Xmarks service ends January 2011

Xmarks will be shutting down free browser synchronization services on January 10, 2011. For details on how to transition to recommended alternatives, consult this page. For the full story behind the Xmarks shutdown, please read their blog post. It’s a sad story to me! Here I found a good article to read: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/no-more-xmarks-no/192 ...

September 30, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 53 words Â· Omid Farhang

Browser cookies are becoming an issue

The New York Times is reporting a rising number of law suits against some major players because of their use of persistent web tracking: — Fox Entertainment Group — NBC Universal — Specific Media — Quantcast The Times said the suits are claiming that the companies used Flash cookies to collect data on browsing activities in spite of the fact that users had privacy settings on to block them. ...

September 23, 2010 Â· 3 min Â· 483 words Â· Omid Farhang

Browser Updates, again

Google released version 6.0.472.59 of its Chrome web browser. It fixes 10 security vulnerabilities; 1 is only affecting Mac OS X and critical, 6 are rated “high” in their severity. As usual, the update should get delivered and installed automatically – but it doesn’t hurt to check via the “Info about Chrome” option in the “settings” menu whether the new version is already installed. ...

September 17, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 112 words Â· Omid Farhang

Browser Updates

The Mozilla foundation just released the popular web browser Firefox in version 3.6.9. The new version fixes overall 14 security vulnerabilities of which 10 are rated critical by the developers. Additionally, they added a new feature called “X-FRAME-OPTIONS“-header which shall help mitigating clickjacking attacks as web site owners can ensure with this header that their content isn’t inserted into other sites via frames. The update is available through the automatic update mechanism ( via the “Help” – “Search for updates” menu). ...

September 8, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 316 words Â· Omid Farhang

Malicious warez site offers Firefox 4.0 beta download scam

Like a lot of seedy stuff, this started with a Twitter post:. The current working version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is 3.6.8. Version 4 is in beta testing. You get them FREE from Mozilla.. Why would you need a crack (program with its password broken) or a keygen (application that generates a password for a password-protected program) for something that is FREE? ...

August 29, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 176 words Â· Omid Farhang

Mozilla turns up the fire, Firefox 4 betas to begin in June

With competition in the Web browser field having transitioned from cold to boiling in less than a year’s time, Mozilla suddenly finds itself playing catch-up against not only Apple and Google, but Microsoft as well. In March, the organization realized it needed to completely make over Firefox 4 if it wanted to remain feature competitive against a fast-rising Google Chrome. ...

May 11, 2010 Â· 6 min Â· 1187 words Â· Omid Farhang

Firefox 4 Plans: Faster, Friendlier, More Secure

Almost one year ago, we’ve gotten a glimpse of the next major iteration of Firefox, at least when it comes to its gorgeous new visuals. Now, however, Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner has shared a presentation that reveals quite detailed plans for Firefox 4. HTML5 and CSS support are mentioned, as well as faster operation, a greater focus on security and stability, new developer tools, and a lot of personalization options. Furthermore, from the screenshots embedded in the presentation, we can see that the visuals from one year ago haven’t changed much, although most menu items (the home button, for example) are positioned differently. ...

May 11, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 128 words Â· Omid Farhang

IE losing market share, Chrome gaining

For the first time, Microsoft’s share of the browser marked has slipped below 60 percent, according to figures from Net Applications, a Aliso Viejo, Calif., web app and metrics firm . Browser market share: Microsoft — 59.95 percent Mozilla’s Firefox — 24.59 percent Google Chrome — 6.73 percent Apple’s Safari — 4.72 percent Opera — 2.30 percent. Story Here.

May 4, 2010 Â· 1 min Â· 59 words Â· Omid Farhang

The big change coming to Safari 5: Kernel-level multi-processing

Apple has been challenging Google on many fronts this week — first with its mobile platform, then with its advertising platform. Earlier today, its developers launched the first volley in the battle’s third front, releasing the first public code for the next WebKit rendering and processing kernel that will likely drive the Safari 5 browser. With Google Chrome using a reworked form of WebKit, the Apple team did something that perhaps any other free and open source developer would be publicly stoned for doing, but which Apple might just have the savvy to get away with: It openly one-upped another developer’s open contribution. ...

April 10, 2010 Â· 5 min Â· 995 words Â· Omid Farhang

Benign Feature, Malicious Use

An interesting and unknown feature used by sysadmins around the world in some large corporate networks is the use of proxy-auto config (pac) files. This benign feature is accepted by all modern browsers and is described in detail here. It contains a function to redirect your connection to a specific proxy server. Unfortunately this simple and smart proxy technique are being largely used by brazilian malware writers to redirect infected users to malicious hosts serving phishing pages of financial institutions. A .pac script URL is configured in the browser, in the field “Use automatic configuration script”: ...

April 9, 2010 Â· 2 min Â· 227 words Â· Omid Farhang