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A substantial number of the cool things we see on the Internet are things that were shared by someone else on a social networking site, a blog, or via good old-fashioned e-mail. ShareThis (Firefox) is a Firefox extension that makes it easy to share things using all these methods, as well as many others.

ShareThis installs easily, appearing to the right of Firefox's address bar as an icon with a drop-down menu. Immediately after installation, you are asked to choose from among 53 methods of sharing, including e-mail, text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, and plenty of others both … Read more

Just in case you haven't had your fill yet of top-10 lists and countdowns for 2010, today, courtesy of traffic company Experian Hitwise, we give you two more lists related to the Web: most-searched terms and top-visited sites in the U.S. for 2010.

For the second year in a row, Facebook was the Internet's most-searched term in the U.S. between January and November, followed by a range of mostly navigational search terms: facebook login, youtube, craigslist, myspace, facebook.com, ebay, yahoo, www.facebook.com, and mapquest. In other words, iterations of Facebook grabbed four of the … Read more

Google has been warning Web surfers about sites that appear to be hosting malware in search results for years. Now, the company is adding a warning in search results when the site appears to be compromised but may not be actually downloading malware to visitors' computers.

Starting today, Google search users should start seeing a new hyperlink warning that says "This site may be compromised," adjacent to some results if Google's system has detected something on the site that would indicate that it has been hacked or otherwise compromised. Clicking on the warning link leads to a … Read more

Over the years, we've worked hard to cover products and services as they've launched and well into their successes and failures. And like any business venture, there's risk involved.

The Web is no different, leaving many sites to close up shop--sometimes just a few months after what their creators had hoped would be a successful launch. In other cases, it's a slow death march, stretched out with the occasional change in strategy, or a last-ditch re-branding effort.

2010 brought the closure of quite a few sites. Some names on this list you'll recognize right away. … Read more

LeechBlock is a kind of auto-nanny: it's a free Firefox add-on that blocks chosen Web sites at certain times on certain days and for different time periods. The idea is to automatically block time-wasting sites at times when you're supposed to be getting some work done. For individuals who lack the self-discipline not to check the weather, score, price, or thread when they should be focusing, it can be a real help. Of course, you can always defeat it when you need to, but you can also set a password to slow you down when you're weakening. … Read more

U.S. government scientists are being blocked from accessing WikiLeaks' Web sites for fear it will "contaminate" their computers, CNET has learned.

Starting last week, Department of Energy installations began barring access to WikiLeaks and its myriad of mirror sites, which have been disclosing confidential State Department documents on a daily basis.

"Sandia has blocked the site and its mirrors," said Stephanie Holinka, a spokeswoman at Sandia National Laboratories' Albuquerque headquarters. A spokesman for Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Va., confirmed it's also "blocking access to WikiLeaks and its mirror sites.&… Read more

Apple has released a couple of updates for Safari that address a few stability and performance issues with the program, as well as increase the accuracy and relevance of the Top Sites results and Address autofill information.

The updates are between 29MB and 53MB, depending on the system you are using, and are available for Snow Leopard, Leopard, and Windows if you are using version Safari 5, and if you are using Tiger then an update is available for Safari 4.

Safari 5.0.3 (OS X 10.5.8 or later)

Safari 4.1.3 (OS X 10.4.… Read more

MySpace has had trouble staying relevant as Facebook's user base continues to grow. But with its latest update, the News Corp.-owned social network is trying to see if it can regain at least some of its past glory with social entertainment targeted toward Generation Y.

MySpace's new site design is intended to help Gen Y users find a "broad array of programming, including originals, exclusives, and content from around the Web." The company is also encouraging users to share their interests on their profiles, as well as "connect" to others who share those … Read more

Online sellers, small-business owners, retailers, auctioneers, and collectors will want to take a look at Catalog Creator. It's a free tool for designing, filling, printing, and posting catalogs, brochures, and similar documents in print, online, and on CD-ROM. It offers a wide range of customizable templates for creating colorful catalogs and an efficient means for displaying lots of wares, up to thousands of items. It's compatible with Microsoft Office features, too.

Catalog Creator, or CatCreator, has a unique interface based around a Main Menu with clearly marked buttons that open new pages for their functions and settings. Clicking … Read more