Today, Mozilla has updated the Firefox 5 beta to release candidate status (download for Windows | Mac | Linux), which includes improves support for "future-Web" technology, speeds up the browser, and makes multiple smaller tweaks to the browser. . Following the path cut by Google with Chrome's rapid-release program, the changes to Firefox 5 are several orders of magnitude smaller than those made in Firefox 4 yet are not insignificant. Most importantly, Firefox 5 release candidate makes multiple under-the-hood tweaks to improve performance. Memory management, JavaScript rendering, canvas, and networking performance have been enhanced, and background tabs will load faster thanks to locking down the setTimeout and setInterval timeouts to 1000 milliseconds. Standards support has also been updated for coding languages like HTML5, SMIL, and MathML, and the browser now supports CSS animations. Firefox 5 also disables cross-domain elements as the source for WebGL textures as a response to security concerns involving hardware acceleration. This will break some Web sites and prevent them from resolving properly, although Mozilla says that it is discussing solutions with WebGL developers. The link for this article located at CNET is no longer available. . Google pushes Chrome 92 to beta status, enhancing user privacy and speed with upgraded cookie controls and GPU acceleration.. Firefox 5, Mozilla updates, browser performance, WebGL security, release candidate. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
They say that some things last forever, like diamonds or true love or Twinkies. But should browser cookies used for tracking be added to that list?. Well, whether cookies should or should not last forever, a new JavaScript API is certainly making it a possibility, and also making it much harder for Web users to protect their privacy. Evercookie was developed by developer and security hacker Samy Kamkar and it uses fairly simple and straightforward web and browser technologies to make it possible for sites, advertising networks and more nefarious people to add a tracking cookie to your browser that will last, essentially, forever. The link for this article located at Information Week is no longer available. . The rise of new JavaScript APIs raises privacy concerns, especially with Evercookie, which tracks users relentlessly, complicating consent and data protection. User Privacy, Tracking Cookies, Data Protection, Web Technologies. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
San Francisco - Web 2.0 technologies may be laying the groundwork for a new generation of hacker tools, a noted security researcher said Wednesday. Google Mashups, RSS feeds, search, all of these can be misused by hackers to distribute malware, attack Web surfers and communicate with botnets, said Petko Petkov, a security researcher speaking at the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) U.S. 2007 conference, held on eBay's campus We all know that Web 2.0 gives the security community a challenge but what can we do? Do the old security practices of strong firewall, validating input, etc continue to protect web servers in this age of web 2.0 or do we need to research new ways of protection? . The link for this article located at InfoWorld is no longer available. . The rise of Web 2.0 technologies has transformed online user interactions, fostering collaboration and content sharing while introducing new security risks and challenges. Web 2.0 Malware, Cyber Threats, OWASP Insights, Hacker Tactics. . Bill Locke
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