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Firefox 1.0.7 Released

hackajar writes "Firefox 1.0.7 has been released today. From the announcement "Fixes are included for the international domain name (IDN) link buffer overflow vulnerability and the Linux command line URL parsing flaw. There are also other security and stability changes, including a fix for a crash experienced when using certain Proxy Auto-Config scripts. In addition, some regressions introduced by previous 1.0.x security updates have been resolved.""

19 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. More stable-Marketing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's like saying it's "New and Improved".

  2. localised builds by kamikazejay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The british latest is still 1.0.6.
    I can't understand why bugfixes, which wont change any of the text shown to the user (other than perhaps the version number), cannot be released for all locals at the same time.

    1. Re:localised builds by Draknek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm British, but I've never bothered getting the en_GB version.

      What are the differences?

      Why should anyone bother?

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  3. Re:An update problem... by Secrity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That is not a problem, it is a feature that has already been explained in this article. Hint: try going to http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.0.7 &os=win&lang=en-US

  4. Middle-click on OSX? by xjerky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will middle-clicking to oplen a link in a new tab
    ever show up in an official release for OSX? It's really retarded that I must rely on nightly betas in order to use this simple feature, in which case I can't use most of the plugins that made Firefox attractive to me in the first place. Very frustrating.

    --
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  5. Bad Ads by Dalroth · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've had a problem with Firefox lately (starting around build 1.04, which may just be coincidental with a new malevolent popup technique being invented) on both my Windows and OSX boxes. Specifically, there are certain ads that cause Firefox to crash hard, and they aren't just bad ads from porn sites. I've occasionally gotten them on Blues News and NY Times for example.

    In some cases, I'm lucky to get an exception and can restart Firefox. However, in most cases, the application freezes. On OSX, I get the swirling beach ball of death and have to manually force quit Firefox. On windows, I can usually close Firefox, but only the main window closes. I still have to manually kill the process before I can start a new instance.

    Since then, I've moved on to 1.5 alpha and it while I don't believe I am currently experiencing those problems, 1.5 alpha has a whole new set of problems all its own.

    My question is... have these ad related crashes been fixed (or am I the only experiencing them)? I'd like us to the most stable version possible, but when 1.5 alpha is better than the 1.0x builds, I'm left wondering what went wrong...

    If this isn't resolved soon, I just might have to give AdBlock another shot. I'm trying to be a good netizen, but when you're ads kill my browser, you leave me with little choice!

    Bryan

  6. Re:No translated version by slavemowgli · · Score: 4, Interesting

    FWIW, there's no updated version of the Mozilla Suite, either - anyone who's using that is, well, stuck. I know that the Mozilla people want everyone to use Firefox, but this kind of "we don't care" attitude is just as arrogant as Microsoft's.

    I'm seriously thinking about switching to Opera, myself. It's faster, it uses less memory, it's more standards-compliant, and now it's free, too - I honestly don't know what's keeping me, outside of laziness, maybe.

    I hope some of the Mozilla people (Asa etc.) read this and think about it. Do you hear me? This kind of attitude will not convince Seamonkey users to switch to Firefox, it will convince them to switch to something else entirely because you're making it clear that you don't give a shit about them! You have a big problem, and it will come back to bite you sooner or later, so you'd better start working on it - or at least acknowledge that it exists.

    --
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  7. Re:And yet..... by gordgekko · · Score: 4, Interesting
    And that's a great option...if I know there is a new version of Firefox. I may know because I frequent /. but Joe, Jane and Aunt Millie may be left unprotected for weeks because they don't keep up with security bulletins or this web site because they have lives.

    That's simply unacceptable. Whether the reason is good or bad, and I'm understanding of the bandwidth issue and the costs associated, we're leaving potentially millions of machines open to exploit. Hardly a claim to a more secure future.

    I can't wait until 1.5 goes live and we can ditch this stupid unmodular system that we've been 'graced' with.

    --
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  8. Firefox annoyances by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    • Trying to install from a Limited Account in Windows brings up a dialog "highly recommended that you install as Administrator."
    • There is no longer a way to disable the Quality Feedback Agent under custom install.
    • Firefox Update is small and non-obvious. Windows really lets me know when there is a patch for IE out. I can trust IE to keep itself patched on Grandma's system -- but not Firefox.
  9. Unless? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Interesting

    but unless the security hole is being actively exploited, it's probably more important to make sure nothing else gets broken by the fix.

    Enter the paradox: If the fix isn't released until a month, the security hole CAN and WILL be actively exploited.

    In other words, is it worth to replace a critical bug (security) with a minor bug (annoyance)?

  10. Don't use your distro tools to install it... by MsGeek · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Then do what I do: don't use your distro's tools to install Firefox, use their Linux installer and install to a subdir in your user directory.

    I had my Firefox 1.0.6. installed in a directory under /home/mydir called firefox106. Last time I installed as root there so I had to remove the directory as root.

    Then, as me, I set up a directory called Firefox107. I made a directory under that one called Firefox as the installation area for the install of Firefox 1.0.7. I then downloaded the Linux installer for 1.0.7 directly from mozilla.org. I untarred/gunzipped the installer into the Firefox107 directory. It made a firefox-installer directory under Firefox107 where I then clicked the firefox-installer script to start the install process. Again, I installed as me, not as root. The install was as easy as anything packaged by Vise or InstallShield. I pointed the installer to the Firefox directory. Badabingbadabangbadaboom!

    Now I have a version of Firefox that runs as me instead of running as root, which I'm sure is a lot more secure than the way I had it last time. Next time there is an update, I can just do the same thing. Create a new directory for the new version to live, download the installer from mozilla.org, delete the old one, run the installer. Easy.

    --
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    1. Re:Don't use your distro tools to install it... by amdotaku · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I see your point, but using stand alone package installers and the like defeats the main purpose of the distribution system over just a plain old bacon and eggs OS like Windows. This is supposed to make the distro system easier to deploy mainly by administrators, but reducing the level of case-by-case support they have to dish out. For the home user, such solutions may work more easily, but it still defeats the whole point of a distro. For example, if a similar update attitude was suddenly adopted by all the dozens of projects used in the modern distro, one can clearly see how soon it would be before the whole thing would just fall apart.

    2. Re:Don't use your distro tools to install it... by c0d3h4x0r · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Someone seriously needs to mod the parent UP. This is a very insightful observation about one of the fundamental, systemic problems with desktop OSes (Linux-based and otherwise).

      The fact that it is possible for an application to be installed by any mechanism other than the official method provided by the desktop/OS, thus straying from all standard conventions defined by the desktop/OS, means it's too easy for users to screw up and break things. The fact that an application must come with its own installation executable just illustrates how the desktop/OS is failing to provide the services the application developers need.

      The desktop/OS should require a software package to provide a data-based manifest of installation actions it needs (generally similar to Microsoft's MSI/Windows Installer technology, but without the notion of Custom Actions), and the desktop/OS should execute the installation. And that should be the ONLY way for anything to get installed onto the system (unlike the architecture of Windows, where standalone installers such as InstallShield can still bypass the central MSI/Windows Installer way of doing things).

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  11. HP-UX Port by lp_bugman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I been searching everywere for a HP-UX port. What I don't understand is that mozilla has builds for OS2 but not for HP-UX. I don't know you guys but I think HP-UX has way more active users than OS2.
    I know there is a "official" HP mozilla build. But I like more firefox (slimer and faster). Specialy because my desktop is not that fast (PA8500 400mhz).

    --
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  12. Re:Bad Ads (try this first) by gosand · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've had a problem with Firefox lately (starting around build 1.04, which may just be coincidental with a new malevolent popup technique being invented) on both my Windows and OSX boxes. Specifically, there are certain ads that cause Firefox to crash hard, and they aren't just bad ads from porn sites. I've occasionally gotten them on Blues News and NY Times for example...... If this isn't resolved soon, I just might have to give AdBlock another shot. I'm trying to be a good netizen, but when you're ads kill my browser, you leave me with little choice!


    I noticed some of these too. Quite annoying. Instead of using Adblock or something similar, first try downloading a good hosts file for blocking ads. Info and links

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  13. Re:Great! by The+Bungi · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Yay, Microsoft and Opera must have invented a really kewl propietary compression scheme because, well, IE and Opera 8 both use about 1/10th the memory Firefox does.

    Apologetic fanboy.

  14. Package Management by Al+Dimond · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This Firefox release is an opportunity for me to ask a question I've been thinking a lot about lately: on GNU/Linux, is the web browser a package that's better handled outside of the context of the distribution's package manager? I'm running Gentoo right now, and I love Portage, but there will at least be some delay between the Firefox release and a new ebuild being available. And in order to emerge this new release I'd need to sync my Portage tree again, which I don't have any other particular need to do right now (once or twice emerge sync has caused me problems, usually because it causes me to subsequently update some package that I originally emerged with USE flags set that I neglected to add to my make.conf).

    Anyhow, the basic idea is that Firefox is a package that has to be updated at specific times, and I know when those times are, and they aren't necessarily times that my system as a whole needs to be updated.

    There are few other packages that depend on Firefox; all I can really think of are plugins and extensions. Plugins don't typically require a specific FF version, and I get my extensions centrally from mozdev. So can you guys think of anything I'd lose by unmerging FF from Portage, installing a stub in its place, and just using the official builds from mozilla.org? Besides the potential optimization? (I would say integration and consistency with the overall system in terms of file placement and stuff, but... that doesn't seem to happen anyway. It's not an easy thing to fit a huge X application into Unix directory conventions based on the concept of many small programs doing one thing well...)

    The main other package to which I'd apply this type of thinking is OOo. I wouldn't apply it to KDE or Gnome (though I don't directly use either) because they contain many useful libraries, and I feel that the handling of libraries is a real strength of package management systems. Can you guys think of any other packages that might not be best handled by package management?

  15. Different approaches. by khasim · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Any data kept in your home directories SHOULD be backed up by the sysadmin.

    The worst that should ever happen is that you lose any new data (from this morning until now).

    The really important data is usually kept inside databases that the user does not have rights to delete.

    Wiping out your home directory is only "annoying" (unless you have an important meeting in a few minutes).

    Infecting the system is "BAD" because then EVERYONE's data is vulnerable AND you cannot trust last night's backups. You must go back and find out when you were infected and, in some cases, recreate ALL of the data that was in those databases since that point.

    Sure, the user might be pissed that his spreadsheet was deleted by the "cool screensaver" that he just tried to download AND he has a meeting with the division president in the next 15 minutes ........

    but that don't mean jack when the CFO notices that none of the numbers match for the last 3 months anymore.
    I'm really tired of people claiming that not running as root is a miracle cure. Yes, it prevents some really nasty trivial attacks, but it doesn't protect your most valuable data (e.g. -- yours) and it doesn't prevent a lot of attacks that are perfectly happy to run in non-privledged space.
    It's not a "miracle cure" but it does protect the most important information the company has.

    Ideally, the user's home directories will be set to non-execute so that crap they download won't destroy their data.

    Even with both of those in place, I still get people who DELETE THEIR OWN FILES and need them restored from the night before.

    Security is all about IDENTIFYING the risks and REDUCING them.

    I can reduce the risks of everything else to a point below that of regular human stupidity. But nothing will ever save you from that.
  16. Re:1.0.7? by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'll keep using 1.5 beta 1, thank you.

    As it curently is, Firefox 1.5 beta isn't for everyone. I installed it an ran it when it was launched and I simply can't use it. It just segfaults at startup without warning what caused it.

    I don't know if this problem is frequent or if there is a fix for it but at least that little showstopper made it impossible for me to try 1.5.

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