Reaper-X » Browsers

Internet Explorer 7 now comes without Windows Genuine Validation

Reaper-X — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:14:54 +0000

Just in case you didn’t know and / or hasn’t updated your old Internet Explorer 6.0 into the latest Internet Explorer 7 because of various reasons like avoiding the Windows Genuine Advantage validation because you couldn’t find any good WGA Remover from around the web or you’re using a pirated copy of Windows XP. Because …

Just as the title says, recently Microsoft has announced that they’ve removed the WGA Validation from their popular Internet Explorer browser … here’s what Steve Reynolds said about this on IEBlog

Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users. With today’s “Installation and Availability Update,” Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users. If you are not already running IE7, you can get it now from the Internet Explorer home page on Microsoft.com, get a customized version from a third-party site, or, if you haven’t already received it via Automatic Updates, this version will be delivered to you as we described previously. If you are already running IE7, you will not be offered IE7 again by Automatic Updates.

So what are you waiting for ? grab it before Microsoft change their mind :P … or at least to those who has moved into Firefox completely, i guess it’s still better to grab the IE7 also … (nothing beats a combination of Firefox 2.x series with IE7 and Opera 9, instead of Firefox 2.x, Opera 9 with IE6 combination only) :P

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Freeware, Software, Windows

Have you tried using Optimized Firefox Build ?

Reaper-X — Sun, 27 May 2007 07:14:06 +0000

So yesterday i decided to use an optimized Firefox build because the default Firefox build takes long time to load (even Opera is fast than Firefox installed on my system). Previously i think it was normal because i had many Firefox extensions installed

But … since i’m really curios about it, i decided to take a look at various Optimized Firefox Build for specific processor and found pigfoot firefox build site

As for the rest, i think you already guessed it … i downloaded the P3 Build because of this reason :

P3 build build with /GAL7 arch:SSE2 and mmoy’s SSE2 patches, for AMD Athlon 64, AMD Sempron, Pentium D, Pentium M, Pentium 4 and Celeron 1.7 GHz+

then extract it somewhere and then move it to replace the original Firefox installation on my system (because this build does not have installer). And this all means, i’m still using my previously installed firefox extensions and such stuff

As guess what ? the time required for loading Mozilla Firefox even with many extensions installed reduced by more than 50% (seriously, i’ve tested it many times because i do not believe it at first), compared to the original Firefox build that take ages to load

As for pages loading time, i did not notice any improvement at all (because – In my opinion – pages loading time are affected by your internet speed not your browser although if it is for me, my squid cache proxy really helped me a lot)

So … if you’re using Medium – High End processor and want to see how Optimized Firefox are better than the default build, i’d suggest you to use it too

Update :

I just found another great build by Tete and it can be found at this page. He provides various Firefox Builds for specific processor instruction or specific processor :)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Mozilla, Software

Firekeeper the Intrusion Detection System for Firefox

Reaper-X — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:42:42 +0000

I just found about this Firefox extension today and this extension could be useful especially to those who’s a little bit paranoid about their computer security. And here’s the Firekeeper description taken from the project page :

Firekeeper is an Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Firefox. It is able to detect, block and warn the user about malicious sites. Firekeeper uses flexible rules similar to Snort ones to describe browser based attack attempts. Rules can also be used to effectively filter different kinds of unwanted content

Other features of Firekeeper :

Ability to scan incoming Firefox traffic – HTTP(S) response headers, body and URL and to cancel processing of suspicious responses
HTTPS and compressed responses are scanned after decryption/decompression
Very fast pattern matching algorithm (taken directly from Snort)
Interactive alerts that give an ability to choose a response to detected attack attempt
Ability to use any number of files with rules and to automatically load files from remote locations

As a note, the currently available Firekeeper release is still in Alpha stage, which main purpose is to get feedback from users about Firekeeper’s functionality and to test if Firekeeper works well on various different systems. Currently Firekeeper support Linux based OS and Windows based OS

Related Link : Firekeeper Project Page – Firekeeper Weblog

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Freeware, Internet, Mozilla, Network and Security, Open Source, Software

Do you like to spoof your user-agent ?

Reaper-X — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:01:53 +0000

I know most people don’t really like if there’s someone using faked / spoofed user-agent .. but i think it’s really fun on doing this especially if you’re using a spoofed Internet Explorer user agent from your Mozilla Firefox / Opera browser .. because for some website they choose to show specific content / area dedicated for IE users.

For example, if you’re using Wordpress as your website content management system, and you’re using Internet Explorer browser to open your admin pages. You’ll see a link to BrowseHappy on the footer of your admin pages (and i’ve never seen it before until i faked my user agent string) .. or maybe you could find it on some other site as well :-)

And as a note, if you’re using Firefox as your main browser and want to spoof your user agent easily. You might be interested on reading my previous article about list of useful firefox extensions (at least for me)

And yet another note, if you’re using Squid Cache Proxy on your computer, you can also use it to spoof your user agent string as well :-) … for more information on configuring squid cache you can try reading my previous post about configuring squid proxy in windows (i didn’t explain it clearly there but if you’re already familiar with squid configuration, you can do it easily)

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Internet, Mozilla, Squid

Mozilla Firefox, PDF Files and XSS

Reaper-X — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 14:34:35 +0000

I read about this yesterday on BugTraq and within just one day i read another interesting news from Symantec (i found it via techmeme) regarding this new xss issue with pdf files

And what makes this interesting, because this problem only occur at Mozilla Firefox browser (with Adobe Reader 7 and below), and Internet Explorer 6 and 7 isn’t affected by this vulnerability issue as noted by Symantec :

This problem appears to be limited to the Firefox browser, which has a relatively large user base.

Although some other people are getting different results (look at the comments), and if it’s for me .. i already tried this with Firefox 2.0.0.1 installed on Windows XP SP1 .. and i don’t find any problem with it .. and that’s because i already disabled the PDF / Adobe Reader Plugin for Firefox browser since a long time ago because of another reason (actually i don’t really like opening files directly from the web especially PDF because it can cause a big slowdown to my system)

As a note, if you’re using Firefox you might try reading the Symantec weblog about this issue to find the quick fix for this problem

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Computer Security, Hacking, Internet, Mozilla, Network and Security

Firefox 2.0.0.1 and Thunderbird 1.5.0.9

Reaper-X — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:47:01 +0000

I just updated my Firefox 2 installation into version 2.0.0.1 and the Thunderbird installation into 1.5.0.9 .. (well the thunderbird 2 is still in beta stages)

Although the official Mozilla site hasn’t announced it yet as a public release version .. but i think it wouldn’t hurt to try out the latest release of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird (as a note: it’s labeled as release status from their FTP Server) .. so i think there’s no need to worry about it :D

Just in case you want to download it, here’s the download location :

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Freeware, Internet Tools, Open Source, Software, Windows

Firefox 2 Crash Script

Reaper-X — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:37:16 +0000

Even the most favorite browser for geek (well at least only some people know about it judging by the number of Internet Explorer users that is still high) known as Mozilla Firefox .. has some vulnerability issue .. and surprisingly this bug exists on the new Firefox 2 release …and just in case you want some proof about this .. then try opening this page and you’ll see Firefox 2 crashed .. the only solution for this :

Use NoScript Extension
Disable Javascript Completely on Firefox 2

Yep that’s all … by the way i just tested it with / without javascript enabled and the result is :

If you enabled Javascript in Firefox with / without additional extension .. you’ll see firefox crashed
If you disable Javascript .. then you can see the page without problem :D

And just in case you want to run it on your own computer without loading that page first .. here’s the script (copied from that page) :

Playstation 3 User-Agent Came to My Site

Reaper-X — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 06:52:52 +0000

After getting various request from Google Mobile Proxy / Google WAP Proxy or whatever you called it that allow mobile internet users to browse every webpage just like a standard WML. I found another interesting user-agent as well on my site, from the Playstation Portable / PSP Browser which is using Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00) user-agent, to a brand new gaming console Playstation 3

And i’m a bit surprised because i never thought someone are going to use their gaming console to browse around the web. And as a side note the Playstation 3 Internal Browser user-agent is Mozilla/5.0 (PLAYSTATION 3; 1.00). (i don’t know if it’s a spoofed user-agent or not) .. but one thing for sure is .. Playstation 3 Internal Browser is created by the same company that created the NetFront internet browser for Symbian based Mobile Phone.

And the conclusion is … i get another user-agent collection :D

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Internet, Journal, Personal, PlayStation, Website

IE Peekaboo Bug on my site

Reaper-X — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 08:54:12 +0000

I didn’t know some of my post here affected by the IE 6 Peekaboo Bug especially when viewed in single post mode (thanks to the Internet Explorer developer for creating this wonderful bug and another CSS related bug on your wonderful browser) ..

And after searching around the web, i’ve found that simply by adding height:1% to the affected element, this problem can be solved easily .. (although there’s some left in my site .. but im not going to fix it because it’s not important)

And thanks to Six Shooter Media for posting this fix so i can fix it within minutes, because the Positioniseverything site is hard to navigate to find a fix for this wonderful bug on internet explorer

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, CSS, Guide, Journal, Personal, Tutorials, Webdesign

Firefox Shortcut Key for URL Completion

Reaper-X — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 01:03:50 +0000

Just in case someone didn’t know about this (because i always saw someone typing the full domain name manually instead of using the automatic url completion), im going to post it. Actually it just a simple keyboard shortcut to provide automatic url completion so you don’t have to type www and the domain extension such as .com, .net or .org in Firefox.

And here’s the shortcut key :

SHIFT + ENTER : Will automatically complete a .net domain, for example type reaper-x and then press shift + enter it’ll become www.reaper-x.net automatically
CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER : Will automatically complete domain name using .org extension
CTRL + ENTER : Will automatically complete domain name using .com extension

That’s all .. simple isn’t it ? if you want to know more about default firefox you should read the Firefox help page because if you didn’t know about this simple keyboard shortcut that means you’re not the type of person that likes to read a readme file or such stuff eventhough the filename already told you to read it :P

0x87485B96 | Tags : Browsers, Guide, Internet Tools, Mozilla, Tutorials