AVAST: We Haven’t Seen Any Impact from Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft is building version 2.0 of MSE

Security outfit AVAST is downplaying the relevance of Microsoft Security Essentials on the antivirus market. Vincent Steckler, CEO of AVAST Software, revealed that the free security solution from Microsoft, formerly codenamed Morro, isn’t exactly stealing AVAST users away. 

“We haven't seen any impact whatsoever,” Steckler told us. “We survey users who remove our product and ask them what product they're going to move to next and MSE is in the low single digits. Maybe 2% or 3% of the users who remove our product say that they're going to MSE. It's the same as BitDefender, for example.”

IE8 Blocked Over 1 Billion Malware Download Attempts

Via the SmartScreen Filter

Internet Explorer 8 is superior to all rival browser in terms of security, revealed Kevin Turner, Microsoft Chief Operating Officer, during the company’s recent Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC)2010. “IE9 is going to be not only the most safest and secure browser in the market, which IE8 is today, it will be the fastest browser in the market,” Turner said last week, and now Microsoft has new data to support this statement. Internet Explorer 8 has managed to block in excess of 1 billion attempts to download malicious code.

The figure is nothing short of impressive, especially considering that IE8 was launched in March 2009. When it debuted on the market,

Windows 7 Tops Vista, XP Next

Windows 7 is at 16% of the OS market

Windows 7 is now officially the second most popular operating system worldwide, after Windows XP. On July 22nd, 2010, the Redmond company announced record revenue for the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2010, no less than $16.04 billion, and credited the amount to the success of Windows 7. According to the software giant, the latest iteration of the Windows client has already sold in excess of 175 million copies around the world. When making the figure public, Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications Manager on the Windows Client Communications Team, delivered another interesting piece of information.

Download Google Chrome 6.0 Beta Soon

Just the Dev channel release of v6.0 is available for the time being

Google is gearing up to push the next iteration of its open source browser to Beta development stage. Google Chrome 6.0 beta has already reached the code freeze milestone, and obviously, the release of the fully-fledged Beta Build is coming next. The Mountain View-search giant hasn’t revealed a delivery deadline for Chrome 6.0 Beta, but the company doesn’t announce its releases in advance. Google unveils new development releases without much fanfare, after all, the company does offer a multitude of builds at a very rapid pace.

Windows 8 Availability Will Trigger the Start of the End for Windows 7

Although customers will still be able to get both platforms

The general availability (GA) of Windows 8 will trigger the start of the end of sales for Windows 7, in accordance with the Windows Life Cycle Policy modifications announced the past week by Microsoft. Having detailed the modifications to the way in which it sells Windows, the Redmond company went on to revamp the Windows Life Cycle Policy webpage. The new site offers information on Windows Desktop License Availability, Windows Support, Windows Downgrade Rights, and License Availability Roadmap. At this point in time the software giant is not offering any details related to Windows 8, the next major version of Windows, but it is easy to see that the context also applies to the successor of Windows 7.

The New Firefox 4.0 Beta UI Is Here, Get a Taste

Mozilla says the user interface will continue to evolve in Beta 2

Mozilla unveiled plans for a radical transformation of the Firefox graphical user interface since 2009, and slowly worked to catalyze the evolution of the UI. The UI redesign is now taking shape, and users can already get a taste of what Mozilla plans to bring to the table with the Candidate builds for the first Beta of Firefox 4.0. Offered at the end of June 30, the pre-release nightly build of Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 features the redesigned user interface according to Mozilla’s plans.

Firefox 4.0 has yet to reach the Beta 1 development milestone, but the early nightly build does come with a new look and feel, as you can see through the screenshot included below. Early adopters will be able to notice immediately that Firefox 4.0’s UI is now tailored to Windows Aero and Windows 7 and Vista, with a new Glass translucency effect.

IBM Switches to Firefox as the Default Browser

The open source browser will be used by all 400,000 IBM employees

The browser wars are as heated as it’s ever been, but Firefox is still the number one ‘alternative’ browser out there with a significant market share. But getting people to use Firefox is one thing, getting companies to do it is quite another. With plenty of other companies still relying on Internet Explorer 6, IBM has taken a bold move, for a company its size, and is now switching to Firefox as the preferred default browser for its employees.

“Like many individuals and members of organizations, IBMers use their browsers a lot for conducting business. Our desktop and laptop software environments have some common applications but also software specific to do our various jobs. And these jobs are varied, as there are about 400,000 IBM

IE9 Pedal to the Metal to the Turbo-Charged Future of the Internet

Internet Explorer 9 is accelerating toward the turbo-charged future of the web, an evolved Internet, with new content, fresh experiences, and Cloud-based applications that will feel as if they would be running not as services, but locally on the PC instead. With its next version of Internet Explorer, Microsoft is upping the ante by tailoring the browser to modern machines, and leveraging multi-core CPU and GPU computation in concert. Through the various testing releases, but especially in IE9 Platform Preview 3 Build 1.9.7.8.74.6000, the Redmond company delivered a powerful browser, capable of kicking up to the next level the users’ experiences related to video, text and graphics rendering on the web.

At the core of IE9’s hardware acceleration capabilities is the DirectX family of Windows application programming interfaces (APIs). Namely, DirectX 11