FireFox, the fair-haired child* of the web browser family, has a slew of security flaws, some quite serious, revealed parent company Mozilla this week. According to a report in the Register, Mozilla has admitted that the FireFox browsers “fail to properly enforce security restrictions in JavaScript and are subject to memory corruption via maliciously constructed HTML tags.”
This in turn has lead the U.S. Computer Readiness Team (US-CERT) to issue one of the most strident warnings ever to FireFox users, explaining that “The Mozilla web browser and derived products contain several vulnerabilities, the most serious of which could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected system,” adding that “The most severe impact of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code with the privileges of the user running the affected application. Other effects include a denial of service or local information disclosure.”
*Now, I don’t to get off on a rant here, and I know that FireFox has all kinds of nifty whiz-bang bells and whistles, but I have to tell you that FireFox is the bane of our existence here at the Internet Patrol in terms of trying to provide our readers with a decent experience. No matter what one does to try to make sure that one’s website plays nice with all the browsers out there, it is, without exception, those using FireFox who experience all kinds of problems – problems completely irreproducible with any other browser, including both IE for Windows and Mac, and Safari. So while FireFox may be the fair-haired child among developers, it’s the problem child among website publishers. But apparently that’s heresy, as you will be hard pressed to find many people saying anything bad about FireFox.
In any event, to secure your FireFox against these vulnerabilities, you are advised to upgrade asap to version 1.5.0.2 You can do so at Mozilla.com
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I’ve never had trouble with your site in either Firefox or Opera, but since your latest redesign it’s impossible to read in Opera and looks weird in Firefox.
– So maybe it’s not entirely the browsers fault?
I just can’t understand what all the fuss is about Firefox and code compliance. I’ve been using Firefox for since version 1, and I recommend it to all my clients. The only sites that have a problem are those that still insist on using ActiveX or some other Microsoft centric trash. Sorry, but no web browser or OS is 100% safe; Firefox is just a little less unsecure, and a whole lot easire and fun to use.
As a part-time website developer I can tell you that if one sticks to writing *valid* HTML and CSS your site(s) will work with ANY of the latest browsers. Stick to the standards set forth by the The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and you’re golden.
FYI, it’s just “Firefox,” not “FireFox.” One word, one capital letter.
And I’ll second Timothy’s suggestion: Start with valid code, and you’ll find cross-browser design much easier.