Google Chrome Stable 11 is released!

The Google Chrome team is happy to announce the arrival of Chrome 11.0.696.57 to the Stable Channel for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame. Chrome 11 contains some really great improvements including speech input through HTML. Read More at Google Chrome Release Blog.

April 27, 2011 · 1 min · 43 words · Omid Farhang

Adobe Flash Player 10.2.159.1 is now available

Adobe Flash Player 10.2.159.1 is now available! Download it from here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

April 15, 2011 · 1 min · 12 words · Omid Farhang

Latest PowerPoint security patch has problems

On its recent patch day, Microsoft released security updates to fix vulnerabilities in multiple versions of its Office products. The patch for PowerPoint 2003 can, however, have negative consequences – after installation existing presentations may be unable to be opened or may cause an error message stating that the file is corrupted and cannot be fully displayed. In the latter case, the content of the presentation can only be partially read and any non-displayed elements, in particular background images, are lost for good after saving. ...

April 15, 2011 · 1 min · 138 words · Omid Farhang

The Update Wave is rolling: Apple, Adobe, Google

Avira TechBlog: Today some updates need attention – they fix critical security issues and should be installed immediately! The update reign starts off with Apple. Critical security vulnerabilities are closed within the Safari web browser 5.0.5 – they allowed cyber criminals to smuggle in malware. For Mac users, additionally a security update is available for the Snow Leopard operating system. It fixes an issue with stolen certificates which arose a three weeks ago at Comodo and is amazingly tiny for an Apple security update, only 4 MByte. And then for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users the update to iOS 4.3.2 is available which basically closes the same security holes for the mobile devices as well. ...

April 15, 2011 · 1 min · 204 words · Omid Farhang

Adobe plans Flash Player Update tomorrow

Avira TechBlog: This is good news – for the recently acknowledged zero-day security vulnerability within Adobe Flash Player, Acrobat and Reader there will be a first update available tomorrow. Adobe updated their security advisory on that matter to reflect the update schedule – the Flash player update fixing the vulnerability for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris will be available tomorrow, Friday, April 15. ...

April 14, 2011 · 1 min · 131 words · Omid Farhang

Microsoft launches first Internet Explorer 10 preview

Fulfilling the hints Microsoft dropped back in March, the Redmond software company unveiled the first platform preview of Internet Explorer 10 at MIX 11 in Las Vegas on Tuesday. This first preview of Internet Explorer 10 builds on the big HTML5 push that began with IE9, and adds support for more advanced Web standards, such as CSS3 Gradients as background images, and CSS3 Flexible Box and multi-column layout. ...

April 13, 2011 · 1 min · 95 words · Omid Farhang

Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 LTS approaches end of life

H-Online: In a post on the project’s security announce mailing list, Ubuntu Release Manager Kate Stewart has reminded users that the desktop version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, code named Hardy Heron, will reach its end of life in May. Version 8.04 of the Debian-derived Linux distribution was released on 24 April 2008. Based on the 2.6.24 Linux kernel, it placed a stronger focus on stability and ease of use, rather than on new features, and included the GNOME 2.22 desktop environment, as well as a new installer that allowed Ubuntu to be installed directly under Windows without having to boot from CD or re-partition the hard disk. Built-in applications included version 2.4 of the OpenOffice.org office suite, Firefox 3.0 Beta 5, the F-Spot photo manager and the GIMP image editor. After 12 May 2011, no new updates, including security updates and critical fixes, will be available. The server edition of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS will continue to be supported until May 2013. ...

April 13, 2011 · 2 min · 300 words · Omid Farhang

Microsoft's record Patch Tuesday

H-Online: It’s a record for Microsoft: 9 critical and 8 important updates close a total of 64 security holes. In the worst case, a number of the vulnerabilities allow for remote code execution; in other words, arbitrary code can be injected and executed, such as from specially crafted documents and websites. Microsoft put 44 of them in the category Exploitability Index 1, meaning that the code that exploits the flaw will probably go into circulation soon. ...

April 13, 2011 · 2 min · 315 words · Omid Farhang

First Firefox 4 update coming on April 26

Mozilla Links: Mozilla has announced that it will release the first update for Firefox 4 on April 26, about a month after the original release, back in March 22. New with this release is that Mozilla will start using code names (somehow related to the main branch codename, in this case Tumucumaque) for udpates as well, as a way to help developers that follow Firefox development closely, more clearly understand what is coming when. ...

April 12, 2011 · 1 min · 209 words · Omid Farhang

Security Vulnerabilities in Chrome

Avira TechBlog: It looks like new Chrome releases aren’t due every six weeks as Google announced a few weeks ago, but once a week now – the company just released Chrome 10.0.648.204 and fixes 6 highly critical security vulnerabilities with it. Those security vulnerabilities allow attackers to smuggle in malware like Trojans without the user noticing. That is why the automatic update mechanism is so important: When clicking on the tool symbol and choosing the “About Google Chrome” menu entry, the version check should show that Chrome is already on the current release – or offer to download and install the update in case that didn’t happen yet. ...

March 25, 2011 · 1 min · 158 words · Omid Farhang