Firefox Update Squashes Bug:

The Mozilla Foundation has released a new version of its Firefox browser that contains fixes for two critical security bugs in the software that were reported over the past week.

The most widely reported flaw concerns the International Domain Name (IDN) feature that Mozilla products use to process Web pages that do not use the Latin alphabet.

Links pointing to a host with a long name composed entirely of dashes can be crafted so that earlier versions of Firefox will execute arbitrary code of an attacker's choosing. This means that an attacker theoretically could use the flaw to take control of a user's machine, by launching what is called a buffer overflow attack.
Quick Response

Firefox 1.0.7, which was released Wednesday morning, also fixes a critical flaw in the way the Mozilla software handles Unix and Linux shell commands that could allow attackers to run unauthorized software on some systems, said Chris Beard, head of products with Mozilla.

All Firefox users are encouraged to download the new release, which also contains a number of minor changes designed to make the browser more stable and secure, Beard said.

The IDN bug was discovered by security researcher Tom Ferris and made public via a posting to the Full Disclosure security mailing list last Friday. By the end of the day, Mozilla had published a workaround, which disabled the IDN feature. With the 1.0.7 release, this problem has now been rectified, Beard said.

Posted by I Bificus The IDN bug was discovered [...] Friday. By the end of the day, Mozilla had published a workaround

And people wonder why IE is dying off ;)

Uhh... As the article says, a patch was available at the end of the day...

Posted by Beryl Uhh... As the article says, a patch was available at the end of the day...

i think hes refering to the quickness of mozilla building a path to take care of the problem

im using 1.06 currently.

Posted by Kirby i think hes refering to the quickness of mozilla building a path to take care of the problem

I thought was informing us it was "time to update" whereas a patch was available the same day for those who knew about it, and the big red CRITICAL UPDATE AVAILABLE light is there to tell everyone else

... that's what that red thing is.

I've been on 1.0.6 for ages, upgrading now.

I've always thought that Firefox's update indicator is not clear enough. Would an average user click the arrow "just because?"

I think that 1.5 is supposed to correct this, but I haven't tried it out. (I ought to, it is supposed to fix middle click tabs on OS X...)

Posted by mazatapec I've always thought that Firefox's update indicator is not clear enough. Would an average user click the arrow "just because?"

A big pop-up box that comes up and says "THERE ARE CRITICAL UPDATES AVAILABLE" and then an indicator turning red aren't good enough?

I think you overestimate the average user, who can't even be bothered to click the little "Windows Update" icon when it appears.

Posted by mazatapec I think you overestimate the average user, who can't even be bothered to click the little "Windows Update" icon when it appears.

Then I think you tolerate too much ignorance and apathy. It's their conscious choice not to update.

I don't know if there's anything "conscious" about what the average user does...

Its my guess that the average user can't be bothered to switch from Internet Explorer. Spyware or not, it plays their online casinos.

Posted by Beryl Then I think you tolerate too much ignorance and apathy. It's their conscious choice not to update.

I usually miss it because I have a weather popup that uses the same location and i've got to where I almost always ignore it. But yeah, I guess this was an ignorant post to begin with. I've not used IE since awhile before Firefox.