Mozilla has released Firefox Version 29 for Desktop. This version of Firefox sees a major redesign of the web browsers interface as well as new features which allow a more efficient and customised browsing experience.
Firefox 29 offers an interactive tour to help guide users around this major new interface change.
Some of these changes include:
Redesign of the tabs: A new curved and slimmed down tab design adds a new look to the browser, tabs not being used disappear into the background, with emphasis on the current tab.
Menu Button: Window's users will notice the Firefox button has been dropped in favour of a platform-wide menu button accessible to the right of the main toolbar and similar to that of Google Chrome’s.
Customisable Interface: A new clickable button-based menu has been added that is fully customisable, allowing commonly used menu items to be dragged to the main toolbar for quick accessibility.
Sync: Mozilla has also launched Firefox accounts, which provide a new way for users to synchronize their data, such as bookmarks, history and passwords between multiple devices running the Firefox web browser.
Microsoft announces vulnerability in Internet Explorer web browser version’s 6-11. The vulnerability is a remote code execution vulnerability which if exploited can lead to hackers gaining access and user rights to consumer’s computers.
Microsoft has released a Security Advisory 2963983 explaining the vulnerability.
The vulnerability exists in the way that Internet Explorer accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. The vulnerability may corrupt memory in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user within Internet Explorer. An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit this vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website.
Internet Explorer 6 through 11 are vulnerable, on all versions of Windows from Vista to 8 and Windows Server 2003 to 2012 R2. Microsoft has suggested a few workarounds in its Security Advisory which will not correct the underlying issue but will help block known attack vectors before a security update is available.
• Deploy the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 4.1
• Set Internet and Local intranet security zone settings to “High” to block ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting in these zones
• Configure Internet Explorer to prompt before running Active Scripting or to disable Active Scripting in the Internet and Local intranet security zone
• Unregister VGX.DLL
• Modify the Access Control List on VGX.DLL to be more restrictive
• Enable Enhanced Protected Mode For Internet Explorer 11 and Enable 64-bit Processes for Enhanced Protected Mode
Today Opera Software launched the Opera Coast web browser for iphone’s.
Huib Kleinhout, Product Manager on the Opera Coast project at Opera Software says:
Like everyone who owns an iPhone, I’ve often picked it up when waiting for something or someone.
I was never quite happy with how apps and browsers kind of got in the way of the content. With Opera Coast, we have made content the main star of the show, letting the browser app itself get out of the way when you just want to kill some time. It’s the way the web was meant to be enjoyed.
Take a look at Opera’s press release to discover this new mobile browsers capabilities.
In light of the recently reported OpenSSL vulnerability, Heartbleed, Opera has released an update to its latest Opera Presto version 12.16.
Sigbjørn Vik an Opera Developer discusses why the update was necessary:
"Even though Presto does not use any vulnerable parts of OpenSSL, the standalone autoupdater for Opera 12 on Windows does. However, the autoupdater will only connect to our server, and close the connection if the certificate does not validate, so the certificate holders are the only ones who can abuse it. If someone should have stolen our certificate with a heartbleed attack against our servers, they might potentially use it against the autoupdater. The autoupdater runs in a separate process, and doesn’t have much memory to leak, but might potentially leak system information in such a case, such as local username on Windows machines."
Opera 12 for Windows will update itself automatically. Mac and Linux are not affected, and will not receive a 12.17 update.