Warning: two critical Firefox bugs |
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As Firefox becomes more popular, the bullseye grows. The constant boasting about its otherworldly security compared to IE makes it red meat in the pirhana infested waters of security firms wanting to find holes. Something I’ve long said would happen if there were more Mac users as well, so stop it already with saying how much more secure Macs are than Windows; if Macs had even 25% penetration (instead of the 5-6% they have now) they’d be swimming in holes and fixes. The reality is that malicious hackers are gratified by large numbers.
Four times in three months, if you are keeping count IE users, Firefox is under siege again with yet two more major security flaws, with one bug being rated as “extremely critical” by Sequoia. The temporary solution?
Firefox users are urged to disable JavaScript immediately as a temporary workaround. Additionally, Mozilla recommends that the browser’s software installation feature be disabled. This can be done by unchecking the “Allow web sites to install software” box, which can be found by selecting Options on the Tools menu and then Web Features.
Recently Firefox passed the 50 million downloads mark. According to MakeYouGoHmm Site Meter stats Firefox now accounts for 27.7% of the browser share and IE is holding onto a slim majority of just over 62%. IE 7 beta is supposed to be out in a couple months.
My usage of Firefox on Windows is still unchanged at 35%. On the Mac, so far, Safari is 100%. Linux? Konqueror 100%. What’s your current browser usage like?
[…] The year plus time between now and Vista when the real Internet Explorer successor comes along might be just enough time for Firefox to tip the scales, but they have to try and avoid critical bugs like earlier this year. If I had to lay money on which browser will control over 50% of the market by this time next year, I’d chicken out and call it a tie or if pressed, give the nod to Microsoft. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Microsoft: Firefox officially competition — August 30, 2005 @ 8:09 pm PST
[…] As for IE? Is this really Microsoft’s fault? Popular opinion is yes, it’s their fault, blame it on the Death Star, but I’m not putting the blame solely at their doormat because Firefox has had problems too. Fill in the blank, so have others. Browsers seem to be the #1 source these days of intruder alert. Maybe it’s time to put all the browsers in the recycle bin trash can and adopt something different/new and less hacker proof. Boy, what an undertaking that would be! […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Driving a truck through Internet Explorer to Google Desktop — December 3, 2005 @ 4:23 am PST
[…] Yesterday I realized my primary browser in Windows was Firefox and was curious what other readers were using. This morning an interesting comment came in from a Hmm reader who points out that he uses Firefox primarily for security reasons. This is why many cite Firefox as being inherently better than IE, but Firefox hasn’t been without its share of security woes. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Newsgator and Google privacy concerns raised by Hmm reader — April 20, 2006 @ 10:59 am PST