Author Archive: Armin Seuchter
Being passionate about software, Armin joined FavBrowser.com in early 2011 and has been actively writing ever since. Having accepted the challenge, he also enjoys watching anime, indulging in good books, staying fit and healthy, and trying new things.
Firefox 4 Release Candidate Now Available
The first release candidate of Firefox 4 has been set free upon the masses by the Mozilla Foundation and is available for download from here.
According to Johnathan Nightingale, director of Firefox development, this release candidate embodies what the development team deems to be a finished browser.
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Google Chrome 10 Arrives!
Google today released the newest iteration of the Chrome web browser, namely Google Chrome 10. This update brings along the aforementioned features, these include: a faster Javascript performance, password synchronization, and a search function when looking for a certain setting. A video on the latter can be seen above.
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Users Advised to Update Graphics Drivers for Firefox 4
According to Mozilla, users will need to make sure that their graphics cards’ drivers are up to date if they wish to utilize hardware acceleration present in Firefox 4.
Benoit Jacob of Mozilla’s platform engineering team explained…
19 Chrome Bugs Fixed in Preparation for Pwn2Own Hacking Contest
Nine researchers were paid a total of $14,000 in bug bounties for bringing the Chrome bugs to Google’s attention. The company then promptly patched them last Monday.
Pwn2Own, an annual hacking contest that takes place at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, was most likely the trigger for the updates, for Google fixed security flaws a week before last year’s Pwn2Own contest as well.
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Big Change Coming to Google Chrome
A lot of news about Google Chrome lately, no? This time it’s about how the next iteration of Google Chrome will implement a feature that only Internet Explorer 9 has so far and that feature is: dropping the address bar.
Despite being one of the most minimalist web browsers already, the next Google Chrome version will save even more screen space.
Don’t worry, the address bar will reappear when users move the cursor over the spot where the address bar normally is. It is a feature that only the beta of Internet Explorer 9 currently boasts but Google seemingly intends to take it a step further.
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Taking a Look at the New Google Chrome 10 Beta
Google released the newest Google Chrome 10 build to the beta channel yesterday, boasting progress in the form of revamped browser settings, password sync features, as well as JavaScript performance.
V8, Chrome’s JavaScript engine, now runs intense JavaScript applications faster than in the past. To be more specific, the V8 benchmark suite indicated an improvement over the current stable release of 66%. See the chart below to see how it compares with prior versions of Chrome.
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Gmail Now Uses Chrome’s Built-In Viewer To Open PDFs
Users of Google Chrome can now use the built-in PDF viewer instead of Google Docs to view PDF’s from Gmail. As a result, PDF files now open noticeably quicker as well as look more pleasing to the eye and can be viewed by clicking “View” next to an attachment.
PDF attachments will continue to open via Google Docs viewer when in Gmail, if you are not using Google Chrome or have the PDF viewer plug-in disabled.
As for now, Adobe Reader’s plug-in is not yet compatible with this feature.
Majority Of Web Browsers Are Unpatched
Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of security risk and compliance management provider Qualys, revealed that approximately 80% of web browsers are susceptible to exploits of bugs that have already been patched. Kandek attributed this mostly to Windows, saying “All the different patching mechanisms are confusing, a bit of this and some of that.”
As discovered by BrowserCheck (which scans Windows, Mac and Linux machines for vulnerable browsers along with browser plug-ins), Oracle’s Java was the most probable plug-in to be outdated for the second year in a row, comprising a total of 40% scanned systems. Adobe’s Reader and Apple’s QuickTime were second and third, taking up 32% and 25% respectively.
Proposed solutions include:
- Microsoft taking charge of patching crucial third party plug-ins via single updater.
- Moving to HTML5, so browsers would no longer require various audio and video processing plug-ins.
Introducing Google Chrome Web Search Blocklist Extension
Google, always out to improve their search engine to allow for maximum efficiency, has released the Personal Blocklist extension for Google Chrome which allows users to block certain sites from showing up in their search results.
