Software-Programming

Mozilla has quietly released Firefox 4 in advance of an official announcement. The popular browser's fourth incarnation is available for download now in Linux, Mac OSX and Windows versions, a few weeks late for its planned February launch.

The downloads, which range from around 12MB for Linux and Windows up to a suspiciously bloated 26MB for the Mac version are well hidden within the Mozilla Foundation's web site with the main download page still defaulting to version 3.6.

Well it was a good start for the hackers in case of iOS 4.3 but not to the Apple officials who are working hard to out beat the hackers. It seems that a plan is ready for an untethered jailbreak, which is scheduled for release in the week to come.

A scraper is a program written to take content off of a webpage or other data source and turn it into some kind of usable format, usually an RSS feed or by entering it directly into a database. Designing a scraper can be tricky as each site is different, ScraperWiki aims to fix this by creating a repository of these scripts with a goal to ease the pain of designing them.

If you know how, it is possible within just a few mouse clicks to have free access to one of the world’s largest resources of free music. Millions of tracks are available for free streaming but, with a few tweaks and the right software, they can be easily downloaded. The industry, seemingly powerless to do anything about the powerful source of the music, prefers to destroy the toolmakers – by fair means or foul.

Google technologies are known for their extended beta test periods -- so much so that when the search giant actually ships a finished product it's front page news. But if beta represents the salad days for a Google project, its adult life can be considerably shorter and more brutal. Consider the fate of Google Gears. Launched just four years ago, Gears officially ground to a halt last week, soon to be replaced by equivalent technology from the HTML5 specification.

Mozilla's Firefox 4 is now officially expected to debut on Tuesday March 22, following hard on the heels of Google's Chrome 10 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9.

With so many new browser releases coming out in such rapid succession, it stands to reason that at least some users are going to need some help figuring out which now works best for them.

After 12 betas, one release candidate, and more than 10 months of work, Mozilla has determined that Firefox 4 is ready to join the competing high-wire acts of modernized browsers. The company has announced a release date of March 22. The current Firefox 4 release candidate is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

It's been about a year since we last updated our list of open source tools that can replace popular security software. This year's list includes many old favorites, but we also found some that we had previously overlooked.

In addition, we added a new category -- data loss prevention apps. With all the attention generated by the WikiLeaks scandal, more companies are investing in this type of software, and we found a couple of good open source options.

Barnes & Noble calls the NOOKcolor a $249 color eBook reader, but hackers have been doing their best to turn it into a full-fledged Android tablet since day one. Now they’re also working to turn it into a phone… of sorts.

Out of the box, the tablet supports WiFi, but not Bluetooth. But the latest build of the CyonagenMod 7 operating system for the NOOKcolor enables the dormant Bluetooth functionality of the tablet’s wireless chip. That means you can pair the tablet with a Bluetooth headset and listen to music — or make voice calls using Android’s SIP phone capabilities.

The newest upgrade for the Android mobile phone includes secure socket layer security, which might mean greater security for Facebook users.

We’re trying to determine whether this addition of SSL suffices as a way to prevent hackers from snooping activity on the device, including Facebook usage, via readily available freeware.