“No software is free from bugs” and that statement holds true for the mighty Firefox too. Yesterday the Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 3.0.1, the first update for Firefox 3.0, patching some of the known vulnerabilities. It mainly addresses several security and stability issues. A update was also released for Firefox 2.0 users upgrading them to 2.0.16.

The two critical patches deal with remote code vulnerabilities and command line URLs spawning tabs when Firefox is not running. MFSA 2008-34 is the first critical patch. It was reported via TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative, and centers on issues with Mozilla’s internal CSSValue array data structure. An attacker can create a large number of calls to common CSS objects, triggering a crash of the browser when it attempts to free the CSS object while still in use. The resulting crash could be used to execute code on the system.

The second critical issue comes from Billy Rios, who reported that, “if Firefox is not already running, passing it a command-line URI with pipe (“|”) symbols will open multiple tabs. This URI splitting could be used to launch chrome:i URIs from the command-line, a partial bypass of the fix for MFSA 2005-53 which was intended to block external applications from loading such URIsi,” Mozilla explains. The vulnerability in MFSA 2005-53 remains patched however.

“For example, web browsers normally handle file: URIs themselves, or block them from web content altogether, but this flaw enabled attackers to pass them from another browser into Firefox. In Firefox 2 scripts running from file: URIs can read data from a user’s entire disk, a risk if the attacker could first place a malicious file in a guessable location on the local disk. Rios demonstrated that the so-called “Safari Carpet-bombing vulnerability” could be used for this, as well as other techniques that do not rely on that now-fixed Safari vulnerability,” the advisory added.

Internal testing on Firefox 3.0 also showed that Rios’ research can be combined with various vulnerabilities to trigger code execution. “In Firefox 3 scripts running in local files have limited access to other files, almost entirely mitigating the file: attack. However, combined with a vulnerability which allows an attacker to inject script into a chrome document the above issue could be used to run arbitrary code on a victim’s computer.”

Firefox 3.0.1 Updated

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Pressing [Ctrl]+[Tab], brings up a thumbnail preview of the tabs, and repeated presses of [Tab] proceeds in the order of tab usage. Releasing the [Ctrl] selects the particular Tab window. Holding the [Tab] makes the scroll faster. Press [Shift] to make the scroll in the reverse order.

For those who want to see all the tabs present in the present Firefox session, just press [F4] or the List all Tabs button in the right end of Tab bar to bring up a grid view of all the tabs. There is a filter option also thrown in for the hardcore Tab addicts.

I am using this add-on in Firefox 3 and really recommend all to try it out for yourself. It’s worth the effort.

Download Ctrl-Tab

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Mozilla Foundation had conducted its PR greatly but the execution was poor. First the time of release was not officially announced and all the eastern hemisphere netizens had to guess the whole day when Firefox 3 was getting out and finally it dawned that it would be midnight for most. The time came and when I went will all anticipation, all I got was server time outs and after a few reloads and refreshes,  I was met with this sweet outage page.

OK this was not a great surprise since everybody was trying, the Mozilla servers were melting with the load. But the real surprise was when after nearly an hour of reloading the browser, I finally met with a page to download Firefox but alas it was Firefox 2. The page design was for Firefox 3, but the release was 2.0.0.14

So after another disappointment, I got back to reloading, refreshing and after nearly another one hour got the sweet link for a download and installed it finally. Did another download in my other system and finally got it also up and running.

So after doing my duty to the Mozilla’s Community decided to check out how the Download day was going on. The total downloads till 00:45 GST on 18th June 2008 was 1,861,546 downloads. UAE – 1480, Afghanistan – 0, Iraq – 62, Mynammar – 0, Iran – 6422, Sudan – 54, Somalia – 0, Cuba – 414, Oman – 0, Mongolia – 0, North Korea – 0

For who needs to show around that they did their part on the download day, you can flaunt it here. You will get a certificate like this one below.

Update : The time is 10:30 AM on 18th June 2008, nearly 12 hours after the launch of Firefox 3 and the stastics for the downloads are as below

Total Downloads : 4,462,863

UAE – 2400, Afghanistan – 62, Iraq – 101, Mynammar – 211, Iran – 133,500, Sudan – 73, Somalia -  Still 0, Cuba – 557, Oman – 212, Mongolia -281, North Korea – Still 0, Chad – 0,

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The entire community living in the eastern hemisphere of the globe have to wait a little longer to taste the final release of Firefox 3. According to the Mozilla blog, the record attempt will start at 10:00AM PDT [05:00PM UTC] [10:30PM IST] [09:00PM GST] on June 17th 2008 CE. But do remember you have entire tomorrow also to download.

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Shiretoko is a minor update to the Gran Paradiso which would be running the Gecko 1.9.1 Engine and most of the features that didn’t make in time to the 3 release.

• One of the major feature would be visual Tab switching. For now Ctrl+Tab extension serves the purpose in Gran Paradiso. This feature would be integrated into the browser along with Tab searching and filtering.
• There are lot of features for Tagging which include bulk tagging, tag autocomplete, lightweight tagging UI, Advanced Search UI.
• In the add-ons divison there would be enhanced compatibility checking during upgrades which means we might have to really wait till the developer makes the extension compatible than we doing it ourselves

The entire feature list of this release can be obtained from the Mozilla’s planning center for Firefox 3.1. The nightly builds of alpha release 1 can be obtained from Mozilla’s FTP servers here. It will be installed under the name of Minefield, the codename for Mozilla’s testing builds.

Source : [Mozilla Wiki]

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There has been no significant changes in the layout or any new features in this release but still for those who jumped the wagon with Firefox release candidates and had been handicapped without this, it would be a relief.

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Finally the word is out… The Download day or the day IE get its a$$ kicked is 17th June 2008. It is celebration time at Mozilla Community as the market share is steadily growing for Firefox and every other news service is covering this huge event. My Google News alerts for Firefox is flooding with the release news. Also another reason for the Mozilla Foundation to open the cork would be the 10th anniversary of its launch. On March 31st 1998, the first Mozilla Code became publicly available under the Open Source License and Mozilla Foundation took shape.

So for the people who are joining this party late… Please download your copy of Firefox on June 17th from here

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1. Go to Firefox’s Profile directory ( Press [Win]+[R], and type “%APPDATA%” to go to your apps directory and you will find a directory called Mozilla and then navigate to your profile directory inside)
2. In chrome folder, there might be a file called “userChrome.css“. If not you might have a example file and even if that is not there then create one using notepad.
3. Inside type the following based on which version of Firefox you are running.  Please change the height variable according to your needs. 54px worked out for me. Then save the file and restart Firefox to have as much bookmarks as you want in your toolbar.

For Firefox 2

/* Multi-row bookmarks toolbar */
#bookmarks-ptf {display:block !important;}
#bookmarks-ptf toolbarseparator {display:inline !important;}

and sometimes you might need to add this also

/* Sometimes you may need this */
#PersonalToolbar {max-height: none !important;}

For Firefox 3 (this worked out for me)

/* Multi-row bookmarks toolbar for Fx3b5pre*/
#bookmarksBarContent
{display:block !important;}
.places-toolbar-items
{display:block !important;
height: 54px !important;
overflow-y:auto !important;}
#bookmarksBarContent toolbarseparator
{display:inline !important;}
#bookmarksBarContent .bookmark-item
{visibility: visible !important;}
.chevron {height: 0px !important;}

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So after spending some time with Google, I got lead to gHacks who had a detailed article on it. So here is how you disable this feature, type “about:config” in your Firefox’s address bar and run a search filter for browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone and change the parameter value to false which will disable the automatic scanning.

via [gHacks]

For those who didn’t jump the bandwagon with RC1 release of Firefox 3, now is the time to check it out the all new faster, safer Fox… This is the final release candidate of the new broswer with latest Gecko 1.9 Engine and the public release can be expected any time in June. Watch out for the day since it is called as the “Download Day” and Mozilla Foundation is aiming for a record number of downloads within 24 hours of the release. You can help the cause by downloading FF3 at your home, work and help spread the word.

It’s high time we digged a grave for Internet Explorer… Now that Firefox 3 is here, I am sure that IE can be finally put to rest… I had downloaded the release candidate a week back and was amazed at the speed… esp the Google applications like Gmail, G Reader, G Calendar… Eventhough most of my Firefox 2 add-ons are disabled, I didn’t have the heart to go back to 2.o…

We can expect the final release sometime in June and according to Spread Firefox.com, the launch is going to be celebrated as the download day where a new world record (not that some previous record exists)for the most software downloads in 24 hours.. So please download the software within 24 hours of its release… You can also pledge your support…

Go Firefox…