Mozilla Officially Unveils A Pre-Alpha Test Version Of Firefox For Android

Late last month, a number of sites noted that a very early build of Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, was available to download for Android phones. However, that build wasn’t official as it was put together by an individual and optimized for the Droid device. Today, Mozilla has itself put out a pre-Alpha build of Fennec that should work at the very least on Droid and the Nexus One.

Mozilla is quick to note that this is a pre-Alpha build of the browser, and is only for testing purposes. But that isn’t stopping Mozilla’s Vladimir Vukićević from announcing it on his blog. “There also aren’t yet any automated nightly developer builds or automated updates to this build; it’s even more of a pre-nightly build (even earlier than pre-alpha).  But, it’s usable enough that we wanted to get some feedback on it as we continue to develop,” he notes.

To get this build, you can visit this link on your Android device. Or you can point your phone’s browser to: bit.ly/fennec-android. And yes, there’s a QR code on Vukićević’s blog post if you want to scan it, and download it that way. Whichever way you do it, you’ll need to make sure your settings allow you to install non-Market apps (go to Settings, Applications, and check “Unknown Sources”).

Some other warnings and notes to consider about the build from Vukićević:

* We’ve only really tested this on the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One.
* It will likely not eat your phone, but bugs might cause your phone to stop responding, requiring a reboot.
* Memory usage of this build isn’t great — in many ways it’s a debug build, and we haven’t really done a lot of optimization yet.  This could cause some problems with large pages, especially on low memory devices like the Droid.
* You’ll see the app exit and relaunch on first start, as well as on add-on installs; this is a quirk of our install process, and we’re working to get rid of it.
* You can’t open links from other apps using Fennec; we should have this for the next build.

He also notes that there’s an experimental version of Weave, Mozilla’s syncing tool that will work with this pre-Alpha build of Fennec. Visit this page and click on the “Experimental version” to find it.

Source: TechCrunch

FireFox

Mozilla developers have blocked a Firefox plugin that was quietly pushed out by Microsoft, saying that it presents a security risk.

Microsoft shipped the Firefox add-on as part of a .Net software update last February, causing outrage among some Firefox users, who complained that the software was sneaked onto their systems without their knowledge or approval and was extremely difficult to remove.

On Tuesday, Microsoft warned that Firefox users who have not applied a recent Internet Explorer patch were vulnerable to a “browse-and-get-owned attack” because of a bug in the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant add-on.

“All that is needed is for a user to be lured to a malicious website,” Microsoft said. Triggering this vulnerability involves the use of a malicious XBAP (XAML Browser Application).

The flaw is a nasty one, but users who have installed the MS09-054 IE update, released Tuesday are protected from this attack, “regardless of the attack vector,” Microsoft said.

To protect users who may not have installed Microsoft’s patch, Mozilla is automatically blocking two add-ons: the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant and a related plugin called the Windows Presentation Foundation. The open-source browser started blocking the software late Friday night.

“Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted Microsoft today to indicate that we were looking to disable the extension and plugin for all users via our blocklisting mechanism,” wrote Mozilla Vice President of Engineering Mike Shaver in a blog posting. “Microsoft agreed with the plan, and we put the blocklist entry live immediately.”

Buggy plugins are a growing problem, as cyber criminals have increasingly leveraged flaws in products such as Adobe Flash Player and QuickTime to launch browser-based attacks. Earlier this week, Mozilla launched a Plugin Check site where Firefox users can see if their plugins are up-to-date.

Source: PCWorld

Initial Mockups for the Windows theme revamp.

These are NOT FINAL! THEY ARE ONLY FOR RAINSTORMING/EXPLORATION!

1. Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Buttons translucent and slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D lookachieve tactile “feel”.
2. Page Button: Connect the Page button to the left side of the tab area. Directly connected to the Page.
3. Tools/Bookmark Bar: Connecting the Tools button to the side of the Window to emphasize the fact that it is used for customizing and changing the UI. Adding a button next to that to toggle the Bookmarks Bar which is turned off by default.

Source: wiki.mozilla.org

Mozilla has announced the availability of Firefox 3.5.1, the first minor point release in the 3.5 series. The purpose of this release was largely to patch a critical security vulnerability that was found in the browser’s new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.

In a report submitted to Mozilla’s bug tracking system on July 9, Firefox user “zbyte” described a bug that causes the browser to crash when text is typed into an input box in the site apport.ru. Firefox developers attempted to isolate the bug and produce a minimal test case that exhibits the crash. They determined that the apport.ru crasher was triggered by a certain usage of JavaScript’s “escape” function, which performs string encoding. The underlying problem, however, is a tracing bug.

Last year, Mozilla announced a project intended to significantly boost Firefox’s JavaScript execution performance by introducing new optimization techniques and a just-in-time (JIT) compilation engine. They added Adobe’s nanojit native code generator to SpiderMonkey, the browser’s existing JavaScript interpreter. To further boost performance, they used an optimization technique called tracing that was pioneered by research scientists Dr. Michael Franz and Dr. Andreas Gal. The resulting hybrid engine, which they call TraceMoneky, is enabled by default in Firefox 3.5.

Tracing optimization involves recording the path of execution and generating fragments of native code that can be used on subsequent execution of the same path. This method of optimization has a small memory footprint and is highly effective for dynamic programming languages like JavaScript.

When the TraceMonkey runtime is executing a trace, it uses mechanisms referred to as “guards” to determine if the code it has recorded is still applicable to the current path of execution. When it is not, it will “bail” and return to the interpreter. When this happens during the execution of a real native function, such as one that is coded in C, it is called a “deep bail.” The Firefox bug behind the vulnerability that led to the 3.5.1 release relates to how the runtime cleans up after a deep bail.

“This is a JS engine bug dealing with deep bailing not properly restoring the return value from the result of the (fast native) escape function. We then try to do something with the uninitialized memory and crash in the interpreter,” wrote Mozilla’s Blake Kaplan in a comment on the bug report. Kaplan later attached patch that Gal wrote to fix the issue.

Security researchers discovered the bug report in Mozilla’s bug tracker and determined that the bug was exploitable. Simon Berry-Byrne published an example using Mozilla’s test case that demonstrates how a malicious web page could use heap spraying to exploit the vulnerability and execute arbitrary code.

The security researchers would likely not have discovered the issue if it had been marked as hidden in Mozilla’s bug tracker, which is a common practice that the organization uses when dealing with bugs that could have serious security implications. Gal commented that the emergence of an exploit was “self-inflicted” because this step wasn’t taken. In any case, the Firefox 3.5.1 update was issued quickly in response to the exploit.

Following the release of Firefox 3.5.1, researchers Berry-Byrne and fellow researcher Andrew Hayes discovered another bug that can be exhibited in certain conditions with the “escape” function. They have published a demonstration of this second bug at milw0rm, but have incorrectly characterized it as a stack overflow issue. Contrary to the report issued by the national vulnerability database, this second bug is not, in fact, exploitable.

In a post at the Mozilla security blog, Mozilla VP of engineering Mike Shaver says that Mozilla is conducting further investigation into the issue, but is confident that it is not a vulnerability.

Source: ars technica

Mozilla on Monday released beta 3.5 of Firefox, a revamp of the open-source Web browser designed to include better performance, several new Web programming features, and a private browsing mode.

The earlier betas had been numbered 3.1, but Mozilla switched to the version 3.5 name after concluding the changes were more significant than it envisioned earlier. Mozilla has said earlier the fourth beta will the last, with more polished release candidates expected before the final version of Firefox 3.5 is released.

The software emerges amid what’s become a fiercely competitive browser market. Microsoft has released a significant new version, Internet Explorer 8, while Google has entered the market with Chrome and Apple is trying to secure a Windows foothold for its Safari browser. Firefox holds second place in market share to IE.

Among the changes compared with the current Firefox 3.0.x versions are the faster TraceMonkey engine for running Web sites’ JavaScript programs; built-in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) technology for exchanging data between servers and browsers; support for tags to describe audio and video content the way images have been available for years; the private browsing mode for leaving no traces on your computer while surfing; support for technology to let permitted applications know the user’s location; and support for the Web workers standard for letting a browser perform processing in the background without holding back a Web application’s user interface.

There are a number of known problems with Gmail and with AVG SafeSearch v8.0 on Windows, and as usual, many of those extensions that are so popular on Firefox could break. For details, check the release notes.

Source: CNET News – by Stephen Shankland

Mozilla had planned to release its new “Shiretoko” version of Firefox in early 2009, but with the scale of changes made to the open-source browser, a date halfway through the year now looks more realistic.

After releasing Firefox 3.1 beta 3 last week, the organization behind the browser said a fourth beta is planned–and with the new version number 3.5.

“There are no plans for a Beta 5 at this time, and after Beta 4 we’ll be looking to move to a release candidate,” said Firefox director Mike Beltzner in a statement. “Of course, we stand by our commitment to ship software when it’s ready.”

So when might the final version of Firefox 3.5 be ready, with at least two more test versions planned? Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard offered a loose schedule in a Twitter post Friday. “Firefox 3.5 will be out once we do one more beta and some release candidates. No dates, but probably 2-3 months or so,” Blizzard said.

It’s always difficult to draw the line between freezing features to concentrate on stabilizing software and extending development time to add a bit more technology to the new version; Mozilla decided the latter path was the better one.

“The increase in version number is proposed due to the sheer volume of work, which makes Shiretoko feel like much more than a small, incremental improvement over Firefox 3: TraceMonkey, video tag and player support, improvements to user controls over data privacy, significant improvements in the web layout and rendering platform, and much more,” Beltzner said in an earlier blog post about the Firefox version number change.

The browser wars are in full force, with Microsoft on the cusp of releasing the new Internet Explorer 8, Apple offering a beta of Safari 4, Opera trying to offer faster downloads and faster JavaScript in its product, and Google, the 800-pound Internet Gorilla, offering Chrome.

Changes in Firefox 3.5 include faster execution of Web-based JavaScript programs, a private browsing mode, native support for the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) technology for exchanging data between servers and browsers, and built-in audio and video abilities for bypassing Flash or other multimedia technologies.

Source: CNET News – by Stephen Shankland

Mozilla on Wednesday released an update to the Firefox Web browser that its developers said fixes eight security issues found in Firefox 3.0.6, six of which were rated critical.

The most serious of the vulnerabilities fixed in Version 3.0.7 could allow attackers to run arbitrary code on a victim’s computer, Mozilla warned in security advisories Wednesday. 

The six critical flaws affected the browser’s garbage collection–which monitors how Firefox modules use the computer’s memory–as well as the browser’s PNG libraries and in the layout and JavaScript engines.

Mozilla developers said they weren’t sure the layout and JavaScript flaws could be exploited.

“Some of these crashes showed evidence of memory corruption under certain circumstances and we presume that with enough effort at least some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code,” Mozilla said in an advisory.

Updates for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux are available at the Mozilla site. Firefox 3 users will receive an update notification within 48 hours, or they can download the update manually by selecting “Check for Updates” from the Help menu.

The update–Mozilla’s second this year –comes as Firefox continues to chip away at Internet Explorer‘s market dominance. Mozilla now has 21.77 percent of the global browser market share, compared to Internet Explorer now has 67.44 percent, a drop of more than 7 percentage points in a year, according to figures from Web metrics company Net Applications.

Source: CNET News – by Steven Musil

Mozilla has thrown its support behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s push to have the U.S. Copyright Office allow iPhone jailbreaking.

CEO John Lilly told Computerworld that “choice is good for users, and choice shouldn’t be criminalized,” in light of the dispute between the EFF and Apple over whether or not iPhone jailbreaking–the practice of modifying an iPhone to accept software from sources other than Apple–is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Last week Apple declared that jailbreaking an iPhone violates Apple’s copyright and can cause all sorts of technical problems for the user in response to a petition from the EFF that iPhone jailbreaking be given a DMCA exemption.

Lilly’s motivation would seem pretty clear; a version of the Firefox mobile browser, Fennec, for the iPhone. However, Lilly told Computerworld that he wasn’t sure Mozilla would ever want to develop an iPhone version of Fennec even if Apple was forced to open up the iPhone. Apple offers Web browser alternatives to the default Safari browser in the App Store, but they aren’t true alternatives since they are all required to use the Webkit rendering engine used in Safari.

“Given the choice, would we work on a platform where the sole company controlling it makes us unwelcome, or would we work on a platform, like Linux, where we are welcome? The answer is going to be easy for us,” Lilly told Computerworld.

Two other software developers joined Mozilla in supporting the EFF’s petition: Skype and Cydia. Cydia is exactly the piece of software that Apple railed against in its response to the EFF’s petition, as it lets iPhone owners install applications from any source, rather than just the App Store. In his remarks submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office, Jay Freeman of Saurik, Cydia’s developer, said “Cydia is now installed on 1.6 million devices worldwide, at least a quarter of which are within the United States.”

Source: CNET News – by Tom Krazit

Soon after our first impression on the Internet Explorer 8 RC1, we decided to do the inevitable, a browser comparison with long time rivals Firefox, Opera, and the latest kid on the block, Chrome.

Note that this is not a review to find out which amongst these is the best browser around. It would be unwise to do such a comparison because, eventually, it boils down to personal choices, and for the same reason, there will always be controversy and related chest thumping about how “my” browser betters “yours.” Therefore, this is just a rehash of the features and drawbacks of these four mainstream browsers available as of today.

Internet Explorer 8

Let us talk about the latest release initially, the Internet Explorer 8 RC 1.  While it would be difficult for power users to switch back to something as mundane as IE8, folks over at Microsoft seem to have worked hard to make the browser appealing to users who have long ago ditched it and had switched to the likes of Firefox and Opera. As to how far it has succeeded in bringing back the deserters is anybody’s guess. Features like web slices, accelerators, and visual search have been added, making the browser an attractive option for the average user. IE8 with its beta version was also one of the first to debut the Private Browsing mode, which back then was unavailable on the Firefox and still not available on Opera. Safari was the first to introduce Private Browsing.

However, IE8 still suffers from inherent faults that come to the fore the moment you click download. The installation exe is a mammoth 16MB file – second only to Chrome probably, which incidentally uses an online installer. The installation procedure also involves a couple of instances of restarting the computer making the process look regressive as compared to the faster approach the others have. The installation takes a good part of 10 minutes if your system happens to be up-to-date with all available Windows Updates – you better have a uber fast PC! If you do not frequently update your PC, you might as well end up with irritating messages.

C’mon Microsoft, all I want to do is to just browse the Internet!

Did Microsoft say that they did some tweaking to the rendering engine? Maybe, but most pages are a whole lot slower to load as compared to Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. As mentioned in our first look article, an ACID test performed on the browser gave a dismal score of 20 – the lowest amongst all the others tested here. While these standards may not represent anything, it does show the browser underpinnings. And no, there is still no sign of a download manager anywhere.

So, should or rather will the power users make the switch? No way, until Microsoft rehashes the product ground up! The browser is moving in the right direction and will definitely appeal to average users who still prefer the charm of the good ol’ Internet Explorer. Those used to the likes of Firefox, Chrome, or Opera will be happy to stick to their choices now.

Firefox 3

The world’s second most popular browser is continuing its march to topple the gentle giant from Microsoft and has been successfully eating into IE’s market share for the past few years. Major pluses for Firefox users are the variety of add-ons that make it more of an application, rather than just a browser. The version in question here is the latest stable release – version 3.0.5. The quickness of the installation procedure is evident from the moment you update it. The installation file is just over 7MB in size, making it less than half IE8′s size. An ACID3 test on the browser revealed a decent score of 71/100. Note that the latest beta version, 3.1 Beta2, has added Private Browsing and some other features as well, but we’re not considering it until the final version is out.

Apart from appealing to the advanced user thanks to its customization and add-ons, what makes it the choice for average users is the fast rendering and ease of use. While it might be difficult for many to be weaned away from the default Internet Explorer, most people are hooked once they start using this browser. A vast majority of tech users are Firefox users and we did see a lot of responses praising Firefox for its simplicity, security, ease of use, and not to mention, the add ons. However, Private Browsing has still not found its way in,

Opera 9.63

Another contender for the best browser around is none other than Opera. Although the market share might tell a different story, Opera is still considered by many to be the best browser around. While Mozilla users may swear about the add-ons, Opera users counter the claim by saying that Opera manages to do what most Firefox add-ons can, out of the box. Additionally, if Firefox has add-ons, Opera does come with its widgets and, not to mention, the mouse gestures. The latest stable version managed an Acid 3 score of 85/100. Opera was also touted to be the fastest browser around for the past few years and dedicated Opera fans still swear by the browser. Opera also has features like the speed dial, skins, and an entirely new browser engine.

Google Chrome

Google created a flutter in the browser circles back in September when it announced the release of the Chrome, the company’s first open source browser. Months after its launch, Chrome too has managed to garner a dedicated set of users. Chrome seems to thrive on Google’s concept of simplicity, and the best thing about the browser is its rather large viewing area. It does away with unwanted toolbars taking away the screen real estate. Chrome also managed to graduate to a stable version back in December, barely three months after its beta release. One thing you might not like is the installation procedure

The browser had the Incognito mode (Private mode) right from the beta stage, and has integrated the function quite neatly. The startup and load times are also fast. While Chrome is still very crude for advanced users, its open source pedigree works in its favor. Once the browser starts supporting add-ons, there are a sizable number of people ready to make the switch. There are also some users who use Chrome for its simplicity, as a barebones browser.

What browser do you use? Have you tried the IE8 RC 1 yet? Chrome users: How long have you been using it and is the wait for the first add-on making you impatient? Firefox users might be glad to find the private browsing mode in the latest beta – but couldn’t the feature have arrived a tad earlier? As for the Opera, will it ever be able to shrug off its niche tag -  do you prefer to remain with a niche browser?

Source: TechTree