Firefox 3.6 beta brings security lockdown

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 19 Nov 2009 at 10:27

Mozilla has released the third beta of Firefox 3.6, which is intended to improve the stability and security of the open-source browser.

At the heart of this effort is a feature called component directory lockdown. This prevents third-party applications from being installed in the components directory, which houses much of Firefox’s own code.

According to Mozilla, allowing third-party applications to use this directory brought a number of disadvantages.

"Components installed in this way aren't user-visible, meaning that users can't manage them through the add-ons manager, or disable them if they’re encountering difficulties," says Mozilla developer Johnathan Nightingale, on the company's blog.

"What’s worse, components dropped blindly into Firefox in this way don’t carry version information with them, which means that when users upgrade Firefox and these components become incompatible, there’s no way to tell Firefox to disable them.

"This can lead to all kinds of unfortunate behaviour: lost functionality, performance woes, and outright crashing – often immediately on startup," he says.

The company is now considering whether to retrofit the feature to Firefox 3.5.

Also making an appearance in the third beta is a feature that lets the browser run JavaScript programs asynchronously, improving page load times. The beta also brings Mozilla's Personas one-click reskinning tool.

Mozilla intends to release the final version of Firefox 3.6 by the end of the year.