How to fix ie freezing when you use the drop down box and the answer (at least official) isn’t to use firefox. This is due to a known issue with HP hardware and the MS06-015 / KB908531 patch.
On a related note I was wondering what readers policys on implementing patches are. We tend to wait a week or so to see if there are known issues (like above) but if everyone waited a week to see if there were no issues then this policy isn’t very practical. Also testing the patches on machines isn’t often very practical either – with a vast array of software on users desktops – most of which I would not use, just how do you test the effect of patches? Even getting hold of a spare box in most companies is unlikely as they are all in use. I’ve also found that the details in the patch documentation is getting sparser so it is also difficult to tell just what the patch does or what it affects.
And as to firefox – I’m not that impressed with the autoupdate facility for 1.5.0.2 – now most of my extensions don’t work and on my home computer they seem to have been ALL wiped out – not sure if that is because it’s loaded a new profile or not. I’ll look at that later, but having all the extensions disappear is very annoying. The other strange thing is that I wasn’t aware of there being any major patches or bugs in firefox – they’ve kept them pretty quiet unlike the latest MS patches – is there a mozilla security zine like the MS security posts that I should be subscribed to?
Comments
Mozilla’s security bulletins are here: http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/ , which include a list of all security flaws fixed at each time. http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/1.5.0.2.html gives an issue-by-issue breakdown of what has changed over 1.5.0.1.
When upgrading to Firefox 1.5.0.2 from 1.5.0.1 (what a mouthful) I only had one extension become disabled and it became re-enabled through an update a few days later. You may have to keep checking for extension updates (Tools, Extensions, Find Updates) on a regular basis.