Browsers

The H-Online: Google has announced that Chrome 19 is the new stable version of its open source based web browser. As usual, the browser sees a number of security fixes: this time there are seven high-severity fixes specifically for Chrome including various use-after-free and out-of-bounds errors. Two fixes with a wider impact than Chrome are also mentioned – a workaround for a Linux NVIDIA driver bug and an “off-by-one out-of-bounds” write in libxml. In all, $7500 was paid out in rewards to security researchers, and Google notes it has also paid out $9000 to researchers to stamp out bugs before they reached its stable channel. ...

The H-Online: Google has released a new update to the stable 18.x branch of its Chrome web browser to close a number of security holes found in the application. The update, labelled 18.0.1025.168, addresses a total of five vulnerabilities, three of which are rated as “high severity” by the company. These include use-after-free problems in floating point handling and the XML parser; all of these bugs were detected using the AddressSanitizer. As part of its Chromium Security Vulnerability Rewards program, Google paid a security researcher by the name of “miaubiz”, who is number three in the company’s Security Hall of Fame, $1,000 for discovering and reporting one of the float handling problems. Two medium risk problems related to IPC validation and a race condition in sandbox IPC have also been corrected. ...

H-Online: Soon, users running Firefox 3.6.x will start being automatically upgraded to the current version 12.0 release of the open source web browser. The plan to auto-update these users has been being discussed since the end of March, when Mozilla Release Manager Alex Keybl proposed the move on a Mozilla planning discussion thread. According to Keybl, Firefox 3.6.x users with updates enabled should start being upgraded in early May – the specific date has yet to be confirmed. The 3.6.x branch of Firefox, the first release of which arrived in January 2010, reached its end of life last week on 24 April; the last update to the 3.6 series was version 3.6.28 from early March. ...

The H-Online: A beta of version 12 of the Opera web browser has been released with privacy and security-focused improvements. Code-named “Wahoo”, the Opera 12.00 beta now runs plugins out-of-process and includes optimizations for better SSL handling. Running plugins in their own process not only improves the smoothness and stability of the browser but can limit the damage some plugin exploits can do. Privacy is enhanced with support for the “Do Not Track” (DNT) header, which is used to tell web sites that the browser user wishes to opt-out of online behavioral tracking. ...

The H-Online: Google has announced updates to the Stable and Beta channels of their Chrome browser, fixing several bugs and twelve security vulnerabilities. Seven of the twelve security fixes were classed as high-risk problems and Google paid a total of $6000 to the researchers who discovered the bugs. The update also includes a new version of the bundled Flash Player. Adobe have revised the Flash Player advisory from the end of March to include fixes for a Chrome/Flash only pair of memory corruption issues listed as CVE-2012-0724 and CVE-2012-0725. Given that these issues only affect Chrome and Chrome manages its own update, it is unlikely that Adobe will be reissuing or updating the advisory or patches for other browsers and platforms. ...

Google has released version 18 of Chrome, the company’s own extended version of the open source Chromium web browser. The new Stable channel release, labeled 18.0.1025.142, fixes several security vulnerabilities, and improves graphics and drawing performance on systems with capable hardware. This is done by adding support for GPU-accelerated rendering of 2D Canvas content on Windows and Mac OS X systems. According to the developers, the GPU acceleration should improve the overall performance of graphics-intensive web applications, making canvas-based animations and games “run faster and feel smoother”. For older systems that can’t make use of of the GPU, Chrome can now display 3D content using the SwiftShader software rasterizer, which Google licensed from TransGaming, Inc. However, the developers note that “a software-backed WebGL implementation is never going to perform as well as one running on a real GPU, but now more users will have access to basic 3D content on the web”. ...

The H-Online: In the latest round of updates of its suite of internet applications, Mozilla has detailed the security fixes in the Firefox 11 browser, Thunderbird 11 email and news client and SeaMonkey 2.8 “all-in-one internet application suite”. There are also fixes for the “enterprise” and legacy versions of Firefox and Thunderbird. These fixes include a correction to a memory error in Array.join() which had been fixed last month, but was exploited during the Pwn2Own contest by Vincenzo Iozzo. ...

H-Online: Version 2.0 of the HTTPS Everywhere browser extension has been released. Where possible, the add-on automatically redirects users to more secure HTTPS connections when they access certain web pages. HTTPS Everywhere 2.0 includes an optional “Decentralised SSL Observatory” feature that detects weaknesses in encryption. When the extension detects an encryption issue, such as weak keys, it notifies users that the site they are visiting may contain security vulnerabilities that could be used to for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. “This is an extra level of protection that we encourage Firefox users to download, install, and use” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Technology Projects Director Peter Eckersley. ...

The H-Online: Google’s solution for the problem of getting better passwords on the net – a combination of browser sign-in andOpenID – will take some time to implement as it involves persuading sites to switch to using OpenID. The developers on the Chrome project think that they can at least improve the security of passwords on sites, by generating passwords for the user. A new Password Generation proposal for the Chromium and Chrome browsers attempts to address that by assuming that once the user is signed into the browser, it can take over the handling of password creation. ...

The H-Online: The Mozilla Project has released updates to Firefox and Thunderbird. According to the release notes, the version 10.0.2 updates to the open source web browser and the news and email client address a security vulnerability; however, at the time of writing, the project’s security pages provide no details of what has been fixed; these releases came soon after a Chrome update which closed 13 security holes and took the version number to 17.0.963.56. ...

LifeHacker: Chrome 17 is out with a new pre-rendering feature designed to make your pages load faster, and both Firefox and Opera have also released speedy new versions since our last round of speed tests. So, we’ve once again pitted the four most popular web browsers against each other in a battle of startup times, tab loading times, and more, with more surprising results. Continue Reading: http://lifehacker.com/5884941/browser-speed-tests-chrome-17-firefox-10-internet-explorer-9-and-opera-1161 (Hint: As always Chrome is winner, no doubt!)

The H-Online: Mozilla has released Firefox 10.0.1, Firefox ESR 10.0.1, Thunderbird 10.0.1, Thunderbird ESR 10.0.1 and SeaMonkey 2.7.1 to fix a single critical security hole in the browsers and mail clients which appeared in version 10. The security advisory says that versions previous to Firefox 10, Thunderbird 10 and SeaMonkey 2.7 are unaffected by the use after free problem. The problem was discovered by Mozilla developers and causes a “potentially exploitable” crash in nsXBLDocumentInfo::ReadPrototypeBindings. Updates are available through Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey’s automatic update system and can be made to install by bringing up the “About” dialogue for the relevant application and selecting the “Apply Upgrade” button when it appears. Firefox and Thunderbird 10 were released at the end of January. ...

gHacks: Mozilla, developers of the popular Firefox web browser, have just released an update for the browser’s stable branch that moves the version to 10.0.1. The release may come as a surprise to users of Firefox 10, who were updated to that version only ten days ago. This is not the first occurrence that a critical update is released shortly after a major version upgrade of the web browser. Similar updates had to be delivered after the release of Firefox 9 and Firefox 8. ...

LifeHacker: Google is releasing a major update to Chrome today that will make browsing the web seem faster and also add security protections. Chrome 17 (17.0.963.46) pre-renders pages in the background when you type in the URL in the omnibox address bar so the site will appear to come up almost instantaneously. Chrome also now scans download executable-s (e.g., “.exe” and “.msi” files) and warns you if it thinks the file is malicious. ...

Google Chrome Wrote: In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices. ...