The last few months have revealed flaws in all the main web browsers including IE, Netscape, Opera and Firefox. Here to add to that list is the latest Internet Explorer “Highly critical” security flaw which apparently affects 5.01, 5.5 and 6.x.

For the more technical among us, this is the flaw summary from Secunia:

The vulnerability is caused due to the javaprxy.dll COM object being instantiated incorrectly in Internet Explorer via the object tag. This can be exploited via a malicious web site to cause a memory corruption.

Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary code.

That last sentence is geek speak which roughly translates to: “successfully exploiting the flaw can result in a external, remote (and probably malicious) party from taking control of your computer”.

There are compelling reasons for Windows users to switch to (or at least evaluate) Linux, but when you know no other world than Windows or don’t want to even think about partitioning your precious hard drive, it can be one heck of a leap of faith! As a Windows user wanting to try Linux but scared of losing the world as I knew it, I found a risk-free method of trying Linux without threatening the installation of Windows safely installed on my PC.

Mandriva Move and Knoppix are two different flavours of Linux that reside entirely on a bootable LiveCD. Mandriva Move or Knoppix are not installed on your hard drive, they actually run from the CD without touching or threatening your Windows operating system in any way. This allows scaredy cats like me to experiment with Linux until my heart is content, then eject the CD and return to my Windows safety blanket just as I left it.

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In a story yesterday we reported that the right click features in MSN were not working right in current versions of Firefox. A programmer at MSN immediately provided us information suggesting that the problem was really an issue in Firefox. To it’s credit, the MSN team immediately implemented a work-around so that right clicks are back.

The method used by them is very interesting. They essentially create an equalized version of Firefox and IE by adding an attachEvent method to every DOM element in Firefox. By doing this, they can later — site wide — avoid the typical browser detection and the corresponding repeat of scripts that say,
see if this is IE and if so, then this, but if it is FF, then do something else, or if Opera, then do the other, etc.
It avoids duplicative coding, and avoids the necessity of changing each of those scripts should there be a bug like arose here. Equally important, they don’t need to train each developer regarding the differences in API between browsers.

In a article yesterday we panned MSN for blocking right clicks in Firefox. The person who wrote the script, Scott Isaacs, says this was an unintended consequence and that it appears to be a firing problem with Firefox’s on-click implementation. You can read his comment here. In the meantime, given the defect, we do encourage MSN to try coding around it as soon as possible. We have been writing code to accomodate shortcomings in various versions of Internet Explorer for years, so some turn-about is of course fair-play as the old saying goes.

From time-to-time you will see similiar news articles on our site. That is because we may both be working on a similiar article unbeknownst to the other authors. Sometimes I start an article, get interrupted, and bring it back around to finish it later only to find that Franki or another guest author wrote something similiar. My conclusion is to publish anyway as we may each have a little different angle on the report. I hope that doesn’t cause any difficulties to our readers.

Franki reported on the MGM v Grokster case (official opinion on the Court’s website in pdf format) just decided by the Supreme Court. In that Opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that peer-to-peer networks may be responsible for the illegal file sharing committed by users of the network if they intentionally encourage the sharing of copyrighted information. The specific language on the very first page of Justice Souter’s opinion for the Court says:

…”one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.”

Franki’s article has been criticized as “over the top” by a commentor for suggesting that this will shut down p2p services. One can certainly argue about the relative effects of the decision, but as the writer pointed out — and our prior article did NOT suggest to be the case — the decision did not address peer-to-peer sharing of non-copyrighted material by any stretch. The issue is, will peer-to-peer sharing be a successful business model absent the number of users there only for copyrighted material. The answer to that is unknown.

If you really want to be informed, don’t take our — or anyone elses – word for what the ruling means! Read it yourself on the Supreme Court site. But do not stop there, take the time to read the transcript of the hearing back in March to see the arguments made. (As an aside, I am amazed at the number of times the counsel for the Petitioner interrupted the Justices.) Anyway, the case presented these p2p networks as 90 illigitamate. If you take away 90 percent of the advertising revenue, would the system still make sense? Time will tell.

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Google’s share price has just topped the $300 mark and is currently sitting pretty at $307.86. That’s good news for Google, but what amazes me is that this is well over double the price they suggested as their initial share price (around $130) when they floated last year and yet they were forced to reduce the initial price below $100. Anybody that bought at $100 or less has no doubt made a tidy profit by this time.

In other Google news, apparently their share of the search market has grown above 50% in the US for the first time ever. Combine that with the even higher market share they hold in most of Europe and you have an extremely popular search engine with well over twice it’s nearest competitors market share. You can read Websidestory’s press release on Google’s growing market share here.

This snippet from the above press release sums up the reason for both the above mentioned results in my humble opinion:

“Google has become a staple for any serious online marketing operation and this data shows why: They generate more than half of all online search referrals in the U.S. and as much as 90 percent in other countries. Google’s early decision to focus on quality of search results has clearly paid off.”