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.
RockMelt Beta 2 Out Now
RockMelt Beta 2 is now out, offering a new chat experience, the View Later feature, a new Twitter app, and Chromium 10 updates.
As it was the most requested feature, the chat bar has been completely redone, with chats now being placed in the chat bar at the bottom so as to remain visible while browsing. Notifications for incoming messages are now more subtle to boot, and chats can be turned into separate windows by dragging them off of the chat bar.
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Firefox 5 Supposedly Coming Out On the 21st of June
An aggressive release schedule for the next version of Firefox has been set by Mozilla, indicating that Firefox 5 is to come out on the 21st of June. Firefox 6 could be brought to the public just two months later if Mozilla keeps up with its schedule.
Nightly, Aurora, Beta, and Firefox being the series of versions that new features have to go through, Firefox 5 has to hit the Aurora channel by the 12th of April and reach the Beta channel by the 17th of May to meet the release deadline.
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The European Commission, Browser Choice, and Fair Play
The company behind Maxthon has filed a petition, asking the European Commission to change the way it counts web browser market share on Windows PCs.
According to the official blog post, when it comes to the browser ballot screen, the EC should only count the number of Apple Safari users on Windows and not Mac OS machines, as it gives an unfair advantage to Apple and hurts smaller parties.
As you might know, market share determines the top 5 positions of the browser ballot screen and for the company that claims to be the world’s 5th largest web browser maker on Windows PCs, it’s kind of a big deal.
Mozilla Names Slow Extensions
Mozilla released a list of the top ten Firefox extensions that slow down the browser’s startup time. The worst offender, decreasing Firefox startup time by an immense 74%, was FoxLingo.
Mozilla has likely taken this step to ensure that its browser remains speedy even with the inclusion of extensions in the hope of staying competitive.
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IE9 to Firefox 4 Comparisons Are Misleading
According to Microsoft at least.
The Redmond firm proudly declared that IE9 had managed 2.3 million downloads a day after the browser’s release (14th of March), but is obviously feeling the heat with Firefox’s 4 more spectacular numbers.
Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE marketing, had the following to say:
With Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, and Chrome 10 all hitting their final releases recently, drawing instant comparisons around downloads or initial usage is a natural temptation, but unfortunately you can’t do it quite yet.
6 Serious Chrome Bugs Patched By Google
The six bugs that prompted Google to update Chrome to version 10.0.648.204 were all deemed to be on the threat level of “high,” the second highest ranking in Google’s threat scoring system.
Google’s bug-tracking database was locked down so as to prevent access to the technical details of the now patched vulnerabilities. The bug entries are usually unlocked after several weeks and sometimes months so as to give users enough time to update before the data goes public.
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Mozilla Feels Remorse Over Keeping Mum About SSL Certificate Theft
Attackers utilized genuine passwords and usernames to get a hold of nine SSL certificates on the 15th of March via a Comodo certificate reseller. What SSL certificates do is basically prove the authenticity of a site. The log-on websites affected were Yahoo Mail, Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail, Skype, as well as Mozilla’s Firefox extension website.
Comodo revoked the certificates and brought the matter to the attention of Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft between the 15th and the 23rd of March. The breach of its reseller and the theft of the SSL certificates were announced on the 23rd of this month.
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Firefox 4 to Release on Tuesday
Firefox 4 was originally slated for November of 2010, but after a dozen betas, the 22nd of March may be the final release date. That is the new release date stated by Mozilla anyway.
The current release candidate was labeled as good enough to ship as the final product on Wednesday by Mozilla developers. This contrasts with what Mozilla has done in the past, namely ship multiple release candidates until finally determining the shipping code. Firefox 3.6, for example, had two release candidates issued by Mozilla before reaching its audience more than a year ago.
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IE8 and Safari Fall on First Day of Pwn2own
Pwn2Own, the yearly hacking contest held as part of the CanSecWest security conference, saw the successful hijacking of fully patched versions of Safari and Internet Explorer 8 this year. Ars Technica described Pwn2Own as the following:
If a researcher can pwn the browser—that is, make it run arbitrary code—then they get to own the hardware the browser runs on. This year, not only did they have to run arbitrary code, they also had to escape any sandboxes—restricted environments with reduced access to data and the operating system—that are imposed.
RockMelt Now Available To Everybody
RockMelt, a Chromium based social browser, has been released to the public as an open beta after having been an invitation only deal for the past 122 days i.e. since November of 2010.
Delivering some quick history on the browser, RockMelt is built around the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and numerous other feeds that provide updates in the real-time.
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