Brief Hands-On Reports: Software Updates this Week--Firefox 2.0.0.5, Skype 2.6.0.151 and Parallels Desktop for Mac 3.0 Build 4560

1. Firefox 2.0.0.5, Mozilla's cross-platform Web browser, is a security update available within the application's "Check for Updates" or as a stand-alone file from this Mozilla Web page. Here are the details:

MFSA 2007-25 XPCNativeWrapper pollution
MFSA 2007-24 Unauthorized access to wyciwyg:// documents
MFSA 2007-23 Remote code execution by launching Firefox from Internet Explorer
MFSA 2007-22 File type confusion due to %00 in name
MFSA 2007-21 Privilege escalation using an event handler attached to an element not in the document
MFSA 2007-20 Frame spoofing while window is loading
MFSA 2007-19 XSS using addEventListener and setTimeout
MFSA 2007-18 Crashes with evidence of memory corruption

We installed it via "Check for Updates" under the Help menu and noticed no problems during extensive Web browsing, including checking our bank accounts and various e-commerce Web sites.

2. Skype 2.6.0.151, the terrific internet telephony software, is available within the application's "Check for Update" selection or as a stand-alone file from this Skype Web page. The changes are:

• improvement: audio quality
  
• improvement: bandwidth management optimizations

Skype saves us literally hundreds of dollars per month on international long distance calls. So we downloaded and installed Skype 2.6.0.151 via Check for Update with no problems. We briefly tried the new version and did not encounter any issues.

3. Parallels for Desktop 3.0 Build 4560 is available within the application's "Check for Updates" or as a stand-alone file from this Parallels Web page.

We downloaded it via "Check for Updates" under the Help menu. First, we uninstalled Build 4128 and then installed Build 4560. To launch our Windows XP and Vista virtual machines, we had to restart our MacBook Pro and then we installed the updated Parallels Tools in each. Throughout extensive use we noted no problems.

[Bill Fox & Dana Baggett]