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Face it, the Windows XP code is reliable, practical, useful, secure and cost-effective. Most people, especially those in the business sector, simply don’t see the need to upgrade to Windows Vista. It’s no news that Windows XP Service Pack 3 is coming out soon. However, Microsoft may not have considered the effect XP SP3 may have on Vista sales. If a lot of users adopt XP SP3, they may be even less tempted to move on to Windows Vista, which is ultimately what Microsoft would like their customers to do. However, Microsoft may find that XP SP3 doesn’t have any effect on Vista sales at all. After all, those who want Windows Vista will upgrade to Windows Vista, no matter what XP offers. Those who want to stick with XP will stick with XP, and may not even upgrade to the latest service pack.

Mozilla’s Firefox internet browser has gained another stage, reaching Beta 3 phase. This is the eleventh developer milestone focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Please note that this donwload is not recommend to anyone other than developers and testers. Although Firefox 3 Beta 3 is now widely available in more than 30 languages, it is intended for testing purposes only. Proceed here to download the desired Firefox 3 Beta 3.

Whilst Microsoft is in the middle of what The Inquirer calls a “hostile takeover” of Yahoo, Yahoo decided to buy a company of their own. Maven Networks recently accepted a $160 million offer to be bought out by Yahoo. It is very likely that this move was to increase the value of Yahoo. It should be noted that Yahoo was in talks with Maven long before the whole Microsoft-buying-Yahoo debacle. As part of the acquisition, Yahoo gets some fine deals with CBS Sports, Gannett, News Corp, Hearst and Sony Pictures. Yahoo will not lay off any of Maven’s 70 employees, despite laying off nearly 1,000 of their own. Another large benefit to Yahoo acquiring Maven will be the sudden boost of places where Yahoo can shove their advertisements, further increasing revenue. Whether or not this is enough to fend off the “hostile takeover”, we’ll have to wait and see.

It would appear that running any of 600 add-ons in Mozilla Firefox opens up a terrible hole. When exploited, this hole allows a hacker to steal “session information, including session cookies and session history”. Mozilla promises a fix by February 5th, with the release of Firefox version 2.0.0.12. While Mozilla classifies this threat as a “high risk”, there is some controversy in the hacker world as to how bad this threat really is. According to a hacker, via “hiredhacker.com”, this isn’t as big a problem as people have made it out to be. However, it is certainly more serious than “leaking a few variables”, and should definitely be patched as soon as possible.

Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit today announced the official availability of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac at the Macworld Conference & Expo 2008. Office 2008 for Mac is significantly enhanced to provide a simplified user experience that helps beginners and longtime experts alike deliver professional documents that are compatible for co-workers and friends on Macs and PCs. The suite provides the Office tools Mac users rely on, with a Mac-like approach and style. In addition to Office 2008, the Mac BU Web site, Mactopia (http://www.microsoft.com/mac), features a dramatic transformation to provide an even more resourceful hub for all things Mac BU.

Microsoft Corp. will change how users activate Windows XP when Service Pack 3 launches in the first half of 2008, a company white paper said. New installations of Windows XP SP3 will give users the same 30-day grace period currently offered to Windows Vista customers before they’re required to enter a product activation key, the 25-character code that proves the copy is legitimate. “As in Windows Server 2003 SP2 and Windows Vista, users can now complete operating system installation without providing a product key during a full, integrated installation of Windows XP SP3,” the Microsoft paper stated. “The operating system will prompt the user for a product key later as part of Genuine Advantage.” With earlier editions of Windows XP, users must enter the activation key during the installation process itself; failing to do so, or using an invalid key, would result in the installation being blocked. The white paper, however, noted that the change does not apply to existing Windows XP installations upgraded to SP3. Those copies, which have presumably passed the activation stage previously, will not request the key again, Microsoft said.

Source: Computerworld

HP has fixed flaws in a patch-management program bundled with its computers, printers and other hardware that could be used by hackers to ‘brick’ HP or Compaq PCs. In an alert sent to customers who subscribe to its security warning service, HP said users should run Software Update to patch the flaws disclosed last week by a Polish researcher known only by his alias, ‘porkythepig’. A pair of bugs in the update service’s ActiveX control can be used to execute remote code or gain additional access rights, porkythepig said then. He also posted proof-of-concept exploit code that showed how to use one of the vulnerabilities to overwrite and corrupt crucial Windows’ system files, an attack that would leave any affected PC unbootable. That would essentially ‘brick’ the system, since many HP and Compaq PCs do not include a restore CD or DVD, but instead place operating system and application restore files on the hard drive. HP’s advisory on Friday instructed users to run Software Update on any machine that has the application, even if the update service is never used. Running Update presumably disables the flawed ActiveX control by fixing the Windows registry.

Source: PC Advisor

Mozilla, developer of the popular Firefox web browser, have launched a new related service, Weave. Currently available only as a test version associated with the latest Firefox 3 beta, it should allow users to carry history and bookmarks from one computer to another, as well as share the information with select friends and family; users need only to create a Weave account and download the add-on. To prevent the natural threat of privacy invasion, Weave accounts are password-protected, and encrypted. Weave will run on Windows and Linux systems as well as Macs.

Source: Electronista

Opera Software has updated its web browser, taking it to version 9.25. The changes from the last release (9.24) are as follows:

• Fixed an issue where plug-ins could be used to allow cross domain scripting, as reported by David Bloom.
• Fixed an issue with TLS certificates that could be used to execute arbitrary code, as reported by Alexander Klink (Cynops GmbH).
• Rich text editing can no longer be used to allow cross domain scripting, as reported by David Bloom.
• Prevented bitmaps from revealing random data from memory, as reported by Gynvael Coldwind.
• Fixed a problem where malformed BMP files could cause Opera to temporarily freeze.

You can download the browser from here.

Apple has shipped a major Security Update 2007-009 (10.4.11 Universal), recommended for all Mac OS X v10.4.11 and Mac OS X v10.5.1 users. This update corrects multiple critical flaws and improves the security of many Mac OS apps. Those wanting to know more about the updates may click here.