Use Anything But Ineternet Explorer German Government Says

From an article posted on BBC News site "The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security.

The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems."

Microsoft has downplayed the risk saying that the attacks were not directed at the general public and that the holes could be filled by using the browsers' increased security setting.

Graham Cluley of anti-virus firm Sophos, told the BBC that the warning applies to IE 6, 7 and 8.

"This is a vulnerability that was announced in the last couple of days. Microsoft have no patch yet and the implication is that this is the same one that exploited on the attacks on Google earlier this week," he said.

Computer expert Alan Stevens says "It's like having a window left open in your house"

"The way to exploit this flaw has now appeared on the internet, so it is quite possible that everyone is now going to have a go."

Netscape Navigator comes to an end

The BBC News is reporting that AOL will cease support of Netscape Navigator as of February 1, 2008. The browser once owned 90% of the web market, but numbers have dropped to just 0.6% in recent polls. "While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer," said Tom Drapeau on the company's blog. It was certainly my choice of browser when I first found my way onto the net, but I abandoned it for Internet Explorer myself, only to abandon IE for Firefox.

Hackers go large scale to hijack search results and take over machines

An attempt by hijackers to manipulate search results and steer searchers to sites containing malicious code bent on exploiting an Internet Explorer flaw has apparently been thwarted. The BBC is reporting that the large scale attack, which involved tens of thousands of domains being set up to convince search index software they were serious sources of information, and was likely the works of Russian hackers (pure speculation). The domain names were registered in China and the sites hosted in the US, but were apparently only live for a couple of days before Google started to strip them from search results. Why can't we all just use Firefox?

Safari for Windows users

Yesterday I attempted to post via our new psp, today I'm using the beta release of Apple's Safari 3 browser on my Windows PC! I abandoned the notion of using Internet Explorer a long while ago and have been a very satisfied Firefox user ever since, but when I read of the release of Safari on Windows my curiosity got the better of me. My experience with Safari has been limited to only a few moments so far and this is by no means an extensive review of the software but I do have a couple of observations. Firstly, the download (8MB) was quick and the install painless. The interface strikes me as sleek but simple, it's humble greys highlight the web page being viewed rather than screaming for attention, nice! Apple claims that Safari is quicker to launch, renders html more quickly and executes javascript faster, and while I have not performed any bench marks, it feels at least as snappy as Firefox. Alas my first bug, the "Save Now" button in blogger does not appear to be activated upon clicking on it! I'll give Safari another try but I guess it's back to Firefox to finish this post.