Internet Explorer 9 arrives, but not for XP - Microsoft Previews IE10 too

The final, consumer-ready Internet Explorer 9 is available for download at Microsoft’s official download site in 39 languages. With this set of browser releases, the best experience of the Web is on Windows.

The main issue with IE 9 is it runs on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

XP is officially out of the mainstream support phase and is not eligible for updates like this. Plus, many of the features are specifically tied to Windows features found only in later versions.

"Building a new browser for a 10-year-old OS that came with IE6 didn't make sense to us because of the limitations of its graphics and architectures. Building for the future of the web does make sense.” said by Dean Hachamovitch.

You can get it from Microsoft’s official download site. Choose your language, specify which Windows version you’re running (32-bit or 64-bit), and click Download.

you can read pros and cons of IE 9 from :

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/14/ie9-release-globally-available-for-consumers-and-businesses.aspx
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/ie9-faq-how-to-install-uninstall-and-tweak-the-final-release/3118?tag=content;selector-blogs

Also with IE 9.. The first look at IE10, however, runs only on Windows 7.
you can preview it from http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Test your antivirus Auto Protection using EICAR test string

• Open a text editor such as Notepad.

Do not use a word processor, such as Microsoft Word or WordPad, to create the file. Word processors add extra header information to the file, which will cause it to not be detected.

• Copy the following text into your text editor.

---

X5O!P%@AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*

---

• Save the Notepad file say "test.txt"

• Exit the Notepad

The first 68 characters is the known string. It may be optionally appended by any combination of whitespace characters with the total file length not exceeding 128 characters. The only whitespace characters allowed are the space character, tab, LF, CR, CTRL-Z. To keep things simple the file uses only upper case letters, digits and punctuation marks, and does not include spaces. The only thing to watch out for when typing in the test file is that the third character is the capital letter "O", not the digit zero. 

If your antivirus program warns you that it auto-protect your system by finding virus called "EICAR testing string virus", you will come to know that your antivirus software is installed correctly and working fine.. else you need to check your security settings. and also need not to worry much as EICAR string is most trust-able harmless virus (!!) :-)

To know more you can view :
http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm

Mozilla Firefox 4 - Just too quick launch by Mozilla..

It was a last month in the never-ending Internet browsers race. First, Firefox 4 was finally launched on 22nd March,2011  – last of the next generation browsers to hit the market,  trailing behind Chrome 10 and Internet Explorer 9.

I was using Firefox 3.6.16 and was prompted to upgrade to a newer version. I agreed to up-grade to 3.6.16 but when I went to download this I was fed Firefox 4. I have tried using 4 for for a weeks on my Sony VAIO laptop running 4GB of RAM and core 2 duo processor with OS Windows Vista x64..

It takes alot of memory in start up almost 240 MB.. which is a big amount to open just google.com.. also not supporting persona so well.. It seemed to be actually slower and didn't play well with the "persona" I wanted to use.. It also doesn't have "Save and Quit" option where you close multiple tabs..another issue is like open with new window and open with new tab are in different in the order.. I was used to click on second option and now it's too difficult to change my habit.. I had opened 6/10 links in new window while I was trying to open in new tab..

I have just uninstalled 4 and reinstalled 3.6.16. One can download 3.6.16 from FileHippo or similar source or you can directly go with official site
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

To make faster startup for firefox you need to disable add ons.. read more from
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/firefox-feeling-sluggish-disable-your-add-ons/



Hope to get some improvement from Mozilla.. I should say it's the worst firefox version till the date..