Smarterware

Firefox Blocking Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo Extensions

October 19th, 2009

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Got a surprising alert yesterday telling me two of the extensions I had installed on my PC's copy of Firefox have been blocked because they cause stability or security problems. (Click to enlarge the dialog on the right.) Specifically, the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant and Windows Presentation Foundation extensions were the problem children that got kicked off the island. (In my defense, I didn't install these extensions myself--Windows Update did). My first reaction was, "Ugh, of course Microsoft's extensions have vulnerabilities!"

Turns out that Firefox is blocking extensions with serious bugs from major companies beyond Microsoft, including Apple, Yahoo, and AVG. Here's the full list of blocked extensions and the bugs that are causing the blockage. (Ironically, the AVG extension is called "SafeSearch.") In a blog post, Mozilla security chief Mike Shaver says the .NET Framework Assistant has been unblocked, but as of writing it still shows up on the published list. Kudos to Firefox for taking a proactive stance and protecting its users against buggy extensions that could degrade the browsing experience. Did you have a buggy extension installed?

Pin Tabs in Chrome ala Firefox’s FaviconizeTab

October 15th, 2009

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Googler Matt Cutts tweeted a Chrome tip a few days ago that made me switch from the stable build to the developer version of Google Chrome. In it you can right-click on a tab and choose "Pin tab" from the menu. Like Firefox's FaviconizeTab extension (a favorite when combined with Better Gmail 2 and the PermaTabs extensions), that option shrinks a tab down to only its favicon and sends it to the far left, which saves you tab bar real estate. Note that pinned tabs do not persist between Chrome sessions.

Now that I've been spending a lot of time in Google Wave, I'm spending a lot more time in Chrome (because, you know, I don't use enough Google products). I miss my Firefox extensions, but in Chrome's dev version there appears to be extension support. Guess I should look into porting Better Gmail 2 and friends. In the meantime you can get early access to the developer version of Chrome here. (Thanks to Matt for the nudge to transition to Chrome's dev channel.)

The New Safari 4 Beta Is a Looker

February 25th, 2009

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Apple's done a nice job of raising the browser visuals bar with yesterday's release of the Safari 4 public beta web browser. This thing is very unstable, but very pretty--kind of like your ex. Here's my full screenshot tour, published over at Lifehacker this morning: A Hands On Look at Safari 4's (Crashy) Eye Candy.