Week in review: Sun rises with Google

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support such a compromise, but we will know shortly."

CNET News.com readers were more than a little skeptical of Google's motives. "There is no way that Google will offer something for free indefinitely," Dave Cawdell wrote in News.com's TalkBack forum. "Ultimately, they will either charge for the service OR leverage the service to make money (perhaps through targeted online advertising)."

Gimme shelter
Instant-messaging and peer-to-peer fans are being hit with more worm and malicious-code attacks than ever before, according to research reports. The number of threats detected for IM and peer-to-peer networks rose a whopping 3,295 percent in the third quarter of 2005, compared with last year, IMlogic said. That brings the total year-over-year increase to 2,083 percent, the security software maker said.

And as the attacks increase in number, they also get smarter, IMlogic said. Worm writers are coming up with more effective ways to get people to click on links to their malicious code, and worms can increasingly hop from one IM network to another, it noted.

To fend off malicious-code attacks, Microsoft plans to release by year's end an initial test version of a new product to protect business desktops, laptops and file servers. The new Microsoft Client Protection product will guard against threats such as spyware, viruses and rootkits.

The software will offer IT administrators central management capabilities and work with Microsoft's Active Directory and Windows Server Updates Services patch management tool, the company said. Microsoft did not say how much the new product will cost or when it will be available in final form.

Meanwhile, America Online is strengthening its shields against phishing attacks for its 20 million Internet service subscribers. The Web giant has expanded its agreement with antiphishing specialist Cyota and signed new partnerships with security technology companies MarkMonitor and Cyveillance.

The protection measures aim to prevent AOL members from falling for phishing scams by blocking access. AOL and its partners will scan the Web for fraudulent sites, analyze suspicious URLs, check new domain registrations and attempt to remove phishing sites from the Web, the company said.

The new News.com
After two weeks of beta testing, CNET News.com launched a site redesign this week. In addition to a new look, the site is moving from "Tech News First" to "News of Change." This reflects the evolution of the news we report: Rather than cover technology simply as computing, for example, we now delve into the myriad changes that it has affected in business, law, politics and culture.

The primary theme behind News.com's redesign is making it about "editors, readers and me." Under the umbrella of "Top Headlines," "Readers' Choice" and "My News," readers will continue to find award-winning editorial content; what others read and discuss; and the news that each reader chooses, from us and elsewhere on the Web.

There's more of course, so stay tuned.

Also of note
Many customers of two major Internet companies recently lost access to parts of the Net when the companies began feuding and cut off communications with each other...Advanced Micro Devices said it has served more than 15 companies with subpoenas this week as of part of its antitrust lawsuit against rival Intel...Spread Firefox, the marketing Web site for the open-source Firefox Web browser, has been hacked again and is expected to be offline until later this month...A Florida man who collected nearly $40,000 over the Web for Hurricane Katrina relief was indicted on fraud charges.