Nonsequittal Rumblings

The next version of Firefox is making the public alpha debut, with a code name Bon Echo. How exciting.

But after seeing the page above, I’m a bit concerned. The professional developers are willing to release their flagship software without having all components in place? I’m worried that they’re starting to rush their products out, rather than taking their time and make everything as perfect as possible. Grrr…

http://www.factorycity.net/sfx/always_use_protection.jpg

I knew this was going to happen. Firefox ain’t perfect. What a shocker that is… NOT. But now all I hear anymore is about the security vulnerabilities found in Firefox. Oookie… Of course, if you don’t practice safe sex safe computing, you’ll always be vulnerable. Duh.

Anyway.

I want that condom. Such a geeky sex toy.

That’s a surprise statement coming from me. Various people knows that I am a Firefox enthusiast. Then why am I making this statement?

It goes back to earlier this month, when we received a notice from the IT department.

You have been identified by IT Dept. as running a non-standard browser (firefox Mozilla) on one or more devices assigned to you. IT Dept. has been alerted to vulnerabilities with this application. I have not been able to locate any related requests security review for this application. Please let me know if you can remove this application by end of day. If not please document the business requirements, forward to me (by end of day) and cc: your project leader. IT Dept. will be instructed to implement the patch, and a security review will be performed. Any questions let me know. Thanks

Our response to that is that we need Firefox to keep our current level of productivity. Personally, I use Javascript Console, HTML Validator extension, and Web Developer extension on the daily basis. It’s more than just a damn good web browser to me.

But still, it made me think of this whole issue, and I came up with my own conclusion.

In general, IT department likes to be in control. They control all the computer deployment, including all servers, desktop PC’s, laptops… hardware and software. Microsoft lets the computer maintenance folks power to control the software deployment in centralized manner. Our PC’s are tweaked so we can’t manually modify the registry files. Nor can we use tools like TweakUI. (I think tweakUI is an excellent productivity tool, but we’re out of luck.) And the “Security” setting section of MSIE Options panel is completely locked – they are in control, not us. So, when they need to deploy new software or security rules, they can do it in very organized manner.

Now, try to apply that on Firefox. That’s a completely different story. Firefox lets you control the application. And there are some very well-known extensions and plug-ins to enhance its features. Of course, along comes the possibility of introduction of malwares. Without the proper tweaks made to the application, it’s impossible to control these possibilities, short of enforcing the ban the use of Firefox.

Also, there’s an issue of the aptness in Firefox issues by the support personnel. Are all security folks and PC support groups be able to provide the sound support for Firefox? What if problems occur during the use of Firefox? This question can also lead to the security problem. With inadequate support, more problems will come up faster than the solutions.

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With all that said, I still support Firefox. Firefox may be insecure, but IE is even worse. The IT department just can’t see this point.Sure, IE lets them take control of the application settings, but there are still plenty of problems. Currently, our Windows XP doesn’t have SP2 loaded – no pop-up protection. It scares me to go to the internet using IE anymore. I really believe the IT department will save more troubles and money in the long run by making the switch. The cost of training will be made up quickly by the lack of support they have to provide!

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By the way, our IT department allowed us the use of Firefox. I guess our business requirement sounded good enough to them. Damn right!P.S. If you think “That’s why Opera is even better!” (yes, that’s you, Ledgem), don’t forget, same security concern of Firefox applies to Opera too.

I’ve figured out the way to install Firefox extensions on this prototype edition – download the actual xpi file for the extension, unzip the file, modify install.rdf to matching target application version, zip it up as xpi again, and install. That was trivial. I’ve even managed to modify Pithy 0.2 so ctrl-Q will exit out of the application completely.

The version info in question is like this:
<em:targetApplication> <!-- Netscape -->
<Description>
<em:id>{3db10fab-e461-4c80-8b97-957ad5f8ea47}</em:id>
<em:minVersion>0.5.6+</em:minVersion>
<em:maxVersion>0.5.6+</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>

As reported on slashdot, Netscape has created a new browser, based on Firefox. Aside from the ugly default skin, it looks promising. It feels and works just like Firefox. My shortcut modification does not work like Firefox though. I do miss the ctrl-Q shortcut. Hrm… And none of the Firefox extension are installable. What a pitty.

Slashdot article links to the netscape download URL, which we don’t have access to. Luckily, there was a comment that included a link to a mirror, which we can download a copy from.

P.S.
I found another comment on the slashdot story that I found mildly amusing.

P.P.S.
More link – http://fs5.deviantart.com/f/2004/335/c/8/NSbrowserSetup_Full.exe

Honestly, I never knew that it existed until today. But here it is – Portable Firefox 1.0.
http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

So, what makes this product “portable?”
By portable, the creator claims it is USB drive friendly. But how so?
By today’s standard, USB 1.1 data transfer rate is not fast. Firefox isn’t exactly a small piece of application if you want to run it off of USB1.1 drives. So the jar files (the zip files that contains all of the user interface configuration files) are compressed more. Less data transfer equals faster launch time. Very clever. (This also means this version of firefox won’t speed up the application on normal hard drive.)

Also, it was modified so history data, cache, cookie, etc are not stored on the drive.

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Well, pooh. I thought this was going to be a version of Firefox for portable devices like cell phones. Opera still has a lead on this area – they even have a version of opera that runs on Simbian OS. I admit, Firefox still isn’t the best browser for everyone yet.

It’s a big day at the open source camp with the official release of Firefox 1.0. The mozilla web site is just pounded to the ground – it just won’t load like it should, making the downloading of the browser difficult. Bittorrent came in to rescue. The official torrent downloaded fast from the mozilla FTP site, and firefox installation file itself was downloaded in matter of seconds too.

Now, my quest started.

I love keyboard short cuts.

As a web developer, I loved having the Page Info (Tools -> Page Info) at my finger tip. In previous Firefox versions, I could use ctrl-J to access that info. As of version 0.9, ctrl-J was assigned to the Download window, and ctrl-I is the bookmarks (the compatibility issue with Internet Explorer). Installing Pithy extension resolved this problem. So far so good.

There was a period of time when I used Mozilla 1.7 browser. It also is a fine browser. One of the keyboard shortcut I liked was ctrl-Q to shut down Firefox completely. And this shortcut is missing in Firefox. I’ve been wondering if I could add this myself. I should be able to, since the entire user interface of all Mozilla based applications are defined in XUL.

I was just be able to figure this out today. Here is the detail. (And it’s not for the faint at heart)

1. Find chrome\chrome.rdf file inside Firefox installation folder
2. Open it in a text editor
3. Find the section that looks like c:baseURL="jar:resource:/chrome/browser.jar!/content/browser/"
4. Replace that line with c:baseURL="resource:/chrome/browser/content/browser/"
5. Find the section that looks like c:baseURL="jar:resource:/chrome/en-US.jar!/locale/browser/"
6. Replace that line with c:baseURL="resource:/chrome/en-US/locale/browser/"
7. Save the file, and exit the text editor
8. Find chrome\browser.jar file inside Firefox folder
9. Make a copy of the file, and name it browser.zip
10. Unzip the content of the zip file to browser folder within the current location
11. Find chrome\en-US.jar file inside Firefox folder
12. Make a copy of the file, and name it en-US.zip
13. Unzip the content of the zip file to en-US folder within the current location
14. Find chrome\browser\content\browser\browser.xul file within the Firefox folder – This is one of the files that was just unzipped
15. Open the file in a text editor
16. Find the section that looks like <key id="key_SwitchTextDirection" key="&bidiSwitchTextDirectionItem.commandkey;" command="cmd_SwitchTextDirection" modifiers="accel,shift" />
17. Add this line after the previous one : <key id="key_Quit" key="&quitApplicationCmdWin.commandkey;" oncommand="goQuitApplication();" modifiers="accel"/>
18. Find the section that looks like <menuitem id="menu_FileQuitItem" label="&quitApplicationCmdWin.label;" accesskey="&quitApplicationCmdWin.accesskey;" oncommand="goQuitApplication();"/>
19. Change that line to <menuitem id="menu_FileQuitItem" label="&quitApplicationCmdWin.label;" accesskey="&quitApplicationCmdWin.accesskey;" oncommand="goQuitApplication();" key="key_Quit"/>
20. Save the file and exit the text editor
21. Find chrome\en-US\locale\browser\browser.dtd file within the Firefox folder – This is another one of the file that was just unzipped
22. Find the section that looks like <!ENTITY quitApplicationCmdWin.accesskey "x">
23. Add this line right below that <!ENTITY quitApplicationCmdWin.commandkey "q">
24. Save the file and exit the text editor
25. Close Firefox once, and re-run it

The newly created keyboard shortcut doesn’t show up in the menu unlike other shortcut with this method. I’m still looking for that tweak. But now I can quit the browser with ease when I need to.

http://unix.rulez.org/~calver/pictures/internet_poster.jpg

Any questions? (If yes…)

After a long wait, and extensive Beta testing and a series of Release Candidates, Mozilla 1.7 is out.
http://www.mozilla.org/releases/

As of late, I like how mozilla has adopted BitTorrent with their releases. Finally, this practical P2P is gaining acceptance. I wish FireFox would adopt BT soon too. I’m sure that many FireFox users have adopted BT as well.

Otherwise… you know, I don’t hold my breath too much for Mozilla releases. I am now very fond of FireFox. There are just enough differences between the two to really bother me to use Mozilla as my main browser any more. (Most notable is the different keyboard shortcuts.) I still use Mozilla while I’m doing testing etc. Alas, no BT at work…

It finally feels like I’ve caught my groooooove again, here at work.

I’m no longer surfing the web at random… I claim those hours as my “learning time”, but that’s a big BS. Yes, I’m learning new things here and there, but I don’t have a specific target on what to learn.

Actually, I found couple new softwares while I was exploring. Both were interesting, but I got tired of them pretty quickly.

MyIE2

Internet Explorer with tabbed browsing. It even has built-in ad & popup blocker. At first, I thought it’s pretty cool. It works well. It’s fast. And it’s really not annoying. But after a while, I started going back to my old browser, Firebird. The performance sometimes get sluggish, but it’s still a good browser. Add the Adblock plug-in, and it’s excellent. (For those who want to use Adblock, you might find this list of filters useful.)

PSPad

A freeware text editor that doesn’t suck! Really, it’s a good piece of software. It just doesn’t fit within my taste, after getting used to TextPad (for Windows) or Vim (for unix/linux (I still use Vim on windows from time to time. It’s also free too.)). Some people might just find it as the text editor of the choice.

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P.S.
While writing this entry, I found out that Mozilla doesn’t like HTML class name that starts with numeric character. Bleh.