Archive for July, 2007

Opera 9 Bug – Inaccessible Links

By | July 18, 2007 | 5 Comments

It seems that there is one very old bug in Opera browser (tried with Opera 9.21 and 9.22 Beta as well). Sometimes it is impossible to navigate when reading post, for example this one as “Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2 – Impressions Firefox 2.0.0.5 Released” links are unclickable. It doesn’t happen always, althought it’s really a bug and not this site fault, see this prove, impossible to click for me when using Opera.

Reported: October 2006, 21:39:24

I’ve noticed this long time ago, actually right after I’ve made this blog public, thats why I’ve just added “Home Page” in the top so Opera users could navigate. Hope it will be fixed soon as it’s annoying one.

Firefox 2.0.0.5 Released

By | July 18, 2007 | 0 Comments

So I was surfing the internet today and got a pleasant notice about an installed update. That’s right, Firefox 2.0.0.5 was just released.

According to Mozilla.org, Firefox 2.0.0.5 fixes the following vulnerabilities:

  • XPCNativeWrapper pollution
  • Unauthorized access to wyciwyg:// documents
  • Remote code execution by launching Firefox from Internet Explorer
  • File type confusion due to %00 in name
  • Privilege escallation using an event handler attached to an element not in the document
  • Frame spoofing while window is loading
  • XSS using addEventListener and setTimeout
  • Crashes with evidence of memory corruption

Release notes.

Download here.

And by the way, I love the way how Firefox is being updated.

Opera Browser Is Free

By | July 16, 2007 | 11 Comments

Since there is nothing much new today in the web browsers area thought I will write some stuff about Opera, so today I was checking my inbox and got one email with the following content:

Hi, I want to try Opera 9.21, but can you help me to find a crack for it?

Huh? Opera is free. I am surprised how bad people are (or not) informed. This is actually not a first time when I read something like this, so I’ll just repeat:

Opera Browser is free. It became free ages ago…

Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2 – Impressions

By | July 14, 2007 | 6 Comments

Yesterday I’ve tried Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2.

I was thinking to write much more about this web browser, but after using it for a while, it really makes not much point to do that. Why? Well… Let me begin then.

Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2 Screenshot

I’ve launched Netscape Navigator Beta 2 and thought that its interface is not very good as I don’t like green color, but it’s just me.

The more I used it, the more I felt it’s actually a Firefox (yes, I know that this browser is Firefox based, but that’s not the main point).

Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2 Screenshot

I actually see even no point to use this browser, unless you are hardly using Netscape.com. Usually when I am trying new browser I want some new features which makes that browser special and my favorite one, and Netscape Navigator is just another Firefox clone.

If you like Firefox, use Firefox, if you don’t like Firefox, you won’t like Netscape Navigator 9 too. If you are using Netscape.com very often, try it, you might actually like Netscape Navigator more than any other browser.

Not really much to say I guess.

Netscape Navigator 9 Beta 2 Released

By | July 13, 2007 | 0 Comments

Netscape Navigator team just released a brand new Netscape Navigator 9 version: beta 2.

According to their blog, Beta 2 fixes some bugs and ads new features.

Beta 2 addresses the following issues that appeared in Beta 1:
Added URL as a tooltip to Linkpad entries
Added “Reload” to the FAS and Tracker sidebar context menus
Closing the last tab will now close the browser window
Fixed the CFBundleSignature on the Mac DMG
Fixed bug when removing the location bar while customizing the toolbar
Various fixes to in-browser voting
Various performance fixes

I have to admit, haven’t really ever tried Netscape Navigator 9, but downloading it now.

You may also want to download it here.

What I’ve found interesting in Navigator 9? Well… Here are some interesting features:

Navigator will automatically correct common typos made in Web addresses.
Examples: .cmo => .com, htp:// => http://, netscape,com => netscape.com

Install any Firefox 2-compatible extension.

I will write about this release more, just have to use it for at least few hours first.

Firefox 3 Alpha 7 Pre. Anti Fraud Feature

By | July 12, 2007 | 3 Comments

It’s not a big secret, every web developer wants to have fastest and most secure web browser, which not only should have all the security issues fixed, but also it should help novice user to understand the risks and help him/her to avoid that.

Firefox 3 Alpha 7 (Pre) got one more feature which should help users to avoid fake domain names. See this picture.

Firefox 3 Alpha Pre URL

It highlights domain name (well… actually makes other text light grey) so users could take a look at it and make sure it’s a correct domain name. Not really usefull, isn’t it?

That’s not all, according to Arstechnica,

FF3 Alpha 7 also incorporates a domain translator that changes an address that’s encoded in non-standard ASCII (such as a percentile-encoded address) into standard text. Again, this is a change aimed at making domain addresses easier to read by stripping out the non-standard characters a phisher might use to confuse a potential target.

There’s also an add-on for Firefox 2. Not perfect, but if you don’t want to use Firefox 3 Alpha 7 to test this one, feel free to use Locationbar2 add-on.

Web Browsers Security. Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox

By | July 12, 2007 | 29 Comments

After yesterdays post about new Firefox security bug I’ve decided to check out, which of the worlds most popular web browsers are most secure. Thanks to Secunia for stats.

Opera 9.x – Affected By 6 Secunia advisories
Unpatched 0% (0 of 6 Secunia advisories)

Internet Explorer 7.x – Affected By 13 Secunia advisories
Unpatched 54% (7 of 13 Secunia advisories)
Most Critical Unpatched
The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.x, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Moderately critical.

Safari 2.x – Affected By 6 Secunia advisories
Unpatched 67% (4 of 6 Secunia advisories)
Most Critical Unpatched
The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Safari 2.x, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Less critical.

Firefox 2.0.x – Affected By 12 Secunia advisories
Unpatched 67% (8 of 12 Secunia advisories)
Most Critical Unpatched
The most severe unpatched Secunia advisory affecting Mozilla Firefox 2.0.x, with all vendor patches applied, is rated Highly critical.

I am really confused right now, but does that makes Firefox 2.0.x most insecure web browser? And according to Secunia stats, Internet Explorer 7 is right after Opera which puts it into the 2nd place?

1. Opera 9.x – Most Secure Web Browser?
2. Internet Explorer 7.x
3. Safari 2.x
4. Firefox 2.0.x – Most Insecure Web Browser?

We Will Have Firefox 3 Alpha 7. Firefox 3 Beta Delayed

By | July 11, 2007 | 0 Comments

Recently Mozilla modified their Firefox 3 roadmap and announced Firefox 3 Alpha 7 instead of Firefox 3 Beta 1.

According to Mozilla, next Firefox 3 release isn’t ready to call itself a “beta”, they want to deliver a product, which is stable and much better, it doesn’t matter if it can take more time than planned. I guess that’s good, we want finished and polished releases, not just a big peace of bugs.

Firefox 3 Alpha 7 should contain anti-malware, finished offline api’s and secure wrappers. If there won’t be any delays for Firefox 3 Alpha 7, it will be released on July 31st.

Firefox 3 Milestone 8 will be available in the middle of September.

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Firefox “firefoxurl” URI Handler Registration Vulnerability

By | July 10, 2007 | 2 Comments

Secunia reported today about a new exploit for Firefox 2.0.0.4 (might affect previous builds as well).

A vulnerability has been discovered in Firefox, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.

Solution:
Do not browse untrusted sites.
Disable the “Firefox URL” URI handler.

Thor Larholm noted:

There is an input validation flaw in Internet Explorer that allows you to specify arbitrary arguments to the process responsible for handling URL protocols. This is the same type of input validation vulnerability that I discovered in the Safari 3 beta.

Opera 9.22, Build 8800 Released

By | July 10, 2007 | 0 Comments

Today Opera’s desktop team updated us with a new Opera 9.22 build.

Unfortunately they haven’t provided much information about this weekly build, since it really came up very fast after the previous Opera 9.22 build, but you should know that it is much faster with high speed peers now + more stable.

Off-Topic: Junyor also noted, that there won’t be any Opera 9.5 build on Friday.

Download:
Windows MSI
Windows Classic
Macintosh
Unix

And as always, use it on your own risk. This is not a final version.