The makers of the Opera Web browser are urging users to apply an update that fixes what the company described as an “extremely severe” security flaw in Windows and Mac versions of the software. The vulnerability is fixed in the latest version, v. 10.53, available from this link. Alternatively, Opera users can click “Help” then “Check for Updates” from within the browser.
Opera Plugs ‘Extremely Severe’ Security Hole
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One can also toggle Opera’s settings under “Preferences” to have it automatically check for updates whenever it’s launched (pretty certain that’s the default setting) — that’s how I learned several days ago about the 2nd update released within the past week.
Thank you Brian. I have posted this on my blog at http://dragonnefyre.wordpress.com, in case any of my friends read it. I use Opera but I wait until the releases come out rather than downloading from their website and upgrading. I run Linux so it looks like I am not affected:-)
Opera are to be congratulated on the alacrity with which they patched this vulnerability. Users of Windows machines might find it interesting to note that Symantec found Opera the safest browser in 2009, both for having the least number of vulnerabilities of the major browsers and for patching them more quickly. The report can be accessed from this Opera page (http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ecdsya )….
Henri
That ‘advisory’ of theirs doesn’t say much. There’s no CVE either. FD might have something? Anybody know?
M Henri Day wrote: ” Users of Windows machines might find it interesting to note that Symantec found Opera the safest browser in 2009, both for having the least number of vulnerabilities of the major browsers and for patching them more quickly ”
This article was written by Brian Krebs :
“Safari, Opera Users Lag Behind in Security Updates”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/safari_opera_users_lag_behind.html
” Only 24 percent of Opera users were browsing with the latest version three weeks after a new release, the researchers found. Opera’s update mechanism has long been the most laborious of the browsers, requiring users to download a new installer program from the Opera Web site with each new version. ”
One would hope that Opera Users are now updating what Symantec found as the “safest browser in 2009 ” these days despite the fact they were not according to the article Brian wrote in May of 2009.
Well, if they’ve updated to Opera 10 (released in September of ’09), they now have an auto-update functionality that didn’t exist when Brian wrote that article in May ’09. It can actually be set to auto-update just like Google’s Chrome.
“Automatically install updates without notification from now on”
http://help.opera.com/Windows/10.52/en/autoupdate.html
Opera has been my preferred browser for a decade, first on Windows, now on Mac. Unfortunately for Mac users this update breaks the browser.
For full details see;
– Opera browser
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=26
– Opera for Mac
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/forum.dml?id=4
As a stopgap measure I have reverted to version 10.1, downloaded from
http://www.opera.com/browser/download/?os=mac&list=all
With respect to, “Unfortunately for Mac users this update breaks the browser.”, Opera also can and will break some older Adobe applications, from CS2 and CS3. I understand Adobe uses some of Operas libraries and when those libraries are changed by Opera the Adobe application won’t load. I’ve seen these with several of my older Adobe applications I still use. Once I uninstalled Opera, everything was fine and I’ve never installed it since. And Adobe never updates the applications to accomodate the changes in Opera.