Internet Explorer 7's RSS Icon

After a long consideration, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Team finally settled on....



That's right. It is the Mozilla Firefox's RSS icon.

From the post:

This seemed like a very good idea, so in November, Amar and I took a visit down to Silicon Valley to meet with John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla to get their thoughts on it. We all agreed that it’s in the user’s best interest to have one common icon to represent RSS and RSS-related features in a browser.

I’m excited to announce that we’re adopting the icon used in Firefox. John and Chris were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn’t the first time that we’ve worked with the Mozilla team to exchange ideas and encourage consistency between browsers, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

I am very happy to see collaboration between Internet Explorer developers and Mozilla Firefox developers. It will surely benefit the internet users greatly by creating and establishing standard among most (if not all) internet browsers.

I know it is just a tiny RSS icon, not a major achievement between IE Team and Mozilla. However all achievements start with small steps.

Google + Opera?

There is a rumor going around that Google is planning to acquire Opera Software ASA, the company who developed Opera Browser.

Gary Price said:

Dirson's New Google Blog links to a French language blog by Pierre Chappaz (former president of Yahoo! Europe), says that the acquisition is going down but to use the terms given in Google's mechanical translation of the post, this info needs to be "taken with precaution."

I agree that this rumor need to be "taken with precaution", but this is a very nice rumor. It made me think what would be like if Google actually acquired Opera.

I believe if Google acquired Opera, there is a good chance that Google will open Opera's source to the public. It would greatly reduces Internet Explorer's marketshare while creating fair number of good internet browsers. That way, no single browser will dominate the browsers market; thus, creating a heathly competition among browsers. Frankly, I don't believe in "size-fit-all" browser, because there is no such thing.

There are some other speculation that Google will rebrand Opera as "GBrowser" and use knowledge of both Firefox developers and Opera developers to improve it. Not a bad speculation but unlikely since there is no need for Google to make "GBrowser" if Google already got their men and women working on Mozilla Firefox.

Another speculation is Google will take Opera out of the market and move all Opera developers over to Firefox team. Well, after laughing on the floor for a while, I would say "fat chance." There is no good reason for Google to take Opera out of the market because taking out Opera will not help the competition in the browsers market.

I hope this is more than just a rumor because I am pretty excited to see what Google would do with Opera. I think it is a great idea for Google to acquire Opera. Google is a good company and Opera is a good internet browser. They would make a good couple.

Mozilla Firefox's Long Title Bug

Recently there been news going around about so-called "exploit" that can crash Mozilla Firefox and cause buffer overflows which allows hackers to break into Firefox. I like to point something out:

This "exploit" is, in my opinion, merely just an overrated bug. In most of cases, Firefox didn't crash. All it did is enlarged history.dat to the point (40 megabytes or more) where Firefox get painfully slow start-up. The slow start-up is caused by Firefox loading a huge file such as history.dat. Deleting the history.dat will fix the problem.

It only can be called exploit if the buffer overflow actually happens or at least Firefox crashing (Denial of Service). There were some cases of Firefox crashing, but not often enough or widespread enough to be considered DOS exploit. Heck, sometimes large PDF files crashed my Firefox, but does that mean the PDF reader has DOS exploit?

At worse, it is just a weak DOS exploit, as stated by Secunia. At best, a minor nuisance.

But I am not saying we shouldn't be worrying about this bug. I believe it should be fixed, just like all bugs needed to be fixed. The title should be truncated in the first place as part of good practice. In fact, every single thing we put into buffers should be truncated, no matter how long it SHOULD be, just make it as long as it HAVE to be. It should be standard practice among all developers... make the darn thing fit in the buffer.

My point is... the media tends to overrate the bugs because they have no clue how the bugs work. So when you read about the bugs in the media, check out Secura or Mozilla's site before you make decision. Secura and Mozilla definity know what they talking about, not the press.

Firefox Logo In The Sky

Look! It's a bird! No, it's a plane! No, it's a... Firefox logo!


The Hubble Space Telescope took this photo of the variable star V838 Monocerotis which lies near the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy.

If you rotate it 180 degrees, you might will notice strikingly similar to Firefox logo.



I know this is an old news (March 2004), but still funny news nevertheless.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Final Released!

That's right, folks. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is finally released!

Basic new features are (as given by MozillaZine): "Firefox 1.5 introduces several new features, including an improved software update system, faster Back / Forward page navigation, a new options to clear private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned Options/Preferences window and more robust popup blocking. Standards support is also improved, with support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), JavaScript 1.6 and additional CSS properties. Accessibility is much improved (including new DHTML accessibility features), security has been enhanced and Mac OS X support has also been improved."

For more detailed and completed list of bug fixes and features, read the Burning Edge's List.

FYI: For anyone who already using Firefox 1.5 RC3, you don't need to update since RC3 is now final version.

Canvascape

As reported by Slashdot: "Benjamin Joffe has developed Canvascape - "3D Walker", a simple javascript browser based 3D first person game engine that shows off the capabilities of the Canvas tag found in Firefox, Safari and Opera."

It worked beautifully in Firefox 1.5 RC3, but painfully in Safari and Opera 9.0 Preview (because those two browsers are just getting started with canvas). I think this is a great way to show off what Mozilla Firefox 1.5's new canvas tag feature can do. Plus, it also show off what canvas can do as multimedia applications. It can provide interactive graphics without the need of using resource-heavy flash.

I see great potential for canvas.

Microsoft: Free Softwares Are Anti-Commercial

Recently, Microsoft admitted that they successfully attempted to remove references of free softwares from an U.N document, known as Vienna Conclusions (2.8 MB PDF). The document, presented at last week's UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conference, discussed about issues around Information Technology and creativity.

In original document, it stated:

Increasingly, revenue is generated not by selling content and digital works, as they can be freely distributed at almost no cost, but by offering services on top of them. The success of the free software model is one example...

But after Microsoft's request, the statement been changed to:

Increasingly, revenue is generated by offering services on top of contents...

The reason why Microsoft asked? Their answer is:

While we largely agree on the point that more choices should be given to creators and users (and the subsequent conclusions on Creative Commons or Wikipedia) we explicitly disagree on the notion that "increasingly, revenue is generated not by selling content and digital works, as they can be freely distributed at almost no cost, but by offering services on top of them. The success of the Free Software Model is one example" and propose to delete this text part completely, as it contains only an one-sided perspective on the ICT industry. The rationale for this is, that the aim of free software is not to enable a healthy business on software but rather to make it even impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product.

Basically, Microsoft just plainly said that all free softwares are anti-commercial and bad for businesses. But many developers today know this statement is false since there are several successful free softwares that actually make profits for the companies who made them. For example, Red Hat is a for-profit company that developed free softwares (Linux, etc.) and still maintains to bring in profit by offering services on top of those free softwares (as stated by the original document).

It saddens me to see Microsoft propaganda influenced the decision of supposedly-impartial international body. Well, just like what FSFE president Georg Greve said... "Just another monopolist trying to uphold their monopoly by preventing freedom of markets -- which is what Free Software really aims at."

Reducing Firefox's Memory Use?

Federico Mena Quintero proposed a proof-of-concept to reduce Mozilla's memory usage (Firefox is based on Mozilla codes). He used XFree86 on Linux to prove it is possible to reduce Mozilla's memory usage by factor of 5.5.

His method of reducing memory usage is done by dealing with how Mozilla handle images in cache. Right now, both Mozilla and Firefox handle images by uncompressing them and storing them in cache for every open tab. It is designed to give boost to performance (but at the expense of memory). So Quintero proposed to uncompress images and store them in cache, ONLY when the user is looking at the images. Meaning, he proposed to delete uncompressed images and uncompress new images in cache as soon the user scroll away from old images toward new images.

For example, supposed you are looking at a page with 3 large images, and your screen is only big enough for one image at a time. You are looking at image A which is an uncompressed image in your cache. Then you scroll down toward image B. While you are scrolling down, Mozilla will delete uncompressed copy of image A, then uncompress image B for viewing. Then you scroll down even further down to image C. While you are scrolling down, Mozilla will delete uncompressed copy of image B, then uncompress image C. The process are the same when scrolling back up too.

This method successfully reduced memory usage that now (modified) Mozilla doesn't have to keep ALL uncompressed images in cache. Just keep the ones that you are looking at.

However, there are performance hits. Everything you scroll to another image, Mozilla would have to go through uncompressing, painting and deleting processes all over again. Quintero admitted that "Scrolling is a bit jerky if you yank the scrollbar's thumb up and down very quickly. The jerkiness is barely noticeable if you use the scroll wheel or the scrollbar's arrows at about the same rate as you would use while reading a web page."

Unfortunely, some people don't scroll as slow as they read. Sometime I scrolled down really fast just to see what's near the bottom or looking for specific sections (like in Wikipedia or News articles.) So using Quintero's method, it could be painful scrolling down if you scroll down fast or doesn't have fast computer.

But still, it is an interesting read. I am glad to see someone trying to solve Firefox's and Mozilla's memory leak.

Mozilla Firefox Release Candidate 3

Mozilla Firefox Release Candidate 3 is out! It should be ready for software update system. To manually update, go to Help > Check for Updates..., or you rather to wait a day or two for automatic update.

For those who do not have Mozilla Firefox 1.5, get it here. Remember this is not FINAL version, just a release candidate.

Release Note

Windows Genuine Advantage on Firefox

A while ago, if an user want to download a Microsoft product like Microsoft AntiSpyware, they have to pass the "Windows Genuine Advantage" test to prove that they are using a vaild Windows Operating System. It is one of Microsoft's latest attempts to fight Windows privacy. However, the only problem was, to pass the Windows Genuine Advantage test, the users must use Internet Explorer in order to accept Active X control.

Now, not anymore. The Internet Explorer team recently released an Firefox plugin that allow users to use Firefox to pass Windows Genuine Advantage test and download Microsoft products.

Quote from IEBlog:

I talked with Brad Graziadio, the guy who runs the Windows Genuine Advantage team, and he walked me through customer feedback. Basically, customers said “We want to make sure our PCs are running genuine Windows and have access to all the content on the Microsoft Download Center; the experience when we’re running a Mozilla browser is not great. Do something about it.” Brad’s team did. I think that’s a good thing for customers.

It is smart move for Microsoft to start supporting Mozilla Firefox. This is not the first time Microsoft supported Mozilla Firefox. Eariler, they supported Mozilla Firefox for Windows Live beta site.

Back in Action

Sorry guys, been a while since I post anything. I have been terrible busy with many stuffs. Now I'm back in action.

Firefox Web Links Bugs

Recently, Tom Ferris discovered a major bug in Firefox's handing of web links that may allow a malicous web site to execute malicious code on firefox users' computers. In short, it's called "Host:" Buffer overflow (including proof-of-concept).

It worked like this... Imagine you went to a bad, evil website somewhere in the internet, and the website has a link with extremely long address in it like this: "https:-------------------------------------------------------------... ".

When you clicked on it, the extremely long address will overwhem the NormalizeIDN buffer and spill over the rest of the address (which could include malicous code) into other parts of Firefox.

Remember, this is not the first bug arise from IDN. Another bug from IDN was the IDN spoofing (giving fake address in the address bar), but that bug been fixed by version 1.0.1.

If you don't want to wait for the patch (or Firefox 1.5 with the patch), it only take very, very simple fix with 2 steps:

1) Go to about:config
2) Double-click "network.enableIDN" from TRUE to FALSE.
3) You are done!

I tested the fix myself using the proof-of-concept. The fix worked.

UPDATE: Mozilla posted a formal suggestion of fixes for this IDN bug (including a downloadable temporary patch).

MouseHole

I found a very interesting program that act as proxy... greasemonkey style. It's named MouseHole. It will work on all web browsers because all HTML traffic will goes through MouseHole proxy and it will modify the HMTL data by using scripts. That way, you don't have to put extension for every internet browser on your computer, or even better... modify all HTML data from internet to your entire home or business network using proxy server with MouseHole running on it (somehow...). The author of MouseHole, WhyTheLuckyStiff, hangs out over at the RedHanded blog. MouseHole 1.1 just recently came out.

However, MouseHole using different coding for their scripts. It is using Ruby, a "interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming". Which mean that all current geasemonkey scripts have to be converted in order to work in MouseHole. For example, my current Mailto Envelope greasemonkey script has been converted to MouseHole script (thank to Christopher T. Osborn). You can see big differences, but can be learned.

Alternative Browser Alliance

After the flame war between Mozilla Firefox and Opera users got really too hot, one person formed a website to bring efforts to spread all non-IE browsers under one roof. The website named "Alternative Browser Alliance", its job is to spread knowledge of the alternatives to unsafe Internet Explorer and hopefully bring Mozilla Firefox and Opera users together.

From the site:

I launched this site in response to the overblown rivalry between Firefox and Opera users. The way I see it, both groups have a common enemy: dominance of the web by a single browser, currently Internet Explorer. At this stage of the game, every percentage point Firefox pulls from IE is a win for Opera, and vice versa, because it spreads awareness that there are alternatives, and that it might be worth trying them out.

This site is intended as a truce. We're in this together.

I applauds this effort because I agreed with the fact that the rivalry between Mozilla Firefox and Opera users are getting out of hands. Both sides need to be reminded that most of the planet are still using Internet Explorer and we need to help them to be aware of what they are surfing the web with and how to make it safer and more enjoyable.

Web Developer Rip-off

Seem that a company ripped off a perfectly good GPLed firefox extension and sell it under different license.

AEVITA is currently selling Web Inspector for Internet Explorer. Judging from the look of the screenshots, icons, documentations, and behavior of the web inspector, it is clearly a rip off of Chris Pederick's Web Developer extension.

AEVITA clearly has several violations:
1) Some icons are trademarked by Mozilla Foundation.
2) The documentations are copyrighted by Chris Pederick
3) Selling (possibly stolen) GPLed codes under different license.

It is very upsetting to see a company taking a perfectly good GPLed appication and then sell it under different license without giving credit to the original developer(s). Something have to be done about it. Aza Dotzler is calling on everybody to contact AEVITA and complains to them that their action is wrong thing to do.

Since blogger.com don't have talkbacks, here are the couple blogs (and discussions) about it:
chrispederick.com blog
Asa Dotzler's Blog

Update 1: AEVITA removed Web Inspector from their website.

Update 2: The AEVITA website just went down dues to exceeding bandwitdh limit (meaning, too many people getting into AEVITA website). In a way, its a small victory for open source community. Rip off a popular open sourced app and you will face pressure from very large open source community.

Internet Explorer Boycott

Paul Thurrott called for an Internet Explorer boycott after detailing the problems of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 and the lack of actions of IE team to fix them. He also noted that the IE team is not planning to adjust the IE to work with the web standard or even try to pass the Acid2 Test which is considered to be the ulimate test on web standard compliance.

Paul Thurrott said:

My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It's a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn't secure and isn't standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators. Because of their user bases, however, Web developers are hamstrung into developing for IE at the expense of established standards that work well in all other browsers. You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.

Paul Thurrott is well-known for his site, SuperSite for Windows.

Optimus Keyboard

I have been keeping close tab on a great keyboard, Optimus Keyboard. It is invented by Artemy Lebedev, a Russian designer. This keyboard, in my opinion, is the most brilliant computer accessory since webcam. Its like english, russian, game, and all other type of keyboards combinded, plus more. Check out the screenshots in both links.

It is incredibly flexible and it will comes with SDK (according to Lebedev). Maybe the keyboard will be able to play a video on it or some kind of animation (like during screensaver or something). One of slashdot readers raised the possiblity of a spyware hijacking the keyboard and play animation or place porno icons everywhere on the keyboard. You get the idea how flexible the keyboard can be.

But according to the latest news, Lebedev might will have trouble selling Optimus Keyboard in the United States. Seem someone patented same concept of Optimus keyboard in 1998. In my opinion, the patent holder, Elkin Acevedo, need to either let the patent goes or hand it over to Lebedev (for free or cheap price) because he hasn't make or sell his display keyboard for the past 7 years.

I am keeping my eyes on this baby and I will bring you latest news on any changes in Optimus's progress (espeically on the U.S. patent). Let hope it doesn't turn out to be another vaporware.

Minor Change In Firefox Versioning

Asa Dotzler (one of Firefox developers) announced that the Firefox developers have decided to change the versioning of Firefox a little bit. The upcoming Firefox (future versions of Deer Park) will be Mozilla Firefox 1.1 Mozilla Firefox 1.5.

Asa said:

One major consideration in this decision was that the sheer volume of changes in the Firefox core (Gecko) made a minor .1 increment seem misleading...

...Another consideration was that we've made some major improvements to the Firefox application, especially in the update and extension systems that warrant more than a minor version bump. Calling it 1.1 would suggest to most users that this was a minor update when in fact it is quite major and all 1.0 users really should move forward for a much improved product.

EDIT: New roadmap showing Firefox 1.5 BETA release in August 2005.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 Released

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 has been released. It included several important fixes and improved stability especially the API compability fix with some of the extensions which was broken by Firefox 1.0.5.

Get them while they are hot.

Google Maps & Traffic Ticket

Read this story about how Google Maps helped him to get out of a traffic ticket.

From the article:

In January of this year, I was pulled over by a traffic officer for “disobeying a steady red”, a.k.a. running a red light. I pleaded “Not Guilty” to the charge, and today - nearly six months later – I went to court to find out the fate of my ticket violation. Check out how Google Maps saved me some serious cash - and points on my license!

This is a very good story about using Google Maps to saves the day.

Deer Park Alpha 2

The second Alpha version of Deer Park (codename for Firefox 1.1) has been released. It includes huge number of fixes and new features/improvements, like using error pages instead of dialogs, fast back/forward feature is enabled by default, report-a-bad-website feature is enabled by default, and many more.

Next stop: Deer Park BETA

Firefox's 70 Million Downloads

The Mozilla Firefox just passed the 70 million downloads mark.

I bet we will get to 100 million mark pretty faster if Firefox 1.1 release by the end of the summer.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 (and future 1.0.6)

Sorry, I know this is old news...

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 has been released. It included some fixes for recently discovered serious flaws. But unfortunately it broke some of the extensions by changing the API.

But the good news is the 1.0.6 is on the way that keep the fixes but fix the extensions API as well.

New Firefox Update System

Take a look at the new firefox update system for the future Firefox 1.1.

From the post (Asa Dotzler):

Accomplishing this work is no small feat and we learned a lot from our experiences with the 1.0.x releases. The new system will be much more robust and capable on both the client side and the server side. From the client end, we've got a much improved user experience that should take away pretty much all of the pain of updating Firefox 1.1 for both minor versions and major versions. On the server side, we've increased our capacity and will have the capability to serve "patch" updates which should make things easier for everyone.

I believe the update system is critical to the future of Firefox because no one want to download the whole install package everytime there is a new patch. I can barely recommend Firefox 1.0 to computer illiterates because I know they won't be tracking Firefox site for updates. But this new update system should make it a heck lot easier for computer illiterates to update their Firefox on the fly while using less bandwidth and time for everyone.

On the side note: I'm going on a one-week vacation so there won't be any new post til by the end of the week.

Rabbi and Firefox

Check out this story! (No, its not another rabbi joke)

It brings smile to my face.

Google Video: Copyright Violation?

It seems that some people uploaded DVD rips and other illegal ripped copyrighted movies/tv-shows to Google Video. And whats even worse... Google published them! Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Family Guy, Daily Show, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolution, Phantom of the Opera, Scarface, and many more can be found.

It turned out that everyone in U.S. can play them (Google Video Player required) in fullscreen (double-click on video) from start to the end (click on play whole video). Natually, the quality of the videos are poor, especially in fullscreen. But still good enough to be viewed by everyone without paying for it.

Google will have to react fast and soon before it get widespread and cause damage to Google's reputation.

Google Earth is Now FREE

Thats right. Free version of Google Earth is out now. Google Earth is based on Keyhole software made by Keyhole Inc., which recently brought by Google Inc. Google Earth is a world imagery software that "combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips." It connect to remote servers across the Internet and download the imagery, maps, and information to the software which put them together in visual context.

I tried it out myself and I love it. It is as good as Keyhole software but with more features like 3D buildings. Definitely worth a 10 MB download.

Internet Explorer 7 Screenshots

As some of you know, the next version of Internet Explorer, IE 7, is still under development. Microsoft revealed the IE 7 at Gnomedex and someone got pictures of IE 7 in action.

Not bad look for IE, but clearly it has long way to go.

Google Maps Hack

I am a huge Google fan, and one of my favorite feature offered by Google is the Google Maps. It is still in beta stage but it already has huge impacts on the internet.

Because of Google Maps's XML nature, it is incredibly flexable. You can get the information from Google Maps and modify it in any way you want it. Many sites already started taking advantage of easily modifiable mapping information. Those type of sites are called Google Maps Hack because they "hacked" the Google Maps to get what they need.

Here is the list of all Google Maps Hacks that I know of so far:

• Geobloggers: Where Flickr meets Google Maps.


• Google-Yahoo Traffic-Weather Maps: Traffic and weather reports on the map.


• HousingMaps: Show houses/apts for sale or rent on the map.


• Movies Showtimes: Show movies showtimes on the map.


• Cheap Gas: Show where the cheapest gas are.


• 4ppl.com: Show where members of 4ppl are.


• gCensus: Show United States's Census information on the map


• Foundcity: Show your pictues and text messages on the map.

There was one more that I know of, but GMerge was taken down dues its illegal use of copyrighted satellite images. GMerge created wallpapers out of satellite images of any location you desire. It was a very good hack, but too bad it is short-lived.

If you already found more that are not on the list, please let us know by commenting here.

There is also a collection of GreaseMonkey scripts for Google Maps as well. (Scroll down to Google Maps)

Google Maps is just a baby, and yet it make profound impacts on the internet in terms of information sharing and usability. This is just a beginning for Google Maps, and I strongly believe it has a great future and will never cease to amaze us.

GooglePal

Seem that Google might be offering an online payment service like Ebay's PayPal.

From Google Blogoscoped:

Gary Price of Search Engine Watch quotes a Wall Street Journal article, saying Google has plans to offer PayPal-like services in the future. Some believe the code name for the project is “Google Wallet.”

I am a paypal user and a google fan. I would love to see Google do something like that.

Google Wallet? The name could be better... Maybe GooglePal or PayGoogle? ;)

Firefox Trademark Troubles

Seems that someone in Mozilla made a big "oops" with Firefox trademark.

From the article:

Although it maintains a policy -- which was recently criticised by many developers of the Debian Linux distribution -- on how its trademarks are used, it does not appear to have registered the Firefox name in Germany and Australia. In the United States and United Kingdom, the foundation has applied for the trademarks but approval is still pending.

First "m/b", then "Phoenix", then "FireBird", and now "Firefox". Whats next if they decide to change again?

There are some lively discussion regrading this on slashdot.

Ugly Post

*gasp* Firefox users are ugly!

From the article:

Elitist online dating website Beautifulpeople.net is excluding Firefox users. Alternative browser users report being given the cold shoulder by the site, which prides itself on only allowing pretty people (as voted by its existing members) to join.

When web developers will ever learn how to use the web standard? Geez...

Email Linkify Script

This is my second GreaseMonkey script: The Email Linkify script.

Its sole purpose is to find what look like unlinked email addresses on webpage and "linkifed" them with mailto links. It follows the same concept as the Linkify script but for email addresses only.

Features(v0.1):

• Search for email addresses with ip address, words, and tlds.
  
• Linkify them into mailto links

Screenshots:
Without Script
With Script

Tested on wide range of various web pages including forums and discussion boards.

Please post any bugs or comments you have about this script here or send email to me.

Also, if you want the linkified email addresses to have envelopes, you must install Email Linkify script first before installing Mailto Envelope script, so they can be run in the right order.

PC World's Product of the Year: Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox just bagged another award... this time, the award is PC World's Product of the Year 2005.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/15805

This is one of the biggest awards and Mozilla Firefox won it. This is a great news for the Mozilla community and for users who want to break away from Internet Explorer.

Two big thumbs up for Mozilla Firefox.

Deer Park (Firefox 1.1) Alpha 1

Mozilla just released the first alpha version of Deer Park (codename for Firefox 1.1). The second alpha version will be released this month of June.

Remember, this is just an alpha version which mean it is one step away from beta and two steps away from final (gold). the alpha version is for testing and developement among developers only. But since it is open-sourced, everyone can be a developer. So naturally, the alpha version is released to the public.

When it reach beta, it will be for testing and bug-reports from general community (non-developers) to see what bugs that need to be fixed before final.

According to the roadmap, it seem that the developers are hoping to release Firefox 1.1 before the end of this month or at the beginning of next month. EDIT: New Roadmap

Boy, I'm excited about this. I'm keeping my eyes on this one.

Mailto Envelope Script

This is my first GreaseMonkey script: The Mailto Envelope script.

Its sole purpose is to make mailto links more obvious because mailto links look just like regular html links. What the script does is it scans all the links on a webpage, looking for the mailto links. When it finds mailto links, it unlink it and add hyperlinked envelope to it.

Features(v0.1):

• Use image of envelope instead of unicode
  
• Add title of the envelope showing its exact mailto address
  
• Leave graphic links like email buttons alone
  
• Only focus on HTML pages (http:// and https://) and local files (file://)

ADDED(v0.2):

• Mailtos unlinker are now toggeable. Just edit "var unlink = 1" to "var unlink = 0" to turn off the unlinker.

Screenshots:
Without script
With script

(screenshots were taken while testing on http://www.ianr.unl.edu/internet/mailto.html)

Tested on wide range of various web pages including forums and discussion boards.

To install: Right-click the Mailto Evnelope link and click on "install user script...". Firefox with GreaseMonkey required.

The reason why I worked so much on this supposdly simple script is because it is my philosophy as a programmer to pay attention to every detail of my works, no matter how small.

Please post any bugs or comments you have about this script here or send email to me.

Holding Files For Random

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5718678.html

From the article:

In a case documented by San Diego-based Web security company Websense, the attack occurs after a user visits a Web site containing code that exploits a known flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. The flaw is used to download and run a malicious program that in turn downloads an application that encrypts files on the victim's PC and mapped network drives, according to Websense. The program then drops a ransom note.

Thank god I am not using Internet Explorer. This is one more reason to drop IE and get Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or others. (I recommend Mozilla Firefox)

IE vs. Firefox and the world

Over at cnet.com, they reviewed six browsers: Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4, Opera 8, Netscape 8, Safari RSS, and Deepnet Explorer.

Guess who got the top score? Thats right... Firefox with 8.0 points. Internet Explorer and Opera 8 got the last place with 7.0 points.

Netscape's Two Headed Browser

The title said it all. Netscape has created two-headed browser (or is it two-headed monster?). Firefox and IE all rolled into one.

Seems to be pretty good idea, combinding the best of both world into one. But does it work? PCWorld has some doubts because Netscape 8 are lacking some of Firefox's important features like pop-ups control.

Even with the ability to reload misbehaving Web pages in either the Firefox or IE engine with a single click, the new Netscape browser feels like a case of subtraction by addition. The features added to Netscape 8 may make it look more like a conventional browser, but it loses Firefox's simplicity (and some of that browser's most useful features) in the process.

-Dennis O'Reilly, PC World

Pictures Of The Internet Evolution

From the DIMES Project, there are two pretty pictures of the Internet. Take a look.

Picture 1 (very nice!)

Picture 2 (my favorite of the two)

For quick read on DIMES and their research, I suggest read the news article (PDF) about it.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.4 FINAL is out now.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Release Notes:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.0.4.html

It fixed the javascript/iframe exploits (from last post) plus some extra fixes related to DHTML regression.

It worked for me, and I strongly recommend to download it and install it.

Update to the FF 1.0.3 Exploit

Regarding my last post, there has been an update:

http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6582

Apparently this exploit is a lot worse than I thought. It can disguise itself as either addons.mozilla.org or update.mozilla.org.

Turned out that the bug was orginally discovered by Paul of Greyhats Security Group and Michael "mikx" Krax. It was reported last May 2th, and somehow the info of that bug was leaked which resulted in multiple bug reports on this exploit.

The site (addons.mozilla.org and update.mozilla.org) changed their urls to donotadd.mozilla.org and warned users do not add the url to the whitelist. That way, the exploit can't be used.

According to MozillaZine, Firefox 1.0.4 is in the work to address this exploit and will be released shortly.

Firefox 1.0.3's New Exploit

Mozilla Firefox's Remote Arbitrary Code Execution Exploit has been publicized. Basically, what it does is allowing websites to create and execute a malicious batch/exe file. The bug has already been reported a while ago in bugzilla, but only can be viewed by Firefox developers for security reason.

But don't panic. The exploit only can be done if you "whitelisted" the site. Because of that, some people believe it is not an exploit because if you whitelisted the site, you are giving it a permission to put any program on your computer like it is designed to do. It is an interesting view because this exploit is somewhat similar to ActiveX which install and run small (both good and bad) programs on your computer. This is what make ActiveX so popular and yet so hated by the online community.

If you are very paranoid about this exploit/bug/feature/whatever, there are two workarounds:

• disable "tools/options/web-Features/>Enable Javascript"... but it will disable good javascripts too.


• disable "tools/options/web-Features/>Allow web sites to install software"... but you have to install firefox extensions the hard way (save as, then drag the xpi to firefox).

This exploit/bug/feature/whatever has many nasty potentials, but thank god it only can work in limited circumstances. I have faith in the developers to do something about it as quicky as possible. Good luck developers.

Email Conversation on Firefox

One day, I was surprised to see I got an email in my hotmail account which I almost never used. I got this...

Hi GamingFox,
I came across your thread by chance whilst surfing for some advice on Firefox v/s IE.6 and I see you have the Firefox on your machine. I hope you don't mind me asking, but is it worth the hassle installing the latest Firefox? I guess Microsoft probably made it an annoying task to remove IE.6 and i don't particularly want to be burdened with two brousers on my system, or attempt an dodgy IE.6 amputation and risk system failure. Do you have any simple advice for me

After thinking awhile on how to reply to these good questions regarding Firefox. I know I am a HUGE Firefox fanboy, so I know that my opinion is very likely biased. So I replied in unbiased views as much as possible.

Installing the latest Firefox is, in my opinion, is not a hassle at all, because Firefox is designed to help IE users to switch quickly with less problems as possible. The download is only 4.7 MB which is pretty small compared to other browsers. The installion is very quick and clean. It will ask you if you want import all of your IE's stuffs like favorites, cookies, stored passwords, etc. to Firefox.

I strongly recommended to use Firefox as your default browser but keep the IE (I will explain why). The Internet has many benefits that everyone want to enjoy... instant communcations, endless amount of information (and disinformations), and entrainment (games and stuffs). Thats what the Internet browsers are for. They connect us and help us "browse" the world wide web, the heart of the Internet.

However, Internet is a very dangerous world, filled with viruses, spywares, adwares, scams, phishing, and many more. The list is endless. Internet Explorer (version 6) is the most common Internet browser in the world, but also, it is the most dangerous. Most viruses, spywares, scams, etc. are designed to take advantages of IE's flaws. I have seen many of my friends going through pain of attacks and removal of many spywares, including myself once. I switched to Firefox, and I conviced my firends to switch too, and ever since, my firends and I never got spywares or viruses from browsing the Internet. There are many more reasons why Firefox is more safer than IE, but it take too long to list them here.

In my opinion, IE's hassle is far greater than any hassle Firefox will ever give you. However, I strongly advised to NOT remove IE because Microsoft has built IE right into the Windows OS which make it virtually impossible to remove without destablizing the entire OS. Plus, there are some websites that are hard-coded for IE only, and some required Active-X (a component built in IE, and is the main cause of spyware and viruses infection) like banking, online virus scanners, Windows Update site, and a few more. But you can install a Firefox extension (IEView) which offer one-click view in IE from Firefox.

I believe that having both browser on same system is no burden at all. Both play together very nicely. I even run both of them at the same time without any problem at all. I have 4 different internet browsers on my computer and they never cause each other trouble or put any stress on the system. (Firefox is my default internet browser by the way). Plus, Firefox doesn't require a lot of memory (either on Hard Drive or on RAM). The official system requirments listed is 52 MB Hard Drive, but my Firefox use around 25 MB on my Hard Drive (not counting the cache).

My advice is, try Firefox out. It won't bites (despite an animal name). If you don't like it, you can uninstall it. The uninstallion is also quick and clean as its installion. Its free and won't cost you a thing. The time and effort it take are very little.

But remember, Firefox is not perfect. There is no such thing as perfect softwares. Firefox has some bugs, but will be resolved soon or later. Firefox 1.0 just came out less than a year ago, so it bound to have some bugs. However it got very good start, and I believe it will make a great finish.

For more infomation about Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Wikipedia has some good (and long) articles on them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox

If you have any more questions or need any help getting started. I will always be happy to answer them. Good luck.

Now, before you guys get on my back about what I said about Firefox using little memory on RAM. I am perfectly aware that Firefox eat a lot of RAM if not being careful. But I consider that as a bug which will be hopefully resolved in the future.

A day later, I got a reply back. He tried it out. :D

Cheers for the advice. I ran Firefox and am most impressed both by the speed of page loading and user friendliness of the program. I wasn't too sure if it would interfere with IE6 and effectively it didn't. Transfer of all my favorites went smoothly and the general appearance of the web pages and browser is a lot better than that of IE6.

I have had some intrusions with IE6 like:

AproposMedia Browser Modifier
CoolWebSearch Browser Modifier
IST.SideFind Adware
YourSiteBar Spyware
TargetSaver Trojan Downloader
Unclassified.Spyware.45 Spyware
Unclassified.Spyware.57 Spyware
WhenU.SaveNow Adware

..... the effect was not really noticeable, no real speed loss, and Adware SE personal didn't even notice the threats on my system. I was only after downloading Beta1 from Microsoft that it picked them out. I've had a couple of viruses too but Norton sorted them out spontaneously.

The thing that worries me a bit though is, my Internet connection is constantly running and when I check the program manager to see what is running and how data transfer is going, I find an incredible amount of data coming into my laptop and it does concern me a bit. My firewall is a Microsoft too and it has done very well so far, but those ever growing data numbers do look dodgy !


Thanx for the advice, I didn't particularly like the thought of trying to removing essential Microsoft software that doesn't want to be removed, It doesn't seem too bright and I don't trust the XP response either.

The version of Firefox I downloaded was 1.0.3 and so the multiple websites advertised, it is the latest version with patches for recently discovered holes, something to do with Javascript, but it was beyond my understanding.

I just make sure my virus definitions are updated everyday, the anti-spyware once a week and keep a keen eye on my registry and program files for abnormalities, I also stay aware about pop ups that shouldn't be there. Other than that fingers crossed the laptop stays vigorous and healthy.

Got to go now, thanx so much for the advice

He seems to like Firefox better than IE. He even commented about his past experience being attacked through IE.

I know this sound like just another Firefox success story, but this is a true story. Thought I share it to the rest of the world.