Download Opera Offline Installer

As more and more of the installers, especially for browsers, goes online, their installers had became smaller and smaller. In fact, most of these installers pulls the actual installation right from the Internet during installation. What you actually download is nothing more than a downloader.

So today, let's visit Opera. The default installer is the one you get when you click the big Blue button in the above screen. But however, do you see a smaller line of text just below it? Yes, that is the link to the Offline Installer. This is very useful when you are in an environment with funky proxy (that doesn't really work) or without Internet. You Opera can still be updated using a Thumbdrive or something along that line.

Grab Opera (both online and offline installer) at:
http://www.opera.com/computer
Or just grab the Offline Installer here:
http://www.opera.com/download/get/?partner=www&opsys=Windows

Install Chrome Offline

Ever had a problem trying to install Chrome on a new PC which does not have Internet set up yet? Or trapped in a client site with limited access?

The first question most people asked is : Is there even such a thing as a Offline Installer for Chrome.
Well, apparantly there is:
https://support.google.com/installer/answer/126299?hl=en

You will need to choose the one which suits you. I think the main differences is where Chrome is installed. So for most users, you would want to choose to install only for yourself, while Integrators will want to install for everyone using that PC or laptop.

Grab your Offline Chrome today!

• For 1 account only
• For everyone on the machine

Mozilla - Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey all re-patched AGAIN

The reason why I gave up on Mozilla is really because its unsafe. Such poor poor patching and testing... Within 2 days of release, we get yet another important update. And this actually address multiple vulnerabilities, so it is not optional.

Category: Widely Deployed Software
Affected:

• Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.6.14
• Mozilla Firefox prior to 3.5.17
• Mozilla Thunderbird prior to 3.1.8
• Mozilla SeaMonkey prior to 2.0.12

Firefox and Thunderbird Update

There is yet another update from Firefox and Thunderbird silently being released. I did not get a update prompt on both the applications. That bring their versions up to :

• Thunderbird 3.1.5
• Firefox 3.6.11

Honestly, I had lost faith in these applications. I had already made decision to ban them from my home network because of security issues. It is just not sustainable to keep manually updating them and the windows between release and actual updating can be quite large because now I do not even get a proper prompt to update. The only worries will be having Firefox on the server... That is a real issue because I do not think people will wake up middle of the night to upgrade your server... So that gives at least 12 hours or so. 

Why can't Firefox just do a force upgrade like Chrome?

Skyfire 1.x Sucks, but so does 2.x

Skyfire is a browser. See the site above, there is 2 things to note. Officially,
http://www.skyfire.com/focus-geography-and-skyfire-1-0/

1. Skyfire 1.x does not run on other regions except north USA and western Europe, which about leaves the whole world out...
2. Skyfire 2.x is only for Android.

This almost sound like a conspiracy. Suppose Google sponsored this and wants to force everyone into using Android, this certainly fits the bill. While Skyfire has its glorious days, I think with this move, it will begin its path into the history just like Netscape... By forcing people into a certain OS is definitely the way to do this. That leaves out the Symbian, windows mobile and AppleOS users, which I dare say takes the majority of the market.

Anyway, I was at first keen to look out for a way to hack out of this using 1.x on my wm6.5, but why not just let it go... After all, there are plenty of choices for the wm6.5 users from IE, Opera to the infamous porn browsers. Skyfire is a good to have, but not dying to have. 

And why doesn't Skyfire support area such as china, japan or eastern Europe? It sound like a lazy way to say "Sorry, English only". If they leave these region out, they can heck away with the language support. This does sound logical?

BTW, if you are on Android, do you really want to use Skyfire? 

Firefox and Opera new release to fix issues

Firefox 3.6.2 had been silently released. Some users may actually see a prompt stating that a critical update is available, but unable to download. This is referring to the Firefox 3.6.2 update which address some very critical vulnerabilities. I had not be able to find the exact update file online, but what you can do is to simply go to the download page for Firefox and download 3.6 again. After installation, you will notice that it is now 3.6.2.

On the other hand, Opera has also release 10.51 which address 2 of the high risk vulnerabilities. This should automatically be updated.