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Archives: Firefox

News, tips, and pointers to extensions for the deservedly popular Firefox browser.

Surprising browser stats

This is interesting. According to SiteMeter, the excellent service I use to monitor my Web traffic, 31.8% of all visitors to this site are now using Firefox. That's up from 24.76% last October. While the Firefox share grew 7%, the share for Internet Explorer 6.X dropped almost exactly the same amount, slipping from 64.88 to...

Tip of the day: Move back to the last page

Your hands are on the keyboard and you want to quickly return to the previous page you were viewing in your browser window. Don't move your hand to the mouse - just press the Backspace key, which has the same effect as clicking the Back button on your browser's toolbar. (This...

Tip of the day: Save a tree with Print Preview

I'm on a crusade to encourage every Windows user to remove the Print button from the Internet Explorer toolbar. Why? Because more often than not, clicking the Print button causes you to waste paper by printing at least one more page than you really need. (Invariably, you'll get a blank...

Tip of the day: Stop wasting paper when printing Web pages

Sometimes you want to print just part of a Web page, but clicking the Print button spits out page after page of information you don't want or need. Here's an easy solution that works the same in Internet Explorer and Firefox: Use your mouse to select the text you want...

Top ten Firefox browser annoyances

This list of top ten Firefox browser annoyances is perhaps the lamest thing I've read all year, even using the how-low-can-you-go bar that I assign to anything published in the Inquirer. No splash screen? No IM client? The Thunderbird e-mail client needs a new name? These are "some of the...

More on Firefox Critical Updates

In the comments to my previous post, Ryan Walters notes that he's running Firefox 1.0 and doesn't see any update icon. That's not good. Here's what the generic icon looks like: When you click the green icon, it checks for updates. After it completes the check it displays this dialog...

Firefox exploits now in the wild

F-Secure reports: Proof-of-concept exploits for the popular Mozilla and Firefox web browsers have been posted on public mailing lists. They target the following vulnerabilities: - Code execution through favicons link- Arbitrary code execution from Firefox sidebar panel These exploits allow the attacker to run arbitrary commands on Firefox before version...

Tip of the day: Four shortcuts that work in IE or Firefox

Here are four handy shortcuts that work identically in Internet Explorer and Firefox: Save a favorite Web site To add the current page to your list of Favorites (Internet Explorer) or bookmarks (Firefox), press Ctrl+D. You can move on to other pages, knowing that the location is saved for future reference. To recall...

Is this new Firefox feature a security hole?

Earlier today I posted an item about the "link prefetch" feature recently introduced in Firefox and used by Google for all searches run using Firefox. To see exactly how this works, I performed a simple experiment. First, I completely deleted the contents of the Cache folder in my Firefox profile....

WaPo's new security blog finds a Firefox flaw

The Washington Post has just rolled out a new blog, Security Fix. In one of the first posts, Brian Krebs describes an e-mail he received recently, which was forwarded by someone who was concerned about phishing scams: The phishing e-mail my contact sent tried to hijack my computer in addition...

Google adds a (dangerous) Firefox tune-up

From the Google Blog: Now Google's faster than ever on Firefox and Mozilla browsers. When you do a search on these browsers, we instruct them to download your top search result in advance, so if you click on it, you'll get to that page even more quickly. I'm not so...

Uh-oh. Some people don't like criticism of Firefox

In the comments to yesterday’s post on spyware being delivered to Firefox users, Suzi of Spyware Warrior says: Excellent analysis and write up, Ed. Your write up is quite a contrast with this newsletter from Spywareinfo.com. I'd be interested in your comments regarding the editor's article on Firefox and spyware....

Spyware via Firefox? It's true.

Last weekend I passed along sketchy details of a news report that claimed spyware purveyors have found a way to get to Windows users even when they use Firefox as their primary browser. I’ve now had a chance to test this claim and I can report that it’s true. The original article included...

Spyware in Firefox?

Vitalsecurity.org has an interesting report of a potential spyware/adware infestation that directly attacks Firefox users, using the Sun Java Virtual Machine as its installation engine. (In the comments, a security expert from the Mozilla Foundation notes that this exploit could attack Opera users as well.) I’ll look at this in more detail when I get...

Firefox update not so automatic

Dear Firefox developers: When you need to publish a 12-step instruction sheet for the "Automatic Update" to version 1.0.1 (with one step further broken down into three additional steps to be used if the little red Check Now icon is missing), it’s not an automatic update. I’m just sayin’…...

Block those Firefox popups!

My logs show a lot of people visiting this site looking for advice on how to stop Firefox pop-ups and pop-unders, which seem to have increased in frequency lately. Here’s an interesting bit of inside information from Asa Dotzler of the Mozilla Organization: A number of pundits and bloggers have been...

More Firefox security vulnerabilities

Secunia’s Vulnerability Report for Mozilla Firefox 1.x shows seven advisories for 2005, making a total of 11 since the browser was officially released last November. Three of the 11 issues (27%) are unpatched, and five are shown as partially fixed. In the same period of time, Secunia has issued 15 advisories...

How fast is Firefox growing?

It’s all in the headline, and who you want to listen to. VNUNet.com: Firefox market share rockets ZDNet UK: Firefox' growth starts to slip Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler notes that Firefox has been downloaded more than 25 million times since its 1.0 release last November and says: “As Firefox and other...

Firefox update is available

If you use Firefox, get Firefox 1.0.1. It includes some important security patches (including a fix that disabled IDN and thus neutralizes the security exploit I wrote about here). It’s a very small download and well worth it. The release notes say: “Prior to installing Firefox 1.0.1, please ensure that...

More on Firefox pop-ups

I’ve seen a few more pop-ups in Firefox recently (not very many). Apparently I’m not alone. The Bugzilla database has this list of sites with pop-ups that get past the Firefox pop-up blocker.  ...

Firefox spyware to show up this year?

The Linux/open source publication NewsForge interviewed several security experts who believe that Firefox spyware will show up this year: Webroot Vice President of Threat Research Richard Stiennon said he expects there will be spyware for Firefox this year, adding that while the browser was designed to be immune from the...

A workaround for the Firefox IDN vulnerability

Update: The fix that is documented in the original advisory and recommended by Mozilla doesn’t work reliably. As soon as you restart Firefox, you;re vulnerable again. Worse, the about:config file continues to show that you’ve properly disabled the setting. This issue is throughly discussed in this thread on the MozillaZine Forums,...

Oops! This Firefox security exploit is a doozy

Last month, I predicted that as Firefox became more popular it would face more and more attacks from the Internet’s dark side. A security bulletin issued today appears to identify the first widespread security exploit aimed at non-Microsoft browsers. Ironically, you’re protected if you use Internet Explorer, but you’re vulnerable if you use most Mozilla-based...

Firefox tweaks: one size doesn't fit all

I've seen a bunch of links to various tweaks intended to make Firefox run faster. Boing Boing probably spread this go-faster tweak for Firefox farther than anyone. In addition, Brian Livingston published a lengthy Secrets of Firefox 1.0 article in his Windows Secrets newsletter last month. I've been writing about...

Firefox is not a security cure-all

I have lost count of the number of times I have read reviewers telling people that they should switch to Firefox because it is secure, unlike Internet Explorer. This is simply untrue. Mozilla-based browsers are somewhat more secure than IE, for two main reasons: one, they don't support ActiveX controls...