Mozilla stated that even though they support a more secure internet, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA, is too vast and based on its writings, implies alarming plans that go beyond security. The technology company wrote to Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg that the bill causes damage to their privacy and has ambiguous details regarding cybersecurity. Security is one thing but CISPA goes on to provide immunity to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse.

Mozilla is officially the first major tech company to openly speak against CISPA. The Bill passed in a 248-168 vote and the same day Microsoft came out with their statement that their support was declining and that any new legislation must permit them to honor privacy and security promises the company makes to the customer. Despite the statement, Microsoft has not withdrawn the support till now.

Other technology companies that are in favor of the bill are Oracle, Symantec, Verizon, AT&T, Intel, and trade association CTIA. The last one basically includes representatives of Sybase, Nokia, Qualcomm and T-Mobile. If put forward by the Senate, CISPA would not officially permit the NSA or Homeland Security any further surveillance power.

However it would still give rise to a new way of information sharing between companies and government agencies with restricted oversight and privacy safeguards.

Regarding the Senate, Mozilla said that they hope the Senate fully looks over and considers these issues with stakeholder input before going ahead with this novel piece of legislation. It is true that America is under a grave threat of cyber attack. It is also true that the attack isn’t merely from hackers inside the country but foreign cyber weapons such as those being billed by Russia and China are competing against those America has at the moment.

The basic reason for overall opposition is that the bill may use private information and won’t really know what to do with that information. There is also the talk about how many personal details should the government being looking out for and how much they would need. If there were to be a threat of cyber attack, there is a vast spectrum as to how the threat could be propagated.

Privacy is a major concern from a teenager wanting it from their parents to the citizens of a country demanding from its government. Parents have found ways to combat the demand for privacy by spyware applications which are now commonly installed in the phones of their kids. These apps from Mobistealth or Flexispy are being used to supervise kids and thus keep them safe and secure. But the point opposition is trying to make here is, that not everyone in America is a kid and not everyone is a risk to the cybersecurity.

Representative Jared Polis who is a Colorado Democrat and onetime Web entrepreneur stated that CISPA would basically waive off every privacy law ever taken out in the name of cybersecurity. He said that allowing the NSA and military to supervise on Americans on American land is basically going against every principle the country was established on.

The future of CISPA is now headed to the Senate where related cybersecurity legislation has been delayed for years. The Senate Majority leader stated that he wished to go ahead with this legislation in May. By the looks of opponents rallying and the degree of debate, the outlook is uncertain.

Now before you panic and uninstall FireFox, try uninstalling a few plugins.

This is directly from the help people at mozilla help..

To downgrade to Firefox 3.6 first uninstall Firefox 4, but do not select the option to “Remove my Firefox personal data”. If you select that option it will delete your bookmarks, passwords and other user data.

You can then install the latest version of Firefox 3.6 available from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html – it will automatically use your current bookmarks, passwords etc.

To avoid possible problems with downgrading, I recommend going to your profile folder and deleting the following files if they exist – extensions.cache, extensions.rdf, extensions.ini, extensions.sqlite and localstore.rdf. Deleting these files will force Firefox to rebuild the list of installed extensions, checking their compatibility, and reset toolbar customizations.

For details of how to find your profile folder see https://support.mozilla.com/kb/Profiles

I just noticed this today, which does not mean it has not been there.  On firefox, there is a new item that displays ‘meta’ and share information on the website you are on.  Also, when you click on the pull down bar; it gives you a list of (I guess) your most recent pages.  I have not looked into this in any real detail, although I did take a quick visit to Firefox and see if its somehow connected to the awesome bar, but i did not see anything..   Well, nothing jumped out at me.

So anyway, I’m sure everyone is seeing it about now, if not, then pull up FF and have a look.

Om Malik from GigaOm started a rumor (and I only say rumor to be safe) that Mozilla is planning something for the iphone. Now the first thought is; “Hey!  Firefox on the iphone! ” Yeah.  As sweet as that would be, and you bet it would be sweet because the browsing experience on the iphone could use an update, I don’t think  its going to happen.  We already know how protective Apple is about any functionality that comes close to what Apple considers ‘native’ functionality. So if there is not going to be a replacement for safari, then would could it be?  Well, what if it was an overlay of safari that brought Firefox functionality?  And what if that functionality was Weave and the AwesomeBar?  Sure, I can see that.  But lets go one step further. What if we had access to Xmarks? NOW were talking!  If Mozilla came out with just those 3 features; Weave, AwesomeBar and Xmarks, I would love it!  That still does not address other issues I have with the browser, like forcing a page refresh when I switch between pages, but I will call it an upgrade non the less.

Note: Does anyone out there know why sometime when switching between webpages on safari, it sometimes refreshes that page, and sometimes not?