Fergie's Tech Blog

Firefox Developer Rips Netscape

YES, it was a stoopid mistake to release the new Netscape 8.0 with Firefox 1.0.3 code, chock full of critical security vulnerabilities--but that's been fixed now, no sense dwelling on it. Personally, I think Netscape is a superior browser to Firefox, and as a long-time Netscape user, I upgraded my own browser to 8.0.1 (from 7.2) last week.

In any event, this revelation comes to us via TechWeb:

Responding to Netscape 8's release and immediate security gaffe last week, a lead developer of Firefox lambasted the rival browser -- which uses much of the same code as Mozilla's Firefox -- as "unsafe."

Ben Goodger, a former top Mozilla Foundation developer who now works at Google -- albeit still at least part time on Firefox -- used his blog to blast Netscape.

Goodger posted a link on his blog to a demonstration of exploit code that the original Netscape 8 was vulnerable to when it first rolled out early Thursday.

posted by Fergie @ 5/23/2005 11:08:00 AM