One day back Mozilla has released Firefox 16 with new developer toolbar, memory improvements and it comes with fixing 14 security vulnerabilities found in Firefox 15. Shocking news announced by Mozilla director of security assurance in Security blog today that a security vulnerability has been found in Firefox 16 which could allow a malicious site to know which sites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters.
Firefox 16 removed from Firefox Download page
As a precautionary measure Mozilla pulled Firefox 16 download from its installer page and replaced it with Firefox 15 which not affected with this vulnerability.
Confusing solution offered by Mozilla
Mozilla doesn’t have any information whether the vulnerability is being exploited, Mozilla suggests users either to downgrade to Firefox 15.0.1 or wait for the patches which are auotiomticlly applies via update once issues.
Switch to Chrome till Firefox 16 patched by Mozilla
Firefox 15 has already 14 vulnerabilities which are addressed in Firefox 16 and downgrading to that version not safe either. And we don’t know how quickly Mozilla pushes the patch, since we don’t know severity of vulnerability, its better to not use Firefox 16 until its patched till then better make a switch to Chrome browser or other browser.
Which Firefox version are you using now?share with us in comments.