On the 10th July a patch was checked in for bug 384384 which is a bug that needs both Firefox and IE to be exploited. The command injection vulnerability affected users of Internet Explorer who browsed to a malicious page assuming that they had Firefox installed but not running. Opinions vary as to whether this was a Windows vulnerability or a Firefox one. In my opinion both had some degree of responsibility for this.
Dell are running an ‘Idea Storm‘ website to gather peoples opinions on what they’d like to see on their PCs. So far feedback from this site was one of the driving factors in reintroducing Windows XP as an option in addition to Vista.
Should Dell ship Firefox? Let them know your opinion.
Because of some regressions in the Firefox 2.0.0.2 security update a new release will be produced very soon with these regressions fixed. Once available, this release will be pushed as an automatic update.
One of the most useful resources I use for keeping track of Firefox development is The Burning Edge it features regular updates on developments in Firefox nightly builds. For those that don’t follow Firefox development closely they may not know that Mozilla release nightly development builds that incorporate the changes of the day. These builds are not intended for general use, but for those who want to help with Firefox development or testing.
The first Firefox Flicks TV ads are now ready to be broadcast. The Firefox Flicks website shows the chosen 4.
It’s currently only in Boston and SF, but if successful could be spread to other countries. More details on the Firefox Flicks blog.
To make this campaign possible they asked for 72 sponsors and managed to get them in a matter of hours.
Gran Paradiso alpha 1 has been released. It’s the first alpha release of Gecko 1.9 which will form the basis of Firefox 3.
The main changes in this release have been to the Gecko backend and very little has changed in the browser front end.
The release is intended for testers and developers only and not intended for the general public.
Firebug 1.0 beta 4 was released to the public on the 9th December. Created by Joe Hewitt, a long time Mozilla contributor, has decided to release his work under the same tri-licence as Mozilla Firefox.
Joe Hewitt is working on a new venture called Parakey with Blake Ross, one of the first Firefox developers. This means that Joe will not be able to spend much time on Firebug in the future. He had considered selling Firebug in order to fund the employment of another developer to carry on development while he concentrates on Parakey, but in the end he decided open source was the best option. So if you’re benefitting from this product then they’d appreciate anything you’re willing to donate.
Firebug is an essential tool for web developers offering debugging tools for HTML, JavaScript and CSS. It’s particularly useful for debugging apps that heavily rely on JavaScript such as AJAX apps. It’s only a 288KB download and works with Firefox 2.0. There’s also Firebug Lite, a piece of javascript that provides a basic Firebug console in other browsers including IE, Opera and Safari.
Multiple versions of Firefox will happily co-exist on the same machine. However, it’s a good idea to tell each version to use its own separate profile. The process of doing this is relatively simple. I will describe the process for Windows initially and then mention how it differs for Linux and Mac OS X. (more…)
Mozilla Developer News is reporting that the tree has been closed for 1.9a1. Gecko 1.9 will power the back end for Firefox 3 and other Gecko based products such as Thunderbird and Camino. New alpha builds will be produced approximately every 6 weeks. This alpha is concentrating on the Gecko backend so will have no differences to the Firefox frontend over version 2.0.
Firefox is the main utiliser of Gecko technology but is not the only one, so it’s important to note that this alpha release is not a Firefox alpha but any Gecko alphas you download will be using the Firefox frontend as a means of testing the underlying Gecko technology. This release is not intended for general consumption and should be avoided unless you’re a Mozilla developer or tester (or interested in getting involved), or a web developer interesting in how their sites display under this rendering engine.
In the coming weeks we’ll be looking at what’s expected of Gecko 1.9 and how that’s expected to relate to Firefox 3. Please note that project Tamarin that was mentioned previously is not planned for Gecko 1.9, it is planned for 2.0 (aka Mozilla 2) which will be a major overhaul of the Gecko engine.
The Firefox crop circle is now showing on Google maps. It was part of one of the imaginative Spread Firefox marketing initiatives. It looks like Google were in on the idea - if you zoom out you can see the area taken on that section of the field is newer than the surrounding area and also there’s the cars forming ‘Fx’ below the circle. For more information on this check out the Firefox flicks video blog.