By Dan Goodin / 9th December 2011

Google Chrome offers more protection against online attacks than any other mainstream browser, according to an evaluation that compares exploit mitigations, malicious link detection, and other safety features offered in Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox.

The 102-page report, prepared by researchers from security firm Accuvant, started with the premise that buffer overflow bugs and other security vulnerabilities were inevitable in any complex piece of software.

Google Chrome and pre-installed web apps
2011-11-15 09:47 by Wladimir Palant via Planet Mozilla

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Google recently launched a redesigned version of its Web Store where one can install extensions and web apps. One particular feature caught my attention: it marks the extensions that you already have with a check mark.

Gaithersburg, MD, November 09, 2011 –(PR.com)– Raxco Software, the leader in system management utility software, announced today new pricing for its award-winning PerfectDisk defragger plus Raxco’s entire line of consumer products. The new pricing makes it easier for consumers to purchase a license model that exactly matches their requirements.

By Nick Peers

Think Portable Document Format, and you might be forgiven for thinking it’s a closed standard that requires you to install software from Adobe to both create and view PDFs. You’d be missing a trick if you did restrict yourself to Adobe software though, because there are many other PDF tools out there equally as capable, often cheaper and sometimes offer unique features of their own.

By Mike Wehner

Your webcam can be a powerful tool for communicating with loved ones or even having a conversation with a world-famous luminary. But when that power is put into someone else's hands, it can have dire consequences.

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LibreOffice Conference Announcements
October 14, 2011 - by italovignoli

During the LibreOffice Conference, The Document Foundation has announced:

• LibreOffice Online Prototype: you can watch a demo video at the following address: see code below
LibreOffice Online is based on GTK+ framework and HTML5's canvas, and has been developed by SUSE's Michael Meeks, built on GTK+ broadway from RedHat's Alex Laarson.

• LibreOffice port project to Android and iOS: based on the voluntary work of Tor Lillqvist, a SUSE finnish developer know for having ported GIMP to Windows. The LibreOffice Android and iOS port has the objective of bringing the office suite to iPads and Android tablets, and eventually smaller devices. The user interface work has yet to start in earnest but the bulk of the code is compiling.

Please note that these are not products available to end users, but advanced development projects which will become products sometimes in late 2012 or early 2013.

•500.000 desktops, mostly Windows, at several French Government entities switching from OpenOffice to LibreOffice (this increases the Windows installed base of LibreOffice by 5% in a single move)
• 800.000 USB keys with LibreOffice and other free software distributed to students of the Paris Region (Ile-de-France)
• Region Ile-de-France becoming a member of TDF Advisory Board

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The Document Foundation:
http://blog.documentfoundation.org/2011/10...-announcements/

LibreOffice:
http://www.libreoffice.org/

Copy & paste in browser address bar to access video demo:
http://people.gnome.org/~michael/data/2011-10-10-lool-demo.webm

Evidence is mounting that Amazon has larger ambitions for the web browser launching on its new Fire tablet

Christopher Mims

The powered-by-the-cloud Silk browser Amazon surprised users with yesterday, which will initially only be available on its Fire 7-inch tablet, will probably be coming to other platforms, though the evidence is still circumstantial.

The Silk browser is notable because it offloads much of the processing of web pages to Amazon's vast cloud infrastructure, to speed up the browsing experience. (The Opera browser has been doing this for years, but unfortunately for Opera, no one seems have noticed.)

Spotted here

By Ed Bott | September 30, 2011, 9:14am PDT

Summary: Hundreds of users on Google Chrome Help forum this morning reported that Microsoft security products were identifying Chrome as a password-stealing Trojan and removing it. Update: Microsoft acknowledged the issue, posted a fix.

Adobe's launching Flash Player 11, Air 3 bringing HD video and 3D gaming to all

By Richard Lawler - Sep 21st 2011

While we've had access to Adobe's Flash Player 11 in beta form for months, the company announced it will finally get official, along with Air 3, next month. Among the many new features included are support for accelerated 2D and 3D graphics with a claimed 1,000 times faster performance than Flash Player 10 and Air 2.

That's enough to enable "console-quality" gaming on both computers and connected TVs and on mobile devices (Android, iOS, Playbook) with a pre-release version of Flash 11 (a production release you can take on the go is expected in "the near future").

Other new options include allowing developers to package Air 3 along with their apps in a single install, HD video quality on multiple platforms including iOS, DRM for video rentals, 64-bit support and more.

Spotted here

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7th Year of Google Summer of Code comes to an end
Thursday, September 8, 2011 | 10:39 AM

We are pleased to announce the end of another successful Google Summer of Code, our program designed to introduce university students from around the world to open source development.

Back in late May, 1,115 university students from 68 countries began writing code for 175 open source organizations with the help of over 2000 mentors from 55 countries.

Adobe Reader Blog: Adobe Reader and Acrobat Version 8 End of Support
September 8, 2011

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As stated in the Adobe Support Lifecycle Policy, Adobe provides five years of product support from the general availability date of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat (Windows and Macintosh – Note: Adobe only supports the most recent major version of Adobe Reader for Linux Version 9.x).

In line with that policy, support for Adobe Reader 8.x and Adobe Acrobat 8.x will end on November 3, 2011.

'You need my stuff, don't listen to them,' shouts man
By: Chris Mellor

Posted in Storage, 14th July 2011 06:30 GMT

Defrag software supplier Diskeeper has denounced HP for failing to mention fragmentation issues.

Mandeep Birdi, a technical presales consultant at Diskeeper Corp Europe, said: "It's unfortunately becoming a little too common for me to hear from many customers who are adding SANs to their network estate, that their SAN vendor has either told them not to worry about fragmentation, or didn't even mention it as a possible problem."

That did not endear him to HP, which was keen to correct any misapprehensions.
FULL STORY: »www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/14/diskeeper/

By Brennon Slattery, PCWorld Jul 12, 2011 8:54 AM


Spotify, the music streaming service that everybody's been talking about, is finally prepared for its launch in the United States and may arrive as soon as this week, according to multiple sources. Spotify's website has a splashy announcement declaring it "will soon be landing on US shores." There's also a spot for users hoping for an invite to enter their e-mail address.

The developers of Tux Paint, the award-winning open source drawing application for children, are happy to announce the 2011 Tux Paint Summer Drawing Contest, sponsored and judged by Worldlabel.com.

Open to any child aged 3 to 12, the contest is a chance to win one of three OLPC XO-1 subnotebook computers, a USB-bootable version of the XO-1's "Sugar" environment ("Sugar-on-a-stick"), or a Tux Paint t-shirt.

First TDF Advisory Board members demonstrate wide corporate support for LibreOffice
by Florian Effenberger - June 15, 2011 @ 08:58

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Strong backing for a truly free and vendor-neutral office suite.
The Document Foundation provides solid grounds to build upon.

The Document Foundation today announced the first members of its Advisory Board: Google, SUSE, Red Hat, Freies Office Deutschland e.V., Software in the Public Interest, and the Free Software Foundation.

This month Sourceforge is featuring TuxPaint and Project Developer Bill Kendrick, for its "Project of the Month"

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, preschool and K-6). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.

T-Tools AntiSeptic is a little program (non-install .exe) to remove every last trace of those toolbars/add-ons that come bundled with software and may have slipped past your attention during the installation routine or installed despite declining same.

At present it will remove these toolbar addons:
• Ask Toolbar
• AIM Toolbar
• DVDVideoSoft Toolbar
• Yahoo! Toolbar
• MsgPlus! Toolbar
• Norton Security Scan
• Deamon Tools Toolbar
• xp-AntiSpy Support
• Web Security Guard
• Skype Toolbar
• SweetIM
...more to be be added in future.

T-Tools' Antiseptic is a joint effort of Thomas Hoen (Programmer), and Fred de Vries (Original idea) (aka Fred @ RaProducts)

System requirements: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / .NET Framework 3.5

Download @ »www.t-tools.nl/antisepticen.php

The Web Atom and RaProducts today announced that they have entered into an agreement under which The Web Atom will acquire JavaRa.

The acquisition will ensure the further development of JavaRa as an open source project.

Sad news today for anyone who has used Karen Kenworthy's Power Tools software over the years. Karen passed away earlier this month.