I did some digging and it turns out that WPF did have a vulnerability, but it was patched a couple of days ago. Firefox, however, has no way of knowing if you’re running the patched version or the original one with a security flaw (which Microsoft forcibly added to Firefox without warning a few months ago). You can read more about the issue here.

Interesting times huh?

Instead the Google Wave Add-on for FireFox will poll the service for you and let you know if there’s anything new that needs your attention. It’s a tiny widget that sits in your status bar, so it’s not even very intrusive.

Get it here – and if you’re on Wave, I’m owen.cutajar@googlewave.com

One plugin I really miss on FireFox is FasterFox. The plugin only works up to FF2.0 and there hasn’t been a release for FF3.0. Here’s what I had written about it:

I’ve been using FasterFox for some time now and it has definitely been useful to measure the load time of different websites. See, one of the things it provides is a counter that goes at the bottom of your browser showing the load time of the page you’re looking at. And it’s more accurate than a Rolex in that it produces timings down to a millisecond. Check it out.

I wonder if anyone could suggest a different plugin that can show page load times?

I’ve just upgraded to FireFox v3.0.1 which seems like a minor issuefix release. Here’s what has changed:

Firefox 3.0.1 fixed several issues found in Firefox 3.

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Fixed an issue where the phishing and malware database did not update on first launch.
• Under certain circumstances, Firefox 3.0 did not properly save the SSL certificate exceptions list.
• Updated the internal Public Suffix list.
• In certain cases, installing Firefox 2 in the same directory in which Firefox 3 has been installed resulted in Firefox 2 being unstable. This issue was fixed as part of Firefox 2.0.0.15.
• Fixed an issue where, when printing a selected region of content from the middle of a page, some of the output was missing (bug 433373).
• Fixed a Linux issues where, for users on a PPP connection (dialup or DSL) Firefox always started in “Offline” mode (bug 424626).

To tell you the truth, I haven’t had a single problem with it so far, but it’s always prudent to be on the latest version.

I’ve been using RC3 since it was released and I haven’t had a single issue, not even one! There was a bug fix issued yesterday, but that was for Mac users. (Even the security guys are happy with it ) Memory consumption is quite aggressive, but then, so is my plugin use, so I can’t really fault it. I’ve had no freezes, no crashes and browsing the web is as quick as ever.

Good work guys! There’s nothing left to do but wait for FireFox Download Day, close the exterior shutters so that your funky UV lights can really light the room up and download like there’s no tomorrow!

Comments from around the blogosphere echo my feeling that this is the best browser available at the moment, and really grows on anyone using it. It does take up quite a bit of memory on my box, but when you look at all the functionality I have plugged into it, well, I’m not too surprised. I’m sure more can be improved on the memory handling, but, as long as it does the job and I have enough spare memory, I don’t have any problems with it.

As you might know, FireFox is going to try and go for a download record on the day it is released. You can pledge to download and will be notified as soon as it’s available. (You can find badges there to promote the release day, so move your speaker mounts next to the window, pump up the volume and tell the whole world to download it)

TweeterSearch adds a new search in your FireFox search bar that lets you search Twitter for a particular user. If there’s only one user matching the search criteria, you’ll get their details on the screen, otherwise you’ll get a list of options to choose from.

Download it, give it a try, and let me know if you think there are any improvements I can add to it. Just drop me a Tweet if you can.

On a sidenote, I shouldn’t really be coding, with my MBA exams on the cards in a few days time. But anything beats studying really, doesn’t it. Prefer doing housework or running on a treadmill if it gets me out of studying

Added: Thanks to SheGeeks for spreading the word

It’s a real shame, because FireFox 3 performs much better than the previous version. It’s much snappier and it’s more fun to use, but I’ll wait for the next release before trying to switch again. It might be a problem with one of the Addons I have installed, but I can’t put my finger on what is causing it. First time it happened I was browsing SearchMann, the next time when accidentally hitting a medicare advantage website and today when loading Facebook. So there’s no rhyme or reason behind the questions. Anyway, I’ve submitted crash dumps so I’ve done my part. Now it’s back to “old browser” land

Update: Hmm .. what seems to break it is the TinyMCE that WordPress uses as an editor. Can’t live without that I’m afraid. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next drop.

As expected, most of my plugins don’t seem to be working, but it will be nice to start getting them back a few at a time, as the relative developers start dropping their latest versions of the plugins. TwitterFox seems to be soft of working, so I should hopefully still be able to keep in touch with everyone.

Hopefully, I won’t have any issues. I find it hard to stay away from new software (much like Paris Hilton finds it hard to stay out of alcohol rehab), but the nice thing about software is that you can always uninstall it. Firefox is quite good in this respect, as it leaves the old version on your machine in a fully functional state. I wish other software providers would take a page out of that book!

Anyway, if you’re planning on making the jump, you can read more about the new features here

Wish me luck!