There was a “clerical error” by Mozilla Corporation, which omitted one of the security patched that was going to be included in the Windows version of Tuesday’s Firefox 2.0.0.19 release.

Firefox 2 Patch

Mike Beltzner, Director of the Firefox: “We don’t think that there is any risk to users right now”. Declining to pin point the missing patch, Beltzner only told - it was of one of the 10 patches those were included in the update that prevented the attackers from taking advantage of the snafu. He also said: “The error is not one of the severe vulnerabilities and there are no known reasons for it”.

Mozilla will release the Firefox 2.0.0.20 including the omitted patch may be by Friday, but no later than Monday.

It has also come to notice that only Windows version was affected by the mistake and the Mac & Linux editions still contain all 10 fixes.

The Firefox 2.0.0.19 was supposed to have five critical patches: “critical,” one “high,” two “moderate” and two “low” in its four-step scoring system. It is said that attackers could steal the information from a user while browsing by using one of the four in the two less-severe categories and the most serious ones.

Mozilla had plans to officially retire the older browser this Tuesday, but now the plan has been delayed till the Version 2.0.0.20 is available. The company has been urging users to upgrade to Firefox 3.0 that was launched last June and has also offered Firefox 2.0 users an update twice. The most recent update was offered two weeks ago. Mozilla expected that around 2 million users will accept the second upgrade this Wednesday. The company has plans to offer the final up-gradation option early next month.

After the Mozilla wraps up the testing, it will post Firefox 2.0.0.20 on its website for a download. Users can retrieve the data either by Firefox’s built-in updater, or they have to wait for the automatic update notification to come.

Mozilla is not the only software maker in the list, who had to re-issue an update. Microsoft also re-released a patch for Windows XP’s implementation of Bluetooth last June. And it was Apple Inc. in September, who released iTunes 8.0 again, after a buggy driver crashed the Window Vista PCs.