Firefox browser vulnerability exposed

[DanRaisch]

LOL, Avant managed to put their finger into one of the many holes in the IE dyke! At some stage you just have to bite the bullet and upgrade from IE to FF

I would not call it upgrade.

You're probably right. It's more like a breakthrough than a simple upgrade.

[Notatech]

What the heck is going on here? I just did the test that rangi posted and the wrong pop up came up and I have FF set to block pop ups. What should I do?

[Notatech]

I just did this test with three browsers. The first, as written in a previous post was FF. The second was Opera and the third was the IE based browser called Avant. The results: FF failed the test; Opera failed the test; Avant failed the test. However, of all three browsers (and, you're not going to believe this) Avant was the only one that posted warning notices that it had blocked an additional website. Upon first getting to the mock Citi bank page while using Avant, a whole string of about 12 to 15 notices appeared saying that a URL had been blocked. I was able to work around them and open the pop up anyway. Let me make sure you understand, Avant was giving me warnings before I clicked on the button that opens the pop up. I don't know about you but in an actual situation, if I were to see this many warnings upon first going to a page, I would X out of it. Again, Avant was the only one that did this. I have all the browsers configured to block unwanted pop ups and I have configured them all in an equal way (as much as possible). I think it's very impressive that Avant did this. And, it was more of a hassle to open the pop up on Avant because these warnings of the blocked URL kept getting in the way of the button (as if Avant was trying to protect me and keep me away from the button). I wish FF would have at least done that.
This is very interesting: Avant, the one based on IE (with all of IE's security flaws) was the one that gave the most impressive warnings regarding this pop up. Somebody posted this has been fixed by FF 2 months ago? Not as far as I can tell, it hasn't!!!

[rangi]

I got the same results, I have since installed the workaround suggested in an earlier Post. It is not 100% satisfactory but it will have to do until something better comes along.

[Notatech]

VectorThunder was curious about which browser was the most secure according to the secunia.com website. I was curious as well so I did some searching on their site. Believe it or not, the browser with zero vulnerabilities is Maxthon. In a post I wrote on another thread, I said that I had tried Maxthon and didn't like the way it acted so I uninstalled it. After reading the information on the secunia site, I downloaded it again but this time from a different site. This episode so far, seems to be acting fine. I have not had the opportunity to study it very much so I can't give you any kind of report on what I think of Maxthon as yet. On the secunia site, I checked on 5 different browsers. I won't give all the details because you can look on the site for those. But here are the number of vulnerabilities for each browser I checked:
Internet Explorer: 73 vulnerabilities
Avant: 1 vulnerability
Firefox: 2 vulnerabilities (1 of them has a partial fix)
Opera V. 7: 2 vulnerabilities
Maxthon: 0 vulnerabilities

[Notatech]

As a follow up to my previous post called "a report on browser security" dated Friday, December 10th, 2004, I studied the various aspects of the Maxthon Browser. First, I want to say that I wish to completely reverse my statement made in an earlier post which implied that I do not like Maxthon. Apparently, the first time I used Maxthon, I must have aquired it from a bad link or something. The first time I used it, Maxthon acted very strangely on my computer. This time I downloaded Maxthon from a different download site than I had utilized the first time and this time, Maxthon performed excellently.
Maxthon doesn't have the quantity of functions (extensions) or the ease of functionality that FF has. None the less, it is an excellent browser. And, according to the secunia.com website (as mentioned in my most recent post), it is a more secure browser than FF. According to secunia.com, Maxthon has no vulnerabilities. That's right, I wrote MAXTHON HAS NO VULNERABILITIES! FF has two vulnerabilities (with one partly repaired). This really isn't that bad for FF especially when you consider that Internet Explorer has 73 vulnerabilities!
I performed the windows injection vulnerability test on Maxthon as I had done previously on FF, Avant and Opera (via the secunia.com website). All of the browsers I tested failed the test except for Maxthon. Pop ups and unsolicited URL's were bouncing off of Maxthon like bullets off of Superman's chest. Secunia tried over 500 times to penetrate Maxthon but with absolutely no success! This is one very tough browser!
Second place went to Avant because even though Avant permitted the unwanted pop ups and ultimately failed the test, it gets second place in my book for posting the second most number of warnings as the page was loading. FF was very lax in giving warnings as was Opera. The unwanted pop ups and URL's definitely slipped in through the back door on these two browsers during this test.
When the FF techs repair this problem in FF, Maxthon will be a great replacement for those applications where IE is necessary. It seems to run any page IE will as does Avant. One of the differences between Maxthon and Avant which causes me to favor Maxthon is that in Maxthon you can easily set it so that Maxthon runs generally with Active X disabled. It is relatively easy and convenient to enable (or disable) Active X when required in Maxthon and when Maxthon is closed and then reopened again, it can be configured so that Active X is automatically disabled again (in case you forget). Also, in Maxthon, you can switch from the IE engine to the Gecko engine easily.
I hope you have found this post helpful.

[CindyRilla]

Notatech,

Excellent post! Thank you so much for the very helpful information regarding Maxthon. I've been searching for an IE alternative as Firefox does not work with a few sites I visit. Lately I feel that spyware, parasites that hi-jack pc's, and unwanted pop-ups are more to fear now than viruses these days. This Maxthon seems to really do the trick!

[yevlar]

I tested out that "gaping hole" as it were, and I did not have the problem that Secunia points to. This is with Pop-up blocker enabled and is without the workaround. And yes, I tested several times reloading the Secunia page between each test. No problem here.

[VectorThunder]

I think you're right Yevlar. I haven't suffered from this 'gaping hole' either. In anycase, I'm confident that the Mozilla devs will have the issue fixed 100% pretty quickly anyway if there past actions are anything to go by.


)and all imitations!

[Guest]

?? I always middle click for a new tab or have all links force opened in the same tab - I hate sites that force popups, no hijacking allowed that way...

[Notatech]

Well, I have good news and bad news...
The good news is, I did the workaround on my FF and then retried the secunia.com vulnerability test using FF and it PASSED! FF still did not give the warnings as Maxthon and Avant did but, at least it didn't let their wrong pop up pop up. (I know that's not the best way to say that but I thought it was funny.)
The bad news is that secunia.com has tacked on another two vulnerabilities discovered within the past 24 hours about the FF browser. So now, FF has a total of 4 vulnerabilities and one of those has a partial fix (whatever that means).
Perhaps Mozilla FF has hired a new tech who mistakenly thinks he is supposed to make FF more like IE. I don't know.