TechBlog

Today we’ve added a new notification to our search results that helps people know when a site may have been hacked. We’ve provided notices for malware for years, which also involve a separate warning page. Now we’re expanding the search results notifications to help people avoid sites that may have been compromised and altered by a third party, typically for spam. When a user visits a site, we want her to be confident the information on that site comes from the original publisher. Here’s what the notification looks like: ...

Newest Opera browser features tab stacking, extensions, visual mouse gestures Oslo, Norway — December 16, 2010 Opera Software debuted the newest version of its award-winning browser today. Opera 11 combines elegant design, smart updates to some of our most popular features and new ways to customize Opera to your preferences. Download it today for Windows, Mac and Linux computers from http://www.opera.com/. What’s new Tab stacking Tab stacking is a better way to organize your open tabs. Simply drag one tab on top of another to create a stack. Here is a short video to introduce tab stacking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hqSGGk1YTI ...

Earlier this year I received a Facebook invite in my Yahoo! Mail account from none other than Angelina Jolie herself. I kid you not. While it’s true that we live in the Digital Age where communicating with anyone is a mere tap of a finger away—whether it’s via email, IM, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—the chances that Ms. Jolie would randomly reach out to a regular Joe, such as myself, is still pretty darn improbable. So, the following questions raced through my mind: ...

As announced Friday last week, Microsoft delivers 17 security updates on the December 2010 Patchday. The Updates close 2 highly critical security holes which allow for remote code execution and several privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow attackers to gain administrative rights on Windows PCs. Overall, the 17 Updates deal with 40 vulnerabilities. Affected are the Windows operating Systems, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Exchange. Users and administrators should apply the patches as soon as possible!

In our efforts to bring you expanded, go-anywhere access to your data, we’re happy to announce that LastPass recently acquired Xmarks! Xmarks is a popular browser add-on that syncs bookmarks across all of your computers and smartphones. Just like LastPass, Xmarks can be installed for free on your browsers to give you easy access to your bookmarked sites. Xmarks now also offers a Premium version with bookmark support on your iPhone and Android, as well as advanced features and priority support. Sign up now to take advantage of the special discount with a dual-Premium subscription. ...

Avira TechBlog: Next Tuesday is going to be tough for administrators: The Redmond company announces 17 security bulletins which are supposed to fix 40 security vulnerabilities. Only two of the bulletins deal with “high”ly critical rated security holes within Windows and the Internet Explorer. The rest of the updates fixes the Windows operating systems, Microsoft’s Office, SharePoint and Exchange.

This week Apple announced the availability of QuickTime 7.6.9 for OS X 10.5 and Windows platforms. This release fixes 13 vulnerabilities in QuickTime for OS X Leopard and 15 vulnerabilities on the Windows platform. Keep in mind that if you use iTunes it requires that you install QuickTime as well, so be sure to check for updates. Apple has provided a direct download link for IT folks at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/. All 13 vulnerabilities for OS X can cause unexpected application termination (what you and I call a crash, but you can’t say crash on a Mac) or arbitrary code execution (make QuickTime run programs… BAD). ...

Just a day after Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with WikiLeaks-related denial-of-service attacks, websites belonging to the Netherlands computer crime cops and prosecutors have been struck with a similar assault. Dennis Janus, a spokesman for the National Police Service confirmed that both the police website, and that of the National Prosector’s Office had been offline for much of the day, with many theorizing that the likely reason is a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack similar to that which was launched against MasterCard, PayPal and other firms. ...

Sophos Labs: Semi-nude pictures of Christina Aguilera leaked onto the internet earlier this week, causing fans of the pint-sized pop diva to feverishly run to their search engines in the hunt for the private snaps. Regular readers should know only too well about the dangers that can be associated with hunting for such material – with nude pictures of Twilight star Ashley Greene and snaps of princess-to-be Kate Middleton recently being used as bait for the unwary. ...

Mashable: Get ready, folks with no sense of direction; Google Maps 5.0 app for Android is looking to make your life a lot easier with 3D graphics, more accurate orientation and the ability to function offline. According to Gizmodo, the app — which was demoed at D: Dive Into Mobile conference in San Francisco — is much faster than the previous iteration and renders in real time. 3D buildings are visible at street-level view, which lets you tilt the image and check out your virtual surroundings. The map will also adjust as you move, dictated by the compass, or you can rotate the map yourself if you want to check out various views. ...