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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1930055,00.html
Bug dampens Firefox's spark
By Rhys Blakely
An army of thousands of testers has not saved the blushes of the Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit software developer, which has admitted that the latest version of its Firefox browser has been hit by a bug.
Firefox has built up a cult following among fans who have championed the browser as a more secure and reliable alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE). However, many users who downloaded the 1.5 version of the software, which was released in a beta, or trial, version last month, found that their computers froze.
Mozilla said that the problem was linked to web pages with extremely long titles. It added that reports which suggested that the bug exposed users to denial-of-service attacks were not true.
"No evidence for this claim has been offered. There does not appear to be any risk to users or their computers beyond the temporary unresponsiveness at startup," it said. According to most recent reports, Mozilla expects to have a patch available to correct what it describes as a "low severity" problem by early February.
However, as Mozilla competes with Microsoft's marketing might, the bug also threatens to waylay Mozilla's increasingly slick publicity machine.
Only last week, the New York Times reported how "thousands of programmers under the guidance of the Mozilla Foundation have looked into every nook and cranny of Firefox's open-source code to improve it and streamline it". It now appears that they missed a flaw that meant the streamlined browser was unable to handle long web addresses.
It is not the first time Firefox has been hit by flaws. Several serious security weaknesses emerged in April this year. Silicon.com reported today that computer code that demonstrates how a known flaw in an older version of the Firefox or Mozilla web browsers can be exploited in a potentially crippling attack was published on the web over the weekend.
Mozilla itself has highlighted advice it claims came from the United States Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team "to recommend that consumers stop using Internet Explorer and switch to other browsers".
As public concern over cybercrimes, such as identity theft, has exploded over the past year, Mozilla's focus on security has paid dividends. Firefox is now used by at least one in ten surfers. The group claims that word-of-mouth recommendations and volunteer-led marketing drives have helped Firefox claim 50 million active users over the past year.
However, Mozilla has admitted there is no "magic bullet" to ensure safety online.
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