Final Firefox 2.0 Fails To Feature Antiphishing
December 25, 2008 by AntivirusWare.Mozilla have moved on to version 3.0 of their Firefox browser, but some users haven’t. Thus, Mozilla are releasing one final version of Firefox 2.0 later this month. 2.0 is a bit long in the tooth, and its feature that warned users of sites suspected of hosting identity fraud scams is getting old too.
Therefore, Google asked Mozilla to disable the feature in the last update to Firefox, which will be version 2.0.0.19. Version 2 of Firefox relies on an outdated SafeBrowsing protocol that Google does not support anymore.
Firefox 2.0.0.19 will be widely released on December 16. It will be the final security update for the browser. Firefox 3.0 was released in June, and Mozilla are focusing the bulk of their development and security efforts on the newer version of their popular browser.
A Google spokesperson has commented that Google prefers its users to use the most recent version of the software they use to access any services that Google provides. Users of Firefox 2 will be notified when they are updated to 2.0.0.19. Google, however, prefer users to upgrade to Firefox 3 in order to be protected by the antiphishing feature. Firefox 3 includes the newer version of the Safe Browsing v2 protocol. This new protocol is more efficient with network bandwidth yet still will continue to help protect your system against phishing scams. The new version of the protocol also provides some protection against malware. Thus, there is more to keeping your browser up to date than having access to the latest features.