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IE9 release candidate tops 2 million downloads

Microsoft says the release candidate for Internet Explorer 9 has been downloaded more than 2 million times since its release late last week.

Microsoft first released the software to the public last Thursday, after a five-month beta run with a total download count that topped 25 million. Later this month the company will offer an upgrade through the Windows Update software to those beta users who have not yet updated to the release candidate.

Included in this new version of the browser software are some 2,000 changes made since the last beta. The build also includes two new security … Read more

Microsoft shows mobile IE9 outpacing iPhone

BARCELONA--Apple gets plenty of praise for advancing mobile browsers with its iPhone's version of Safari, but an audience greeted its performance with some laughter as Microsoft compared it to an upcoming version of IE9 for Windows Phone 7.

Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft corporate vice president, showed off the browser here at the Mobile World Congress show during a keynote speech by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Specifically, Belfiore showed it running a Microsoft fishtank demonstration that's been in widespread use since the hardware acceleration work began in earnest among personal computer browser makers last year.

And he got a … Read more

IE9's 'pinning' brings traffic boost to sites

Microsoft says a small new feature within Internet Explorer 9 is having a big impact on sites that have tweaked their code to make use of it.

"Site pinning," which is new to this latest major version of Internet Explorer, lets users add a shortcut to a site from any page of their own to sit on their Windows 7 task bar. On the surface this would just seem like any other shortcut, except that Microsoft has provided ways for sites to boost the interactivity, like putting site-specific notifications, navigation, and information in contextual menus that sit behind … Read more

IE9 RC debuts with 'do not track'

SAN FRANCISCO--The next generation of Internet Explorer is nearly ready for the public at large, as Microsoft announces the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 at the Hang Art Gallery in San Francisco's Union Square this morning.

A massive list of improvements debuted in the new RC, available for 32-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 7; 32-bit Windows Vista; and 64-bit Windows Vista. Among the most notable enhancements are the new ActiveX filter, expanded support for HTML5 and "future-tech" standards, and advertiser tracking protection, which also was introduced this week into a prerelease version of Firefox 4.

The … Read more

Microsoft patches Windows, IE

Microsoft today issued three "critical" security bulletins as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday program. Together with nine other alerts, which the company rated as "important," the bulletins address 22 vulnerabilities spanning Microsoft products from Windows and Internet Explorer to Office and Internet Information Services.

On the top of the list is MS11-003, which is a cumulative update for Internet Explorer that resolves four vulnerabilities. Included is a fix for the nasty CSS bug outlined in Security Advisory 2488013, a bug that could give attackers control of people's computers.

In a podcast about the patches, … Read more

Microsoft to seal 22 security holes this month

Microsoft today said it will address 22 vulnerabilities as part of next week's Patch Tuesday, three of which are critical.

Three of the 12 bulletin items released by Microsoft earlier today are classified as critical, and affect Microsoft's Windows operating system, with one affecting Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser as well. The rest are classified as "important."

In a post on Microsoft's Security Response Center blog, the company said it will be making fixes for vulnerabilities in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine, as well as CSS exploit in Internet Explorer that could allow an attacker … Read more

Avoiding the cost of entanglement

Modern IT is very focused on economics. We talk endlessly about cost. We debate capital costs vs. operational costs--CAPEX vs. OPEX, in the lingo. We look at Total Cost of Operations (TCO) and we try to calculate our projects' Return On Investment (ROI). But even with all of these economic metrics, we miss an enormous source of costs: Our long-term entanglement with the products, technologies, and approaches we choose.

Long ago, we had a bright idea. "We could represent the year portion of dates with just two digits--that would save space!" We happily did that for a few … Read more

Google claims Bing copies its search results

After noticing curious search results at Bing, then running a sting operation to investigate further, Google has concluded that Microsoft is copying Google search results into its own search engine.

That's the report from Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan today, who talked to both companies about it and presented Google's evidence. According to the report, a mechanism could be the Suggested Sites feature of Internet Explorer and the Bing Toolbar for browsers, both of which can gather data about what links people click when running searches.

The story began with Google's team for correcting typographical errors … Read more

In browser fight, Microsoft's silver lining grows

When Microsoft starts pointing to statistics that don't make it look so great, you can expect the company has a strong turnaround plan in place. Today's example: its share of browser usage.

Microsoft, while still the top browser maker, saw Internet Explorer slide as a fraction of worldwide usage from 57.1 percent in December 2010 to 56 percent in January, according to statistics from analytics firm Net Applications released today. That decline continues a years-long trend for the company, which first lost share to Mozilla's Firefox but now is losing it primarily to Google's Chrome … Read more