GNU IceCat formerly known as GNU IceWeasel is not IceWeasel

You want a complicated story? Here is one. The Firefox user agent has a logo that is in terms of the Debian project not free. So they put out a differently packaged version of Firefox with a new logo and name it IceWeasel. But that did not happen until the Mozilla foundation complained to the Debian project that they cannot use the name Firefox with a different logo. To make it really complicated there was a browser called GNU IceWeasel by the GNU Project. It was renamed to GNU IceCat in 2007 to avoid name conflicts with Debian’s IceWeasel. Pretty complicated, eh?

Find out more about GNU IceCat and the GNUzilla.

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Newsflash: Songbird 1.1, Firefox 3.5, IE Windows 7, Firefox Fennec

Songbird 1.1

The final version of Songbird 1.1 is available for download. Songbird is an open-source customizable music player based on Mozilla’s Firefox browser.

Firefox 3.5

Rumors of a version jump for Firefox from 3.1 to 3.5 have been confirmed.

Beef about IE bundling

Google and Opera’s CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner demand that there is a choice of browsers even though Microsoft confirms there is an option to switch IE 8 off completely.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 with native JSON support has been released last week.

Fennec

A first beta – the twelfth milestone – of Fennec a mobile browser from Mozilla has been released. As this is a very interesting user agent I will write a follow-up with detailed information.

If Browsers Were Women

Internet marketer Zee has posted a fun article with a woman a browser what he thinks a women would look like if it were a browser. Have a look!

Video Opera Fingertouch

Opera labs showcased a technology where its browser zooms in on mobile devices. User are likely to make less false decision with this improved input method.

Version jump from Firefox 3.1 to Firefox 3.5

German news source Golem.de reports (German) that the next release of Firefox might be numbered Firefox 3.5. They cite the Firefox3.1 StatusMeetings on 2009-03-04.

Need to do some testing to find any weirdness with 3.1 -> 3.5 version change.

The reason for the jump is the amount of changes. The next pre-release (beta) of Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is scheduled for 12th of March 2009.

Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8

Web Slices are a new feature in Internet Explorer 8. With Web Slices users can add little snippets of the web to the favorites bar and monitor their updates.

Program Manager Internet Explorer Ritika Virmani of Microsoft Corp. has written two articles in the IE blog about Web Slices. In the first article he explains Activities and WebSlices in Internet Explorer 8. In the second article he takes a closer look into Web Slices and explains how to Create a dynamic Web Slice in 5 minutes.

Upgrade to Opera 9.64

A minor upgrade of the Opera browser for the desktop got released this week which addresses several security issues and few minor improvements. If you are an user of Opera you should consider updating your release to Opera 9.64.

Starting with this release, Opera on Windows supports the security measures Data Execution Prevention (DEP) (available in Windows XP SP2 and newer) and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) (available in Vista and newer). These security measures are a kind of second line of defence once an application runs into a serious fault, which would normally cause it to crash sooner or later.

Quote: Opera Watch in Opera 9.64 update

Update your FF to Firefox 3.0.7 today

If you are a Mozilla Firefox you are strongly advised to upgrade to Firefox 3.0.7 as soon as possible. Several security issues were discovered in previous releases up to Firefox 3.0.6. The newest version is also more stable.

See the release notes on how to upgrade, uninstall and for troubleshooting and other frequently asked questions.

Firefox 3.0.7 fixes several issues found in Firefox 3.0.6:

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Official releases for the Estonian, Kannada and Telugu languages are now available.
• Items in the “File” menu show as inactive after using the “Print” item from that menu – switching to a new tab restores them (bug 425844). This issue has been fixed.
• For some users, cookies would appear to go “missing” after a few days (bug 444600).
• Mac users of the Flashblock add-on, experienced an issue where sound from the Flash plug-in would continue to play for a short time after closing a tab or window (bug 474022).
• Fixed several issues related to accessibility features.

If you like it more technically this is scraped directly from the bug reports:

• URL spoofing with invisible control characters
• Upgrade PNG library to fix memory safety hazards
• XML data theft via RDFXMLDataSource and cross-domain redirect
• Mozilla Firefox XUL Linked Clones Double Free Vulnerability
• Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.9.0.7)

Opera Mini Simulator

If you do development for mobile sites or just want to know what Opera Mini looks and feels like before you install it on your mobile device you might to check out the Opera Mini Simulator.

The simulator is a live demo of Opera Mini that functions like it would when installed on a handset. You need to have a java plugin installed in your browser to run it. Once you do it does an amazing job to test mobile surfing behavior.

Rumors of Opera Turbo for end-users

Opera watch reports that ‘Opera Turbo’ is being considered for non-business users. Opera Turbo reduces bandwith usage and is only available for business user so far. The blog post also covers some interesting facts on the financial situation of Opera Software cited from Haavard’s “State of the Opera: Q4 2008”.