Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 Released

Mini-Geek writes "Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 has been released. As with previous 1.5.0.x patches, 1.5.0.3 can be downloaded as a small, incremental download. From the article: 'This update fixes a publicly disclosed denial of service weakness. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this version. The bugfixes previously planned for Firefox 1.5.0.3 were shifted to 1.5.0.4, and a quick update was released shortly after the recent to address the publicly reported issue.'"

Comments

Just a minor revision

[Seriously, who]

Seriously, who finds this interesting? This is a minor point release to fix a small security hole, not front page news.

Re:Just a minor revision

[christopherfinke]

Seriously, who finds this interesting?

Well, I do. Mostly because I'm an extension developer and I like to make sure that all of my extensions work with the latest version of Firefox, but also because I just find Firefox to be interesting software and news about it is almost never unwelcome on my screen. Slashdot is reserved regarding posting about Firefox compared to Digg, where even articles about speculation about point-releases are promoted to the front page almost immediately.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Anonymous Coward]

I do, sorta, because it shoots down "security" as a reason to use Firefox. It's been less than a month since the last point release, which fixed 21 critical security flaws.

So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason.

Re:Just a minor revision

[christopherfinke]

If you have to get here to read about such releasettes, just stop using computers.

I don't come here to be notified of the release (Digg did that yesterday :-) ); I come here to discuss the release.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Anonymous Coward]

So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason.

Sigh. Ever think that it's the unfixed holes that make the difference?

IE:
http://secunia.com/product/11/

Firefox:
http://secunia.com/product/4227/

I personally like how it's cross platform, strives for standards compliance, has tons of extensions, tabs, is ad free, free, and finally open source, but that's beside the point.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Kilz]

So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason

IE7? You have to be joking right? Its still in beta and relies a lot on IE6 code. You know the code that recently had 2 giant security flaws exposed, and they along with others have not been patched. Better to stay with Firefox, at least when holes are found they are patched faster than any other browser that I know of.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Nintendork]

Sigh. Ever think that it's the unfixed holes that make the difference?

Many of the unpatched vulnerabilities aren't too serious as they are minor components that could be used in phishing attacks. That's not to say they shouldn't be fixed, but they're a far cry from execution of arbitrary code. Don't forget about the unfound or unreported vulnerabilities out there. Firefox is a relative newcomer to security and blackhat researchers. Fresh meat so to speak. If I were a company or government, I'd avoid it like the plague. However, as a consumer with zero hack factor, this consideration is mostly moot.

Re:Just a minor revision

[shokk]

No actually that's still less than Microsoft's IE and Windows patch sets. And Microsoft's patches more often than not involve critical bugs.

Open source is actually a pretty good reason. It lets people contribute and find these problems, helps them guide the development of the product, and lets them build all sorts of neat add-ons. The whole Opera thing just comes across as snobby and pretentious, just like your post.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Anonymous Coward]

it shoots down "security" as a reason to use Firefox.

Why?

It's been less than a month since the last point release, which fixed 21 critical security flaws.

And? Better fixed than not.

Your argument appears to be "Firefox is getting more secure, therefore Firefox must be insecure". The same logic would suggest that it is safer to have a car without an alarm, because fitting an alarm to your car makes it more likely to be stolen.

Re:Just a minor revision

[zen-theorist]

Well, I do. Mostly because I'm an extension developer and I like to make sure that all of my extensions work with the latest version of Firefox, but also because I just find Firefox to be interesting software and news about it is almost never unwelcome on my screen. Slashdot is reserved regarding posting about Firefox compared to Digg, where even articles about speculation about point-releases are promoted to the front page almost immediately.

in that case, why not waste a couple of hours everyday on mozilla.org instead of slashdot.org?

Re:Just a minor revision

[93 Escort Wagon]

"So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason."

People like you who have never really understood what a security nightmare IE still is probably never will - so I won't waste your time on that. But you (probably intentionally) totally ignored proper rendering and standards support. IE7 fixes a few of the glaring issues (e.g. PNG transparency), but it really isn't much of a step forward toward CSS 2 or 3 compliance. If you want to see a simple demonstration of this for yourself, try playing with an object's opacity sometime.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Anonymous Coward]

Better to stay with Firefox, at least when holes are found they are patched faster than any other browser that I know of.

That's good for you personally, but what effect does that really have on a global scale? Noone besides Mozilla - and they don't seem to be willing to share those stats - knows how long it takes for a patch to reach critical mass (where a large majority of users will be protected, greatly reducing the effectiveness of using an exploit).

Everyone throws all different aspects of security together into one big meaningless lump when there's quite a difference between a secure product and a secure userbase to name one. If you and I apply a patch minutes after it comes out but a hypothetical 70% don't for months to come, is Firefox a secure product or not?

In theory time-to-fix sounds like a great indicator but in reality time-to-distribute is the real challenge. Windows XP supposidly has a 10-something minute TTL which is a fact that spread like wildfire, regardless that keeping up with patches utterly negates that claim, but since the majority of users just can't be bothered (or don't even know) to update it's still seen as a fact.

In the years to come, Firefox won't be judged on how secure the lastest version is, but on how well Mozilla can convince people that regular updating is an utter necessity to remain secure.

Re:Just a minor revision

[thepotoo]

Um, IE7 as another poster said, isn't really secure. Many people find Opera to be an excellent browser, but it doesn't compare to Firefox for just one reason: Extentions.
If you're using vanilla Firefox, might as well dump it and go with Opera, but if you've ever tried stuff like adblock, slashdotter, tabmixplus, flashgot, videodownloader, or any of the other awesome extentions, you won't be able to go back to any other browser.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Xugumad]

How about, it follows the standards? You may not care, but my job as a web developer would be hell of a lot easier if all browsers did! Having to write "And if the browser is IE, use this horribly broken method of doing things instead because the IE devs didn't read the spec" code is a real nuisance.

Also, irrespective of number of flaws, while the number of people using IE stays so high, my chances of browsing a page with a security exploit for my browser is dramatically higher when using IE (I should add here, I don't want to see Firefox, IE, or any other browser having most of the market; I'd love to see the market split into fairly equal slices between at least three different browsers).

Re:Just a minor revision

[x0n]

> IE7? You have to be joking right? Its still in beta and relies a lot on IE6 code

Beta, yes; a good reason. but "relies a lot on ie6 code?" how do you know this exactly? are you one of the IE devs?

Re:Just a minor revision

[drinkypoo]

I have been working on a webpage lately, and have been having some issues along these lines. I have a lot of experience with the old-style HTML, but very little XHTML/CSS so I've been trying to drag myself into the modern world by revamping the website to use DIVs instead of tables and such.

One of the things I did was go steal a CSS navbar. Even the example code didn't work right under IE6! Yet, and this is the amusing part, it works in IE7.

After much mangling, I got it to the point where it almost works (I'm not done, but that's fine for now.) What happens is that some of the lines are not drawn to the proper width in Firefox (Gecko etc) but they now show up properly in IE6. It's kind of hosed in IE5.5 but better than it was in IE6 before I started work. The funny thing is that in IE7, it renders precisely the same way it does under Gecko.

The short form of all this is that IE7 really DOES follow standards more closely than IE6...

Re:Just a minor revision

[Kelson]

The short form of all this is that IE7 really DOES follow standards more closely than IE6...

Oh, yeah! Of course, the issue is twofold*: There are parts of the specs that IE6 implements incorrectly, and there are parts of the specs that IE6 doesn't implement at all. They've fixed some of the bugs, and they've added support for some of the missing chunks. There's still a lot of stuff that hasn't made it into IE7, but I personally can't wait until I can ignore IE6 and just code for IE7/Gecko/Opera/KHTML instead of Gecko/Opera/KHTML with a bunch of kludges for IE6.

One can hope that, a few years down the road, either IE8 will catch up to the rest on what's implemented, or IE will no longer be relevant. From a web developer's perspective, either outcome will be a win.

*(There's a third part of the issue, of course, which is that there's no defined spec for error correction, so every browser makes different assumptions when presented with invalid code.)

Re:Just a minor revision

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Useful extentions (I am in love with NoScript), faster security fixes, a sounder security architecture, and whatever security benefits you get from being a less profitable target. Though every critical bug leaves me thinking harder about switching to Opera.

Re:Just a minor revision

[dveditz]

> It's been less than a month since the last point release,

A security problem was publicized last week, this week there's a fix for it. That's a problem?

> which fixed 21 critical security flaws.

FUD, Mozilla published eight advisories fixed in Firefox 1.5.0.2: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vul nerabilities.html#firefox1.5.0.2

Most of them were found internally by the Mozilla team which means the numbers can't be compared to proprietary products in any meaningful way.

Re:Just a minor revision

[seek31337]

I installed IE7, then uninstalled it 30 minutes later after a crash as a result of the install. It was, what I like to call, the "Total u$oft Upgrade Experience". To be fair, I have had FrieFox crash once or twice, a few months ago, on a Mac.

Re:Just a minor revision

[Fuzzie Viking]

Because anyone that has worked heavily with browser based UIs knows that they have the same issues they have always had.

http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/
http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/07/28/ie7_c ss_upda/
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242 .aspx
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,177 6935,00.asp

Re:Just a minor revision

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for being the only person to notice my main point was "why not Opera?" and not "everyone should be using IE7." I happen to disagree (Opera comes with something like NoScript built-in - assuming I understand what NoScript does, of course), but at least you gave a valid response, something the rest of the knee-jerk "OMG M$ sux!" crowd didn't.

So, thank you for actually reading what I wrote, and not just singling out the IE7 part. Slashdot could use more posters like you.

Re:Just a minor revision

[rdoger6424]

eww... firefox a few months ago? On a mac? that was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. at least with 1.5 they improved dramatically (no more 100% CPU Usage)

Makes a change

[Anonymous Coward]

i was actually notified before reading it Slashdot by the update system, good job they have it working (more or less well) at last
now if we can get onto disabling extensions on every update it would be a lot better

Re:Makes a change

[gone9teen]

Yup, I got the update notification while sitting here at work and installed the new version and soon as I restarted Firefox there was a story posted on Slashdot about the update.

Re:Makes a change

[Gonarat]

My work computer was updated yesterday morning, and I updated my home computer last night. Thunderbird also updated itself last night.

Ooooo...

[heybiff]

I can't wait to see what passage we will have from the Book of Mozilla.

The readings are always so inspiring and applicable to our modern lives.

Heybiff

Re:Ooooo...

[HumanisticJones]

I wonder what would happen if one were to apply one of those hokey Bible Code programs to the Book of Mozilla?

Re:Ooooo...

[christopherfinke]

I can't wait to see what passage we will have from the Book of Mozilla.

Maybe I'm missing a joke, but the Book of Mozilla passage doesn't change with every release. I don't think it has changed in the last several releases, but maybe I'm wrong.

Re:Ooooo...

[GweeDo]

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Straight from 1.5.0.3 :P

Re:Ooooo...

[gEvil (beta)]

Ummm, isn't that the same quote that it's been since, oh, the 0.2 or 0.3 release? Y'know, back when it was called Phoenix.

Re:Ooooo...

[AKAImBatman]

The book of Mozilla has changed for each product released. There's a Wikipedia page that gives the history here. An official page containing all the passages to date can be found here. And in case you're too lazy to click, here they are by browser:

Netscape:

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.

from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10

Mozilla:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31
(Red Letter Edition)

Firefox:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Re:Ooooo...

[AKAImBatman]

P.S. Look at the source code on the Mozilla Page for some interesting comments on each verse.

Re:Ooooo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeh. About time it's changed, I say. Quite a bit has happened since then. Who wants to submit the Bugzilla request?

Then again, this is just as likely as the Moz. Suite/Seamonkey about:KitchenSink ever actually being added :P

Re:Ooooo...

[outZider]

It sounds like someone needs a cup of coffee.

Re:Ooooo...

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

you can tell they have now idea how to emulate anything literary

That sentence makes no sense. "Now idea"?!

Re:Ooooo...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he should hire a real writer next time?

Re:Ooooo...

[AnyoneEB]

Although the comments fail to mention that the "rises up from the ashes" part was there because FireFox was called Phoenix before it was FireBird.

Re:Ooooo...

[shellbeach]

I doubt it - thunderbird (i.e. "fire and thunder") wasn't a twinkle in its coders' eyes when Phoenix was 0.2, IIRC. Sounds like it was written when the two products were Firebird and Thunderbird.

Clearly it needs a new reworking to explain how a fox, or rather a red panda, got in there ...

luv incremental updates

[scott_evil]

Gotta love the small update size. More software should work this way and instead of giving us everything each time, just give the changes. Well... more windows software needs to do it, other platforms seem to manage it ok.

Re:luv incremental updates

[bhtooefr]

IIRC, Opera was working on moving to such a system... if so, that'll be good.

However, I tagged this article "pointrelease". I vote for all tiny point releases of an app to get that tag.

At least we don't get notices of Joe's Notepad Clone hitting version 2.93.2460 on here... :D

Re:luv incremental updates

[kckman]

I wouldn't ordinarily consider a 6.1 megabyte update "small", but credit where it is due. It worked.

Re:luv incremental updates

[Anonymous Coward]

Including the bloody Linux kernel. It's very sick that they release about 100 MBs for a three line change on each mirrors.

Stupid bandwidth and byte eaters.

Re:luv incremental updates

[misleb]

Aren't MS hotfixes usually pretty small? Service packs are big because they contain so many changes. It is difficult to "diff" a binary and it only works if you have a specific version of a binary installed (which most systems don't). And on Linux, you almost always have to download full packages to update. I would say it is linux that has this "problem," not Windows.

-matthew

Re:luv incremental updates

[jez9999]

No doubt I'll get flamed for this, but...

I hate the fact that the default Firefox update settings FORCE me to install the update once it's been downloaded. I may want to purposely test code on an older version of FF, or I may know that it breaks an extension and not want to install it. Whatsmore, there's actually no setting that lets you actually tell FF to check for updates, but not force you to install them once downloaded. Which is retarded.

And they're even planning on making this happen invisibly, without even telling you. This SUCKS! Virtually no other product in existance has covert updates like this, or forces them on you.

Re:luv incremental updates

[shellbeach]

Whatsmore, there's actually no setting that lets you actually tell FF to check for updates, but not force you to install them once downloaded. Which is retarded.

Er ... under Linux (and I assume it's the same under Windows, OSX or any other OS), Firefox alerts me to the fact that a new update is available and gives me options to "Download and install" or "Later", or something like that. Not too sure what you found confusing about "Download and install", but I would have thought the "Later" option was pretty clear ... :)

Yes, there probably should be a "No! Don't install! I changed my mind!!" option once the update has downloaded. There should also be a check on your extensions before you download the update to advise you as to which ones will be disabled in the new version. But no software's perfect ...

And they're even planning on making this happen invisibly, without even telling you. This SUCKS! Virtually no other product in existance has covert updates like this, or forces them on you.

Yeah, that sucks if it's true. Do you have a link to verify this?

Re:luv incremental updates

[jez9999]

Yes, there probably should be a "No! Don't install! I changed my mind!!" option once the update has downloaded. There should also be a check on your extensions before you download the update to advise you as to which ones will be disabled in the new version. But no software's perfect ...

This is no bug that's resulted from them forgetting. Bugs that get filed about this are marked WONTFIX because they want to force you to install stuff. It sucks, Firefox is one of the only products that does this.

Yeah, that sucks if it's true. Do you have a link to verify this?
Bug #334767

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33476 7

(I remembered that direct links from Slashdot aren't allowed)

Re:luv incremental updates

[shellbeach]

This is no bug that's resulted from them forgetting. Bugs that get filed about this are marked WONTFIX because they want to force you to install stuff. It sucks, Firefox is one of the only products that does this.

Yeah, the Firefox developers are a bit arrogant sometimes - they believe that there's only one way to do it, and their way is the right way. You can bet that they hate Perl. But then, they are the developers, and it's their prerogative to choose the way their software works ...

It's poor software design, and it's a shame that they can't see it, but I'll still use Firefox and accept the limitations ... after all, I know from developing software myself that you can't please all the users all the time, and sometimes you just can't be bothered implementing a solution which you know might be technically right, but won't be of any use to you and will take up lots of your precious free time ...

(I remembered that direct links from Slashdot aren't allowed)

Links from /. to bugzilla aren't blocked if you don't send the HTTP referer header. Which you shouldn't on general principles anyway - disable it by setting network.http.sendRefererHeader to 0.

But looking at the bug, the report reads: "If app.update.enabled=true, and if the update will not break any installed extensions or themes (ie: there is no reason for a user to not apply the patch) Firefox should silently download and install the update without interfering with the user's taskflow." (my emphasis). Why would anyone have issue with this? - it specifically states that this situation will occur if and only if nothing is broken.

Re:luv incremental updates

[jez9999]

But looking at the bug, the report reads: "If app.update.enabled=true, and if the update will not break any installed extensions or themes (ie: there is no reason for a user to not apply the patch)

How do thy know whether it will break any extensions? They don't know all of them. They mean *major, popular* extensions.... they think. I still want the option to opt out.

Firefox should silently download and install the update without interfering with the user's taskflow." (my emphasis). Why would anyone have issue with this?

Because I'm testing code for a website/JavaScript/extension on an older version of FF, perhaps. I still want the option to opt out.

Re:luv incremental updates

[shellbeach]

How do thy know whether it will break any extensions? They don't know all of them. They mean *major, popular* extensions.... they think. I still want the option to opt out.

Well, no - the extensions / themes themselves specify the versions that they will work with. It's part of their code. It's why some extensions are automatically disabled upon updating Firefox - they've told Firefox that they'll no longer work with that version.

Because I'm testing code for a website/JavaScript/extension on an older version of FF, perhaps. I still want the option to opt out.

Fair enough. But in that case, just uncheck the "Check for automatic updates" feature. However, the updates so far have only been security releases, and it's not mattered. I'll be very interested to see what happens when the Firefox 1.6 release happens ... I don't know whether the developers have really thought that one through. After all, some people will want to stay on a 1.5 branch with security updates and I have a feeling that that won't be an option.

Rather them than me, though, I have to say ... and their response to dissenters would probably be: If you don't like it, don't use it - after all, you haven't paid for it so you've nothing to lose. Remember that Firefox is a massive piece of software with an utterly enormous user base. Hell, it's probably the most widely used piece of end-user OSS ever ... while I don't approve of their methods or attitudes sometimes, you have to give them a bit of slack!

Long Live Seamonkey

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they wont drop Seamonkey in favor of FF.

Re:Long Live Seamonkey

[wysiwia]

You can be sure SeaMonkey won't be dropped, the community takes care. For some users (mostly power users) SeaMonkey is much more useful, just look at the cookie manager or the preferences. Besides the SM/Mail has advantages over Thunderbird, I first had to write an extension (Folder selection) to make TB sort of usable for me. Sure enough it's good to be able to choose.

O. Wyss

Flaw Found In Firefox 1.5.0.3

[Anonymous Coward]

While I am just kidding, right now, it seems that this is likely to be the case given current Firefox trends.

The question is; Is Firefox more bug ridden because it has developed enough features to make it large and cumbersome or, is Firefox bug ridden because the developers are rushing it out too quickly, or is Firefox bug ridden because it was poorly coded from the beginning and it is only now that the bugs are being found?

No matter what the answer, the fact is that Firefox is bug ridden to the point that people aren't too kean to use security as an argument against IE 7.

Re:Flaw Found In Firefox 1.5.0.3

[RebelWebmaster]

I think security is a perfectly valid argument if you work from the premise that no software is bug-free. I'm more interested in the response of a company to a security hole than I am about the hole itself. In this case, I think it's pretty obvious that the Mozilla Foundation responds to and fixes security holes much faster than Microsoft does.

Re:Flaw Found In Firefox 1.5.0.3

[Ginger Unicorn]

I think characterising firefox as "riddled with bugs" and asserting that people aren't too keen to recommend it as secure vs IE7 is very misinformed.

Neither of those statements are true, assuming that by "people" you mean a significant proportion of the people aware of Firefox and what it offers. Unless something drastic has happened while my back was turned I am pretty sure that almost no-one who uses firefox would consider it less secure than Internet Explorer.

As for being "riddled" with bugs, even if it were determined that Firefox had as many or more identified bugs of a comparable or worse severity than Internet Explorer, that still wouldn't change that fact that safe browsing is a lot more reliant on sensible behaviour than browser stability. The lack of ActiveX in Firefox is the real saviour as far as drive-by spyware installations are concerned. And for the slightly savvier user, Javascript whitelisting via the NoScript extension eliminates cross-site scripting exploits, without crippling necessary or useful functionality on trusted sites.

Re:Flaw Found In Firefox 1.5.0.3

[Dis*abstraction]

Wow. Looks like the moderators can't stand hearing that their precious Firefox might, just might not be perfect. Unbelievable.

Re:Flaw Found In Firefox 1.5.0.3

[dpilot]

Interesting responses to your post, between the (-1: Flamebait) and the post.

Also interesting in light of the amount (none) of vitriol and inflammatory language in your post.

Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[LiquidCoooled]

I was happily reading a webpage when this popped up.
I want it to only check for updates during a new tab or window, NOT when I'm just sitting there browsing or typing or watching something.

The message even says "you can delay the update until you next restart firefox".
Why can't I bloody well set that as a default?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Skythe]

Blah bla blah the world revolves around me and it should therefore conform to my every wish.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[LiquidCoooled]

What are you on about, the world DOES revolve around me!

Now, about that stupid ass update message, every other program manages to check for updates when starting up and doesn't bug me halfway through working so why can't firefox?

I want to keep uptodate, but I'm very tempted to disable it totally and not bother checking.

(apart from antivirus, but then again thats a background process anyway)

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Blahbooboo3]

And people wonder why open source projects have such a hard time getting real momentum and acceptance with end users?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[malsdavis]

But isn't the ability of the end-user to customise the software to their exact preference/need one of the biggest advantages of Open Source?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Anonymous Coward]

I want it to only check for updates during a new tab or window, NOT when I'm just sitting there browsing or typing or watching something.

Actually, no you don't. The issue isn't when it checks and when it alerts, the issue is HOW it alerts, and this is a common issue with Windoze apps (and perhaps others) since many throw up a dialog that steals focus. I've be whining and complaining about this for years, I don't know how many dialogs I've accidentally dismissed because they popped up while I've been typing. Note that in XP, a lot of those things are now showing up as balloon messages off the task bar, which is still annoying, but nearly as much as those damn dialogs.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Blahbooboo3]

Yes! However, it's the attitude of "figure it out moron" from some people that is the problem with open source projects.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[bunratty]

I was happily reading a webpage when this popped up. I want it to only check for updates during a new tab or window, NOT when I'm just sitting there browsing or typing or watching something.

Bug 323041 - Software update dialog steals focus

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[LiquidCoooled]

You are saying its an advantage to have to fork the entire firefox project, reproduce the source tree, make the change, compile it, then STILL have to watch for firefox to be updated since now my new project will be updating from my repository not theirs (I've forked it remember...), then check nothings broken when remerging the tree, fix any changes, recompile and update.

All that because I don't like to be disturbed whilst I work?

The old update mechanism they used to use (the blue update throbber) worked PERFECTLY for me, I knew where it was and when I saw it I handled it, just like the petrol light in my car.

All this crap has made up my mind anyway, I'm disabling the updates :)

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[SilentGhost]

so, if i'm restarting ff once a week, when i'm supposed to get to know about an update?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[LoonyMike]

Restarting one a week?
You must have an endless supply of RAM.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[LiquidCoooled]

Thank you.
I had tried looking, but my bugzilla foo wasn't working.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Billosaur]

Blah bla blah the world revolves around me and it should therefore conform to my every wish.

Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade, but it's a valid point. It's nice to be able to auto-update software, but that process should remain as unobtrusive as possible. Let Firefox download the fix, keep it ready, and do an install next time I run the browser from scratch. Where's the harm in it?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[mlefevre]

That's being changed. See Ben Goodger's document about Firefox 2.0 and also bug 334767 in bugzilla.mozilla.org.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and it's overly broad generalizations from some people that don't exactly advance the cause. Take the blinders off -- some open source projects are lacking in the support department, but others excel. You just can't group every project together as if they all follow the same path.

(Of course, I do agree that anyone who offers "figure it out yourself moron" is hurting the cause more than helping. Fortunately I haven't run into too many of those.)

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[wysiwia]

Yet exactly Firefox is the counter sample since it's the most successful OpenSource application (market share above 10%). But you are right, usability is the worst problem OpenSource projects face these days (see the first top inhibitor for Linux desktop adoption in http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005. pdf). Unfortunately very few understands this and probably several years have to pass until appropriate measure steps are taken.

O. Wyss

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Runefox]

Because then someone would complain that it's automatically downloading updates and they never got any notification.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

(Of course, I do agree that anyone who offers "figure it out yourself moron" is hurting the cause more than helping. Fortunately I haven't run into too many of those.)

That was common in the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups a few years back. I don't know if it is any better now.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[RDMsoft]

Just what I was going to say. However, if anyone wants to turn this on for themselves, they can set the pref "app.update.silent" to true.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Kelson]

many throw up a dialog that steals focus.

I think the worst must be the Norton dialogs that pop up even when you have a full-screen game running, stealing focus and dropping you back to the desktop so that it can tell you that it just updated its virus definitions.

I *think* I've disabled all the notifications for things that it's going to do automatically anyway, but we'll see...

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[heinousjay]

No, the big attraction is that it's free. Kinda like how people spew bullshit about rights and artists and blah blah blah then pirate music and movies, providing no compensation for the people who worked on them.

I mean, look around this site. What do you think the percentage of people that can actually program is? 25% tops, I say. People are just cheap. That's the big attraction of open source.

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[seek31337]

What's your bugzilla bug number for this change?

Re:Yet again I was interrupted while I work

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not. If anything it is much worse. In fact if you say that you use MS stuff you are a heathen. The FOSS movment was about choice now its about yelling about not having access to something most people will not even bother to look at. It is also about yelling at people who just want to figure something out. Sure there are a few people out there who will help. However many times you will see 'just read the FAQ'. You go read the FAQ and it does not even come close to adressing what you are talking about. Sometimes people are a tad to quick to fire off the quick answer. Oh sure there are the people out there who just need to do about 2 seconds of research and they would be good. But instead just fire off a message somewhere and 'expect' people to fix it for them. Unfortunatly those have grown in numbers too.

Also if the FOSS movment is about choice and freedom why can not some companies choose to say 'no you can not see my stuff'? I find the attitude of getting mad when people do this quite odd. Just as odd as companies would not want to share and have people helping you find bugs?! But hey guys with long hair have very different ideas than guys with suits sometimes and the rest of us are just going 'what do you want?'

Nice....

[Anonymous Coward]

This morning, about 5 hours ago i booted my linux box + firefox and it automatically updated firefox, same with windows just a couple of minutes ago. Nice service...

Re:Nice....

[voice_of_all_reason]

You're far too trusting. Letting random strangers automagically execute code on your machine?

Re:Nice....

[bunratty]

You're far too trusting. Letting random strangers automagically execute code on your machine?

Can you explain how you consider the Mozilla Corporation a "random stranger"?

Re:Nice....

[init100]

Can you explain how you consider the Mozilla Corporation a "random stranger"?

I would want to know if he also consider Microsoft Corporation a "random stranger". :)

Re:Nice....

[voice_of_all_reason]

That would be undouted, wholehearted yes. By all means, keep an eye out for updates that will patch vulnerabilities. But research them (both from the company's page and out on the interwebs) before installing. This may save you from the following problems:

1) Loss of necessary function in existing program (intentional or not)
2) Conflicts involving said program and others on your system
3) The (though currently unlikely) introduction of a vulnerability whereby a virus can spoof the auto-update routine.

uh, yeah

[X_Bones]

A denial of service attack? On a browser?

I thought that was just called a "crash."

Re:uh, yeah

[malsdavis]

The linked page describes the bug as a crash also. I think its one of those 'the use of your browser service could be disrupted for 10 seconds while Firefox restarts' sort of DOS attacks.

Re:uh, yeah

[treeves]

Mozilla called it a crash. Who knows why /. called it a DOS. Maybe they like that combination of letters, as in MS-DOS.

Re:It still leaks!

[christopherfinke]

Now that, my friends, is blind zealotry, plain and simple.

Not if you actually have an understanding of why it "leaks" memory and how you can fix it by changing a setting.

1.5.0.3?

[isaacklinger]

Amazing! That's the same combination I have on my luggage!

Re:1.5.0.3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be waiting at the airport for you!

Incremental patch?

[VincenzoRomano]

I've not found any technical details about the "incremental update" mechanism.
One would wonder how can this be accomplished with binary distributions (like DEB and RPM.) DLLs?
For the sources it means that the original complete source code is already available!
Maybe it is just a download manager a-la Acrobat Reader (for Windows).

Re:Incremental patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/

Re:Incremental patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

SUSE has apparently had this feature for a while now, presumably for all packages.

Re:Incremental patch?

[giorgiofr]

I don't know how it works but it's b0rken. It's the second time already that i've been forced to uninstall FF and reinstall it, because after updating it was stuck in an endless loop and complaining that some resources were locked. Rebooting, removing the extension folder, checking for any open handles leading to firefox did not help. Coupling this with the general slowness and unresponsiveness and crash-prone-ness of FF, I've switched to Opera and I have no regrets. Heck, even a beta (an Opera one, I mean) is better than FF nowadays. What happened to Phoenix?

Re:Incremental patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, I haven't had any of these issues on either my Macs or Windows PCs. Firefox pops up a box wanting to install the newest sub patch (this seems to be happening more and more often lately.. they're hot on the heels of Internet Explorer as most insecure browser IMHO), I let it restart and voila. It's patched and I'm browsing again. You must have a lot of weird extensions to deal with.

Re:Incremental patch?

[mlefevre]

Because the downloaded file contains the differences between the binaries, and the updater leaves the rest of the binary file as it was.

See http://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:MAR and http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/ for more.

Re:Incremental patch?

[bunratty]

Well, it sounds like your install of Firefox got b0rked, at least. The Firefox Standard Diagnostic should fix most of your problems.

Re:Incremental patch?

[VincenzoRomano]

So, finally, "incremental downloads" should actually be binary patches, as seen long long ago with Quartedeck's QEMM-386.
Under opensource environment this is really hard to do because of the large number of choices users have to build their own binaries.
How is the binary patcher supposed to identify the correct place in my binary to insert the patch?
Or is The MF willing to provide their own binary distribution?
I fear that the "incremental download" feature is doomed to die soon!

Re:Incremental patch?

[giorgiofr]

Right, it should, however it doesn't. Actually... their last suggestion is to wipe FF and reinstall it (duh) and even then, a fresh installation of FF with a grand total of 3-4 extensions fails to update.
The system has just booted. No firefox process has been started. The first thing to come up is the update dialog. THIS is the only thing that can have an open handle on firefox and therefore the updating mechanism must be locking itself. It would help if it lasted for more than half a second or left a log somewhere so I could check at least what the particular file that needs to be unlocked is.

Re:Incremental patch?

[hawaiian717]

On Windows and Mac, most users are likely using the binaries provided by Mozilla, and so the binary diff should work fine. Linux I imagine less are, since many distributions might provide slightly different builds for their environment. In these cases, the distribution should provide an updated version through their normal update channels.

Re:Incremental patch?

[frdmfghtr]

Right, it should, however it doesn't. Actually... their last suggestion is to wipe FF and reinstall it (duh) and even then, a fresh installation of FF with a grand total of 3-4 extensions fails to update.

Try without any extensions, maybe one of them is causing trouble.

I have four extensions and the auto update worked fine:
Adblock Plus 0.7
NoScript 1.1.4
FasterFox 1.0.3
Slashdotter 1.5

Re:Incremental patch?

[bunratty]

Did you try creating a new profile and not installing any extensions?

Re:Incremental patch?

[DarkAvZ]

Yup, that's correct. In gentoo, for instance, "check for updates in firefox" is greyed out.

Regarding how can they tell each version appart, I've noticed firefox provides a lot of info in the about box...

Re:Incremental patch?

[dpilot]

1.5.0.3 just finished compiling, thank you. Gentoo user, obviously.

But as others in this subthread have also said, binary patching is practically useless for Linux. Even if most non-Gentoo users don't compile their own packages, the binaries are usually built by the distribution, not simply accepted from Mozilla.

So as a f'rinstance, /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox contains firefox-bin, 10 .so's, and a whole raft of other components. WIBNI the build process itself could be incremental, kind of like 'make' has been for years. Then I wouldn't have to build/replace the whole blamed thing, but maybe just a few pieces.

Re:Incremental patch?

[giorgiofr]

Yes, I did. I don't usually give up troubleshooting easily :D Anyway it's been "fixed" by reinstalling and disabling updates (meh) because my "final" switch to Opera was not so final after all. But thanks for the suggestion!

Re:Incremental patch?

[Kelson]

As others have pointed out, Mozilla does provide their own binary distributions of Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux. The vast majority of Firefox users are probably on Windows, which means incremental binary patches are a godsend in terms of time, bandwidth, and getting the masses to install security fixes.

With Linux, it depends entirely on whether you're using the Mozilla binary or your Linux distro's binary. If you want to run beta versions of Firefox, or if you want to keep current beyond what your distro provides (Mandriva 2006 still only has Firefox 1.0.x), Mozilla's binary is the simplest way to do it. Under those circumstances, you can't use your distro's package management system, but you can close the browser, log in as root, and run it once to get the update. (Or you can download the full package, log in as root, and install again. It's a matter of preference.)

Re:Incremental patch?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So, finally, "incremental downloads" should actually be binary patches, as seen long long ago with Quartedeck's QEMM-386.

More like as seen on big iron decades before.

Encouragement!

[Rob T Firefly]

All users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Shouldn't we just take this for granted by now? You never really see a vendor come out with a new version of something that some users are discouraged from upgrading to.

"Here everyone, have some bug fixes and optimizations... but not that one guy, or you people over there, or that lady with the sideburns.."

Re:Encouragement!

[christopherfinke]

All users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.

Shouldn't we just take this for granted by now?

Well, if the upgrade only added a feature that is useful to a very small segment of the user base, all users wouldn't be encouraged to upgrade, only those needing/wanting the new feature.

Re:Encouragement!

[rakjr]

Not 100% correct. Micro$oft frequently has patches which state, 'only use this patch if you are suffering from the following computing affliction.' Ok, not that exactly, but it is just a variation on, 'if it is not broken, do not minor patch it.'

Re:Encouragement!

[bostonrobot]

Also, Apple actually discouraged use of the 7.02 player in Windows for users of web-embedded Quicktime files because there was a strange problem preventing the plugin from working. But your point is still funny, though pointless :)

Re:Encouragement!

[BigChiefMunkey]

> or that lady with the sideburns..

My mom has sideburns, you insensitive clod!

*q:=

-bw

Re:Encouragement!

[PoconoPCDoctor]

Not 100% correct. Micro$oft frequently has patches which state, 'only use this patch if you are suffering from the following computing affliction.' Ok, not that exactly, but it is just a variation on, 'if it is not broken, do not minor patch it.'

Are talking about MS Hot Fixes? These are never distributed through any update service. They are only obtainable after speaking to an MS rep -(I did this just recently), who basically confirms that you do understand that the hot fixes are not regression-tested, should never be used in a production environment, etc., and then e-mails you a link to download the patch - which can only be extracted after you enter a password.

Re:Encouragement!

[Duds]

Oh look! He put an $ in "Microsoft"

That's clever!

Re:Encouragement!

[Anonymous Coward]

You do occasionally see something like, "Users not encountering problems wih their current version do not need to upgrade"... usually when it's some tiny upgrade to fix a very specific and narrow bug.

Re:Encouragement!

[pommiekiwifruit]

These days there are several programs where the newer releases take away features, and add DRM for example. So if the new version is slower and less functional, users might not want to "upgrade" to it.

Re:It still leaks!

[voice_of_all_reason]

I can't wait for this month's issue of Mozilla Jihad to come in the mail

Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[hsmith]

The javascript console bug has an annoying ass problem of spewing out tons of debug information for CSS errors, which no one cares about because you have to do so many hacks to get styles to look right in all browsers. Console2 was to fix this, but it hasn't been worked on in forever and isn't compatable with 1.5.X. 100 CSS errors every time you load a page gets annoying when you are searching for a few JS errors

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[cyclomedia]

er, i'm on firefox 1.5.0.3 now and use console2 about 100 times a day. hang on ... yup still works.

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[stony3k]

Ummm.. just select "Errors" to be displayed instead of "All". That will filter out all the unnecessary warnings.

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[tobinibot]

You should be using Firebug https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1843/. More information here http://www.joehewitt.com/software/firebug/. And coming soon in the next version, a Javascript debugger. I'm been using it, and it works great.

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you code the page right to begin with, and put all the hacks inside a conditional comment.

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[Xugumad]

I care, BTW.

I wish they'd put it in a different window, and call it CSS console, but I care anyway!

Re:Can someone fix the damn javascript console

[hsmith]

i had to edit the app.extension property in the config file! thanks for kicking me in the ass

Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[caluml]

A question, which is off topic, but not entirely:
Does anyone else have the problem that occurs sometimes when everything you type into the browser, every single character goes into the form, but it also pops up the "search" functionality and puts the character in there. It also loses focus, so you have to reclick back into the form field, and type the next character.
I have no idea what causes it, but I have to close my browser, and restart it.
If you don't know what I'm talking about you don't have it.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[tomstdenis]

Yes. When I click on html files on my desktop I can't use PGUP/PGDN to scroll, if I open a new tab [say maps.google] I can't type without it going in the find field.

Tom

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[caluml]

I never click on files on my Desktop, but the other behaviour sounds right. Do you know what the cause is, or the solution, or if it's in the FF bugs DB?

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[cs96and]

Go to Options->Advanced->General and deselect "Begin finding when you begin typing"

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[BeardsmoreA]

By similar annoyance with firefox has been ' (apostrophe) causing almost the same behaviour. Only worse, because it doesn't get into the actual form at all. That said, I'm typing this in FF, and it's working fine, so maybe it's been fixed (was only ever intermittent anyway). Saw it mostly in gmail.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[360fusion]

Are you using a laptop? Because I find that this is most often the case when it happens to me (which, is very rare since I avoid using the touchpad at all times).

What I do to avoid it is a) making sure I turn the touchpad off when I do a lot of typing (I usually tab through fields unless the person who coded them made them in a weird order). and b) turn the palm detection threshold up on the touchpad (this is only on more recent synaptics touchpads though I think)

HTH.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[tomstdenis]

Solution is to use IE. /me ducks ...

I have no idea, I haven't filed a bug report because frankly I don't really care (that and bugzilla bothers me).

Tom

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[ndg123]

yes, i have that exact problem. very annoying. bring up a search engine and start typing in the form, only to find its being typed into the find box at the bottom of the screen.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[calculadoru]

hear hear same problem here. and no, I do not want to disable search while typing, I just want to be able to type in a form box and not have the search box pop up, so I have to restart the browser. glad to hear other people are having to go through this as well, I thought I was the only one. well, not glad...

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[De Lemming]

Go to Options->Advanced->General and deselect "Begin finding when you begin typing"

Even with this option turned on, it shouldn't do this when a text field on the page has the focus. And normally it doesn't, but from time to time Firefox start behaving this way. The only option at that point is restarting the browser. That's the bug the GP was talking about.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[bbzzdd]

I get it all the time. I have been using "Find as you type" since pre-1.0 and it's only started happening with 1.5.0.2. I brought it up at mozillaZine and nobody seemed to care.

Has anyone sumbitted and official bug report on it?

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[sfgiants320]

OK, I have a slightly different problem. When I'm typing into the location (address) bar (let's say I just want to type "google.com"), then things such as google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&r ls=GGGL,GGGL:2005-09,GGGL:en&q=telegraph appear at the bottom of the address bar (past links I've visited within that website) and it doesn't wait for me to enter what I want first, so I have to hit the Delete key after typing my URL (google.com) so it doesn't go to some other link I've gone to within my website. I know it's confusing, but if you know what I'm talking about, can somebody please help me? Thanks.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[john83]

The up arrow will clear that.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[Vlastyn]

No, that is not what he was talking about. This is something that happens when that option is disabled. I have had it happen as well.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[caluml]

# uname -a
Linux torro 2.6.15-vs2.1.0.4-gentoo #2 PREEMPT Fri Feb 17 15:46:02 GMT 2006 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux

Nope. Don't think IE will run here. Least we know it's a cross platform bug though.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[harryk]

thats an incorrect solution, as both functions should work. I've had this same problem when using Sprint PCS's website, pretty routinely. I think this is a page loading issue, as it doesn't recognize that the text is in form, as opposed to search strings.

But yes, I've had the problems too.

harryk

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[tomstdenis]

While we are bragging about our Linux boxes...

tom@bigbox ~ $ uname -a
Linux bigbox 2.6.16.12 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue May 2 14:09:55 EDT 2006 x86_64 AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 885 GNU/Linux

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[caluml]

Hurrah! We can be 64 bit buddies now. Let's get a VPN up between them, so they can talk.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[drinkypoo]

Yes I just got this problem after updating. It happens when I type an apostrophe or a slash into a form field, or even when I paste one. I also cannot use the up and down arrow keys in form fields now. The box for begin finding when you begin typing is turned OFF, so that is not the problem.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[Anonymous Coward]

I have that problem as well, but ONLY when I spawn a second Firefox window. The original window, and all its tabs, will not exhibit the problem, but the second window will, even if you switch focus back and forth between them.

Re:Weird Firefox behaviour when typing

[muzik4machines]

YEs,all the time I tought my keayboard was broken

Re:It still leaks!

[jrmcferren]

True, I understand that there are other browsers that are better in this regard, but I feel firefox has the most potential. I changed the settings that I know about and stay away from the RAM hogging sites such as NWS radar. NWS radar will make your computer dump to pagefile/swap/virtual memory more often than anything in Firefox. Another thing I noticed with Firefox is that if it uses too much memory quiting the program will not end firefox.exe. I did not file a bug report on this, but I would to let you know it is there and the error can be resolved with the windows task manager.

auto-updates make security easier

[MikeFM]

It's definately a role model that other software venders could learn from. For friends and family that I used to have to babysit their browser updates now all I have to do is let Firefox do it's thing. Seems to work well in Thunderbird too. It really does make it a lot easier for non-technical people to keep up-to-date and truth be told it makes it easier for a geek boy like me too.

The only other Windows program I have that seems to work as well is Azureus which is also opensource.

Re:auto-updates make security easier

[Gnavpot]

It's definately a role model that other software venders could learn from.

You think that other software vendors should learn from "Force our users to login with administrative priviledges if they want any automatic updates or even NOTIFICATIONS"?

I can understand why a non-priviledged user is unable to perform an automatic update during his Firefox session. But I cannot understand why he doesn't receive a notification which urges him to login with an administrative account and update Firefox.

Disclaimer: There may be notifications when running Firefox as a non-priviledged user, but in that case they are very subtle. I am a little behind and still running 1.5.0.1. During all the time 1.5.0.2 was out, I have not noticed any update notifications.

Glad

[Joebert]

I'm so glad I started using Firefox, I'm even happier I started using somthing else, which I'm not going to name, so it doesn't end up popular & targeted like Firefox.

Re:Glad

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Aww, and the teeming masses were just hanging on your every word, hoping to jump ship to whatever secret and superior browsing software the great Joebert uses...

Re:Glad

[Joebert]

I'm flattered you think so highly of me.

I'd love to explain the mechanics of how grains of sand comprise a desert, however I think I've said enough allready.

Re:Glad

[darkmonkeh]

...Opera? :D

Re:Glad

[Joebert]

Damn, you got me. =)


(I should get into marketing, who do you know that can get others to advertise for them ? =P )

Re:Glad

[PoconoPCDoctor]

If I may add to the discussion of the great and all-poweful joebert, and I hope I'm not digressing or veeering into the netherworld of off-topicness, but after taking a quick peek at the vision of joebert at his or hers extremely well-thought out web site at

http://www.joebertvision.net (do take a peek, now, if you don't mind)

I'd like to state, IMHO, that NOT ONE PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS THE PATIENCE FOR ANY WEB SITE THAT IS UNDER CONTRUCTION!

I feel much better now, thank you.

Re:Glad

[Joebert]

Where does it say "under construction" ?
I'll have to make sure to take that off of there.

Re:Glad

[se7en11]

I happen to use that site every day to check what the date is....

Re:Glad

[Slashcrap]

I'm flattered you think so highly of me.

Actually, I believe he was using sarcasm to indicate that you are a tedious cocksucker with opinions that nobody cares about.

Is that any clearer?

unicode symbols fail to display FF1.5.0.3 for Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just upgraded to Firefox 1.5.0.3 and noticed that the unicode heart symbol () no longer displays properly. It displays as a vertical line ( | ) instead. Is anyone experiencing the same problem?

-edit-
I can't get some other symbols to display either -diamond, club, spade fails to display either...
(http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/miscellaneous_sym bols.html)

Build info:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.0.3) Gecko/20060426 Firefox/1.5.0.3

firefix update

[ajdowntown]

Haha! It gave me the restart notice as I was reading this article. Gotta love automatic updates...

Re:firefix update

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.2 on Linux and firefox is acting like there is no update whatsoever.

Got to do it manually, I suppose.

Re:firefix update

[Anonymous Coward]

It will only prompt you to update if you are running as root. If you are not, it will not have the permissions to change anything, so will not even try. If you want to use the incremental update, use sudo and run firefox as root. (Only to update! UNSAFE!!)

Terminology matters

[LordActon]

I get a note periodically from my friendly local security admonisher suggesting I deinstall Firefox unless I have a "business need" to run it. Otherwise, please upgrade because "security vulnerabilities" have been found. Funny, he never suggests the same for IE, which I guess is very secure by comparison.

Labelling something that can crash the browser as a "DOS attack" misleads the uninformed and the unknowing, who all to often populate the IT departments where so many of us work. They in turn impose unnecessary work on the rest of us. And you're stressing them out, which isn't very nice.

Besides, misleading is misleading. I read the /. description and wondered how my browser could be hijacked to participate in a DOS attack. Only by following the link (um, thanks) did I learn the bark was worse than the bite.

Re:Terminology matters

[Anonymous Coward]

It might have more to do with the natrual assumption Windows admins make about versions. With the Windows systems he knows that its upgraded to the latest version through either Automatic updates or through an intranet update. With multiple browsers with a different upgrade system he can not know for certain if your firefox is fully upgraded or is like most windows users computers and 50 versions out of date(there is a hell of a lot of issues caused by people who could have just upgraded their computer). Plus too with just one browser if something happens or shows up out in the wild he can react accordingly. with firefox plue IE he has to track twice the issues and figure out how they affect things.

Its more about managability, imagine the administrative headache you would have if you had users using netscape(and yes I have seen this, only way I managed to get that user off of it was by sabotaging her computer so I had to "replace" it, couldn't get her offa it otherwise), firefox, IE, Opera and having them all running under redhat, debian, windows 98, windows 2000, windows xp, mac 9, mac X, etc...

It would quickly become a disaster. Personally if I had a consistent system throught I would slap you down hard for using something outside of the guidelines. Although I've been trying to convince the people here to dump IE and Office so I could go to Opera/Firefox and OpenOffice so I would be slapping everybody else for using IE. Trying but failing...

Re:Terminology matters

[linvir]

Ha, that was the first laugh of the day, thanks!

If he bothers you again, somehow get him to visit this site. Last time I tested it in IE, it BSODed the computer. Now that's what I call a DOS!

Re:Terminology matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox 1.5.0.3 seems to be fine, which I guess doesn't prove anything.

Re:Terminology matters

[Zantetsuken]

part of it could also be that the company it security are control freaks and uses spyware to track employees - they're just pissed cuz firefox and opera are actually secure (actually secure or just compared to ie) and that their spyware trackers and keyloggers cant tell em exactly what firefox (or opera) is doing

Re:What's their freakin' logo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when Mozilla != Firefox, this made sense. The logo for Mozilla is the lizard. This was pretty much used as the icon/splash screen for the suite on most Linux distributions way back when. The logo for Firefox is the drunken fox chasing his own tail around the globe.

Why Mozilla continues to use the lizard is beyond me. They've dropped their flagship product for Firefox, and have prohibited the newer Seamonkey suite from using the logo. All it's doing now is serving to confuse n00bs like yourself about what the actual icon of Firefox is.

Re:It still leaks!

[bunratty]

Not if you actually have an understanding of why it "leaks" memory and how you can fix it by changing a setting.

There are hundreds of memory leaks in Firefox. You can't fix them by "changing a setting".

Besides, what most people are reporting as "memory leaks" in Firefox are generally due to normal memory usage (which is about what other browsers, such as IE and Opera, use), caching, memory fragmentation, memory leaks in extensions and plugins, and blaming any random problems on memory leaks. Yes, Firefox can leak away lots of memory, but it usually takes many days to eat up enough to be noticeable. This problem should be mostly fixed in Firefox 3.

Re:It still leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

It leaks not because of extension settings.

Try load at least 20 tabs and keep it running for an hour.

Firefox leaks got so bad, I had to switch to Opera, haven't had a single crash since.

Firefox would just close on it's own (just disappear) after eating 150mb+ of ram.

Re:It still leaks!

[bunratty]

Could it be that Firefox is crashing (a problem) and you're blaming it on memory leaks (nothing to do with the problem you're experiencing)?

Install the Quality Feedback Agent and turn it on when Firefox crashes. That will give Firefox developers the information they need to fix the crashes. Try Firefox 1.5.0.4 when it comes out. It should be far more stable than earlier 1.5 versions.

Re:What's their freakin' logo?

[shokk]

Watch out. You're going to see a Seamonkey and a Thunderbird in other places on that site. I know it's hard identifying different products by their individual logos. Car shopping must be a world shattering nightmare for you.

You need a medal if you can fix that memory leak

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can get one right here! http://tinyurl.com/mb6jg

Blimey

[Ginger Unicorn]

Why is my parent post a troll?

Re:Blimey

[William_Lee]

Why is my parent post a troll?

C'mon, this is Slashdot... Isn't it obvious?! Your parent is modded as troll because some of the moderators can't seem to differentiate between the ORIGINAL posting which was a troll, and your response which wasn't.

Just another day in da /. hood

Re:Blimey

[RebelWebmaster]

For the same reason mine was modded Flamebait I suppose :-)

Re:What's their freakin' logo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, think of Mozilla (with the giant lizard logo) as the company, and Firefox (with the burning fox - get it ?) as the product.

How is this any more confusing than Microsoft (TM) Windows (TM) ?

Re:It still leaks!

[ameline]

I've changed that setting and it STILL leaks hundreds of megabytes. Until it bogs my machine down to the point of unusability and crashes. Hows THAT for "denial of service"?

Possibly o/t but ... GSpace ...

[A Pressbutton]

This extension has changed my life - it is as common to have a computer connected to the intenet as it is to have USB ports enabled - and you cannot lose a GSpace.
Providing an extensible framework is genuinely useful and I expect to see more of the same - never mind point releases.

Crashing with Javascript

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they've decided to fix this damned annoying crashy problem with the js DLL. It's not a stable release until that's fixed.

Re:Crashing with Javascript

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they've decided to fix this damned annoying crashy problem with the js DLL.

Just delete it. Firefox doesn't require that DLL.

Gentoo seriously lagging

[Anonymous Coward]

Gentoo users still don't have a stable ebuild of Firefox 1.5, whilst the rest of the Linux world has had it for months.

Re:It still leaks!

[Runefox]

I still don't understand what this memory leak business is all about. The highest Firefox on my XP machine goes is to about 50MB of RAM, even with ten or more tabs on different sites with downloads going and FastBack enabled; totally acceptable. In Linux, it's more like 100MB at most. I don't understand where everyone gets this Firefox taking up a gig of memory and all that stuff. Firefox never leaks any memory for me; It's apparently been documented, yeah, but it doesn't affect me, any computer I've installed it on, or anyone else I've installed it for, so, Firefox continues to be my browser of choice.

Nothing to luv here

[porneL]

I ran "Check for updates" in 1.5.0.1/win and it has chosen to download 6.1MB (even if .1->.3 is not available, FF could have downloaded incremental .2 version first...)

Re:Nothing to luv here

[shellbeach]

I ran "Check for updates" in 1.5.0.1/win and it has chosen to download 6.1MB (even if .1->.3 is not available, FF could have downloaded incremental .2 version first...)

Have you reported it as a bug?

Re:It still leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

What setting?

Portable Firefox 1.5.0.3 Released

[CritterNYC]

For the portable folks, I updated Portable Firefox 1.5.0.3 to the new release as well:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/browsers/por table_firefox

Also added in a few new features in the recent releases:

• Split Apps/Data directories for easy backups
• Local homepages (for users of TiddlyWiki, etc)
• Self-extracting packages (easy install, only 4.8MB download)
• Few bug fixes

Bug fixes will be release 1.0.3.0.1

[sasdrtx]

Can someone explain why there's now four levels of release numbers (e.g. 1.5.0.3), when there were only three before 1.5 (e.g. 1.0.6)?

And what happened to 1.1 through 1.4?

Is there something about release numbering make all software developers retarded?

I admit, this is a lame topic.

Re:Bug fixes will be release 1.0.3.0.1

[Anonymous Coward]

> why there's now four levels of release numbers (e.g. 1.5.0.3)

Because previously extensions had problems working after security upgrades, which made people less motivated to upgrade. Incrementing the 4th digit should make the upgrade invisible to the extensions and there should be no risk that extensions stop working after the security upgrade.

> And what happened to 1.1 through 1.4?

The plan was that 1.5 would have been 1.1. But it happened so that they desided to make greater changes to the 1.1 and it ended up being so big changes, that they desided to rename it to 1.5, to correspond better with the upgrades made.

Re:Bug fixes will be release 1.0.3.0.1

[dn15]

I believe this is roughly how it works.... A.B.C.D A: The major version. B: The minor version. C: Bug fixes that change stuff (API's, I guess) for extension developers. D: Bug fixes that should *not* break extensions.

What is 1.5.0.3 all special about?

[krunchyfrog]

They're all prime numbers! Only the 2 is missing. Of course, not everyone considers 0 as prime, too.

stats/browsers/closed vs open

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if these stats exist, probably do, but I haven't seen them. How many patches and fixes would be needed if FF wasn't a product for windows, and was only a product for linux? It has gotten to the point I consider it to be almost just a windows developer effort, when I see FF mentioned that is what I think anyway.

I still use gecko based browsers, but I really wish there was a credible mainstream effort to work on a good quality browser that was developed for open source operating systems *only*, then we could say there is a "choice".

You can see it in rates of adoption-it has slowed mightily at around maybe 10 per cent or so. That plateau is there because it is targetting windows first. That is Microsoft's job isn't it? Don't they have enough billions of dollars for their own stuff?

This is why I am resisting donating-the effort is still going to make it EASIER for people to stay on windows. The claim is it will help "nudge" people along into FOSS adoption, for their OS and Apps...it's not happening very fast, is it? Go ahead, admit it out loud, THOSE stats are apparent. Maybe it is time for people to acknowledge that perhaps working to make MS better by doing their work for them is counter productive for FOSS in the long term.

What was linux adoption three years ago? A percent or two? What is it now..the same? I call this a clue.

Re:unicode symbols fail to display FF1.5.0.3 for M

[hobo sapiens]

In related news...the blink tag AND the marquee tags stopped working!

Oh NOES~!! My webpage stoped moving is my fruntoage borked 2?!?!

Seriously, though, if you are using those characters check the char set and DTD your site is using. It may be that you've had that set to the wrong thing all along and Fx just didn't care but now they've fixed that. Try using the char set iso-8859-2. I use that with a strict xhtml dtd and the few unicode chars I use on my site display properly.

Re:Extensions

[ChrisMaple]

If the extension is actually still good for the new version, but has a specific version limit that prevents it from installing, the install file for that extension can be text-edited to work. I've used this with statusbar clock.

If all that's available is a .jar file for the extension, I've read that it can be decompressed with unzip, edited, and recompressed; and then it will work.

1.5.0.x crashing

[Georules]

I loved Firefox all the way up to 1.5, but these new releases crash all the time for me. I was finally fed up and switched to opera -- even though opera has problems loading some medias. It's almost like Firefox has become my old IE -- when firefox wouldn't load it, I would bring up IE in the past. Now when opera won't load it, I'll bring up firefox to load it.
 
Please fix the crashing! Even when I revert to 1.5 I have an undue number of problems!

Re:1.5.0.x crashing

[Spy der Mann]

Please fix the crashing!

On what webpages? What does one have to do to reproduce the crash?

Re:1.5.0.x crashing

[multipartmixed]

Just leave it running until the system runs out of memory.

Seriously, if I forget to reboot my box every night, by mid-afternoon the next day, my browser is sucking back nearly a gig of RAM.

This is with almost no extensions (AdBlock +, Compact Menu) and very little (if any) flash usage.

I mostly look at PNGs (not those kinds) and read GMail.

Drives me friggin' nuts.

Re:1.5.0.x crashing

[MarkByers]

Do you still get the problem if you remove the extensions?

Re:It still leaks!

[Dis*abstraction]

Others have already addressed the fact that your settings change does nothing to stop Firefox's bloat, but you miss the larger point: why should I have to tell it not to be a hog? Especially when alternative browsers are lean and mean out of the box?

Even Jon Hicks, the talented graphic designer who designed Firefox's logo and icon, switched to Safari a while back after getting fed up with Firefox's sluggish performance, not to mention its wretched user interface and terrible rendering. He now maintains this site for extensions to Safari. When will you make the switch? Or is mediocrity "good enough" for you?

One question about firefox

[Spy der Mann]

Sometimes when I open a JPG file or an html with lot of jpegs (or one BIG jpg), the browsing gets very slow, and everytime i move the mouse around, it jitters and kinda freezes.

Has it happened to anyone of you guys?

Re:One question about firefox

[sabedoria]

yes!! very annoying. I thought it was my mouse!

Re:One question about firefox

[octaene]

This happens to me all the time on my Ubuntu box, but not on Windows...

Re:unicode symbols fail to display FF1.5.0.3 for M

[Dis*abstraction]

Since you're on a Mac, why are you using Firefox when you could be using Safari instead? Honest question.

People accustomed to PC-world mediocrity may find Firefox satisfactory for their tastes, but Firefox pales in comparison to the legions of Cocoa-native Mac browsers. Even Jon Hicks, the talented graphic designer who designed Firefox's logo and icon, switched to Safari a while back after getting fed up with Firefox's sluggish performance, not to mention its wretched user interface and terrible rendering. He now maintains this site for extensions to Safari. Hope this helps.

Can not upgrade from Firefox v0.7

[bobs666]

IMHO Firefox has become to much a PC program.

Why?

1) I Do not like tab browing. I like to click the middle button to open a link in a new window. I do not like to right click and pull down. Ya, its a little thing, but I have grown to like that.

Yes I gave the tab-killer a try. If the "target=*" is set on the link that breaks too. I was trying to cope with that, but #2 was a firefox v1.5 killer, and I was forced to return to version 0.7.

2) The EMACS key bindings on a textarea are gone. If I am typing in a text area I was a few control keys to work like emacs (F B P N D A E). Where are the rebind keys preferences? The functionality can't be all that hard to keep in the code.

And Yes I tryed the external editor extension, but it locks up all the firefox windows. And I need firefox while I am editing for spell checking and fact checking, so that no good.

----

If you think this is offtopic, no more cow pies 4u.

Re:It still leaks!

[Dis*abstraction]

So your advice is for him to ditch Opera and descend back into hell, just so he can complain about the thermostat, in the vain hope it might someday be fixed?

Re:Extensions

[Mant]

I use an extension called Mrtech Install that lets you overide other extensions version limits. Very handy as spellbound doesn't work otherwitse on the newer point releases.

Re:Can not upgrade from Firefox v0.7

[Anonymous Coward]

You can change your settings to create a new window with a middle click. Not sure if it's in the base FF or in the TabMixPlus extension. Can't help ya with the other one.

Re:It still leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as they make it available to the Windows OS!

Re:Can not upgrade from Firefox v0.7

[BZ]

> The EMACS key bindings on a textarea are gone.

That's a system-level preference for all GTK2 apps. Change your GTK2 preferences accordingly if you want Emacs keybindings.

Re:Can not upgrade from Firefox v0.7

[Anonymous Coward]

2) The EMACS key bindings on a textarea are gone. If I am typing in a text area I was a few control keys to work like emacs (F B P N D A E). Where are the rebind keys preferences? The functionality can't be all that hard to keep in the code.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Emacs_Keybindings_%28Fir efox%29

Re:It still leaks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, seriously. The insistence that 1.5.0.4 (AKA the next patch) will be the answer sounds alot like http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/winrg.php. I'd suggest Opera 8 or Firefox 1 myself, were it not for the keep-up-to-date-or-else-!!111 mazis.

Re:It still leaks!

[ameline]

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Browser.sessionhistory.m ax_total_viewers

Mostly On Topic: Updating Multiple Win2k/XP Boxes

[kwalker]

This is sorta off topic, but relavant because of the new update.

Where I work, I've been pushing hard to get the company to use Firefox instead of IE. I've got most people using it every day. However these are normal office workers, they don't click on the update icon (They don't even wonder about it), and I find that they're running an older version. Does anyone know of a way to add the update to a login script, so it is silently installed when they login? I've googled around, and maybe I'm not using the right search phrases, but I'm not finding anything useful. I'm even willing to download a whole new .exe file for 1.5.0.3 if I can figure out a way to have that auto-installed on the 35 machines here.

Not That Minor of a Revision - CAUTION

[Asphalt]

FWIW, when I installed the newest 1.5.0.3 this morning, it removed ALL of my extensions (except for DOM inspector) and reset all of my settings to default ... including my cookie exeptions.

I'm not too terribly happy at the moment, but life isn't pefect.

I would urge caution to possibly NOT update to this release as the extention scrubbing fix will probably be released within a few days.

Re:Not That Minor of a Revision - CAUTION

[Anonymous Coward]

I have installed 1.5.0.3 on multiple sytems with no problems. All extensions working fine and settings stayed the same. Perhaps you have anither problem that coinicdentally showed abot the time you performed your update.

Re:Not That Minor of a Revision - CAUTION

[Asphalt]

I have installed 1.5.0.3 on multiple sytems with no problems. All extensions working fine and settings stayed the same. Perhaps you have anither problem that coinicdentally showed abot the time you performed your update.

It's entirely possible that you are correct. I updated it via the "Automatic Update" on 5 machines in our network before stopping the process. All of the machines have lost all of the extensions except for some reason ... "DOM Inspector".

I didn't do any tweaking whatsoever except press "upgrade" and then let Firefox restart itself. So it *shouldn't* have been any kind of operator error (unless I really just stink at pressing dialog buttons).

Since most of the same software is running on said machines, this could indeed be some sort of isolated conflict to our configs.

As always in these situations, your mileage WILL vary.

It may or may not happen to a particular user, but if you have taken alot of time to tweak things specifically to your liking, you may want to consider a quick backup before the upgrade.

Then again, this really applies to any upgrade ...

Re:Can not upgrade from Firefox v0.7

[bobs666]

Some Moderators suck !

Yes, ok, I got good answers this time around. But I don't see why asking questions here should get dumped into the bit-bucket(level 0).

So should I report this as abuse?
what do you think?

And a BIG Thank-You to the nice people that helped me.
I should have ended my last post with aTdHvAaNnKcSe.

Beware, sir, My patience is wearing thin...

[PoconoPCDoctor]

I want a fully functional flash/php/pearl/java/css knock my socks off site in 24 hours or bad things will happen to you - especially if you eat at McDonalds!

Keep the date thingie - that works for me.

Re:Beware, sir, My patience is wearing thin...

[Joebert]

Look.
I simply brought up the idea that browsers (pretty much anything really) are only good until they're known of by many people.
Someone poked fun at me, I returned the favor.

Now my original post which was marked "Intresting" is trollified because of somthing out of context.


I guess I'll have to remember not to stick up for myself whenever I decide to post at Slashdot.

Re:unicode symbols fail to display FF1.5.0.3 for M

[bunratty]

Since you're on a Mac, why are you using Firefox when you could be using Safari instead? Honest question.

Why not Camino, another browser made specifically for the Mac OS?

Can still be DOSed

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a number of ways to get firefox to display modal dialog boxes repeatedly. One is to have a page with links to loads of images on a password protected site. Firefox will keep asking for the password until you have pressed cancel for each and every image. Another way is to bring up modal dialog boxes from javascript in a loop.

Denial of Service my ass

[brunes69]

There is no such thing as a "denial of service" attack in a web browser. At worst it causes a crash, and potentially makes you lose unsaved data on some web forms.

If we're calling anything that locks your browser a DOS now, then how come this bug, which is over 3 years old and seems dead simple to fix, is not? I can make a browser DOS on any web page I want:

<script>
while(true) alert('Boom!');
</script>

Such a piece of code does not trigger the "script is taking a long time" message because it fires alerts. And the alerts are content-modal so you can't do *anything* to close the browser or tab causing the alerts. You have to kill it off.

No different from the "denial of service" bug mentioned in this posting.

Re:Denial of Service my ass

[jesser]

The Slashdot article is incorrect in describing this bug as a denial of service. It's a use of a dangling pointer in a way that we believe can cause arbitrary code execution.

Re:Denial of Service my ass

[tepples]

There is no such thing as a "denial of service" attack in a web browser. At worst it causes a crash, and potentially makes you lose unsaved data on some web forms.

A crash is a denial of service for those seconds that it takes for the machine to unload core, reload Firefox, and reload Session Saver.

how come this bug, which is over 3 years old and seems dead simple to fix, is not?

Not officially called a denial of service? I don't know. Not fixed? Because your company hasn't yet hired a programmer to do so.

Re:Denial of Service my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

You can avoid this problem by just typing ctrl-w (close the "evil" tab) just after closing the modal alert window. I have just done it. It is not so dificult.

Zerjillo

Re:Denial of Service my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a piece of code does not trigger the "script is taking a long time" message because it fires alerts. And the alerts are content-modal so you can't do *anything* to close the browser or tab causing the alerts. You have to kill it off.

How would you detect and block that particular malicious use of the while(true) statement? Remember, you have to do it without breaking other, legitimate, use of the while(true) statement.

That's why it's not "dead simple" to fix.

Proof [O/T]

[Anonymous Coward]

I am God ...try prove otherwise.

His IP address is different than yours.

Re:Mostly On Topic: Updating Multiple Win2k/XP Box

[karrde]

I didn't see a reply, the following two links might prove usefull:

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/rele ases/1.5.0.3/update/win32/en-US/
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Software_Update:Manually_I nstalling_a_MAR_file

Oddness

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I noticed some odd behavior after this update. Some pages had missing images. Clearing my cache fixed it. Not sure if it's the browser or a actual problem with the web sites. I only noticed a problem AFTER the update installed in the background AND went to the page. After restarting, I cleared cache and it's updated. One thing I wish would happen is that Linux distros would give us the choice of updating via the Firefox way or the Linux way (apt, yum or whatever).

Re:Mostly On Topic: Updating Multiple Win2k/XP Box

[bogie]

Here ya go.
http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/index.htm

Bug ID #320465

[drinkypoo]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32046 5

Re:Bug ID #320465

[caluml]

That looks like it. "Normal" severity? Damn ultra annoying severity, more like.

Re:Updating Multiple Win2k/XP Box

[dreamer-of-rules]

Maybe I'm doing this the hard way, but I have a perl script crawl our (40) systems to get file stats for firefox.exe (via \\system\c$). It compares the version (or size+date) of each system's firefox.exe to stats I get from an updated system.

I send out an email to everyone telling them how to do the update (with recycled instructions). After a reasonable amount of time, I rerun the script and start bugging the stragglers.

I sometimes get complaints, but I remind them that the alternatives are either 1) I go around and kick them off the systems to do the updates, or 2) I force them to log off at night (which they don't like because they lose all of their settings and command histories). They prefer to do the updates on their own terms.

I find this is easily modified to monitor Real, Quicktime, Adobe and such which have interactive updates.

Re:Updating Multiple Win2k/XP Box

[kwalker]

I could do that, but they get really ornery when I interrupt their work. It would be better to have the login script do it (As soon as I can find out how to do that). Thanks to all who replied.

Baiting both PC users AND firefox users

[oSand]

nice...

Two words: System Requirements.

[tepples]

You never really see a vendor come out with a new version of something that some users are discouraged from upgrading to.

Often new versions of a product have increased system requirements compared to the old version. This is part of why many companies maintain the current and previous version of a product, because many people would rather switch to a competitor than buy new hardware outside the normal replacement cycle.

Isnt this new?

[earthstar]

The first thing i notice after the update is that,firefox needs to be given permission to conect to 207.126.111.225 through my firewall.Only then doesnt it resolve any domian name.

While I got suspicious if that ip was a spyware on my comp,well its mozila's site - virtual-fxfeeds.mozilla.org = [ 207.126.111.225 ]

http://samspade.org/t/whois?a=virtual-fxfeeds.mozi lla.org;server=auto

Re:Isnt this new?

[Slashcrap]

The first thing i notice after the update is that,firefox needs to be given permission to conect to 207.126.111.225 through my firewall.Only then doesnt it resolve any domian name.

While I got suspicious if that ip was a spyware on my comp,well its mozila's site - virtual-fxfeeds.mozilla.org = [ 207.126.111.225 ]

To save yourself a bit of time in future, simply execute the below command :

ping -a 207.126.111.225

And then don't bother posting to Slashdot about it afterwards, because I can assure you that nobody fucking cares about your detective work.

Firefox RAH RAH RAH

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using firefox almost exclusively for many weeks now. It has none of the problems I had with earlier versions, and to me is better than IE. Its my default now.

I even discovered the tor and prixy plugins, so its also a lot more secure than IE.

Now look

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, NOW look who's releasing security patches pretty much every week.

It only takes a few million users to expose a piece of software for the hundreds of flaws it contains - Microsoft aren't alone on this, contry to popular belief. I honestly got so fed up with downloading new Firefox versions I moved back to IE7 (which, incidentally, is faster, has less memory footprint by about 3x, doesn't take years to initialize, and doesn't behave like it was coded by a bunch of 12 year olds) :-)

No love here also

[grolschie]

1.5.0.1 -> 1.5.0.3 is 6.1MB also.

Re:unicode symbols fail to display FF1.5.0.3 for M

[Dis*abstraction]

Because Camino still suffers from Gecko's shitty text rendering and non-native widgets in pages.