Yesterday was Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft released five updates for Windows, Internet Explorer, and Silverlight. Two of the updates are flagged as Critical. The official summary bulletin has all the technical details, and a post on the MSRC blog has a less technical breakdown of the updates.
As expected, one of this month’s updates fixes the recently-reported zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer.
Another new version of Google’s web browser was announced today.
Version 33.0.1750.149 fixes seven security vulnerabilities, as well as some other bugs and stability issues.
This month’s Ouch! (PDF) provides a useful overview of what you need to know if you’re still using Windows XP.
The SANS Ouch! newsletter is aimed at users, so it may not be useful for IT professionals. On the other hand, it’s a great place to send users looking for information adapted to their level of understanding.
Patch Tuesday for March 2014 happens on March 11. Microsoft currently plans to publish five new bulletins and associated patches starting at 10am PST on that date. The patches will address vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, and Silverlight. Two of the patches are flagged as Critical.
One of the patches will fix the Internet Explorer vulnerability recently reported here.
Another update for Chrome was announced yesterday by Google.
The new version includes 19 security fixes, along with fixes for some other bugs and stability issues.
Is it just me, or is Firefox behaving more like a lead weight than a web browser lately? Since about version 26, any time I browse a media-heavy site, Firefox starts consuming all my CPU, and doing a ton of I/O. This usually calms down after a while, but it’s extremely annoying.
Sometimes the excessive CPU use is associated with playing Flash videos, in which case a task viewer will usually show that it’s the plugin container and the Flash plugin that are consuming all the CPU. But that’s not always the case.
The Flash plugin seems to crash a lot these days as well. Like every other time I play a video in Firefox. Normally, I’d be happy to blame Adobe, but I’m not convinced it’s their fault this time, because Flash is currently working fine in my other browsers.
One other annoyance in recent versions of Firefox is the way animated GIFs play. They stop, start again, play really fast, then really slow, and so on. Eventually they seem to settle down, but it takes a while.
Is anyone else seeing these problems?
Update 2014Mar11: Disabling all my add-ons seems to have resolved this problem. Now to identify which one.
Microsoft will prod you to upgrade your Windows XP computers after support for that O/S ends in April.
According to Ars Technica, a message will pop up on the 8th of every month, starting on March 8, 2014. Although this may be viewed as a nuisance by some users, at least the message has a “don’t bother me again” checkbox.
Microsoft is also working on making the transition easier with migration tools and a web site that tells visitors whether they are in fact running Windows XP. And they are encouraging tech-savvy people to assist friends and family with upgrading.
The Windows XP end-of-support site is a good starting point for anyone still running XP.
Adobe will no longer test Flash on Windows XP after the next quarterly update. You can continue to use Flash on Windows XP after that, but it will become increasingly risky, especially if it’s enabled in your web browser. This is yet another nail in the coffin for Windows XP.
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