Mozilla Firefox has—barely—dipped below 20 percent market share for the second time in six months, after an October that saw Microsoft Internet Explorer grow, Google Chrome fall, and mobile browsing account for 10 percent of all Web traffic for the first time ever.
VUPEN says in a Twitter post that they have found a way around the security features for both Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10. It is now selling that information to any companies or governments willing to pay lots of money to protect their Windows 8 systems.
In Windows 8 and Windows RT, Microsoft is aiming for a pleasant out-of-the-box experience. There's an app store for filling in gaps and adding functionality that isn't provided up front, but the core apps to power your communications with friends and colleagues come bundled with the operating system. There is Mail, Messaging, Calendar, and an innovative “People” app that brings all your contacts from various sources together into one central, interactive hub.
I was watching the San Francisco Giants bring art and joy to Detroit's huddled masses last night, when Microsoft ran an ad before my eyes.
It showed, well, people touching the screens of their laptops and drawing strange circles and lines all over what seemed like family pictures.
Windows 8's most obvious—and most divisive—new feature is its user interface. However, it would be a mistake to think that the user interface is the only thing that's new in Windows 8: there's a lot that's changed behind the scenes, too.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have remedied a cryptographic weakness in their email systems that could allow an attacker to create a spoofed message that passes a mathematical security verification.
The weakness affects DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, a security system used by major email senders. DKIM wraps a cryptographic signature around an email that verifies the domain name through which the message was sent, which helps more easily filter out spoofed messages from legitimate ones.
In a break with traditional release schedules, Microsoft will probably not issue a second Windows 7 Service Pack, according to The Register. The Service Pack bundles the company's monthly updates and also usually provides additional security and performance updates. It's meant to help IT managers (and many home consumers as well) install fixes in one fell swoop, without having to keep tabs manually on monthly updates.
Andrey Sabelnikov, a Russian software programmer named in January as a defendant in the Kelihos botnet case, has reached a confidential settlement with Microsoft -- a development that effectively closes the case.
Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel for Microsoft's digital crimes unit, announced the news Friday on the company's TechNet blog, where a joint statement with Sabelnikov said the programmer was “not the operator of the botnet or involved in its activities,” although he did write code for the large network of compromised PCs.
With the debut of Windows Phone 8 a little more than a week away, Best Buy has begun taking pre-orders for Nokia's and HTC's flagship smartphones running Microsoft's new mobile operating system.
The electronics retailer's Web site now lists the Lumia 920 for $149.99 with a two-year commitment and off-contract at $599.99. It also lists the HTC 8X for $99.99 with contract and $599.99 without contract.
Microsoft is prepping seven patches for release as part of next week's monthly security update.
Just one of the seven bulletins is labeled "critical" and it addresses vulnerabilities in all versions of Word, the software giant announced Thursday. The remaining patches are designated as "important," and fix flaws in Windows, Office and SQL Server.
