plug

New plug-in tester mimics Mozilla's

BrowserCheck, from security company Qualys, evaluates your installed plug-ins and lets you know if they need to be updated. It's identical in function to Mozilla's Plugin Check, although it appears to be far more limited in scope for now.

Qualys' BrowserCheck helpfully targets out-of-date plug-ins, and provides links to download updates. Oddly, the service takes a unique approach by requiring the user to install a Qualys add-on before it will scan for out-of-date plug-ins. This is likely to frustrate many users, especially in the face of Mozilla's service, which doesn't require an additional add-on and currently … Read more

EPA negs Volt's 230 mpg fuel economy formula

How many miles a Chevrolet Volt can travel on a single gallon of gas is still up for debate. The EPA rejected the formula that General Motors used to calculate its 230 mpg estimate for the extended range vehicle. In GM's defense, it used a draft formula that the EPA developed for testing plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Using those calculations, GM has been promoting a 40-mile range on a single charge of the battery when driving the Volt in EV mode. Yet when using its gasoline-powered engine generator to propel the vehicle, the Volt would be able to extend its … Read more

Mozilla disables password-stealing Firefox add-on

Mozilla has disabled and added to a block list a Firefox add-on that stole log-in information when users visited Web sites, the company says.

The software, called Mozilla Sniffer, had been downloaded about 1,800 times in the approximately five weeks it was available on addons.mozilla.org, Mozilla reported in a blog post on Tuesday.

The blocklist will prompt the add-on to be uninstalled for computers running the program. Users who installed it should change their passwords.

Mozilla Sniffer intercepts login data and sends it to a remote server that appeared to be down, according to the blog post. … Read more

Google to block outdated plug-ins in Chrome

On the heels of Google introducing automatic updating for the Adobe Flash plug-in, a future version of Google Chrome will include technology that blocks out-of-date plug-ins and helps users update them, Google said.

The company did not provide a timeline for this feature, except to say it will be "medium-term," in a post Monday on The Chromium Blog.

The browser also will eventually offer a warning when a user is about to run infrequently used plug-ins.

"Some plug-ins are widely installed but typically not required for today's Internet experience," the post said. "For most … Read more

Mozilla tweaks new plug-in protection

Mozilla pushed out a minor update to Firefox on Saturday, slightly adjusting the new plug-in crash protection feature that was introduced last week. Firefox 3.6.6 for Windows and Linux delays the amount of time that the plug-in protection module will wait before terminating an unresponsive plug-in.

Mozilla evangelist Mike Beltzner said in a blog post on Saturday that although Firefox 3.6.4 was beta-tested with nearly 1 million users, after its release the company began hearing complaints from some users, especially those playing games on older computers. The crash protection feature would only wait 10 seconds before … Read more

Safari 5.0 sometimes sporadically crashing

Since Safari 5 came out, a few people have complained of the application crashing. A couple of weeks ago we wrote an article outlining some of the steps to take if the application crashes at launch, but other times the program will seem to crash on a more sporadic basis.… Read more

Firefox 'Lorentz' arrives but with restrictions

Firefox 3.6.4 might not sound like a major update, but the latest version debuts an important new feature for Mozilla's browser. Code-named "Lorentz" and available for Windows and Linux, the update includes the highly-anticipated Out-of-Process Plug-in (OOPP) "sandboxing" feature that prevents specific plug-ins that crash from taking down the entire browser. In this initial implementation, OOPP will prevent Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime, and Microsoft Silverlight crashes from causing browser-wide instability.

While Mac users do get the security fixes made in their version of Firefox 3.6.4, they won't get OOPP support. … Read more

Performance issues in Safari could be related to third-party add-ons

Safari may experience performance issues, including quitting unexpectedly, running slowly, an inability to download files properly, and other unexpected problems. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms when running Safari, follow these simple steps to help restore Safari's full capabilities.… Read more

As Mozilla readies latest browser, Weave becomes Firefox Sync

Mozilla nudged Firefox 3.6.4 one step closer to its official release by pushing out the first release candidate version of the browser. Meanwhile, Weave Sync has been re-branded Firefox Sync in anticipation of its eventual inclusion in the Mozilla product. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 3.6.4 Release Candidate 1 began rolling out to Firefox beta users on May 28th and is notable for locking down the features and fixes the browser maker has been working on since January. For its part, add-on Firefox Sync 1.3 introduces a menu option under History for automatically … Read more

Xmarks adds open tab syncing

Browser add-on Xmarks has introduced a major new synchronization feature over the past few weeks for its multiple browser plug-ins that lets users sync open tabs across multiple browsers and computers. The new feature (download Xmarks for Firefox | Chrome | Internet Explorer | Safari) offers far better control over tab opening than merely forcing all your tabs to appear on all your computers and browsers. Instead, Xmarks politely tells you which tabs are synced under which browsers and lets you open them individually.

Once the add-on is installed, you'll be asked to create an account if you don't have one. … Read more