A partner of Paypal had a small sample of Paypal’s user e-mail addresses stolen from their database. The addresses were for use in surveys and there is concern that this may lead to future phishing attacks. That’s the problem with relationships, be they business or otherwise. When you trust someone, you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to trust everyone that they do. Read more about the stolen e-mails at Eweek.

Google has apparently hired one of Firefox’s top programmers. He will apparently keep working on Firefox for Google. Google have also registered gbrowser.com and have sponsored Mozilla dev conferences and allowed Mozilla to have their own custom Google Firefox homepage. Does this mean we will soon be seeing a Google web browser? Time will tell, but if we do, it will most likely be similar to what Netscape does with the full Mozilla suite, change the logo, add some links, and AOL stuff and send it out as “Netscape”. In Google’s case, we will probably see a Firefox version of the Google toolbar and possibly their desktop search software. This is probably good news, having Google’s name attached can only be a good thing for boosting Firefox usage, and for Google they get to be the default homepage and search engine in a web browser. (just like MSN is in Internet Explorer). Learn more at CNET.
Update:
It has just come out that Google have employed another of Firefox’s programming guns. Darin Fischer recently announced his new employment in his blog here. Like Ben, he will continuing his involvement with Firefox.

Here at htmlfixit.com we follow many sites using RSS. It allows us to follow and track things without needing to navigate numerous sites in a day in our effort to stay abreast (random link spurred by that word) of the news. Counting hits generated by RSS syndication is a tricky thing. Many sites have taken to using a query string in the url to try to track hits generated from RSS followers, for example this one: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66374,00.html?tw=rss.TOP. Notice the tail end of that … “tw-rss.TOP”. The URL works the same with or without that string. The problem with that type of query string tracking is that it alters the actual URL, so if I copy the URL, press it to my blog-roll, or forward it to a friend, you will get all of these secondary hits shown as coming from the RSS. Of course that is what originated the hit, but it is not what caused the hit. It may cause you to figure more people are following RSS than are really doing so.

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Wired have an article here which details recent polling to suggest that although many adults consider themselves competent web browsers, they more often then not cannot tell the difference between paid inclusion ads and free content in search engines. Apparently only 38% of people were able to distinguish between paid and free listings. Information worth remembering if you are ever considering trying paid results. It would seem that not that many people notice when a result is a different colour to the rest and has “sponsored site” along the top. Makes you wonder why we bother making catchy looking sites.

Franki and I try a lot of software and install and uninstall things regularly on our Windows O/S Machines (Franki: hey! I dual boot OK.). One of the problems is that over time they tend to slow down. Today we happened onto a great system optimization tool and registry cleaner that meets our criteria for great software: (more…)

FTP is not something I do much of any more, I’ve swapped all my systems over to SSH due to the un-encrypted nature of normal FTP. (With FTP you are sending your username and password as plain text every time you connect.) But quite often I find myself needing to use FTP to help a client with an script install or something of that nature, so I always make sure I have a suitable FTP client handy. Previously I was using SmartFTP which is a pretty good free FTP client that does all the usual things just fine and so I hadn’t been actively looking for an alternative. Then I discovered though a client that SmartFTP has some issues running on Win98 systems, and so I stopped recommending it to clients and friends. Not only that, but generally I prefer to recommend Open Source applications where possible because I never really know what’s inside closed source applications be they free or otherwise. Then I discovered FireFTP.

FireFTP is a browser extension for the Firefox web browser, possibly the most featured, secure and easy to use web browser available. If you use Firefox already, then all you need to do, is head over to the FireFTP page, click on the “install” link and then follow the prompts.

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Microsoft recently released beta versions of anti-virus and anti-spyware software. We debated a story on it, but decided not to run it because we didn’t know enough about it. There is great concern that MS intends to get people reliant on it and then start charging for it. Why the concern? Just choose another vendor if you wish like Clamwin or AVG (see our sidebar). One of the biggest dings on the beta versions reported elsewhere was that they were checking the validity of operating system licenses before allowing the download. That very thing was reported on Security Focus … and guess what, for once it was an exaggeration of the real story as it was not required. Having said that, it was being recommended. The only people who should have problems with that issue are people running illegal software. As much as we like GPL, shareware and freeware around here, we also respect that people are entitled to charge for their product and work (even we offer a blend of free and modestly priced scripts here on our site). If you aren’t running an illegal operating system you have nothing to fear — for now apparently. You decide, but with such great alternatives out there, we will stick to the ones we love.

Update:
All is not well in the MS anti-spyware world, as there are many complaints going around at the moment that the Microsoft application is mis-identifying legitimate applications as spyware. Applications like BitDefender Anti-virus and Real VNC (A remote desktop application) have been labelled as spyware by the MS application. Even Worse, BitDefender apparently told Microsoft about the false positive 10 days ago and has yet to see it fixed. Having your security application labelled as spyware by Microsoft is bound to be very bad for business so we might see lawsuits about this sort of thing before long. Read SecurityFocus for more on this situation.