Opera Web Browser Version 10 »

Despite only having a 3 percent share of the web browser market, Opera remains undaunted by Internet Explorer and Firefox (60 percent and 30 percent respectively).

Opera Version 10 has been in Beta since June and now it is ready for prime time Internet Browsing. It boasts new technology called Opera Turbo and it is designed to speed up browsing experience for slower connections, up to 8 times faster according to Opera.

I like Opera, but must admit that it is not as easy for me to customize as Firefox, which is what I use 99% of the time. Opera is very popular in Europe and they also have a great mobile browser, Opera Mini. You can download Opera here and can download Opera Mini here. I really like Opera Mini.

Rockmelt: Yet Another Web Browser »

Just when you thought the web browser market was saturated, someone found a spot where another one could be squeezed in.

Make a little room between Google Chrome and Opera and you can shoehorn RockMelt into the mix. Yes, another way for people to view web pages and possibly another set of standards for which web designers have to prepare.

Rockmelt does have some pretty good backing, however. Do you remember the Netscape browser from the 1990s? The founder of that company, Marc Anderson, is a backer of Rockmelt.

Not much is known about Rockmelt at the moment and their website only has a spot where you can provide your email address to be sent more information. So we will have to wait and see.

At any rate, it faces a pretty packed market that already includes the likes of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and Flock and a few others.

Google Malware Warning System Glitch? »

Ok, maybe it was just me, but earlier today any search through Google displayed the malware warning below the returned result.

First, my wife and I were searching for Petsmart and my wife noticed this warning:

I thought that was odd, but large sites have been hacked before.  So maybe they were having some problems.  However, as we searched for other things, we saw that same warning below every listing in Google, no matter what the search phrase was.  We even searched for “google maps” through Google’s search and here is what we got:

If we attempted to click on any of the returned search results, including the one that would take us to google.com, we got this warning:

In the process of doing more troubleshooting, it seems that the glitch worked itself out.  I wonder if anyone else noticed these issues.  Shout back if you have a second.

I am guessing that the errors we saw were a result of one of these situations:

1 – Google Malware Reporting was experiencing some type of glitch and was erroneously flagging every site as potentially dangerous.

2 – I have gotten some type of virus that is somehow playing around with something hidden in someplace I have yet to discover.

3 – Every site on the Internet (including google.com) was briefly infected with some type of malware and Google was dutifully warning everyone.

Hmm.  Thinking.  Thinking.

I am hoping it was #1

States Taxing iTunes? »

Economically, things are tight everywhere you look these days and State budgets are feeling the pinch too.  This year, States have seen drastic reductions in collections from income tax (if a person’s income drops, so does their tax), sales tax (people are not buying as much) and property tax.

Well, the Governor of New York is proposing one measure that is sure to get music lovers up in arms: impose a state tax on iTunes and “digitally delivered entertainment services.” Awesome!

Governor Peterson’s proposal still needs the approval of New York State Legislators, but I am sure there are 49 other states paying close attention to the outcome of the iTunes tax bill (or iPod tax, as they are calling it).

So, your $0.99 music download might be going up to $1.06 .  If bills like that are passed, I bet there will be a marked increase in music and movie file sharing.

Koobface Virus Shows Up on Facebook »

Facebook has quickly become one of the most popular Social Networking websites around and that is something that virus writers, hackers and other bad guys have certainly noticed.

There have been reports of those wacky Nigerians hacking into Facebook accounts and impersonating the user to try to scam money from their friends and reports of a Facebook javascript bug.

Now, there are reports of a virus called Koobface in circulation on Facebook.  Here is how it works:

• A hacker infects a Facebook user’s PC
• The hacker then sends messages to the user’s Facebook friends.  The messages say something like “You look just awesome in this new movie” or something seemingly innocent like that.
• A link contained in the message sends the recipient to a website where they are prompted to download a supposed update of Adobe’s Flash Player, so they can “view the video”.
• If the recipient clicks the link, their PC is infected and the cycle continues.

The hackers are taking advantage of the climate of trust the exists on Facebook.  Friends feel that any message they receive from one of their friends on Facebook should be trusted because of the privacy features in place.  We tend to let our guard down and not think that our friend’s account could have been hacked or that a message we receive could contain a malicous virus like Koobface.