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Firefox Update Kills Bugs, Adds Mac Support

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Several vulnerabilities are fixed in version Firefox 1.5.0.2, which was released on Thursday. In addition to security patches Firefox now includes some stability enhancements and, as expected, includes native support for Apple Computer's Macs with Intel processors. Secunia has a detailed advisory about vulnerabilities fixed with this release."

12 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Themes and extensions keep working by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    This time around, almost all extension and theme authors got the version dependency right, so unlike after the previous update, your extensions and themes won't be disabled. It's a security update, so do install it.

  2. Patch by Ryz0r · · Score: 5, Funny
    Download the patch here!

    haha, no, seriously.. i'm joking

    ..*ducks*

    --
    Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
  3. What's new in Firefox 1.5.0.2 by anandpur · · Score: 4, Informative
  4. Some leaks fixed by EggyToast · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's the big ones, IMO, from a mac user's perspective:
    • Memory leaks
    • 321283 - Using Find causes documents to leak.
    • 323532 - Leak when using history autocomplete.
    • 323377 - Lots of leaks in nsInternetSearchService.
    Numerous times would I come home to see Firefox using over a gig of memory and eating up about 40% of my proc cycles. A quick quit/restart of the app would fix it, but still -- I regularly close tabs and don't develop long histories on multiple open tabs, so it didn't make any sense.

    I just hope that those leaks are the ones I was actually experiencing...

  5. "Fixes some security issues"? by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sweet baby Jesus, it fixes 21 separate issues *all of which can be used to execute arbitrary code*! Did they have time to fix any vulnerabilities which were only "somewhat critical"?

  6. Re:It still leaks! by somersault · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't the memory 'leak' just the caching of pages, that you can disable by typing about:config in the title bar, and change "browser.sessionhistory.max_entries" to a lower value? Firefox keeps the last few pages in memory to increase speed when you browse to a previously used page.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  7. Yeah by springbox · · Score: 4, Informative

    The original poster might want to read this: Firefox "Memory Leak" is a Feature

  8. Mac Support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just to clarify, Firefox has long had Mac support. This distribution adds Universal Binary support so that Firefox is now native for Intel Macs.

  9. Annoying update message by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It did it again.
    I have firefox set to inform me that theres an update.

    In my eyes that update check should only occur when I open a window, NOT when I'm in the middle of typing.
    I saw a flash of something whilst I was typing and realised I had inadvertantly accepted a popup box.

    I want to set Firefox to inform me of updates, but make sure it only does that when opening a new window or tab (so it knows I'm not actively typing).

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  10. Hold on there by dereference · · Score: 5, Insightful
    With only 1% of users on Firefox, they can hardly be considered critical. Any vulnerability in Internet Explorer is automatically 99 times as bad, due to its user base.

    Be careful with this line of reasoning. All along there's been this mantra of "Firefox is inherently more secure, and would be even if it were the dominant browser" spouted continuously. Well, I happen think the GP makes a great point about this, and your reasoning seems to fly in the face of the mantra. Don't get me wrong--I'm one of these said spouters--but I'm honestly feeling more than a bit hypocritical at this moment. These are some damn serious issues, and it's not just a handful.

    Now, I suspect the reason for this is that the Firefox community as a whole (users and developers) are far more pre-disposed to actually finding and publicly disclosing such bugs. My guess is that we really only see the tip of the IE iceberg in terms of security.

    However, we still can't have it both ways; these are indeed very critical bugs, and to dismiss them otherwise may seem beneficial, but it's actually a great disservice.

  11. FF configuration to reclaim leaked memory by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's the URL I got it from:
    reclaim leaked memory

    In case this poor bastard's site gets Slashdotted, here's the trick:

          1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
          2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
          3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
          4. Now select True and then press Enter.
          5. Restart Firefox.

    Once you've restarted, and been using FF awhile, minimize it, then bring it back, and the system (under Windows, anyway) will have reclaimed leaked memory (often LOTS of it). A new notice on that page says this works with Thunderbird, too, so I'll have to try that when I get to work.

    1. Re:FF configuration to reclaim leaked memory by starwed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You do realise that, if this works, it isn't really leaked memory?