Flock may be losing its steam to Firefox

Recently both Flock and Firefox released a new version of their browser product, namely Flock 2.5 and Firefox 3.5. While both browsers are based the Gecko engine, Firefox 3.5 is certainly beating Flock 2.5 in terms of performance.

My default browser used to be Flock, a social web browser that has built-in support for many popular web sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Del.icio.us. But, when Firefox 3.5 becomes available, with its latest support for HTML 5, a faster JavaScript engine, the awesome bar and the Personas extension,  I immediately switched.

Before I had switched, I was worried that I will missed the integrated social web browsing experience provided by Flock. But, after I had installed various Firefox plugins for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Blogger, I didn't feel losing much functionality. A faster browsing experience is what I loved about Firefox.

I'm worried about the future of Flock. I wonder if it has become a bloatware.

Security flaws in Wii Opera browser

A Wii user reported the discovery of a flaw in Wii's web browser that could allow hackers to run arbitrary programs on a Wii machine. This problem caused by a JavaScript flaw in Opera implementation. A more technique description is as the follows.

A flaw exists within Opera's Javascript SVG implementation. When processing a createSVGTransformFromMatrix request Opera does not properly validate the type of object passed to the function. Passing an incorrect object to this function can result in it using a pointer that is user controlled when it attempts to make the virtual function call.

Exploitation of this vulnerability would allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the affected host. The attacker would first need to construct a website containing the malicious JavaScript and trick the vulnerable user into visiting the site. This would trigger the vulnerability and allow the code to execute with the privileges of the local user.

This exploit could possibly be used to run code on the Wii!

Personally, I have crashed the Opera browse in my Wii at least once when I was trying to load a Flash/JavaScript game. Though I think there is no real financial incentives for hackers to attack people's Wii machines -- maybe to steal people's Wii points, but just to be on the safe side, you as a Wii user should be very careful about the sites that you visit.

Spotted on: Wii Opera Vulnerability, Scene Newz Forums

Wired On The Current Browser War

This Wired News article reviews the status of the current browser war -- IE7, Firefox, Flock, Opera etc. Here is a quick summary:

• IE continues to lose its market share, down to 90% from 97% in two years.


• Firefox's share has steadily increased to 9 percent.


• While Opera tries hard to come out with new features, it's share hasn't really increased (Opera, who?)


• Flock is a new kid on the block. It's a Web 2.0 browser. Built on the Firefox source code, its target customers are commercial companies who want to bundle technologies in a for-profit version of the Firefox browser (podcast).

I don't think there will be an end to the browser war. The war will continue until the end of Internet (if there is a such day). I also believe that there will never be one browser for everyone. It's a competitive market. New browsers will be developed because someone spotted a niche in the market.