Since 2004, Google has been paying Mozilla a ton of money each year—estimated at around $100 million—for the privilege of being the default search engine used in the Firefox browser. This contribution represented the lion's share of Mozilla's income, something in the ballpark of 85 percent. That deal, last renewed for a three-year period in 2011, has come to an end, and this time...
Authorities are advising all users of the Tor network to check their computers for malware after it emerged that a Russian hacker has been using the network to spread a powerful virus. Tor, which began as a secret project from the US Naval Research Laboratory, works by piling up layers of encryption over data, nested like the layers of an onion, which gave the...
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) co-founder Paul Allen one-upped his good friend co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates with an even bigger donation to fight the Zaire Ebolavirus (ZEBOV) which has engulfed a trio of nations in western Africa in a deadly, fast-growing epidemic. Gates and his wife have pledged to give away all their money to charity before they die. His Microsoft-derived fortune current makes him...
Eager to infuse the Web with the communications interactivity of mobile apps, Mozilla on Thursday announced a video chat service called Hello. The technology, built into the beta version of Firefox, lets people set up free video or audio calls with others using Firefox. Mozilla will gradually enable the feature in coming weeks. There was a day when video chat was hard to do....
QuickType, Apple’s new predictive keyboard featured on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 8, is reportedly plagued with a potentially dangerous oversight where the software would suggest parts of your passwords that you previously used on websites, as first reported by French-language blog iGen.fr [Google Translate]. A new thread on Apple’s Support Communities website includes a note by one user who reported the keyboard offering “OrangeJuice” as...
Good news for advertisers, but maybe not-so-great news for users concerned about their personal data: Starting Monday, Facebook will use data it gleans from users for its new ad network, Atlas, which it will serve up ads on non-Facebook sites based on what Facebook knows about you. Atlas is a former Microsoft property that Facebook bought last year for around $100 million that Facebook...
Multiple Windows 9 reports have suggested that Microsoft is considering releasing the upcoming platform as a free download to certain existing Windows users. Some said that Windows 8 will get Windows 9 free of charge, while others claimed the company is also considering some sort of special offers for existing Windows XP users. A report from Indonesian online publication Detik said earlier this week...
Researchers at Malwarebytes noticed strange behavior on sites like Last.fm, The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post. Ads on the sites were being unusually aggressive, setting off anti-virus warnings and raising flags in a number of Malwarebytes systems. After some digging, researcher Jerome Segura realized the problem was coming from Google's DoubleClick ad servers and the popular Zedo ad agency. Together, they were...
Previously, Google required everyone to make a Google+ profile in order to get a new Gmail account. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. Now, that requirement is lifted. Sort of. While it was still technically possible to create a Google account without tying into Google+, it was very difficult. Now, if you sign...
Windows 9. Threshold. Or just plain Windows. Whatever Microsoft ends up calling its next operating system, it's shaping up to be another big change from the Windows that came before it. Only this time, Microsoft is looking to mollify its user base—especially in the enterprise—instead of scaring people away. If months of leaks and rumors are accurate, Microsoft will undo some of the most...
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