The Browser Report

Opera 9.5b2

Now, we’ve made the fastest browser in the world even faster. Opera’s new beta is quicker to start, faster at loading Web pages and better at running your favorite Web applications.

About the security content of Safari 3.1.1

Safari 3.1.1

* Safari,
CVE-ID: CVE-2007-2398
Available for: Windows XP or Vista
Impact: A maliciously crafted website may control the contents of the address bar
Description: A timing issue in Safari 3.1 allows a web page to change the contents of the address bar without loading the contents of the corresponding page. This could be used to spoof the contents of a legitimate site, allowing user credentials or other information to be gathered. This issue was addressed in Safari Beta 3.0.2, but reintroduced in Safari 3.1. This update addresses the issue by restoring the address bar contents if a request for a new web page is terminated. This issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

* Safari,
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-1024
Available for: Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: A memory corruption issue exists in Safari’s file downloading. By enticing a user to download a file with a maliciously crafted name, an attacker may cause an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of file downloads. This issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

* WebKit,
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-1025
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5.2, Mac OS X Server v10.5.2, Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Visiting a malicious website may result in cross-site scripting
Description: An issue exists in WebKi’s handling of URLs containing a colon character in the host name. Opening a maliciously crafted URL may lead to a cross-site scripting attack. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of URLs. Credit to Robert Swiecki of Google Information Security Team and David Bloom for reporting this issue.

* WebKit,
CVE-ID: CVE-2008-1026
Available for: Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11, Mac OS X v10.5.2, Mac OS X Server v10.5.2, Windows XP or Vista
Impact: Viewing a maliciously crafted web page may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
Description: A heap buffer overflow exists in WebKit’s handling of JavaScript regular expressions. The issue may be triggered via JavaScript when processing regular expressions with large, nested repetition counts. This may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of JavaScript regular expressions. Credit to Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel working with TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative for reporting this issue.”

(Via .)

The IEBlog has a new post on HTML and DOM Standards Compliance in IE8 Beta 1. It’s a pretty in-depth article with lots of juicy details, and is well worth a read. Lots of what they cover — that you should still read in the blog post — are covered additionally in these two whitepapers:

DOM Core Improvements

During Internet Explorer 6’s long tenure as the leading market-share holder, Web developers revealed many bugs and inconsistencies in Internet Explorer’s DOM. Today, with the Internet Explorer 8 versioning plan, these bugs and inconsistencies are corrected by default, and those customers who choose to opt out of this behavior may enable IE7 compatibility mode.

Read about and download the DOM Improvements whitepaper.

HTML Improvements and ACID2

HTML uses elements to represent both structure and meaning in a document. To help developers take full advantage of the elements that HTML 4 offers, and to better provide the semantic meaning intended by Web author, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers has upgraded support of the P and OBJECT presentational elements. Through improved support of these HTML elements, Web developers may build more expressive and accessible HTML markup.

Read about and download the HTML Improvements and ACID2 whitepaper.

IE8 Beta 1 For Developers Now Available in Chinese (Simplified) and German

“The IE team is pleased to announce the availability of Chinese (Simplified) and German versions of Windows Internet Explorer Beta 1 for Developers. The two languages released today are fully localized versions of the IE8 English Beta 1, released March 5, 2008. They carry with them the same improved CSS 2.1 support, better scripting performance, and other features and improvements that the English beta 1 developer release contains.”

(Via IEBlog.)

Macworld | Review: Safari 3.1

“Macworld’s recent review of Safari 3.0.4 () highlighted the browser’s excellent—and constantly updated—support for modern Web standards. Continuing that trend, the just-released Safari 3.1 not only stays at the head of the pack in standards support, but also becomes the first browser to work with such up-and-coming technologies as CSS Animations and the audio and video tags in HTML version 5, which is still in draft mode.”

(Via Macworld.com)

Inside Firefox 3 video from CNET TV takes us on a 1:40 minute “Insider Secrets” tour of the ins-and-outs of the latest version of Firefox guided by Randall Bennett.

Firefox 3 beta 5 portable edition available - safest way to try out FF3b5 - Download Squad

: “But you can also install a portable application like Firefox 3 beta 5 portable edition to any folder on your hard drive. Why would you want to do that? Because then you can try out the latest test version of Firefox without overwriting any of your Firefox 2 settings.”

(Via Download Squad.)

In addition to today’s release, Mozilla also indicated that the source code of the final release candidate will be frozen next Wednesday, April 8th.

According to downloadsquad.com:

Firefox 3 beta 5 features tighter integration with the Windows, Mac, and Linux operating system. That means you have native icons and interface widgets. The OS X version supports Growl notifications, and the Linux version uses the native GTK theme.

According to Mashable:

However, I can still tell you what’s new in Firefox 3 Beta 5. In continuing some of the more notable updates to the overall Firefox 3 release, Beta 5 includes more personalized options. For instance, a Places Organizer lets you better manage your bookmarks, tags and browsing history, with search capabilities, smart folders, multiple views, and saved frequent searches. That should also give you a few more restore settings to save you when your browser crashes because you’re testing Beta 5.

Other updates include integration with Windows and Macs, with improved icons and the use of native interface widgets in the browser and web forms. Linux integration also uses native icons/buttons/menu styles. Lastly, thanks to improvements to the JavaScript engine and profile-guided optimizations, the speed of Firefox 3 Beta 5 has been increased, so your apps will run faster. See here for previous coverage of Firefox 3.

Wired’s Compiler blog adds these notes about the newest beta:

• 755 bug fixes, including all Firefox 3 P1 blockers (these are the top priority must-fix bugs).
• Improved performance. Dotzler says Beta 5 is even faster than Beta 4 according to Mozilla’s own testing. We here at Compiler found that Beta 4 is already extremely fast, so that’s good news.
• This release was prepared in a very compressed beta cycle of three weeks.

Here are the official Release Notes from Mozilla.