ReadersZone » Mozilla

Download Firefox 4 RC1

Jay Pathak — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:44:44 +0000

Firefox Release Candidate 1 is available for download on Firefox’s FTP website. You can download Firefox 4 RC1 via this url or You can use this direct link to download the Firefox 4 RC1 installer for Windows. The Mac version of Firefox 4 RC1 is here while the Linux version is here..

Malicious Firefox Add-Ons Are Removed From Mozilla Website

Ajay Pathak — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:19:55 +0000

Mozilla has removed two Firefox add-ons from there website. Two experimental add-ons, Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader and all versions of Master Filer were found to contain Trojan code aimed at Windows users. Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader contained Win32.LdPinch.gen, and Master Filer contained Win32.Bifrose.32.Bifrose Trojan. Both of these add-ons are now removed from Firefox Add-on download website.

This vulnerability is known to affect Firefox on Windows only, if either Master Filer or Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader are installed. Versions of Sothink Web Video Downloader greater than 4.0 are not infected. Master Filer was downloaded approximately 600 times between September 2009 and January 2010. Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader was downloaded approximately 4,000 times between February 2008 and May 2008. Master Filer was removed from AMO on January 25, 2010 and Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader was removed from AMO on February 2, 2010. AMO performs a malware check on all add-ons uploaded to the site, and blocks add-ons that are detected as such. This scanning tool failed to detect the Trojan in Master Filer. Two additional malware detection tools have been added to the validation chain and all add-ons were rescanned, which revealed the additional Trojan in Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader. No other instances of malware have been discovered.

Here is a list of antivirus programs known to detect the trojans found in the affected add-ons.

Source : Mozilla Blog

Skype Firefox Plug-in Causing YahooMail to Slowly

Ajay Pathak — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:51:30 +0000

Yahoo Mail team recently found that some versions of Skype plug-in for Firefox causing Yahoo mail to load slowly on Firefox and sometimes Yahoo mail throwing this error message,

YDOD error 999

Skype team worked with Yahoo and Now yahoo has fixed this problem in latest version of Skype and recommending Yahoo mail users to upgrade their Skype Firefox plug-in to Skype 4.1. You can download version 4.1 from Skype. After you upgrade, check in Firefox to ensure you have the latest version – 3.3.0.3971 – of the Skype plugin. (In Firefox, just click ‘Tools’ then ‘Add-ons’. In the window that opens, find Skype and check the version number.)

Which Browser is Safest? its IE8 !

Ajay Pathak — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:02:25 +0000

NSS Labs published a report called “ Web Browser Security – Protection Against Socially Engineered Malware”.

NSS Labs results show that Microsoft internet Explorer RC1 able to catch 69% catch rate against Malware as compare to Apple Safari (24%) ,Mozilla Firefox v3.07(30%), Google Chrome v1.0.154916%), Opera v9.64(5%) and Microsoft IE7(4%). This data clearly show that Microsoft IE7 does not provide any protection against malware.

AVERAGE TIME TO BLOCK MALICIOUS SITES

The following histogram shows how long it took the browsers under test to block the threat once it was introduced into the test cycle. Cumulative protection rates are listed for the ‘zero hour’, and then the first 5 days. Final protection scores for the URL test duration are summarized under “Total” column. Generally, at least half of a browser’s total protection was achieved in the zero hour. But, Internet Explorer 8 continued to add as much as 24% of additional protection over the course of the test. Other browsers added between 8 and 18%.

The results showed great variations in the abilities of the browsers to protect against web-based malware, with IE8 protecting users from 26% more malicious URLs than its nearest competitor, Mozilla Firefox. In fact, the impact of IE8’s SmartScreen can be clearly seen over the protection offered by IE7, indicating a compelling reason for existing IE users to upgrade.

Report clearly showed that Microsoft Internet Explorer RC1 perform far better then its nearest competitor. Protecting against socially engineered malware and adds an excellent layer of protection on top of other endpoint protection solutions. Mozilla Firefox achieved just over 30% protection rating against malware. Neither Opera nor Microsoft IE7 offered much protection, achieving 5% and 4% protection ratings respectively.

Mozilla Bespin : A Web Based Programming environment for Developers

Ajay Pathak — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:43:10 +0000

On Thursday, Mozilla labs unveiled a new open source project for developers called “Bespin”. Mozilla Bespin is a web based programming environment for developers it provides the benefits of cloud computing as well as developers can also use the resources that are available in their desktop computers. Current version of Mozilla Bespin is 0.1 includes some basic editing features such as syntax highlighting, large file sizes, undo/redo, previewing files in the browser, importing/exporting projects, etc.

Mozilla set the following goals for Bespin:

Ease of Use — the editor experience should not be intimidating and should facilitate quickly getting straight into the code
Real-time Collaboration — sharing live coding sessions with colleagues should be easy and collaboratively coding with one or more partners should Just Work
Integrated Command-Line — tools like vi and Emacs have demonstrated the power of integrating command-lines into editors; Bespin needs one, too
Extensible and Self-Hosted — the interface and capabilities of Bespin should be highly extensible and easily accessible to users through Ubiquity-like commands or via the plug-in API
Wicked Fast — the editor is just a toy unless it stays smooth and responsive editing files of very large sizes
Accessible from Anywhere — the code editor should work from anywhere, and from any device, using any modern standards-compliant browser.

Introducing Bespin

Mozilla Bespin run all modern browsers and most importantly All of the source code underlying the Bespin experiment is being released as open source software under the the MPL.

Get Involved in Mozilla Bespin

Mozilla Labs is a virtual lab where people come together online to create, experiment and play with Web innovations for the public benefit. The Bespin experiment is still in its infancy and just getting started. There are many ways to join the team and get involved:

Play around with the demo and let us know what you think
Report a bug
Grab the source code and fix a bug or add a feature
Discuss, debate and add to the design in the Bespin discussion group
Join us in #bespin on irc.mozilla.org

Cyber Criminals Using URL Shortening Services to By Pass Google Safe Browsing

Ajay Pathak — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:40:22 +0000

Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome use Google safe browsing feature to warn users about phishing sites and other malwares. But now cyber criminals found a new way redirect users to phishing or other malware site. There is a number of url redirection and url shortening services are available over the internet and cyber criminals using these services to redirect users to phishing or other malware websites.

Cyber criminals are able to bypass Google safe browsing because of the fact that Google safe browsing rank websites only at the domain level. So using a domain which will always be ranked as non-malicious ensures that the infected page will not be warned about and most of the url shortening and url redirection services are not listed as malicious or malware websites in Google servers.

Finjan found that

Popular URL categorization engines categorized TinyURL as “Computing and Internet”, “Search Engines / Web Catalogs / Portals” and “Software / Hardware / Distributors”, while the real malicious URL was categorized as “Other”. So it is clear that Google Safe Browsing has a slight edge when queried about the malicious URL, but all engines agree that TInyURL is benign.

Google needs to find out some way to url redirection and url shortening mechanism so users will be warned before directly redirecting to phishing or malware websites.

Open Your Favorite Websites Using Keyboard Shortcuts

Ajay Pathak — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:29:56 +0000

Computer power users always love to use keyboard to access most of their favorite computer program what if, we can access our favorite websites with keyboard shortcuts. Firefox users can access their favorite websites with keyboard shortcuts by using the Firefox plug-in SiteLauncher. SiteLauncher extension is come with some of most useful websites like Amazon,eBay and many other. Using SiteLauncher is really easy, Firefox users just have to install the SiteLauncher Firefox extension and it offers a very simple and user friendly interface to manage and add new shortcuts to your favorite websites.

Feature highlights

Because each site key is displayed in the Launcher, you don’t have to memorize a bunch of key combinations to have shortcuts to loads of sites, only one hotkey.
Default hotkey is customizable, in case you need it for something else.
Add as many sites to SiteLauncher as you want.
Just about any character key can be associated with a site, you’re not limited to just a-z, 0-9.
Because you press the hotkey first, no matter what key you assign to each site, you can be sure you will not cause conflict with any of Firefox’s built-in shortcuts
Highly customizable appearance – change colors, text size, spacing, column size, etc
Optional visual effects – transparency, rounded corners, and gradients
You can have your site shortcuts automatically arranged or manually arranged in the order you want them to appear inside the Launcher
Set Launcher to open sites in current or new tab
Optionally, set Launcher to appear on startup instead of your homepage.

Default Hotkey

Hotkey	Default	Description
Launcher	Ctrl+Space (or Ctrl+Alt for Mac users)	Press the Launcher hotkey to bring forward the Launcher. Then, simply press the key indicated in the Launcher for the site you wish to launch.
(Alternative) Direct-to-site	Shift+Alt (or Shift+Ctrl for Mac users)	An alternative hotkey which doesn’t show the Launcher. It’s included for people who would prefer to use their memory instead of the Launcher, you can safely ignore it otherwise. Because this hotkey doesn’t provide visual feedback to indicate when it’s active, you have to keep it pressed down while pressing the key for the site you want.

Default sites

SiteLauncher comes with a set of default shortcuts to a number of popular and/or useful websites: Amazon (an affiliate link), Google Calendar, Dictionary, Digg, eBay (an affiliate link), Facebook, Gmail, Google, IMDB, LifeHacker, MySpace, Reader, Wikipedia, YouTube. The defaults should get you started, but you can of course easily delete the websites you don’t want, and add as many new ones as you want.

Requirements

Supports all versions of Firefox 2 and 3 to date.

Known to work on the following Operating Systems:

Windows (tested on XP and Vista)
Linux based (tested on Debian Etch)
OSX X (tested on Tiger and Leopard)

Download SiteLauncher

By clicking the download link below you are agreeing to the terms of service and privacy policy.

Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 includes private browsing feature

Jay Pathak — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:10:02 +0000

Mozilla’s public beta version becomes the first Web browser that contains a private browsing mode. The organization had decided to make it official but the change is- its a public beta version that is made available to the general public. Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 includes private browsing mode feature means it doesn’t record browsing history, cookies, and other traces of websites where the user visited, for the duration of the session.

Mozilla has made several changes in the second beta of Firefox includes- become more functional with new Private Browsing Mode, support for video and audio built into web pages, new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine is now on by default for web content, associates DOM Worker Threads application, web worker support for more powerful web-based programs and many more.

The first thing you’ll notice is "Private browsing" A little icon indicating that you’re browsing guileful means-the ability to turn off the cache & other private data settings and erase search history, download history, web form history, download history, temporary Internet files & cookies. Another is new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, that facilitates Web functionality. According to the SunSpider JavaScript test noticed that 8% improvement in Firefox 3.1 beta 2 over Firefox 3.1 beta 1.(up to 93% from 89% for an internal build last October).

In the Firefox 3.1 beta 2 here is the addition of "Web workers," a feature that lets the browser process tasks in the background. Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 should be stable enough for add-ons developers to start updating their add-ons for 3.1 compatibility.

8 New features and changes in Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 :

This beta is now available in 54 languages – get your local version and let us know if it looks right.
A new Private Browsing Mode that allows you to browse without Firefox storing any traces of where you’ve been -perfect for online holiday shopping!
New functions that make it easy to remove the history of your past few hours of browsing, or remove all traces of a website.
New support for web worker threads.
The new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine is now on by default for web content.
Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
Removed the new tab-switching & preview behavior based on feedback from Beta 1 users.
Support for new web technologies such as the and elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, SVG transforms and offline applications.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 is now available for download

Firefox Plug-in Stealing Passwords

Ajay Pathak — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 04:20:21 +0000

On December 3,2008 BitDefender uncovered a new type of password stealing application. This latest e-threat – called Trojan.PWS.ChromeInject.A – is intended to be delivered onto a compromised computer system by other malware for subsequent download into Mozilla Firefox’s Plug-in folder. Once installed it gets to work every time Firefox is started.

This new malware uses JavaScript to identify more than 100 financial and money transfer Web sites, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America, and PayPal. This Malware collects login and passwords and sends them to a remote server located at Russia.

Firefox is becoming favorite browser for malware authors because of Firefox’s market share has gone up in last four years. Users could be infected with the Trojan either from a drive-by download, which can infect a PC by exploiting a vulnerability in a browser, or by being duped into downloading it. BitDefender has updated its products to detect it, and other vendors will likely follow suit quickly. Users could avoid it by only downloading signed, verified software, but that’s a measure that restricts the usability of a PC. Canja said.

Source : BitDefender detects novel approach to stealing web passwords

Microsoft’s Windows Internet share drop below 90%

Jay Pathak — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:16:21 +0000

The number of Windows users surfing the web fell down below 90%. As everyone knows the Microsoft Corp.’s Windows OS is the biggest market shareholder fell down to 89.69 % . it took biggest share dive during the past two years, erasing gains made in two of the past three months and sending the operating system’s share under 90% for the first time according to new statistics. whereas Mac and the iPhone hit record numbers in a Net Applications Web survey issued overnight Monday and updated Monday morning.

The Mac’s share of Web hits, having less users in October, grew 8.04% in November to a record 8.87%, according to the Web metrics firm’s data. The iPhone’s gains were sharper up 12.12% to 0.37%, Linux grew even faster, up nearly 16.9% for the month, moreover Windows Internet share dropping below 90% for the first time and Internet Explorer’s market share retreating to less than 70%.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly told Net Applications

“Reaching 20 percent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla, It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible.”

Source : marketshare

ReadersZone » Mozilla

Download Firefox 4 RC1

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Feature highlights

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