Mozilla Disabled Firefox 16 Download For Security Vulnerability: The Mozilla Foundation has decided to disable the download of version 16 of its Firefox web browser temporarily. The reason was that the team has found a security flaw in this version which allows hackers to see what websites users have visited. The team says it is working on this vulnerability and will soon be available again.
The latest version of the Mozilla browser, Firefox, is temporarily unavailable. Mozilla recommends that users who have upgraded to version 16 the uninstall and install the previous version until Firefox developers publish the revised version.
“As a precaution, users can revert to Version 15.0.1. Alternatively, users can wait until our patches are released and automatically applied to address vulnerability,” says Mozilla security chief Michael Coates, on the official blog.
So far, the foundation has ensured that only affected a “limited users” and that this vulnerability allows a malicious site “determine what websites users have visited and access URL parameters”.
Firefox is one of the three major web browsers, with over 450 million users worldwide, according to the Mozilla team. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Google Chrome are its main competitors. In recent months, several studies claimed that Chrome had overtaken Firefox in the market, pushing the flagship product of the Mozilla Foundation to third place in the ranking of the most popular browsers.
Update (Oct 11, 2012) via Firefox Blog
An update to Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux was released at 12pm PT on Oct 11. Users will be automatically updated and new downloads via http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ will receive the updated version.
For more Updates Visit Official Firefox Blog