Re: For Firefox Users
I told ya that this browser would have issues same as IE......<br /><br />Hi. This is a newsletter update by Brian Livingston from the Windows <br />Secrets Newsletter.<br /><br />1. Firefox 1.0.1 is released to fix security holes<br /><br />The Mozilla Foundation released on Feb. 24 Firefox 1.0.1, a security <br />upgrade for its wildly successful 1.0 browser. More than 25 million <br />people have downloaded 1.0 since its release on Nov. 9, according to <br />the foundation.<br /><br />I immediately felt that the security improvements in Firefox 1.0.1 <br />warranted me publishing a newsletter update. But I held off until <br />now because installation problems were causing severe confusion. I <br />found it extremely difficult to nail down the best upgrade procedure.<br /><br />Firefox 1.0's "check for updates" feature, for example, didn't report <br />that any Firefox updates were available for six days after 1.0.1 <br />became available. The foundation had kept the feature from reporting <br />the existence of this update because of concern that 25 million <br />people downloading the update simultaneously couldn't be supported by <br />the existing infrastructure. This problem was apparently solved by <br />Mar. 1, and checking for updates now reports that 1.0.1 is ready.<br /><br />Rumors had also been flying that installing 1.0.1 required that <br />Firefox 1.0 first be uninstalled. It's now clear that uninstalling <br />1.0 is necessary only if you want to install a ".exe" version of <br />1.0.1 over an instance of Firefox 1.0 that you obtained in a ".zip" <br />file. Downloading 1.0.1 and installing it on top of a 1.0 .exe setup <br />file you downloaded (as most people did) is fine. We've tested this <br />and it works without deleting any bookmarks or Firefox extensions.<br /><br />I recommend that Firefox 1.0 users upgrade to 1.0.1 immediately. The <br />new version fixes a security problem with international domain names <br />(IDN). The address bar can appear to show "paypay.com," for example, <br />by composing a domain name of look-alike Unicode characters. Some <br />registrars, unfortunately, are selling Unicode domain names that look <br />identical to ASCII domains. Firefox 1.0.1 cures this by displaying <br />all Unicode in "punycode," a plain-text equivalent. The punycode for <br />the PayPal fake wouldn't fool anyone: "www.xn--pypal-4ve.com". This <br />is a better fix than the two workarounds we published in the paid <br />version of the Feb. 10 and 24 newsletters.<br /><br />Firefox 1.0.1 also closes 16 other bugs, some of them potentially <br />serious security weaknesses. This update is a good one to have.<br /><br />Here, therefore, are the steps I recommend for this upgrade:<br /><br />1. Read the Firefox 1.0.1 release-notes page carefully to see if any <br />issues affect you:<br /><br />
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/ <br /><br />2. To be safe, back up your PC, or at least make a copy of Firefox's <br />Profiles folder, which contains your bookmarks and other settings. <br />The location of the Profiles folder differs in various versions of <br />Windows. See the release-notes page for the exact location.<br /><br />3. In Firefox 1.0, click Tools, Extensions and make a note of any <br />extensions you've installed. After upgrading to Firefox 1.0.1, you <br />may need to re-enable or re-install one or more extensions.<br /><br />4. Close the Extensions window. In Firefox 1.0, click Tools, <br />Options, Advanced. In the Software Update section, make sure <br />"Periodically check for updates to Firefox" is ON. Click the "Check <br />Now" button. A window should open to announce that a 1.0.1 ".exe" <br />file is ready to download. Download this file, which will save itself <br />to your Desktop and then start to install. You'll need to close any <br />open Firefox window when prompted to do so.<br /><br />5. The download process may present you with Firefox 1.0.1 in a <br />language other than your preferred one (for example, en-US for U.S. <br />English instead of it-IT for Italian). If so, halt the download and <br />go to the foundation's All Downloads page, which offers language- <br />specific versions (note: British English is not yet available):<br /><br />
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/all.html <br /><br />6. If you're running the ".exe" upgrade, but you originally installed <br />Firefox 1.0 from a ".zip" file, you'll need to halt the upgrade and <br />uninstall Firefox 1.0 before continuing. Running the ".exe" file to <br />upgrade a version of Firefox 1.0 you originally installed from a <br />".exe" file, however, doesn't require uninstalling anything. (Some <br />people recommend uninstalling *any* program before you install a new <br />version, but this seems unnecessary.)<br /><br />7. After Firefox 1.0.1 is installed, make sure your bookmarks are <br />still intact and check that your extensions still work. If an <br />extension isn't certified to work with 1.0.1, Firefox may disable it. <br />In that case, click Tools, Extensions and try to download a new <br />version of the extension. (We'll print in the Mar. 10 newsletter a <br />way to make any Firefox 1.0 extension run in 1.0.1, even if it hasn't <br />been certified to run in 1.0.1 by its developer yet.)<br /><br />8. If you installed Firefox 1.0.1 over 1.0, the Add/Remove Programs <br />applet in your Control Panel will show two uninstallers: one for <br />"Mozilla Firefox (1.0)" and one for "Mozilla Firefox (1.0.1)." <br />Running either routine at this point will uninstall Firefox 1.0.1. <br />This is a known bug. Don't run either uninstall routine unless you <br />want to uninstall Firefox 1.0.1.<br /><br />That's it. In my opinion, the Mozilla Foundation should have written <br />better instructions and made the process much smoother for Firefox <br />users that they did. Hopefully, this will open the foundation's eyes <br />to the usability problems that can arise with even a minor upgrade.<br /><br />One fundamental issue with Firefox 1.x, which both Paul Thurrott and <br />I have written about previously, is that it doesn't offer the kind of <br />tools that Internet Explorer does for deploying the browser in a <br />corporate environment.<br /><br />The best method I've seen for doing this has been described by a <br />Firefox user who modified the FFDeploy routine. The procedure is <br />explained on the independent Microsoft Software Forum Network:<br /><br />
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=40138&st=0&p=279478&#entry279478 <br /><br />If you find issues or concerns with the Firefox 1.0.1 upgrade, please <br />send me an e-mail <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />That's all for now. Take care, and look for the next regular issue <br />of the newsletter on Mar. 10.<br /><br />Brian Livingston<br />Editor, Windows Secrets Newsletter<br />
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<br /><br />Thanks for the info Mrbscott19 
