Prepare!

Slashdot just linked to a Foreground Security article that describes an Adobe Flash attack from any domain that allows file uploads, and browsing of said content.

No patch from Adobe currently exists, and according to them:

"Unfortunately, there is no easy solution. This issue is very difficult to solve without also breaking existing, legitimate content elsewhere on the web."

Don't expect a fix from Adobe anytime soon.

Most frightening is the fact that the majority of Internet users have Adobe Flash installed and enabled -- which means all these users are vulnerable to this attack.

Ironically, the Foreground Security article includes a Flash tutorial video. Phishing anyone?

About the only mitigation factor is to disable Flash:

• If you use Opera, press [F12], uncheck "Enable plug-ins" -- until you actually need them.
  
• If you use Firefox, download and install the FlashBlock and NoScript extensions.
  
• Internet Explorer users should explore using Toggle Flash
  

Good luck.

Opera users that frequent Symantec.com may notice certain pages triggering an extremely high CPU usage for a short burst of time. For example:

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/threatcon/

A quick analysis of this CPU issue indicates that one JavaScript file is causing this mess:

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/omniture/20070301b/OmniScript.js

...most likely due to its inefficient use of deeply nested loops.

As a temporary work-around, you can simply block this script in Opera using the following pattern in the Block content dialog:

http://*.symantec.com/content/*/omniture/*/OmniScript.js

Reloading the example page above shows the high CPU is now gone -- and virtually no page functionality has been lost by blocking this external JavaScript.

Enjoy.

Ever wish Opera's mouse cursor behaved like Firefox's or MSIE's in web pages? You know, when you hover over text in a web page, the cursor actually changes to a meaningful text caret, rather than remaining a stupid old default NW mouse cursor.

Usability experts say that text carets (vertical mouse cursor) should be used as a visual feedback mechanism when underlying text can be selected. Plus, text carets do not obscure underlying text, like the default NW mouse cursor does. Personally, this is just one Opera pet peeve solved with User JavaScript.

So, with my latest UserJS script (shown below), now you too can have this 'smart' mouse cursor feature in Opera!

Keep in mind, this script is currently non-optimized for extremely large pages, or pages with poorly written HTML markup and/or scripts. Regardless, it does seem to work pretty well on most sites.

Download/view the textNodes.js script

document.addEventListener("load",
   function() {

      var body = document.getElementsByTagName("BODY");
      if (!body) return;

      var isIgnored = function(node) {
         var bad = /^(SCRIPT)|(STYLE)|(OPTION)|(TEXTAREA)|(INPUT)|(\#cdata\-section)|(\#comment)$/i;
         var result = false;
         while (node && !result) {
            result = (node.nodeName.match(bad) || 
                     ((node.nodeName == "A") && node.href));
            node = node.parentNode;
         }
         return result;
      }

      var nodeIterator = document.createNodeIterator( 
         body[0], 
         NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT, 
         { acceptNode : function (node) {
            return (/\S+/.test(node.data) && !isIgnored(node)) ?
               NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT:
               NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT;
           }
         }, 
         true
      );

      var a = new Array();
      var textNode;
      while ((textNode = nodeIterator.nextNode())) { 
         if (!textNode.parentNode.style) continue;
         if (textNode.parentNode.style.cursor != "") continue;
         if (textNode.parentNode.currentStyle.cursor != "default") continue;
         a.push(textNode);
      }

      if (!a.length) return;
      var ss = false;
      var sheet = null;
      for (var i = 0; i < document.styleSheets.length; i++) {
         sheet = document.styleSheets[i];
         ss = (!sheet.media || !sheet.media.length);
         if (ss) break;
         for (var j = 0, m; m = sheet.media[j]; j++) {
            ss = (m.match(/^(\*)|(all)|(screen)$/i));
            if (ss) break;
         }
      }

      if (ss) sheet.insertRule(
         "SPAN.crsrTxt { \
         font: inherit !important; \
         color: inherit !important; \
         background: none !important; \
         padding: 0 0 0 0 !important; \
         margin: 0 0 0 0 !important; \
         clear: none !important; \
         z-index: inherit !important; \
         float: none !important; \
         display: inline !important; \
         cursor: text !important; }", 0);

      while ((textNode = a.pop())) {
         var span = document.createElement("span");
         if (ss)   span.className = "crsrTxt";
         else {
            span.style.color = "inherit";
            span.style.background = "none";
            span.style.padding = "0 0 0 0";
            span.style.margin = "0 0 0 0";
            span.style.clear = "none";
            span.style.zIndex = "inherit";
            span.style.float = "none";
            span.style.display = "inline";
            span.style.cursor = "text";
         }
         textNode.parentNode.insertBefore(span, textNode);
         span.appendChild(textNode);
      }
   }, 0);

I'll keep this blog entry updated to reflect the most recent version of the script, so stay tuned.

Known issue:

• Script may not work on poorly coded HTML and JavaScript websites (foxnews.com)
  
• There's a known crash bug in Opera 9.20 when using this script on newegg.com
  

BTW, feedback is always appreciated.

Enjoy.

Mason C reported in the opera.general newsgroup on Jan 30, 2007 that TitanTV.com schedules could not be printed in Opera. After reviewing his claim, I confirmed it and wrote this UserJS script to work-around the problem:

Download/view the titantv.js script

if (document.domain.match(/^(www\.)?titantv\.com$/)) {
   document.addEventListener("load",
      function(e) {
         var inps = document.getElementsByTagName("input");
         for (var i = 0, o; o = inps[i]; i++) {
            if (o.type != "image") continue;
            if (o.getAttribute("alternate") != "Print") continue;
            o.onclick = "window.open(document.forms.Form1.__PrintUrl.value,'','');";
            break;
         }
      }, 0);
}

NOTE: Once the script is installed, reload the page, then click the blue [Print] button that appears on the upper-right corner of their TV schedule pages. Clicking [Print] will open a new pop-up window with a printer-friendly version of the page -- so be sure your Opera pop-up blocker is not set to "Block All". And as always with UserJS scripts, be sure JavaScript is enabled, and that you place the .js file in the correct UserJS folder.

For those of you who use TitanTV.com (very nice, btw, compared to TVGuide.com), and prefer to print-out hard-copies of their TV schedules...enjoy.

Yes, Yahoo! stinks when it comes to web coding. Simply right-click any of their pages in Opera, select "Validate", and then watch the markup errors pile-up.

Anyhow, this latest script fixes their NFL and NCAA football play by play display in Opera.

For example:

• NFL Play-by-play
  
• NCAA Football Play-by-play
  

yahooNFL.js

if (document.domain.match(/^sports\.yahoo\.com$/) && 
  window.location.href.match(/&page=plays/)) {
  document.addEventListener("load",
    function() {
      var yspMainContent = document.getElementById("yspMainContent");
      if (!yspMainContent) return;
      yspMainContent.innerHTML = yspMainContent.innerHTML.replace(/\<thead\>/gi, '<table width="560" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><thead>');
      yspMainContent.innerHTML = yspMainContent.innerHTML.replace(/\<\/tbody\>/gi, '</tbody></table>');
      }, 0);
}

To learn how to install this User JavaScript, visit UserJS.org

Enjoy.

I've updated my initial NetFlix UserJS script to version 2.0. This new version includes a fix for their shrinking form buttons. You can view or download the new version from here, or simply copy-and-paste the relevant code fix for the shrinking buttons here:

if (document && 
    document.domain && 
    document.domain.match(/^(www\.)?netflix\.com$/)) { 

  document.addEventListener("load", 
    function(e) { 
      var inps = document.getElementsByTagName("INPUT"); 
      for (var n = 0, i; i = inps[ n ]; n++) { 
        if (!i.onmouseover && !i.onmouseout) continue; 
 
        var cn = i.className; 
        if ((cn != "bsub_primary") && 
            (cn != "bsub_secondary")) continue; 
 
        i.className = ""; 
        i.style.width = "auto"; 
        i.className = cn; 
      } 
    }, false);

}

For my fellow NetFlix subscribers, enjoy!