News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Firefox 3.5 was released yesterday. The most significant feature is a much faster JavaScript engine, so those heavily scripted Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, digg, and Gmail will be noticeably faster. Other features include partial HTML 5 support and a private browsing mode. The linked article has an overview of the more important changes, while the release notes give more detail.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Last February, Microsoft released a .NET 3.5 service pack via Windows Update. Part of the install process silently adds a Firefox extension allowing the browser to use the .NET ClickOnce feature. (The extension is named “Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant”.) There are some security concerns about this extension, and additionally, you can’t uninstall it without making a registry change. Needless to say, this irritated a good number of people. The uproar was so bad that Microsoft issued a patch allowing you to uninstall the extension normally.
There’s a serious Firefox exploit that’s been published on the web. It relies on the user viewing a maliciously coded XML file. Mozilla is working on a patch, but until it’s ready, I recommend being careful about where and what you’re browsing.
Link: http://www.infoworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Update: The fix is available now but won’t be pushed out via the update channel until next week.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has dropped to a 68% market share, while Mozilla’s Firefox is at 21% and Apple’s Safari is at 8%. In this case, at least, competition leads to innovation, which is good for the user.
Link: http://www.tgdaily.com/…
(via digg)
I like to wait several months before upgrading to a new version of Firefox, and this time was no exception. But with the impending demise of Firefox 2.x support as well as the looming release of version 3.1, I took the plunge and installed version 3.0.4. It wasn’t too bad, although I had to axe a couple incompatible extensions and manually upgrade seven others (check out my list of extensions). For Chad’s new readers, who’ve probably updated ages ago, here are some Firefox 3 tweaks and tips from Lifehacker:
Mozilla has developed a new javascript interpreter for Firefox 3.1 that’s up to 40 times faster than the one in Firefox 3.0. This will be nice, as many of today’s “Web 2.0” sites are heavily scripted.
Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
In Microsoft Windows, the Control Panel has an entry for “Internet Options.” Many of these settings apply exclusively to Internet Explorer, even though it’s obvious that Microsoft wants them to be Windows-specific and not IE-specific. Firefox 3 is helping to make this desire into a reality, as it “now honors your Windows security settings for downloading applications and other potentially unsafe files from the Internet.” The author of the linked article hypothesizes this was done so that corporations, which are usually quite concerned about computer security policies, may find Firefox more palatable.
Link: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/…
(via digg)
Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, with host Stephen Colbert, is a great show. The “Colbert bump” is the increase in popularity affecting guests who appear on the show (e.g., increased book sales for authors, a rise in poll numbers for politicians, etc.). And Firefox has joined the growing ranks of those receiving the bump. The linked article contains a graph showing spikes in the number of Firefox 3 downloads—spikes that happened immediately after the browser was mentioned on the show.
Link: http://blog.mozilla.com/…
(via digg)
Web designers have long known better than to use the annoying tag (or even its CSS counterpart). But there are some not-so-good designers who seem to consider the <BLINK> tag to be an elegant and forceful statement. Fortunately the linked article tells how to configure Firefox such that blinking text is disabled.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
With the release of Firefox 3 yesterday, the linked article has some tips for the power user.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
The linked article performs various speed tests on four different browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. There wasn’t really a clear winner, but Internet Explorer was definitely the loser.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
Mozilla has announced that Firefox 3 will be released on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008. They’re attempting to set the world record for most software downloads in a 24-hour period. Personally I like to wait a bit so that most of my extensions get ported.
Link: http://developer.mozilla.org/…
(via Lifehacker)
Chad Cloman
Denver, CO USA
