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.

• Antiy-AVL
• Avast
• AVG
• GData
• Ikarus
• K7AntiVirus
• McAfee
• Norman
• VBA32

Source : Mozilla Blog

Microsoft launched Internet Explorer less than a year ago and according to Net Application ,Internet Explorer is the most popular browser on Windows with 27.9% usage share and has 25.6% of market share across all OS’s on a worldwide-weighted usage share basis.

Although Internet Explorer 8 is most widely used browser but in January The Google Chrome browser gained .6% of global usage share in January.  Both Firefox and Internet Explorer dropped share during the last month.

As of today, Internet Explorer 8 has done over 350 million malware blocks. Internet Explorer 8’s SmartScreen Filter blocks malware over 2 million times a day. Internet Explorer 7 and 8 have blocked a total of over 125 million phishing sites. Recently Google recommending that people update their browsers and move off older versions, such as the nearly decade-old Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft also support Google’s recommendation to move off Internet Explorer 6. Modern browsers such as Internet Explorer 8 bring benefits for customers and developers alike.

As of March 2010, Google will not support older browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 for its Google Docs and Google sites services. According to Google, they are stopping the support of older browser because old browsers cannot run many of the modern web application. Web is completely changes its all about web application not web pages or websites.

It think its a good move instead of supporting old web browsers companies should stop their application support for old browsers. These old browsers are also more vulnerable for security attacks. Recently a security flaw in Internet Explorer 6 is used by cyber criminals to steal data from Google Server.

Google encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+
• Mozilla Firefox 3.0+
• Google Chrome 4.0+
• Safari 3.0+

YouTube is introducing an experimental version of HTML 5 supported video player on YouTube. HTML5 is a new web standard that is gaining popularity rapidly and adds many new features to your web experience. Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback. This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codec’s can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin. HTML 5 supported video player does not support videos with ads and full screen support.

As of now HTML 5 supported video player work only with Google Chrome ,Apple Safari (version 4+) and Microsoft Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed. It won’t work in Firefox,Even though Firefox supports HTML <video> feature but it does not support H.264 Codec. Even in the browsers that do support it, the HTML5 player is a pale copy of the Flash-based one. A lot of features are missing and some things aren’t as smooth as you’d expect.

Kevin Carle, a software engineer at YouTube Wrote,

To try it out, go to the HTML5 page via TestTube or visit this page and join the experiment. This will enable HTML5 video for your browser, provided that it’s one of the browsers mentioned above and fits in with the parameters we already referenced. (If you’ve opted in to other experiments, you may not get the HTML5 player.) You can also enable Feather watch (visit http://www.youtube.com/feather_beta) along with HTML5 video for an even simpler, faster YouTube experience.

In June 2009 Adobe has announced a limited developer preview of BrowserLab. BrowserLab is online hosted service by Adobe that enable web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand. BrowserLab is a powerful solution for cross-browser compatibility testing, featuring multiple viewing and comparison tools, as well as customizable preferences. Since BrowserLab is an online service, it can be accessed from virtually any computer connected to the web.

New Features

• Save Locally: Save screenshots generated by BrowserLab in either 1-Up or 2-Up views. This lets you capture renderings of your web pages in different browsers, to save for easy reference or sharing with clients and colleagues. Added January 14, 2010
• Additional browser support: Preview web pages in more browsers: Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4, Chrome 3.0 (XP) and Firefox 3.5 (XP and OS X). Each of these additional browsers can be added to existing Browser Sets.
• Rulers and Guides: Pinpoint the exact location of any area within a screenshot. Rulers on the X and Y axes show you precise pixel dimensions, with optional guidelines for added accuracy.
• Move and Pan: Move to any area of a screenshot by simply clicking and dragging your mouse, or using the arrow keys.
• Onion Skin Registration: Tackle precise layout issues within specific areas of your designs, with custom registration of the screenshots in BrowserLab’s Onion Skin view.
• Screenshot Delay: Pause the rendering of a screenshot by up to 10 seconds, so you can preview content that needs time to generate.

Supported Browsers and Operating Systems

• Firefox 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 (Windows XP and Mac OS X) .
• Internet Explorer 6.X, 7.X, and 8.X (Windows XP) .
• Safari 3.X and 4.X (Mac OS X) .
• Chrome 3.0 (Windows XP).

Viewing and Diagnostics Tools

Screenshots can be viewed in a single view, side by side view, or as an overlay view with variable transparency. Each viewing option features a zoom function. We’ve also added measurement tools like Rulers and Guides, custom Onion Skin Registration, as well as the ability to move quickly to specific areas of a screenshot. You can also save screenshots in 1-Up or 2-Up views.

Browser Sets

Browser Sets allow designers to customize, edit, and save a combination of browsers to test.

The BrowserLab free preview is available to a limited number of users, while we monitor its performance. Please visit our service status page for updates.

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.)

Microsoft’s Bing team has officially released Bing Add-on for Firefox.

Download and Add Bing Add-on For Firefox

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.

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Google India has launched a new application called “Google Noticeboard” helping people to share and easily access information over the Internet. Google Noticeboard is a Firefox extension that is installed and configured on shared computers by an operator. After the initial configuration, the Noticeboard application enables community members to exchange information over the Internet without an intermediary. As a part of the configuration, each community Noticeboard is associated with an email address and a list of contacts. Detailed installation instructions

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