AOL accidentally releases members Web search information

America Online said it mistakenly released data about the search habits of more than 650,000 of its members. The good news is that the AOL users weren't personally identified in the data but the bad news is that they were tracked by anonymous user-ID numbers which could allow anyyone from law enforcement to identity thieves to analyze an individual's searches to get data such as names, addresses and other information that could provide hints to the users identities.

AOL researchers posted the data, which detailed more than 20 million queries made by users without authorization to a new AOL research Web site.

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Google helps to protect you from unsafe websites

Google has started to warn users if they are about to visit a webpage that could cause harm to their computer. A warning will pop up if you click on a link for page known to host spyware or other malicious programs.

The Stop Badware coalition identifies harmful sites which will be used by Google to give its warnings.

Users will not be stopped from going to these potentially harmful sites but will only be warned.

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Firefox Gaining Ground on Internet Explorer

Mozilla's Firefox web browser is increasingly gaining ground and stealing away market share from Microsoft's widely used Internet Explorer browser which comes included with Windows claiming an 11% market share.

Firefox's market share in July is 1.8 percent higher than its market share in January while Microsoft lost 1.7 percent of the market during the same timeframe.

Mozilla announced on Monday that its Firefox browser has been downloaded more than 200 million times.

Microsoft is currently working away on its upcoming browser, Internet Explorer 7. Its official release is expected before the end of the year.

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House of Representatives Fails at Internet Safety

The House of Representatives passed some Internet safety legislation that could actually make the Internet a more dangerous place for children and teens instead of helping them.

The Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) deletes the ability of schools and libraries to determine whether kids can constructively take advantage of social networking and other interactive services that are extremely popular among teens rather than "deleting" online predators.

The bill requires recipients of universal service support for schools and libraries to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms. This in turn could force school and library officials to ban a wide range of sites, including Amazon.com and many news sites that allow for user feedback and interaction.

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Upgrading to Windows Vista may not be that easy

If you are planning on upgrading to Vista you will need to make sure it is possible first. Only certain versions of Windows can be upgraded and then you may not be able to upgrade to the version of Vista you want even if you can upgrade.

For example, Windows 2000 can't be upgraded at all and Windows XP Professional can be upgraded only to the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista.

Many people will be stuck formatting their systems in order to upgrade to Windows Vista and that’s assuming you can meet the hardware requirements. Microsoft is providing a beta version of its Upgrade Advisor tool that will evaluate whether your computer can run Windows Vista.

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Verizon prepares for its next generation of broadband

Verizon is taking steps to upgrade its network to the next generation of technology called gigabit passive optical network (GPON), which will quadruple the amount of bandwidth capacity available to homes.


This technology lets multiple homes or businesses in a neighborhood share fiber from a service provider's central office.

GPON allows Verizon to split 2.4Gbps of bandwidth downstream and 1.2Gbps of capacity upstream among 32 homes or busines eventually offering consumers up to 100Mbps downloas.

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Microsoft tries to compete with iPod with their Zune Player

Microsoft's new Zune brand will deliver a family of hardware and software products to consumers.

The player will have Wi-Fi capabilities and use a hard drive to store music and may use wireless connectivity to share music with other Zune devices.

Until now Microsoft has largely relied on partners to make the players and software that use its Windows Media digital rights technology and tie into the Windows Media Player software built into its Windows operating system.

Apple has maintained a dominant share of both the music player and downloadable music businesses, selling more than 58 million iPods and more than a billion songs.

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Myspace spyware infection

MySpace users who clicked on an ad for DeckOutYourDeck.com got a nasty surprize when the ad installed a file called exp.wmf which could install up to five adware programs.

Any user that was browsing with Internet Explorer and had not installed the latest Microsoft patches was vulnerable to this attack.

The ad was posted on MySpace, Webshots, and maybe Facebook, potentially installing the spyware on 1.07 million computers.

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