Security Comes Up Short

Firefox 3 includes new security features designed to warn users when they visit phishing sites and sites that try to download malware to their computers. Sounds great in theory -- but the feature failed more than half the time in testing.

This is not a big deal for users with even a moderate degree of sophistication. They know better than to click on questionable links.

But naive users -- the ones most at risk from phishing and malware -- might think that the Firefox security precautions work, and if Firefox lets them through to a site, the site must be honest.

So the fact that the warning feature is unreliable makes the Internet more dangerous than if the warnings didn't exist at all.

Firefox 3 is designed to bring up alerts when you try to visit a phishing site, or one that tries to download malware to your computer. The alerts are extremely unreliable, though.
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On the positive side of security advancements: The software streamlines the behavior of its "remember password" box. Firefox 3 replaces the pop-up window in previous versions with a horizontal strip at the top of the browser window. The strip stays up until you click a button to dispose of it; which lets you confirm that you typed the right password before you click "remember."

Among the other new features in Firefox 3:

• User interface enhancements are designed to make the browser look more like a native application on the platforms it runs on.
• You can register Web applications to handle files downloaded from the Web, such as using a Web application suite to open Office files. Web publishers will need to configure their sites correctly before you can take advantage of those capabilities, but for now you can get a taste of what it will be like by configuring Gmail to handle mailto links.
• It supports running Web apps even when you're disconnected from the Web -- again, something that will have to be coded by Web app developers.
• An improved download manager lets you pause and resume downloads -- very handy if you're downloading a multi-hundred-megabyte file and you abruptly have to put your laptop to sleep, or it crashes. The download manager lets you search for files you downloaded in the past, and return to the page where you downloaded a file -- handy if you want to check for updates.
• The add-ons manager, used to manage extensions, themes, and plug-ins, also gets a redesign with Firefox 3: You can check for new add-ons directly from the add-ons manager without visiting a Web page, and disable add-ons, extensions and plug-ins -- handy in cases where out-of-control Adobe Flash objects are giving you fits.

As with any new version of Firefox, the software still doesn't support many extensions written for old versions. On the other hand, my old favorite 1Password, for password management on the Mac, is supported. Another favorite, TabMix Plus for tab management, isn't officially supported on Firefox 3 as of Tuesday evening; however, you can download a developer's build that's compatible.

Also compatible with Firefox 3: Foxmarks, a wonderful extension and service designed to synchronize Firefox bookmarks between multiple copies of the browser running on different machines.

Firefox 3 is a great browser and huge improvement over previous versions. Should you use it? Well, a browser is a personal choice. Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, and Firefox are all good browsers, and all have their adherents. However, you should definitely upgrade to Firefox 3 if you're using the earlier version, and if you've been thinking about giving Firefox a try, now's a good time to do it.