Government departments allowed to use Firefox

 The government has said its departments are free to consider any browser, and should consider open-source software including Firefox.

According to a parliamentary written answer from Cabinet Office minister Angela Smith, there is no rule that says government departments must use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, even though it is the browser most widely used within Whitehall.

When asked by Francis Maude MP what the government's policy on the installation of different web browsers is, Smith said: "Government policy regarding installation and use of web browsers is that all decisions must be in line with value-for-money requirements.

"In addition, the open source, open standards, re-use strategy requires departments to consider open-source browsers such as Firefox and Opera on a level basis with proprietary browsers such as Internet Explorer," she added in a written answer published on 24 February.

The use of Internet Explorer, particularly IE6, by some government departments has caused controversy as the browser is considered to pose security risks. In July 2009, Labour MP Tom Watson told GC News that he was dismayed that some departments still use IE6, adding that civil servants should be given the choice of using Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers.

In January the Department of Health issued a bulletin advising NHS trusts to move to IE7 due to security risks. A number of departments including Children, Schools and Families and the Home Office plan to upgrade to IE7 in 2010, but in July last year, the Ministry of Defence said it had no plans to scrap IE6.

Source: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,40057433,00.htm

Firefox 3.6 suffers from unpatched "highly critical" vulnerability

A vulnerability has been uncovered in Firefox 3.6.x. This bug is rated as highly critical by Secunia.

Details are sketchy, and there’s no official word from Mozilla yet. Here’s what Secunia has on the bug:

Description
A vulnerability has been reported in Mozilla Firefox, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.


The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified error and can be exploited to execute arbitrary code.


The vulnerability is reported in version 3.6. Other versions may also be affected.


Solution
Do not visit untrusted websites or follow untrusted links.

This vulnerability can allow a hacker to take over a system remotely.


Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=7413

Userful Firefox Shortcut Key

You can download the Firefox Shortcut Key Cheatsheet below.
Here is the snapshot for the cheatsheet

http://download.maketecheasier.com/Firefox_shortcut_keys.pdf

8 Hidden Secrets Of Mozilla Firefox

By: HeLLZ RuLLZ

The best thing about Firefox is that just when you think you know everything there is to know about the browser, something new comes along and surprises you. Here are few hidden tips and tricks. Maybe these are old hat and you know them already. Or maybe you had no idea these could be done. Lets see how many of these you know already.

1. Open docx file using Firefox without Office 2007:Now, you can view docx files using Firefox by installing  OpenXMLViewer. which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux users. It is an useful extension for users who haven’t upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007. Basically, the extension will convert docx documents into HTML format so that web browsers can render and display to users. So, the extension is not able to shows embedded objects.

2. More screen space: Make your icons small. Go to View – Toolbars – Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.

3. Mouse shortcuts:We all are aware of the Keyboard shortcuts. But have you ever tried Mouse Shortcuts. Sometimes you are already using your mouse and it is easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones

* Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
* Shift-scroll down (previous page)
* Shift-scroll up (next page)
* Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
* Middle click on a tab (closes tab)

4. Limit RAM usage: If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.

5. Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized: This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.

6. Move or remove the close tab button: Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:

0: Display a close button on the active tab only

1: (Default) Display close buttons on all tabs

2: Don’t display any close buttons

3: Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)
7. Smart keywords: Smart keywords are an easy way to search specific websites directly from the Firefox Location bar. Instead of going to the targeted website, finding the search function, and executing the search, you can search the website using Firefox, while you are at any website.

For example, suppose you search The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) on a regular basis. You can define a smart keyword to enable searching IMDB through your browser. To search IMDB for information on William Shatner, you would enter the following in the Firefox Location bar: imdb William Shatner

To create a Smart Keyword you can follow the steps given in this Topic

8. Firefox Optimizer:Firefox Optimizers for Mozilla Firefox v1.x / 2.x / 3.x was developed for an easy and fast optimization of your browsing experience with Firefox. It is based on a collection of popular and well working optimization settings used and tested by the experts. You can download this software from My blog.
the link is given below.
For more Info Plz click here:-
Click Here
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Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.

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Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - 8 Hidden Secrets Of Mozilla FireFox

Firefox KGen Tool: An Overview

By: Ryan Frank

The KGen Tool, by Firefox, is a keyword analysis tool compatible with the Firefox Internet Browser. It is basically a side bar that lets you scan and analyze a website’s written content, so that you can see which keywords are being targeted by any one of its pages. It’s good for when you want to see which keywords and phrases are being targeted by a competitor’s site or when you want to check the keyword density of your own pages.

Using KGen

Once you’ve installed KGen, you can add it as an icon to your Firebox browser’s toolbar. To do this, click on the “View” button of your browser and then go to Toolbars>Customize. When the customize box pops up, just find the KGen icon and drag it to your toolbar box. If you don’t want the tool as a toolbar icon, you can just access it by clicking View>Sidebar>KGen.

KGen will open up and appear as a sidebar on the left side of your browser. To use it on any page just click on the “Scan It!” button. It will take a few seconds to go through the content of a page. The results will show up in the panel above the Scan It! button and they’ll be displayed in 8 different tabs.

The data that the KGen tool displays is pretty comprehensive. The one drawback is that the tool sifts through all the words on a web page in the same fashion, meaning that it gives you a list of all the common minor words used as well as the important keywords. You’ll have to sift through the garbage words manually. This isn’t really that bad, but it’s a minor improvement that could be made.

Some of the more useful tabs include the List tab, which shows keyword positions according to the words’ weight and the number of times they appear on a page. The Stats tab displays the total words collected, the total number of characters on a page, word frequency as a percentage, and basically all the data collected by the KGen tool shown in math statistics. The Options tab is also great, as it lets you sift through the words according to a variety of modifiable criteria, like word length and weight. Whether you are a leading SEO in Sacramento, CA or just working on your own personal website, the Firefox KGen tool is highly recommended.

About the Author

Ryan Frank is an avid writer and blogger living in San Diego, CA.

(ArticlesBase SC #1714637)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Firefox KGen Tool: An Overview

Google Chrome Vs Mozilla Firefox

By: Magik

The hype hasn’t even settled on Google Chrome’s release and already Mozilla is reeling under its influence. Google claims that Chrome is the fastest internet browser than anything currently available on the world wide web. Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. As of now it supports almost 43 languages and it automatically detects your language. For now, Google Chrome seems to be the fastest internet browser in the online industry. In response to this Mozilla is gearing up with Firefox 3.1 which the company claims will be faster than anything Google can muster with Chrome.

In February 2008 Mozilla announced that they had reached 500 million downloads of Firefox, and 150 million active users.

Let's see how many people switch to Google Chrome and how many stick to the usual Mozilla Firefox.

Try both the browsers you will easily make out the difference.

With the competition heating up between the two giants its the common internet users who can look forward to benefiting the most from this.

Google chrome is running v8, an open source javascript engine which is written in C++ whereas Mozilla will be using TraceMonkey, an evolution of Firefox's SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine for Firefox 3.1

Performance wise Tracemonkey was found to be better than Chrome beta.

In Firefox if one tab crashes we can see its impact on other tabs but its not the same in case of Google Chrome. Google Chromes each tab is an independent process. If one tab crashes there won't be any effect on the other tabs. Every tab is on its own due to which memory management becomes very easier, eradicates the reasons for memory seepage.

URL: http://host.co.in/forums/f37/google-chrome-vs-mozilla-firefox-826/

About the Author

Write articles on SEO, Web Hosting, Internet Business, Marketing tips and tricks.

(ArticlesBase SC #553187)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Google Chrome Vs Mozilla Firefox

Internet Explorer Vs. Firefox

By: andy tao

When it comes to choosing an internet browser there are two main commonly used ones which give you a range of benefits. Every computer that comes with any version of windows will have Microsoft Internet Explorer already installed which is great for the average user who is just interested in browsing the internet. Many people are beginning to download toolbars to make it easier to perform every day tasks. Many people will just tend to leave Internet Explorer as their default internet browser.

This is why the FireFox became popular amongst everyone who gave them a try, you can download many additional add-on packs which can give you advanced searching, faster results, etc. FireFox is very customizable, you can change the colour of the tabs and everything so you can make it suit your personality. It does have the advantage of better security so you are much safer from viruses and spyware if you use FireFox. I would say that FireFox is for people who like to use the internet on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong, if you use the internet very rarely FireFox will still be able to give you benefits over Internet Explorer and the best thing is, it’s completely free!

With FireFox becoming very popular people still go back to Internet Explorer as it is very easy to use and has a great interface. You can guarantee that you will be able to find what you want with ease, even if you are new to the internet side of things. If you were to have trouble navigating around a browser you can check out the help files which will be able to explain everything step by step so you can go from complete novice to professional.

Many people actually use a variety of browsers to get the best of both worlds, especially if you are a webmaster as the different browsers interpret the coding in different ways so you could make a website which looks fine in Internet Explorer and if you open it up in FireFox it could potentially look totally different. It can be quite tricky to spot the cross browser errors and even harder to fix them, with knowledge and patience you will be able to sort them out making them look identical to each other. The worst thing you can do it to eliminate valuable traffic simply because your site is not compatible with FireFox.

About the Author

Andy Tao

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(ArticlesBase SC #228148)

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Internet Explorer Vs. Firefox