Foxmarks, Inc. has released several variants of its browser add-on,
Foxmarks, that can now be used to synchronize bookmarks between Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. The add-ons automatically back up any bookmarks to the company's servers every time a change is made. Users can also view, add, edit and delete bookmarks directly from the Foxmarks website if using a borrowed or public computer, or visit a mobile version of the site to access content from any web-enabled handset.
Foxmarks allows the links to be separated into different groups, determining which bookmarks appear on each computer. Website lists can be shared with friends, with viewing options that include a web page, RSS feed or a widget.
The add-ons are available for free directly from the company. Foxmarks for Firefox supports Firefox 2 or higher and Windows XP, Vista, Mac OS X and Linux platforms. Foxmarks beta for Internet Explorer 6 or 7 requires Windows XP or Vista, while Foxmarks Safari requires Safari 3 and Mac OS X 10.5.
Mozilla is throwing its support behind a
European Commission ruling on bundling Microsoft's Internet Explorer with Windows, according to the company's CEO. Microsoft received a Statement of Objection from the Commission last month, accusing it of violating European competition laws. The action was initially sparked by a complaint from Opera, which produces third-party web browsers. Mozilla itself develops the Firefox browser.
The head of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker, says she has "not the single smallest iota of doubt" that bundling Internet Explorer harms choice, competition and product evolution. Baker adds, however, that Mozilla is willing to propose a solution to Microsoft violations, a move which could benefit the company financially. The Commission confirms that Mozilla has joined the Microsoft case as an interested party, though it is not an official complainant.
It is rumored that the Commission may be interested in a "must carry" solution, which would force Microsoft to offer browsers like Firefox and Opera as an alternative. The company has meanwhile said it is taking its time in replying to the objection, for which it was given a two-month deadline.
Mac owners searching for a faster version of Firefox may be able to turn to a custom-developed build, an independent coder claims. While the
current official build of the web browser is v3.0.6, Mozilla is presently seeding a beta of v3.1, sometimes known as Shiretoko. The Mac beta is said to be unoptimized for Intel processors however, which has led to Chris Latko's creation of a custom version under open-source rules.
The Intel optimizations by themselves provide only a modest speed improvement, but the fastest build is said to be aided by the inclusion of TraceMonkey, which provides native code compilation in Mozilla's JavaScript engine. The performance of this second build is rated at approximately twice that of the official Shiretoko distribution, and only slightly slower than a recent version of WebKit, the technology on which Apple's Safari browser is based.
The Latko build is a free download, but may break some add-ons and cannot be run at the same time as an official build.
Mozilla has released
Firefox 3.0.6, an update to its popular web browser. The company claims to have resolved several security issues, as well as stability problems which triggered crashes. Some security fixes include preventing people from changing a form input control's type during the restoration of a closed tab, which could be used in altering the input type to steal the content of a user’s local file. Also blocked is a Chrome XBL method that could be used with window.eval to execute JavaScript. Other minor fixes have been made to prevent cookies marked HTTPOnly from being read by JavaScript via XMLHttpRequest, and an issue with Firefox ignoring certain HTTP directives that could have resulted in users viewing improperly cached pages containing private data. Lastly, a problem that was supposed to have been solved in the
previous update, involving people using local Internet shortcut files to access other sites, turns out to have had a bypass method involving redirection to a privileged about:URL. Mozilla now claims to have closed the loophole.
Firefox 3.0.6 is a free download from the Mozilla website.
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