A few days back, Mozilla released the latest version of their web browser – Firefox 5 which is just three months after the release of Firefox 4. Although it was already available, I didn’t immediately upgrade as I wanted to make sure that all the addons/plugins I use are compatible with Firefox 5. I had no plans of upgrading now but an update alert popped up earlier today so went ahead and proceeded with the upgrade. I was glad to know that only two of the current addons/plugins I use weren’t compatible.

Here are the new features and changes added to Firefox 5:

• Added support for CSS animations
• The Do-Not-Track header preference has been moved to increase discoverability
• Tuned HTTP idle connection logic for increased performance
• Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
• Improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas
• Improved spell checking for some locales
• Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users
• WebGL content can no longer load cross-domain textures
• Background tabs have setTimeout and setInterval clamped to 1000ms to improve performance
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

Compatible Addons/Plugins:

• Colorzilla 2.5.5
• Copy Link Text 1.5.0
• DownloadHelper 4.9.3
• FireFTP 1.99.4
• Fireshot 0.91
• Greasemonkey 0.9.5
• Java Console 6.0.22
• Iget 1.0.2
• NoScript 2.1.1.1
• Rainbow 1.1
• Screengrab 0.96.3
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.8.6

Incompatible Addons/Plugins:

• MeasureIt 0.4.8
• MR Tech Toolkit 6.0.4

Firefox 5 isn’t much different to Firefox 4 in terms of the user interface/design since most updates and changes are under the hood or only the core functions. Performance wise, it also fast as the previous version and the browsing experience was smooth. Since I only updated today, it’s too early to talk about its stability but I hope that its the same as its predecessor Firefox 4 which was very stable.

The only problem that I’ve come across so far is that all WordPress keyboard shortcuts are no longer working. I’m not sure if there’s a fix, hack or workaround for this but I’ll research about it and hopefully find one so I can use the keyboard shortcuts again. WordPress keyboard shortcuts enable me to work quicker and improves productivity.

Download Mozilla Firefox 5

Anybody else upgraded and using Firefox 5? How do you like the latest version of the web browser? Did you find any problems or issues with it? Please share your thoughts.

While using my Firefox web browser this morning, I was notified about a new available security and stability release – Firefox version 3.6.13. I immediately downloaded the latest version and updated Firefox. After that, I checked on the Mozilla website to find out more about the security issues that were addressed. I found out that this release contains patches for 11 vulnerabilities with 9 of those being deemed as critical.

Here’s the complete list of vulnerabilities that were patched in Firefox 3.6.13:

Moderate Impact

• XSS hazard in multiple character encodings

High Impact

• Location bar SSL spoofing using network error page

Critical Impact

• Incomplete fix for CVE-2010-0179
• Integer overflow vulnerability in NewIdArray
• Use-after-free error with nsDOMAttribute MutationObserver
• Java security bypass from LiveConnect loaded via data: URL meta refresh
• Add support for OTS font sanitizer
• Crash and remote code execution using HTML tags inside a XUL tree
• Chrome privilege escalation with window.open and <isindex> element
• Buffer overflow while line breaking after document.write with long string
• Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:1.9.2.13/ 1.9.1.16)

Aside from the Firefox release, Mozilla has also released a security update for their email client – Thunderbird version 3.1.7. The Thunderbird release contains several bug fixes for performance and stability as well as enhancements for better handling of locally stored large folder files and improvements to reduce the risk of corruption of local IMAP mailbox copies.

If you are using Mozilla Firefox as your web browser and Thunderbird as your default email client, it is strongly recommended that you immediately update to the latest versions. In case you didn’t receive any notifications while using Firefox of Thunderbird, you can download and install the updates manually from their respective websites – Firefox website and Thunderbird website

Social bookmarking buttons make life easy for users to share content (videos, photos, links, etc.) to popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. However, not all websites or blogs have social bookmarking buttons installed on them so if you want to share a funny video, a cool photo or a link to a news story, you’ll have to do the sharing manually which means you’ll have to copy the website’s URL, login to the social networking site and paste the URL, then type in the custom message or caption before you can share it to your network.

Mozilla has recently launched the F1 Social Addon which makes the task of sharing content fast and easy. The F1 social addon is a Mozilla Firefox browser extension created by Mozilla Messaging that allows a user to share links from any webpage, from within the browser.

Here’s demo video of how the Mozilla F1 Social Addon works:

• Twitter with one click F1 automatically shortens URLs using bit.ly so that you don’t have to. F1 then inserts the shortened URL into your tweet, making the whole process seamless.
• Facebook F1 posts the URL, complete with screenshot and description right to your Facebook wall, instantly sharing the link with all your friends on Facebook.
• Gmail F1 automatically inserts the URL into the body of your email – simply type in your recipient’s Email addresses and hit share.

NOTE: The Mozilla F1 Social Addon requires Mozilla Firefox 3.6+.

Installation and use.
1. Download the addon from the F1 homepage or download it from the Firefox Add-ons repository
2. Install the addon and Restart Firefox.
3. Click on the share (idea bubble) icon on one of your Firefox toolbars.

4. Choose the service (Facebook, Twitter or Gmail) that you like.
(First time users will have to login and allow access for each service)

5. Type in your custom message or caption and hit Share.

Right now, the F1 Social Addon only works with Facebook, Twitter and Gmail but since its still in beta, we may see more services or social networking sites added in the future. I’ve installed the F1 Social Addon on my Mozilla Firefox and it works very well and enables me to share links to Facebook and Twitter quickly and conveniently.

Anyone else tried using the Mozilla F1 Social Addon? What other services or features would you like to see added to it in future releases? Please share your thoughts.

Today, November 9th marks the sixth birthday of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Firefox is my main browser of choice for the past eight years. I started using it back in 2002 when it was still called Phoenix/Firebird. I still remember the day I first installed it on my computer and how it felt to have a cool, new browser that was much better than the default Internet Explorer or alternative web browsers like Netscape and Opera.

For something that started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite, Firefox has surely gone a long way. Firefox is now available in more than 70 languages and has about a quarter of Internet users choosing Firefox as their web browser of choice. Mozilla Firefox has been downloaded more than 1 billion times with the latest version, Firefox 3.6 having been downloaded more than 42 million times. Aside from that, more than 150 million users use Firefox Add-ons to customize their Web experience.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the new features and other enhancements that will be added/included in the upcoming version – Firefox 4. New features will include a redesigned UI (user interface), a home tab, “door hanger” notifications, improved support for HTML5 and CSS3 features. Firefox 4 will also include the Firefox Sync project – a tool that allows users to sync stuff like bookmarks and browsing history with the cloud and a new type of tab called an “application tab” similar to the Mozilla Prism project which allows users to turn web pages like Gmail into applications.

I know that other browsers like Google Chrome and Opera can hold their own against Firefox but until another web browser can offer me the same addons/extensions I have on Firefox which I heavily use and rely on for work, I’ll continue to be a happy Firefox camper.

Happy Birthday Firefox!

[image source: Flickr/Ryan Doherty]

Back in October of 2009, Mozilla launched the Mozilla Plugin Check tool to help Firefox users keep their plugins/addons up-to-date, addressing the issue of outdated plugins being a major source of security and stability risks for users.

Yesterday, Mozilla announced that the Mozilla Plugin Check tool will now also be supporting other web browsers like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari and Opera.

We believe that plugin safety is an issue for the web as a whole, so while our initial efforts focused on building a page that would work for Firefox users, the team has since expanded plugin check coverage to work with Safari 4, Chrome 4, and Opera 10.5. We have added support for Internet Explorer 7 and 8 for the most popular plugins, as well, but since IE requires specific code to be written for each plugin it will take us a little longer to get to full coverage.

The Mozilla Plugin Check tool can identify most popular plugins – Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave Flash, DivX, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer just to name a few. Although the plugin database is maintained and frequently updated by Mozilla, there could be some instances where the plugin cannot be recognized or the web-based tool cannot provide accurate information regarding a certain plugin.

To use the Mozilla Plugin Check tool, just visit the Plugin Check page and it will automatically scan and detect all plugins installed in the web browser and will display information on which plugins are up-to-date or needs to be updated.

Anyone else using the Mozilla Plugin Checker tool? Are all your browser plugins up-to-date? What other features or options would you like to add to the Mozilla Plugin Checker? Please share your thoughts.