Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on June 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

It looked like Mozilla was ready to ship Firefox 3 with the last Release Candidate, but a critical bug surfaced that they couldn’t ignore. So Mozilla is rushing out a Firefox 3 RC3 that fixes only this one bug, and only Mac OS X users need to make the upgrade. Firefox 3 RC3 for both Windows and Linux are the same as Firefox 3 RC2.

It turns out that the bug has to do with the recent update Apple issued to their operating system. For that reason you have to be running Mac OS X 10.5.3 in order to experience the problem, and even still there is no guarantee that it will happen to you. Here are the steps one user said they could take to reproduce the problem:

1. Delete the Firefox profile folder located at: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox
2. Start Firefox
3. Close Firefox
4. Delete the Firefox profile folder (again) located at: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox
5. Start Firefox, and after a few seconds it will hang

The problem is also said to affect users of Firefox 2.0.0.14, and the fix has already been prepared for Firefox 2.0.0.15 which is slated for release on June 24th. The release of Firefox 3.0 is still on track for June 2008.

Mac users can download the latest Firefox 3 RC3 by selecting their language below. Remember, there’s no need for Windows and Linux users to download this because it’s exactly the same as Firefox 3 RC2.

[via Mozilla Links]
Thanks for the tip Omar!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on January 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Safe and anonymous Web browsing is important to a lot of people. I can understand that you may not think about security so much when you’re at home because you don’t think about people intercepting packets of information sent from your computer to a destination. However, when doing important tasks like banking or even just browsing the Internet in a more public place, you should really think about stepping up the security.

So how can you be a little safer when you’re on the Internet? Actually, one big step would be to use Tor which provides some anonymity for your Internet connection. What does it do?

Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves.

Basically you establish an encrypted connection with a chain of Tor computers that eventually connect to your destination. So how safe is this?…

A branch of the U.S. Navy uses Tor for open source intelligence gathering, and one of its teams used Tor while deployed in the Middle East recently. Law enforcement uses Tor for visiting or surveilling web sites without leaving government IP addresses in their web logs, and for security during sting operations.

Downloading and installing Tor is not a difficult task, especially with graphical instructions like these for Windows. However, if you’re like most people you will probably just want to use it for your Web browser…and there are two great solutions for doing that!

 –TorPark (Homepage / Mirror [version 1.5.0.7a])–

This is a portable Web browser that can be used anywhere that you go. Unfortunately it is still based on Firefox 1.5.0.7 so you don’t get all of the nifty features that Firefox 2 has to offer, but I did read that they have plans on upgrading it to version 1.5.0.9 shortly. If privacy and security is what you’re looking for then I’m sure you’ll fall in love with this browser.

Essentially it is Just a version of Firefox that includes some extensions to make your browsing a lot safer. Here are the extensions that it includes by default:

• Adblock – Blocks ads on websites.
• Firesomething – used to rebrand the browser as Torpark.
• Flush Tor Circuit – drops your current Tor connection and creates a new one.
• Live IP Address – Shows your IP in the address bar.
• Torbutton – Easily enable or disable the use of the Tor network.
• NoScript – Blocks scripts from running on websites without your approval.
• It also comes with a bunch of language translation extensions installed.

While you could make your own version of this secure browser by installing a few extension, I do have to admit that it is nice having it already packaged for me to use.

–OperaTor (Homepage / Mirror [version 2.1])–

You probably wouldn’t enjoy using the TorPack mentioned above if you’re an Opera browser fan. Don’t worry though, there is a version of Opera that utilizes the Tor network as well…and it is portable! All you have to do is download and run the included OperaTor.exe file and the browser, along with Tor, will be up and running.

It is based on Opera 9.10 so you get the latest security protection including Opera’s new anti-fraud feature. I actually prefer to use OperaTor over TorPack myself and it’s what I have sitting on my USB drive right now. So whenever I’m in a public place I whip it out and feel much more confident about the Web surfing that I do.

–Overview–

 That’s not all you can do to try and keep yourself safe. Last year I wrote a post that listed 10 Firefox extensions you can use that offer several security benefits. Safety and security are serious matters in a world where identify theft continues to rise, so make sure you take extra measures to keep your data safe, especially when the risks are abnormally high, like in public places.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

The other day, the Web Standards Project released the Acid3 test that will push browsers to a new level. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the Acid2 test which has become famous because of the often discombobulated block-like smiley face most browsers produce.

Browsers such as Safari, Konqueror, and Opera already pass the Acid2 test, and when Firefox 3 is released later this year it will as well. Microsoft has also put some work into Internet Explorer 8 so that it will pass the Acid2 test when it is eventually made available. All of the main browsers will be passing the Acid2 test about 3 years after it was initially released.

Now it is time to move on to bigger and better things… Acid3! The test is not nearly as cool as the smiley face in my opinion, but it does extensively test different aspects of the browser’s rendering engine. It runs a hundred different tests on the browser, and the result should look just like this:

This new test targets DOM scripting which is frequently used by Web 2.0 services for advanced interaction. Here’s what the Web Standards Project said about it in their press release:

The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and online office applications.

We thought it would be fun to test out the browsers that are currently available to see how they stack up to each other on the Acid3 test.

–The Browser Test–

Here are some things to note about our tests:

• All of these browsers were tested on Windows Vista.
• The browsers started with a clean profile and no extensions or add-ons were installed.
• The results below are sorted from the best to the worst.
• Click on any of the screenshots for a full-size version.

Safari 3.1 (Nightly r30626): 86/100

Firefox 3 (Nightly 03/04/2008): 67/100

Opera 9.5 (Beta 9815): 65/100

Firefox 2.0.0.12: 50/100

Opera 9.26: 46/100

Safari 3.04 (Beta 523.15): 39/100

Internet Explorer 7: 12/100

–Overview–

So it looks like the nightly builds of Safari really take the crown for this test. It was the closest browser to perfectly complete the test by quite a large margin, with Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 coming in second and third place. It’s obvious from the results posted above that the current stable builds of all the browsers are definitely not close to passing the Acid3 test.

If you’re on a Mac or Linux machine I would love to hear what you’re results are in some of the other browsers that are available.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

About two weeks ago Mozilla made an attempt at a Guinness World Record shooting for the most number of downloads for an application in a 24-hour period. They managed to do it with Firefox 3, and the official number was 8,002,530 downloads! That’s about three million more than what Mozilla was hoping for, and six million more than Firefox 2 was downloaded in the first 24-hours. I think it goes without saying that they were successful.

The Spread Firefox site currently says that there have been more than 28 million downloads of the open source browser, and there are 160 million active users:

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. On June 18, 2008 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

Ever since Firefox was launched in 2004 we’ve relied on our community to help us spread the word, and thanks to projects including crop circles, newspaper ads, giant stickers, videos, blogs and more we now have 160 million+ users in more than 230 countries.

I’ve had at least a dozen people ask me how many downloads Mozilla needed to set the record, and the short answer is that there was no record like this that had ever existed. So they would have probably made it regardless of whether it was 1 million or 8 million. What matters now is whether they will make it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Either way Mozilla got what they wanted out of the record attempt, and that was to spread the word about the browser. Here we sit 28 million downloads later, and I don’t think there is much doubt that they succeeded in getting the word out about the new release.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on January 24, 2008 by CyberNet.

We’ve known for a little while that Mozilla had plans to design a mobile browser, and now we are getting some insight as to where they are headed with it. As it turns out they are actually designing two different mobile versions, one for touch screen devices (iPhone-style) and another for smaller screens (like cellphones).

From what I’ve seen they both look really nice, and with Mozilla’s existing fanbase I’m sure the browser would get adopted rather quickly. The one designed for smaller screens doesn’t really introduce anything that we haven’t already seen, and for that reason I wanted to really point out the one designed for touch screen devices. It, well, appears to have borrowed a lot of design ideas from Apple’s Safari browser on the iPhone:

(Click to Enlarge)
 

I guess Apple should look at this as quite a compliment since the Mobile Firefox will be inheriting many of the design considerations put in place by Apple. What I’m anxious to see is whether Mozilla has plans to release an iPhone version of the browser once the iPhone SDK is made available.

From what I gather the mobile browser’s bookmarks will be synchronized with the desktop via the Weave service that was recently introduced. This is a smart move by Mozilla, but they aren’t the first to do that either (*cough* Opera Link *cough*).

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on these projects to see if Mozilla can help define the mobile browser market as much as they have done for the desktop browser.

[via Mozilla Links]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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