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IE 7 bugs abound
February 1, 2006 -
Microsoft releases IE 7 beta to public
January 31, 2006 -
Unpatched Firefox 1.5 exploit made public
December 8, 2005
The update, Firefox version 1.5.0.1, patches a total of eight security vulnerabilities. One is deemed "critical" by Mozilla, four are rated "moderate" risk, and three are tagged "low" risk. The more serious flaws could let an attacker take over a system running a vulnerable version of Firefox, according to Mozilla's security alerts.
Among the issues tackled is a problem disclosed late last year, which concerns Web pages with an extremely long title that could cause Firefox to crash.
Security monitoring company Secunia rates the Firefox update "highly critical." Mozilla recommends that all users switch over to this latest version, according to the Firefox update release notes.
Aside from the security fixes, the update delivers improved stability and support for the Mac OS X platform, according to the release notes. Users of Firefox 1.5, first released last November, can upgrade to the new version using the automatic update feature, or it can be manually downloaded from a Mozilla site.
See more CNET content tagged:
Firefox 1.5,
Firefox,
Mozilla Corp.,
security,
Apple Mac OS




fraud people!
The good thing about Mozilla's people is that they recognize the problem and adopt immediate action. I'm sure this will not be the last upgrade to Firefox because of security concerns and that's good for us.
On the other hand, Microsoft has been known to drag their feet releasing patches to fix security vulnerabilities. That's the main difference between both camps. I still think Firefox rocks.
Note: My computer came up fine after it crashed and I haven't had any problems since the update attempt. Firefox apparently updated itself successfully, but unfortunately the crash occurred as well. So, it's not ruining computers, but it sure does seem to be dangerous for anyone with servers running the software 'cause they may go down.
-Auri Rahimzadeh
Author, Hacking the PSP
www.hackingpsp.com
IE7b2 on the other hand will not install on my test machine which had IE7b1. I was told to remove IE7b1 which I then did, went to install IE7b2 again, which failed and has failed every time I have tried. I cannot install IE6 or IE7b1 on my test machine because it tells me I have a newer version of IE. Yet when I go to program files\internet explorer\ there are no files in it. Just an empty folder with an empty ICW folder. So I now have a system with no IE. While many might find that a nice thought, I still require IE for some things. Looks like re-imaging time.
FireFox is faster than IE, fixes any issues faster than IE, is safer than IE. As long as IE is built on Active-X, Firefox will always be safer. If you install the NoScript Extension, than it's 1000% safer than IE.
I am not surprised there are issues with FireFox or any software program. It's how they are addressed and the fixes deployed that makes a difference. and by the way FireFox Rocks.....