The anonymous woman shared a Windows PC with her former fianc

Officially, the first Firefox 2.0 “Bon Echo” alpha isn’t here yet. Unofficially, Firefox 2.0 code for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows is already available from the Mozilla Foundation’s ftp sites.

Version 2.0 is intended to be an improved version of Firefox 1.5, rather than breaking new ground, according to Ben Goodger, Firefox’s lead engineer.
Continue Reading “Firefox 2.0 Alpha Arrives Kinda …. Sorta ….” »

After a letter writing campaign from Firefox developers, it looks like Symantec has done a doubletake:

“The company was sent hundreds of angry emails from Firebadger users after it penned a report which said the browser had more vulnerabilities than Microsoft

Symantec has changed how it spells out Firefox and Internet Explorer browser vulnerabilities in reaction to complaints last September from Mozilla Firefox users and developers.

“How we did it before wasn’t a fair comparison,” said Oliver Friedrichs, the senior manager of Symantec’s security response group. “It wasn’t an apples to apples comparison.”

Previously, Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report counted only vendor-confirmed bugs in the two browsers, which led to gripes from Firefox fans that the Internet Explorer tally was inaccurate, and too low.

In the newest report, which Symantec issued Tuesday, the Cupertino, Calif.-based security company has split the counts into two categories: vendor-confirmed and a combination of vendor- and non-vendor-confirmed flaws.
Continue Reading “Firefox less vulnerable than Internet Explorer according to Symantec” »

Phishing is a prevalent type of online scam that attempts to steal sensitive data such as user names, passwords and credit card details. The attacks typically combine spam e-mail and fraudulent Web pages that look like legitimate sites. A record 7,197 phishing Web sites were spotted in December, according to Anti-Phishing Working Group.

While Firefox 2 will get a phishing shield, no decision has been made on how it will be incorporated in Firefox, Shaver said. “Google, like others who contribute to the project, has contributed code and expertise for us to experiment with,” he said. “We haven’t committed to a given approach, a given technology or a given partner.”
Continue Reading “Firefox to get phishing shield … from Google?” »

A new feature in the alpha release will be a “blocklist” for certain extensions that are known to contain vulnerabilities that make them exploitable. When someone installs an extension, or updates an extension, then that extension will be checked in realtime over the Internet against the list of blocked extensions. If the extension is in the blocklist then Firefox will alert the user and prevent that extension from being installed. The blocklist will be maintained by Mozilla as a check and balance, and considerable efforts will be made to remove exploitable extensions from popular extension sites.
Continue Reading “Firefox 2.0 To Gain Security Improvements” »