Filed under: Security, Mozilla, Beta, Browsers
Turn your head and cough, Firefox! Mozilla's plugin check is live
Whichever browser you happen to be using, there's more to keeping it up to date than running automatic updates for the browser itself. There are all those nasty plugins -- like Flash, Java, and Quicktime. Each one presents new opportunities for malware pushers, so an outdated plugin can put an unsuspecting web user at great risk.
Mozilla announced a while back that they were tweaking the "What's new?" landing page to alert users to possible danger. After a Firefox update installs the page is displayed in a new tab when your browser re-opens, hopefully urging you to update an unpatched Flash player.
Taking things a step further is the new Plugin Check, which looks at all the popular plugins. If things are up to date, you'll see only green "Learn More" buttons. If you fall behind and aren't running the latest version but there's no major risk, you'll get a yellow "Update" button.
If there's a known exploit fixed by a newer version of a plugin, you'll get an un-subtle red "Update NOW." And in the event that some horrible exploit is floating around with no known patch, the button will offer to disable the offending plugin for you.
Am I the only one daydreaming about a 1950's style public service announcement warning Johnny about this sort of thing?
"Not so fast, Johnny! You shouldn't be browsing with that old Flash Player plugin. Haven't your parents talked to you about unsafe browsing?"
Mozilla announced a while back that they were tweaking the "What's new?" landing page to alert users to possible danger. After a Firefox update installs the page is displayed in a new tab when your browser re-opens, hopefully urging you to update an unpatched Flash player.
Taking things a step further is the new Plugin Check, which looks at all the popular plugins. If things are up to date, you'll see only green "Learn More" buttons. If you fall behind and aren't running the latest version but there's no major risk, you'll get a yellow "Update" button.
If there's a known exploit fixed by a newer version of a plugin, you'll get an un-subtle red "Update NOW." And in the event that some horrible exploit is floating around with no known patch, the button will offer to disable the offending plugin for you.
Am I the only one daydreaming about a 1950's style public service announcement warning Johnny about this sort of thing?
"Not so fast, Johnny! You shouldn't be browsing with that old Flash Player plugin. Haven't your parents talked to you about unsafe browsing?"
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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
alstki said 4:03PM on 10-05-2009
How ironic that it comes up as an untrusted connection in Firefox.
Reply
Josh said 6:51PM on 10-05-2009
I had that happen as well.
rob said 11:12PM on 10-05-2009
Are we sure its from mozilla, whats this "www-trunk" thing?
Reply
Jim said 11:36AM on 10-08-2009
This Connection is Untrusted
Hummm...
You have asked Firefox to connect
securely to www-trunk.stage.mozilla.com, but we can't confirm that your connection is secure.
Normally, when you try to connect securely,
sites will present trusted identification to prove that you are
going to the right place. However, this site's identity can't be verified.
Reply