As we had seen earlier (1) , (2) , Internet Explorer team congratulating Mozilla on its Firefox browser release or achievements, now Mozilla sends a Congratulatory cake to IE. The occasion is IE10 launch!
IE team had tweeted about it yesterday.
Thanks to @firefox for helping celebrate #IE10 launch w/ cake! We look forward to Firefox for #windows8 soon! twitter.com/IE/status/2619…
— Internet Explorer (@IE) October 26, 2012
Earlier we had seen Microsoft teaming up with Mozilla to bring Firefox with Bing, there’s Firefox with twitter also. Using this version you can Search for people and topics on Twitter, directly from the Firefox Address Bar using @ and # . Thus it takes directly to the user’s profile page or to a Twitter search result for username, hashtags respectively. Also you can search for any keyword on Twitter through the Search Bar by selecting Twitter in the drop-down.
You can get Firefox with Twitter from - http://firefox.twitter.com/
Although Bing is provided as one of the Search option in Firefox but now Microsoft teaming with Mozilla brings Firefox with Bing, browser that includes default search settings for Bing. Thus making easier to use Bing in Firefox eliminating extra steps to configure.
Firefox with Bing offers the latest version of Firefox with Bing set as your home page and the default setting in the search box and AwesomeBar (where you can also type in queries as well as Web addresses). If you already have the latest version of Firefox, then you just need to download the Bing Search for Firefox Add-on to set the same preferences.
You can download Firefox with Bing from http://www.firefoxwithbing.com/
(Source: Bing blog)
Is this an indication of something is being set for the future ?
As it has become customary for the IE Team to congratulate the Firefox team on its new release of its browser, this time also the IE Team delivered Congratulatory Cupcake to Firefox on its ver 7 release this morning.
This was the Cake sent -
And the IE Team tweeted about it also. Very Sweet !!
Keeping its tradition, the IE team sent a Congratulatory Cake to the Mozilla on shipping Firefox 5 . Damon Sicore- VP of Engineering at Mozilla tweeted about the same.
It has now become a tradition - The Internet Explorer team again sent a ‘Congratulations on Shipping’ cake to Mozilla on the release of Firefox 4 .
(Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeed/5551404638 , Channel9 )
IE team had shown its love earlier also sending congratulatory cakes on Firefox release.
(Source: Channel9)
The Bing toolbar provides easy access to entertainment, breaking news, videos and more. Search MSN headlines, receive MSNBC news alerts, and get the latest scores and game analysis from FOX Sports-all in your browser with the Bing toolbar.
Some screenshots of the BingBar
The Bing toolbar uses Microsoft Silverlight technology to provide you with access to Bing and MSN content. If you don't already have Microsoft Silverlight installed on your computer, it will be automatically installed for you-for free.
Surf with confidence using the new integrated Safety Center and customize toolbar settings and Bing options. This was earlier known by the name MSN toolbar.
You can check what you can do with Bing bar at http://www.discoverbingtoolbar.com/
You can get the toolbar from : here
Internet Explorer9 Platform Preview for developers was announced and released during the MIX10 by Dean Hachamovitch. He talked about how IE9 was planned from the ground up to enable professional grade HTML5 on hardware. How HTML5 needs great script performance, standards. HTML5 apps will be graphically rich so making it GPU powered. HTML5 apps will be more like real apps rather than web pages. HTML5 applications will push the limits of graphical richness and interactivity. IE9 will run HTML5 applications better by taking advantage of PC Hardware though Windows. This is called GPU powered HTML5.
And this very cool feature GPU powered HTML 5 was also the part of the session and was demoed by Dean and Steven Sinofsky. They showed various tests , demos comparing IE9 against other browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox.
This video is a part of the day2 Keynote Session at MIX10.
You can also try running these tests on various browsers from http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/
Download the IE9 Platform Preview and the various demos,tests links are also given.
You can download it from Internet Explorer Platform Preview . Remember Platform Preview for developers is a light-weight frame around the core IE platform. And it installs side by side with IE8.
“The Platform Preview is not a replacement for your daily browser; for example, the Preview does not have an address bar, a back button, anti-phishing or malware protection. The Platform Preview does include debugging and diagnostics tools for developers. It also includes a way to provide feedback. The top level menus include Report Issue.”
Just now, while I was on twitter, I received a tweet saying “Now, This is serious.. online banking fraud! http://bit.ly/W8WD4 ‘, So out of curiosity I followed that link to the blog post. It was, as it said, was about a phishing site. The post was Now this is serious!!! by Arnab Mitra on his blog Intelligent Marketing . In the post the author Arnab Mitra described his experience about Online Bank fraud. He first receives a mail (gmail filters failing )
This mailer did look exactly like an alert from his bank, which needed an urgent attention. So he clicks on the link provided in the mail ( link: https://infinity.icicibank.co.in/BANKAWAY?Action.RetUser.Init.001=Y&AppSignonBankId=ICI&AppType=corporate&abrdPrf=N
This link actually shown is the correct bank link but actually it links to http://www.french-eng.co.uk/tmp/cache/indexx.html )
And if you click this link in FireFox, it allows it and looked exactly like the real banks page-
So curiously I also tried it in Firefox which took me to this and when clicked on Personal Button opened the site as shown above, So Firefox failed to detect this phishing site.
Now I tried in my default Browser- My Internet Explorer 8, Yes IE8 !! And when I clicked on the link it took me to this -
IE8 blocked the site and it clearly warned ‘This Website has been reported as unsafe’ and recommended not to continue to this web site. This is one example of Security feature in IE8.
Any common person who might have received this kind of fraud mail is most likely to fall in this trap. The author Arnab Mitra was attentive enough to have noticed this, though Firefox allowed it. I have heard and had seen screenshots of such sites earlier also, in that case ICICI only but after reading the blog post by Arnab, I also decided to try it. Thanks to Arnab, I’m also carrying his blog post forward and alerting people of such Phishing sites. I request to make use of IE8 which is one of the Safest browser. I always use IE8 for Online Transactions without fail. So this is why one should use IE8 . You can get IE8 from here , and its Free !
Recently I also had come across a post from IE8 team : Real-World Protection With IE8’s SmartScreen Filter™ which said -
“………However, phishing remains a prevalent and important threat to users as well. We’re continuously making improvements to our data sources and intelligence systems that deliver phishing protection. This continuous investment keeps IE in the market-leading position it established with the release of the Phishing Filter in IE7. Since then, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 have blocked over 125 million phishing attacks.
The newest NSS study included a test pass for phishing blocks. NSS Labs reported the following block rate for major browsers:
You can view the full NSS study at http://nsslabs.com/browser-security.
And this was a real world example where one can be easily cheated if he is not using IE8 or is not attentive enough.This is one of the reasons, why one should use IE8. Thanks IE8 !
You wanted to view a Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) file but you don’t have MS Office 2007, not to worry. Now you have a Browser plugin, OpenXML Document Viewer.
The OpenXML Document Viewer application is a browser plugin, that can be used on computers which don’t have Microsoft Office 2007, to view the Word 2007 files using just the browser. The OpenXML Viewer browser plugin translates the Word 2007 file into HTML so that it can be viewed on a browser. You can not edit the document.
OpenXML is a free and open standard from Microsoft.
You can get this plugin from CodePlex.
This plugin supports Firefox browser on Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008)and Linux (tested on OpenSUSE 11)
The browser plugin has been packaged as a Firefox extension (OpenXMLViewer.xpi). Just open this .xpi file in Firefox
And install. Now you can open a .docx file in Firefox. Check the Readme.txt and other documents provided provided with the plugin for more information.
Check here the same document as seen with Word 2007 and in Firefox Browser
The above screenshots are just for showing how the .docx files are seen in MS Word 2007 and Firefox browser, but you should remember that you can view the .docx files in Firefox with this plugin even if you don’t have Office 2007.
You can download this plugin from CodePlex.
This has been developed by MindTree Consulting Ltd. in Technical Support from Microsoft.
Many who had installed MSN Toolbar were complaining that it works only with Silverlight 1.0 and doesn’t work with Silverlight 2 beta1. But with the release of Silverlight2 Beta 2, MSN toolbar works. Actually there were some XAML rendering issues resulting into poor experience with the toolbar with SilverLight2 Beta1, so it was blocked by Microsoft. Now with the release of SL2 Beta2 has solved the issue and so one can try the MSN Toolbar for IE now along with Silverlight2 Beta2.
Similarly many who were trying out Firefox 3 RC2 with Silverlight2 Beta1 were facing browser crash. But now the release of Silverlight2 Beta2 works fine with the FF3 RC2 Browser.
So I would recommend to those using the Beta1 of Silverlight2 should immediately upgrade to the beta2.
For details about Silverlight2 beta2, please check Silverlight 2 Beta 2 is available now
Talking of MSN Toolbar, I think it will soon be updated as it has 3 outdated search options which will be end soon. Live Search Books and Live Search Academic sites taken down and Windows Live Expo will discontinue service on 31 July 2008. Thus removing those options and adding any new options. So watch out for a MSN toolbar update soon.
Recently one of my friend was having problem of not displaying Silverlight content on his Firefox, while he was able to view it in IE. The problem was an addon. If you are one of those who have installed Silverlight, but still getting "Get Microsoft Silverlight" Button in Firefox then you should check if one of these is causing it :
It may be one of the Firefox addons you have added which is causing this, you should check that. Most common is the Flashblock addon or it can be Mediawrap addon. So disable these or such similar addons from Firefox. Goto Tools > Add-ons to get the list and disable it.
Then restart Firefox and now you will be able to view SIlverlight content.
Another reason may be, check whether SIlverlight is disabled , for this type "about:plugins" in FIrefox address bar & check the list. So reinstall it.
Now you can view Silverlight content on your Firefox also.
If you are using Firefox, then you have noticed that whenever you use its Searchbox to find anything, it opens the results in the existing tab and hence it overwrites the contents. Its quite irritating and we always have to open a new tab to make search. Here is a solution for this problem. After following this trick, your search results will open in a new tab:
1. Type about:config in Firefox addressbar and press Enter.
2. Now type browser.search.open in Filter box.
3. Now you’ll get browser.search.openintab in results. Double click on it and its value will be changed to true.
4. Thats it. Now your search results will open in a new tab.
Fine, that will do. Now coming to my tip,
Another method is enter the query in SearchBox and press Alt+Enter, and your result will be shown in new Tab. And this will work in IE and FireFox.
Now coming to the use of Mouse Scroll Wheel Button. There's a very neat use of it. And many of us don't use it. Its a very neat tip.
In FireFox, if you want to open search results in new tab, Just use your Mouse Scroll Wheel Button Click, and Search result will open in new tab. In IE this wont work, while Opera has 'Paste & Go' option.
There is more use of it. Suppose you are browsing a a page full of various links and you want to open a link in new tab. You'll generally right click on that link and click on 'Open in new tab'. Instead, you try this, just Click on the link with Mouse Scroll Wheel Button Click and it'll Open in new tab. Cool !! Will work in IE or FireFox.
I hope you'll start using this neat tip as majority of the present mouse comes with scroll wheel.
Today this problem and its solution was officially posted at the Windows Live Hotmail team Blog.August 24Disable Firefox Adblock for Hotmail or switch to the classic version
We’ve had some reports on the blog, and our QA team has confirmed that having the Firefox Adblock add-on enabled for the Hotmail site can make it impossible to compose or reply to a message in the full version. This does not affect Internet Explorer users or Firefox users who do not have the Adblock add-on. Depending on which Adblock filters you’ve created, you may or may not be affected.
The Hotmail team does cross-browser testing, including full Firefox testing – it’s important to us that you can get to your e-mail from anywhere. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to test every browser add-on, so sometimes things break, and thanks for your prompt reports of this problem!
While we do not condone suppression of advertising in our product (advertising does fund our product) we realize that users who have enabled this add-on may not understand why Hotmail stopped working.
We’re working how to mitigate this problem in a future release. In the meantime, if you’re having problems composing or replying in Firefox, you have two options:
- Disable Adblock for Hotmail. You could also try tweaking your filters, but the foolproof method is to go to Tools --> Adblock --> and select “Whitelist this whole site.”
- Switch to the classic version. This means clicking the “Switch to classic” link that you see in the lower left corner.
- Ellie Powers-Boyle, program manager
Thanks for this official information. Those facing such a problem can check up this tip.
