Ars Technica made a bit of a splash this week with this provocative headline. This is real. The article gives the usual advice, like not opening e-mail from strangers, not clicking attachments from strangers, and not visiting dodgy websites. That’s all good advice, as is staying off torrent and other file sharing sites, but even [...]
All posts tagged firefox
The men (boys) who spy on women through webcams
Posted by Dave Farquhar on March 13, 2013
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2013/03/the-men-boys-who-spy-on-women-through-webcams/
Firefox 19 is a big security improvement
Mozilla quietly released Firefox 19 this week. Its biggest selling point is a built-in PDF viewer (like Google Chrome does), which makes me more comfortable than having Acrobat Reader installed–Mozilla is generally faster at fixing security holes than Adobe. Besides that, the built-in reader is fast. No waiting for Acrobat to launch. Short documents like [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on February 21, 2013
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2013/02/firefox-19-is-a-big-security-improvement/
What to do when Firefox won’t let you cancel a download
So I started downloading this monster file the other day, not realizing I didn’t have enough disk space to store the blasted thing, so I went to cancel it. The problem was, it wouldn’t completely cancel–it would keep trying to download until it filled up my disk, at which point other terrible things would happen. [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on January 11, 2013
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2013/01/what-to-do-when-firefox-wont-let-you-cancel-a-download/
Ars Technica: 64-bit Firefox on Windows needs to be a priority
Ars Technica said yesterday that Mozilla needs to make 64-bit Firefox on Windows a high priority. I agree with this completely. With web browsers, you can’t have too much security, and Firefox on Windows is a big target.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on November 28, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/11/ars-technica-64-bit-firefox-on-windows-needs-to-be-a-priority/
Yes, ramdisks still make sense, especially with memory so cheap
A former classmate and industry colleague dropped me a line a few weeks ago. He pointed out that memory is dirt cheap, and he bought 16 GB of RAM, just because it cost him around $100 to do, and was wondering what to do with it. A ramdisk, perhaps? My search logs prove that ramdisks [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on August 22, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/08/yes-ramdisks-still-make-sense-especially-with-memory-so-cheap/
It’s 6:21 PM. Do you know what the current version of Firefox is?
Veteran blogger John Dominik reported yesterday that upgrading to Firefox 13 fixed some problems for him. So of course he’ll be thrilled to know that Firefox released a new version the very next day. The. Very. Next. Day. From a security standpoint, there are two things to like about the new version.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on July 17, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/07/its-621-pm-do-you-know-what-the-current-version-of-firefox-is/
Short takes, 5 Jun 2012
I’m positively uninspired this morning, trying to recover from a weekend of the most boring writing I’ve ever done in my life–something that, mercifully, only a small handful of tortured souls will ever have to see and read–so I’ll do some short takes.
Posted by Dave Farquhar on June 5, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/06/short-takes-5-jun-2012/
The Samsung SSD 830: A user review
I didn’t need much convincing to purchase a Samsung 830 SSD; I was in the market for a bigger SSD, and my short list consisted of Samsung and Intel drives. So when I found a good price on a 128 GB Samsung 830, I bought two. The laptops I put the drives in aren’t able [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on May 26, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/05/the-samsung-ssd-830-a-user-review/
Getting Firefox out of the doldrums
John C. Dvorak asks what’s wrong with Firefox, and suggests forking as a possible solution. It sounds to me like one or more plugins he’s running is causing problems. I run Firefox on Vista (unfortunately), with as few plugins as possible, and I don’t have the issues he describes. Memory usage does spiral out of [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on May 15, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/05/getting-firefox-out-of-the-doldrums/
Easier deep Firefox SQL optimization
Last year I examined ways to optimize Firefox’s SQLite databases. I’ve since found I like it better when I just put the Firefox profile in a ramdisk, but that may not be an option in all cases. If you don’t want to go the latter route and would like to avoid the command line jockeying, [...]
Posted by Dave Farquhar on April 14, 2012
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2012/04/easier-deep-firefox-sql-optimization/