge dinosaur marked with « Netscape 72, Microsoft 18 » ( to show their market dominance).
IE 4.0 was a real turnover in this war.. the IE's marketplace value is boosting and that was a result of a whole intelligent strategy with illegal actions :

• The economic model of Netscape consisted on offering the navigator and selling other server applications. Microsoft used that point so they sold the same services for free
• Microsoft signed license contracts with hardware manufactures that obliged them to post the IE icon on the desktop. And would penalize them if they install Netscape navigator on.
• Microsoft signed a license contract with AOL so they create a IE-only-compatible version of their product
• Microsoft released a WYSIWYG web page editor (MS.Front page) that only gets along with IE
• Microsoft used its monopoly on the operating system marketplace to include IE into the windows for free. Actually the Windows revenue was enough to cover the costs of developing IE unlike Netscape navigator which has no other way to cover these costs.

All these actions have as consequences the fall of the Netscape in 1998. But before it falls the Netscape company has bought her code source.

IE alone in the battle field :
After the fall of Netscape navigator, IE has no serious competitors. Therefore, there was no more important browsers innovations. IE 6.0 released in 2001 was a real mess !!
Navigators war (2) !


Late 2004, the flame of war got lit up again by the release of Firefox , based on Gecko ( Netscape navigator source code) The project was lunched by the old Netscape employees who joined the OpenSource Community with their Mozilla Foundation.
Late 2005, after 50 million downloads, Firefox started to take over IE in the marketplace by 10%.
In 2006, Microsoft hasn't updated IE 6.0 yet. It started to provoke Web developers and security managers complaints! which maid the statistics go more to the Firefox side.
Late in 2007, IE 7.0 was released , expert said that it will make another IE get back in his feet in browsers battle !

Finally, we hope this war will still be going on so we can enjoy the fruits of browsers innovations

Why should we use firefox ?

How many navigators do we have to try until we find "the one"?.. And how many time do we have to risk our most vital informations while surfing the net ?.. I'm hearing everyday about new technics of hacking VIA our navigators.. It's called the " fishing "... using injection in our navigators that brings our confidential data to the hacker's hand.
A way to prevent that ? Just use a reliable navigator that's all!

Well.. the security issue is the main problem with the navigators but it's not the only thing ! Actually we need a browser which has some extra features that make our Internet use more fluid and funny ... Actually the fact that Firefox is an OpenSource software made everybody able to take part of developing new features and Add-ons .. and I think that these addons made Firefox so special ! Imagine that You have a text-editing tool bar compatible with BBcode and W3, a mp3 player integrated with the navigator, a spell-check with any language you want, a RSS feed container and more... Nevertheless, tabs allow one browser window to contain multiple pages!

Setting up Firefox takes five minutes (and it's free!). The installation imports all your bookmarks, settings, etc. from Internet Explorer. After installing, you can download add-ons from the official site.
Are you convinced?... now what you've got to do is to is to get Firefox from the link on the right of this blog !