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.
For one, it makes it a little more obvious when you’re on a web site with strong security. Anything that raises awareness is a good thing.
Secondly, traffic to Google defaults to HTTPS, or SSL. That makes it much more difficult for anyone else to see what you’re searching for. While I don’t care who knows that I’m searching for how to find all the acronyms in a Word document, I certainly don’t want anyone to know what medical information I’m searching on. Do you want to risk your insurance company finding out, deciding you have a pre-existing condition and canceling your medical coverage? I didn’t think so.
Is it an update I recommend? Yes. Am I running it myself? Yes. Is it a good excuse to post a link to John’s blog so Google might rank him a little higher? Yes again.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Yeah, I noticed that. And I’m leaving town for the weekend, so I’m not going to have internet connectivity in case it horks something up, so I guess I’ll wait until Monday when 14.0.1b or c is available…
Start using startpage.com or ixquick.com already. Or at least duckduckgo. I used to use scroogle but they got shut down.
We tell search engines things we wouldnt tell our wives.