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There's no way to reduce to zero your risk of picking up some piece of malware while browsing. You need layers of security to keep viruses, Trojans, and botnets at bay—the more layers, the safer your browsing. (Of course, the more layers, the slower your browsing, too, so don't get carried away.)

Much emphasis has been placed on the enhanced security features of the latest versions of the popular browsers. Whether one is any safer than another is anybody's guess, but no browser gives you more ways to thwart a Web-based attack than Firefox via its … Read more

It's been just under four months since Mozilla launched its pilot program for contributions, a way for users to donate to add-on developers for their time and effort.

The program was launched in tandem with a redesign of Mozilla's add-ons site that gave developers their own profile pages. Many add-on makers were already running donation programs through their own sites, but wanted the option to show up in Mozilla's catalog too.

Already it appears to be working, but on a smaller scale than some developers might have hoped. For the half dozen developers that CNET News talked to, none has made enough from it to, say, quit their day job. While Mozilla would not reveal specifics on which developers are getting the most contributions, it did provide us with the total amount given: around $20,000. An organization spokesperson said that most of that came in September and October.

Of the 500 or so developers who are participating in the program, the average contribution falls somewhere between $5 and $6, with the largest thus far being $150. All have gone through PayPal, which is the sole way to pay through Mozilla's add-on site. PayPal then gets a small fee out of each transaction, something that comes out of the developer's pocket, although this varies based on how much the user gives.

Some developers believe Mozilla has gone about the payment problem in reverse. With the current contributions program developers are given the chance to ask for money before the user even downloads the free add-on. So why not give them a way to ask for a contribution after a user has downloaded and installed it?… Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Thunderbird 3, an update to the e-mail software that Mozilla hopes will give it some of the advantages its Firefox browser has enjoyed, is due to arrive in near-final form next week.

Mozilla Messaging plans to issue release candidate 1 of Thunderbird 3 as soon as Monday, with the final version expected later in November, the e-mail-focused subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation said Thursday.

"We're down to the last few bugs," said Chief Executive David Ascher. "Feedback with the last beta was enthusiastic." Thunderbird 3 beta 4 can be downloaded for Windows, … Read more

Facebook's "like" feature has been around since February, but the massive social network never provided users with a way to quickly voice their opinions going the other way. French developer Thomas Moquet took matters into his own hands by creating a cute (albeit useless) Firefox extension that adds a dislike button to Facebook, letting users who have it installed mark things they don't like.

In order to make the tool work, Moquet had to use his own servers, which keep track of every item that's disliked as well as who clicked it. Any other Facebook … Read more

FastestFox (formerly SmarterFox) is one of the more powerful add-ons to enhance Firefox browsing. It displays a clean-looking bubble filled with customizable search engine shortcuts when you highlight a word or phrase. Type a query into the Firefox address bar, and FastestFox will offer up suggestions as you type. It will also place alternative search engine icons on a results page (like Google, Yahoo, and Bing), and will repeat smaller version of those icons on Wikipedia pages, along with a list of related articles. To open a new Web page faster, there's the qLauncher. One hot-key combo brings it … Read more

Mozilla on Friday disabled a Microsoft plug-in for Firefox called the .Net Framework Assistant because of a security problem--then scrambled to give people with patched systems an override option.

Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, announced the first step late Friday night on his blog. "It's recently surfaced that it has a serious security vulnerability, and Microsoft is recommending that all users disable the add-on," Shaver said. "Because of the difficulties some users have had entirely removing the add-on, and because of the severity of the risk it represents if not disabled, we contacted … Read more

The key feature in Mozilla's Weave add-on for Firefox is the ability to synchronize tabs, bookmarks, history, and other browser-sourced, data-rich fields. The latest update, Weave version 0.7, gives a big overhaul to the synchronization component, redoing the setup and configuration interface, and adding incremental download support.

Compared to previous versions, the installation process on your first computer has been greatly streamlined, though the security questions asked remain the same. The wizard that guides you through the process has been redone to present the information through a tab-specific black overlay.

According to Mozilla, the incremental download support will … Read more

Although FeedDemon remains one of the best desktop RSS and Atom feed catchers, its latest version contains many changes, some of them controversial.

FeedDemon has dumped its proprietary online synchronization site, newsgator.com, in favor of syncing with Google Reader. New users won't notice, but older users are likely to lose many unread feeds since Google can't import feeds with more than 10 unread items. Once synced, unread items can number more than 10 items again. There's also a new, persistent ad placed in the lower left corner of the interface that goes away when you buy … Read more

I've been using the SmarterFox Firefox add-on (Windows | Mac) for awhile now. It's by far one of the most varied productivity add-ons for Firefox that I've seen. Its clever tricks to speed up searching, browsing, downloading, and even copy and paste are good news for just about anyone whose job description contains the word "Web."

I've put together a SmarterFox slideshow to walk you through the substantial features. Without giving away too much, SmarterFox facilitates faster search through multiple channels, including the Firefox Awesome Bar, the context menu, and Wikipedia enhancements. It also helps … Read more