No antiphishing feature in final Firefox 2.0 version
Updated 4:30 p.m. PST with Google comment.
There will be no antiphishing feature in the final version of Firefox 2.0 when it is released later this month, according to Computerworld.
Google asked Mozilla to disable the feature in Firefox 2.0.0.19 that warns users of sites suspected of hosting identity fraud scams because the older browsers rely on an outdated SafeBrowsing protocol that Google is not supporting anymore, Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox, told Computerworld.
Firefox 2.0.0.19 is scheduled to ship December 16 and will be the final security update for the browser. The company released Firefox 3 in June.
Asked for comment, a Google spokesman provided this statement via e-mail: "Google encourages users to always use the latest version of the software they're running. Users of Firefox 2 will be notified of the change when they are updated to 2.0.0.19; we recommend that users upgrade to Firefox 3 to continue getting protection. Firefox 3 includes our Safe Browsing v2 protocol which is more efficient with network bandwidth, continues to help protect against phishing, and also adds malware protection."
Mozilla representatives could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor.
Infact, checking Blackboard.com, as of Dec 1, it STILL doesn't.
http://kb.blackboard.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=25368512
my school uses blackboard too, and I've had no problem using it on 3.0 or the new 3.1 beta
I use blackboard as well. Why do you even use blackboard with Firefox when you can easily use Opera, Chrome or IE 7 or 8Beta to open it. Firefox 3 does have issues and Firefox 2 series is full of loopholes and security flaws even after the updates. I would suggest opening blacboard with IE, it runs faster on it. I timed it.
I do use IE7/FF2 for Blackboard. I'd rather not send messages weekly to teachers that "hey, my ____ assignment didn't upload/post because I used an unsupported browser" ok? No need to play the guessing game with chrome/ff3/opera etc. until blackboard gets their stuff in order.
Ah yes, Blackboard, how I love thee :-P They (the people who make Blackboard I presume) are quite slow at testing which browsers work best with their product and which don't. Safari 3 has been out for over a year now and I don't believe it's "supported" as of yet, although I've had no problems.
Blackboard should work fine under Firefox 3.0. I upgraded as soon as it became available in June and it worked fine with Blackboard when I was taking classes in the summer.
Users of pre WinXP systems cannot use v3 as Win98 etc. is not supported.
Mozilla should be hoping that the v2 users don't all move to Opera, which does support Win98.
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by Vegaman_Dan
December 7, 2008 7:28 PM PST
- It seems odd that a browser maker would yield and take orders from a search engine company. It makes me highly suspicious of the results you get using Google with *any* version of Firefox. If they were willing to be compromised on security by Google for one verison, how do we know what else they have done that we don't know about?
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by faboumen
December 8, 2008 6:31 AM PST
- uhhh...The grocery store(Google) I go to recently stopped offering the organic fruit(DEPRECATED Anti-phishing API) and vegetables that I like. I guess I(FireFox) should tell them that is unacceptable, and they(Google) WILL provide them(DEPRECATED Anti-phishing API) again. Oh, wait, they have every write to stop selling that product, that they have replaced with another. FireFox did not just accept being 'Compromised'. They cannot force Google to continue to use APIs it does not want to.
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by Vegaman_Dan
December 8, 2008 10:35 AM PST
- The article clearly states that Firefox will not include the security feature because Google asked them to exclude it. I didn't make that up- it's right there in the article itself.
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by faboumen
December 8, 2008 12:36 PM PST
- Seriously, maybe you should re-read the article.
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(15 Comments)Google is getting entirely too pushy in my opinion.
Stop Speading FUD.
Say what you will about spreading FUD, but that's right there in the article. if you have issues with that, please contact Google. However if you are saying that Google is spreading FUD, then there are other issues to address.
The point stands regardless.
This is all the farther you seem to have read - "Google asked Mozilla to disable the feature in Firefox 2.0.0.19..."
You should have read this far - "... because the older browsers rely on an outdated SafeBrowsing protocol that Google is not supporting anymore"
They asked FireFox to exclude out of concern for FireFox breaking when Google completely shuts off access to the DEPRECATED SafeBrowsing protocol version.
But hey, FireFox developers could listen to you and leave the anti-phishing functionality in...then when google finally removes the, and I'll say it one more time, DEPRECATED APIs, FireFox will break.
Re-read my previous post also, as you do not seem to understand the underlying tech, and that example is a good non-tech analogy. FireFox does not have control over the underlying SafeBrowsing Tech, Google Does. The FireFox browser makes a call to Google's servers, and gets info back about the site the user is trying to visit. FireFox has to send specific info to Gogle, and Google sends specific info back. Google has different version that require and send back different info. They are desupporting the version FireFox 2.x uses.
FireFox 3.x has the newer APIs for the SafeBrowsing interface, so will still work.