One of the changes for example regards the Gecko layout engine with improvements in supporting Web standards like W3C Geolocation API, Java Script query selectors, and Web worker threads. Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 also includes support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties.

Regarding the interface, Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 will have a new tab switching shortcut and improved control over the smart bar.

While on the multimedia side Firefox 3.1 beta 1 will include the support for OGG Theora and OGG Vorbis on all platforms.
Firefox 3.1 beta 1 is currently available for download in more than 35 languages.

Links Firefox 3.1 Beta announcement: http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2008/10/14/firefox-31-beta-1-now-available-for-download/;
Firefox 3.1 Beta download: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html.

The first vulnerability, identified by Bach Koa Internetwork Security, is a buffer overflow that get triggered when a user saves a Web page containing a very long “title” tag. As usual when buffers overflow are exploited, an attacker could use it to inject malicious code to then have control of the victim’s computer.

The second vulnerability fixed is the “carpet bombing” flaw discovered by researcher Aviv Raff. The vulnerability is caused by the use of an outdated version of Apple WebKit by Chrome. The vulnerability causes Windows to download a dangerous Java archive file (JAR) and execute it without any warning to the users.

The vulnerable version released last week is the 0.2.149.27, while the new version is 0.2.149.29.

Links

Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome;

Bach Koa Internetwork Security’s advisory: http://security.bkis.vn/?p=119;

Aviv Raff’s advisory: http://aviv.raffon.net/2008/09/03/GoogleMule.aspx.

According to Google, Chrome’s objective is not to be only a normal web browser, but a platform to better run Web Applications. In order to achieve that objective Google developed Chrome with strong support of JavaScript and AJAX.

One of the various changes that Chrome implements, compared to other browsers, is that each tab behaves as a separate browser with the bookmarks bar, address bar, the menus and the icons inside the tab. Also in Chrome the tabs are grouped by relation. If the user open a new tab from a link in an active page that new tab appears next to the originating page.

The address bar and the search bar are actually merged together in order to save space.

Obviously since Google Chrome is still in beta, it is has many features that are still to be implemented. For example Google Chrome lacks of an interface to manage the saved bookmarks. Chrome is also lacking a progress bar to show how much of a Web page has loaded.

At first only the Windows version is available, but Google is developing a open-source version for Linux.

Links

Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome.