Posted on July 23rd, 2008
You might be in for a nice surprise if you are trying to download certain file types with the latest version of Firefox 3. Certain file types, like exe or msi are blocked from being downloaded displaying a red cross and the error message “This download has been blocked by your Security Zone Policy”.
The first thought that comes to mind is that the error message is related to the Security Zone Policy of Windows. Guess what, indeed it is. Firefox 3 is now taking the Security Zone Policy of a Windows operating system into consideration when downloading files which might confuse part of the user base who always thought that Firefox 3 would be independent from the operating system.
Firefox 3 users can change the Security Zone Policies in the Internet Options which are available in the Windows Control Panel. The option that has to be checked is “Launching applications and unsafe files” by clicking on the Custom level button of the Internet Zone.
The solution for users with Internet Explorer 6 is to update their browser to Internet Explorer 7 to have the option and make use of it according to a Mozillazine (via Firefox Facts) article about blocked downloads in Firefox.
Posted on July 15th, 2008
Firefox has been my main browser for a long time. I really loved Firefox 2 and the waves of add-ons that were created by the community. This added tremendous value to the browser and put it on pair with Opera. You’d always find an add-on for something that you needed or did not like and it was easy to create a browser that was more or less designed and providing the functionality that you wanted.
Controversy started with the release of Firefox 3 which mainly concentrated on a new feature called the Awesome Bar which was simply a change in the way the location bar worked. I do not want to get into that deeply here but if you are interested you can follow the Firefox 3 location bar discussion at Ghacks.
I did not mind it that much because I mainly use a bookmarks toolbar to access the sites that I visit regularly and since I have disabled the history it never was a problem for me.
My initial experience with Firefox 3 was not that positive. I experienced a huge cpu load and memory usage every 45-60 minutes in which Firefox 3 would become totally unresponsive. I first thought that it was caused by the Brief add-on which was the RSS Feed reader add-on that I had been using for a while but it turned out to be something else.
The culprit were Firefox Live Bookmarks which update themselves automatically. Whenever they did that my browser would freeze. Not a nice feeling if you are in the middle of writing an article or doing other time sensitive things. After exporting the live bookmarks, importing them into Google Reader and deleting them in Firefox 3 the high loads stopped.
That was a relief but it cost me half a day to discover why it was caused in first place. I also had some difficulties with add-ons that were not compatible to Firefox 3 and that would not even work if I would force compatibility.
I really like Firefox 3 now. It’s faster, more responsive and uses less system resources which is always great.
Now, what about you ? Care to tell me if you made the switch to Firefox 3 yet and how your experience was ?
