Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.0.5. The latest version patches 8 security holes, 3 of which are rated as critical.

Two of these attacks allow malicious websites to run code on another website, potentially stealing your personal information. This is done using common cross-site scripting attacks.

Mozilla has also rolled out Firefox 2.0.0.19 with security patches. This will be the last update for Firefox 2.

“Mozilla is not planning any further security and stability updates for Firefox 2, and recommends that you upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as possible” said Mozilla engineer Samuel Sidler.

Current Firefox users should automatically be updated in the next few days, or can use the links below to download the updates below:

Download Firefox 3.0.5
Download Firefox 2.0.0.19

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.1 Beta 2. The new version comes with plenty of bug fixes and a final set of features which are expected to be in the final release of Firefox 3.1.

New features include:

• Private browsing mode
• Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine
• Tear off tabs to new browser windows
• Support for HTML5 elements <video> and <audio>

A full list of features can be found in the Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 release notes. Users already using Beta 1 will be automatically updated, while new users can download Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 here.

It has been a good month for the ‘underdogs’ in the browser wars this month, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all gaining ground.

Firefox has hit a fantastic milestone, now with over 20% of the web browser market, up 4% from last month. Apple’s Safari has climbed to just over 7%, up 8.5% from last month.

Even Google’s Chrome has crawled back some ground, after a steady drop off rate from the browsers first month. Chrome gained around 12% during the month, taking it’s total share to just under 1%.

The losers this month were both Opera and Internet Explorer. Opera lost 5% of it’s market, and is now 5th in the race, behind Google Chrome. November also saw Internet Explorer’s market share plummet below 70% for the first time since 1999.

You can view the full report at the Market Share website. Historical data can be sourced from Wikipedia. The browser wars are really firing up.

Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker has revealed that revenue for Mozilla in 2007 was at USD $75 million. This is a 12% increase on last year which Baker believes is impressive, despite the world economic slowdown.

Most of Mozilla’s revenue comes from a search agreement with Google, but there other sources of income such as the Mozilla Store.

The relationship between Mozilla and Google is now under the microscope by the IRS (the “Internal Revenue Service,” the US national tax agency). Baker isn’t sure how long the investigation will last, but is confident that Mozilla hasn’t committed any wrong doings.

Mozilla also handed over $1 million in grants and donations to other non-profit organisations in 2007. GNOME project, Creative Commons, Oregon State University are just a few of the organisations to receive grants or donations in 2007.

The future sure is looking bright for Mozilla and Firefox. You can read Baker’s post in full for more details.

Mozilla, makers of the popular Firefox web browser, have passed a huge milestone, with over 1 billion add-ons downloaded.

This number is much likely larger, as Mozilla only started tracking downloads in 2005, with add-ons also available from other websites.

Justin Scott from Mozilla says there are about “1.5 million add-on downloads per day and increasing”.

Add-ons are currently available for a large range of Mozilla products including Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Sunbird, Komodo, Flock, and Songbird.

Have you fashioned your Firefox?

I’m sure some of you may be frustrated by Firefox 3.1’s new tab behaviour when pressing Ctrl + Tab. No longer does it just browse through the tabs, but instead it switches to the most recently viewed tab (much like Windows Alt + Tab.

Thankfully, you can turn the new Ctrl + Tab behaviour off, and return it old skool. Simply follow the steps below:

• Go to about:config in the URL bar
• Set browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed to false
• Set browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit to 0
• Restart Firefox

All done! Enjoy the old Ctrl + Tab behaviour.

Mozilla have just released updates for both Firefox 2 and 3. These new versions fix both security and stability issues.

You can view the full list of changes in both the Firefox 3.0.4 and Firefox 2.0.0.18 changelogs.

Existing users should be updated automatically in the next few days, but if not you can use the download links below:

Download Firefox 3.0.4
Download Firefox 2.0.0.18

Private browsing mode has been included in the latest nightly release for Firefox 3.1 beta. This is a feature which didn’t quite make it into Firefox 3.

Private browsing allows you to browse the web “anonymously”. No cookies, cache, history, temporary files, or saved passwords will be stored while in private mode.

To turn on private browsing, go to Tools –> Private Browsing. You can download the latest nightly Firefox 3.1 beta build here.

Next generation releases of both Firefox and Opera will incorporate the royalty free Theora video codec.

The lossy video compression technology uses only has a small CPU footprint and will allow videos to be viewed in the browser without the use of a Flash player, or any other additional codecs installed.

Wikipedia however has been using the Theora codec for video for a while now. Kat Walsh, a Wikimedia Foundation board member believes “open media formats are critical for ensuring a future where everyone can create and share media freely”.

This is fantastic news for users. If Safari and Microsoft get on board, the future will be looking quite bright.

New Google Chrome builds are showing support for Greasemonkey, albeit very basic and still in early stages of development.

Until now, Greasemonkey has been a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to most HTML-based web pages.

Martin from gHacks writes “Only scripts in c:\scripts are loaded and only if the user adds the parameter –enable-greasemonkey by appending it to the program’s shortcut.”

Support for Greasemonkey has been added as of build 3499, which can be downloaded from the Chromium build FTP.