Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 31, 2006 by CyberNet.

There are so many Web sites that I try to keep up with that it can be difficult to find the time to read them all. There are sites like ChangeNotes.com that will monitor sites for you and send an email when they find any changes. The bad part about sites like ChangeNotes is that they only check once or twice a day for changes. Just like my RSS feeds I want something that can monitor for changes every 30 minutes.

There are two extensions for Firefox that do just that but both are different from each other. Check4Change (pictured above) allows you to right-click on any site and have it monitor for changes. You must leave the site open to make this work and when it finds that the page has changed it will show the C4C icon on the tab.

The Page Update Checker has the ability to check for Web sites as well but you don’t need to leave the site open. If it finds a change you will see a little pop-up box similar to the one pictured above. It also has a new feature that will try to point out what has changed since the last time you viewed it. I find this extension much more useful than the Check4Change one but it all depends on how you plan on using them. The Page Update Checker is designed more for longterm use while Check4Change is more of a one-time use thing.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on December 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

Today is a very big day for Mozilla! We have Firefox 1.5.0.9 and 2.0.0.1 available for download as well as Thunderbird 1.5.0.9. As I mentioned yesterday there are 183 bugs fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.1: 42 are crashers, 3 are memory leaks, 41 are regressions and 4 are privacy-related bugs. In the comments yesterday Tom asked if this was a lot of bug fixes or if it was typical for a minor update. Since it is the first release after a major update I was expecting there to be a lot of bug fixes so this isn’t surprising to me, but 1.5.0.8 only had 9 bug fixes from the previous 1.5.0.7 so this update for 2.0.0.1 has quite a few changes. Since there are so many changes don’t be surprised if some of your extensions have problems.

James pointed out in the comments this morning that Mozilla plans to make the changes live on the website at 10AM and the built-in updates will be activated around 5PM (both times are Pacific Time). Below you will find the downloads for each of the applications and they use a load balancing URL to access their FTP. Most sites that are already linking to the builds use an address that looks something like “ftp.mozilla.com…” but this one is “releases.mozilla.com…”  which is supposed to spread the load out across the mirrors (or so I’ve been told).

Alright, here are the download links and if you have any problems with extensions please let us know so that others can be a little more cautious while installing the new releases:

–Firefox 1.5.0.9 Download–

–Firefox 2.0.0.1 Download–

–Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 Download–

With all of that being said, work on Firefox 1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2 has already begun and they are looking for an end of January or early February release. Congratulations to the whole Mozilla team for another set of fine releases and keep up the good work!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on December 09, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox is becoming even more standards compliant with its latest nightly of the trunk since it passes the Acid 2 Web Standards Test. It isn’t the first browser to do so but it joins some of the best such as Konqueror, Opera, Safari, iCab, OmniWeb, Shiira, and Prince. Some of those you may not have heard of, because I didn’t either, but they are pretty interesting. I retrieved the list of Acid 2 compliant browsers from Wikipedia.

There are still some browsers, such as Internet Explorer 7, that do not pass the test but as you can see to the right it is pretty darn close. Okay, so maybe that is a little exaggeration but one day it might just pass the Acid 2 test…but by that time we’ll be onto the Acid 6 test.

So why is the Acid 2 test so important? A lot of people are always wondering that and the Acid 2 Guide explains the significance:

It has been written to help browser vendors make sure their products correctly support features that web designers would like to use. These features are part of existing standards but haven’t been interoperably supported by major browsers. Acid2 tries to change this by challenging browsers to render Acid2 correctly before shipping.

Acid2 is a complex web page. It uses features that are not in common use yet, because of lack of support, and it crams many tests into one page. The aim has been to make it simple for developers and users to check if a browser passes the test. If it does, the smiley face on the left will appear. If something is wrong, the face will be distorted and/or shown partly in red.

In that guide it also walks you through all of the code that it uses for the individual parts that make up the smiley face once they are put together. It is definitely interesting to read.

If you want to test out the latest nightly version of Firefox 3 that passes the Acid 2 test you can download the portable version here. To use the portable version just extract the download and browse for the FirefoxPortable.exe file. Once you’re done testing it out you can just delete the folder.

Also, the recently released Firefox 3 Alpha 1 does not pass the test because the reflow build had not been merged with the trunk at that point. If you only like to play with the milestone releases you’ll have to wait until Alpha 2 in order to see an Acid 2 compliant Firefox build.

Thanks to natmaster for pointing this out in the comments last night!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

We’ve shown you how easy it can be to retrieve passwords stored in your browser, provided that someone has access to your computer. Well, that’s not the only way for a hacker to gain access to some of the information stored in the Firefox Password Manager. A new flaw that was just revealed late last week can retrieve some of your passwords using a very small amount of JavaScript.

How does it work? Here’s a quick example of what could happen:

1. User visits a site such as their own blog hosted on a popular network (something like Blogger).
2. They login, and have Firefox remember their username/password.
3. They visit someone else’s blog on the same domain, and a username/password form appears on the site. As expected Firefox autofills the information for the user (both the username and password) so that they can just hit enter to login.
4. The site is able to use some JavaScript to store the username and password without the user even hitting the Submit button. This is done by having the JavaScript go and retrieve the values located in the text box (document.<form>.<field>.value).

This flaw can only be used to expose the username and password that is entered into a form, and Firefox automatically does this for people who have stored a password. That means your information could be surrendered without you even realizing it.

If you want to try this out yourself, Heise has setup a demo site where you makeup a username/password, and then have Firefox store it. Then when you go to the “evil” page, Firefox will automatically fill out the form and a popup will reveal the username and password you stored.

To get around this happening, it is recommended that you either don’t store passwords in Firefox or you disable JavaScript. Of course, this is really only an issue on a “network” of sites that all have the same domain. The reason for that is because Firefox will not, for example, fill in your bank’s username and password here on CyberNet. So just be aware of what passwords you have stored, and you can always have Firefox prompt you for a master password before it autofills any information.

An alternative that xpgeek pointed out in the forum is to install the Secure Login extension to prevent Firefox from automatically filling in password forms.

Note: This vulnerability also affects the Safari browser.

– What’s the Most Secure Browser? –

I decided to lookup on Secunia, who tracks vulnerabilities for more than 14,000 applications, to see which browser is currently the most secure. Here’s what I came up with:

• Opera 9.x has had 8 advisories, all of which have been patched. [source]
• Firefox 2.0.x has had 13 advisories, and there are 6 that have not been patched. [source]
• Internet Explorer 7.x has had 14 advisories, and there are 8 that have not been patched. [source]

You can take that information for what it’s worth, but it goes to show that most browsers constantly have security-related flaws.

Source: Heise Security [via Slashdot]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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We noted Firefox 3’s spectacular eight million downloads in a day when discussing the recent launch of IE9, and that mark shall live on as a record for another day. Firefox 4 looks to have a had a thoroughly successful debut, going past the five million milestone within the first 24 hours of its release, but it hasn’t quite been able to overshadow its predecessor. And before you go comparing its numbers to the latest Internet Explorer, do be cognizant that FF4 released on a wider set of platforms, rendering direct stat comparisons a little dicey. That’s not stopping StatCounter, however, who notes that the latest Firefox already has a 1.95 percent share of the browser market, almost exactly double what IE9 can claim so far. Better get working on that XP compatibility, eh Microsoft?

Continue reading Firefox 4 clocks up 5 million downloads within first 24 hours, fails to beat Firefox 3 download record

Firefox 4 clocks up 5 million downloads within first 24 hours, fails to beat Firefox 3 download record originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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