Verecom Web Design Blog

A study found that for blocking malicious website which can lure internet users to download virus or trojan, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is not only leading four other commonly used web browsers: Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, but also the leading margin is growing up.

Research report from Product analysis firm NSS Labs point that: Windows Internet Explorer 8 provides the best protection to help protect against social engineered malicious software. Such malicious software can lure internet users to trust a website, but the website has been embedded with malicious software, and can be directly downloaded to the victim’s computer and execute it.

Reporting statistics is done by testing 562 this kind of website, and IE8 blocked 85% of them, the best performer. Compare with, Mozilla Firefox 3.5.7 and Apple Safari 4.0.4 each of them can block 29% of them. Google Chrome 4.0.249.78 blocks 17%, while Opera 10.10 can only block less than 1% of the malicious websites.

General speaking, the test of NSS Labs is first collected 12,000 malicious sites, and then confirmed that 562 of them still in operation with definition of social engineering malware sites, and then run the test.

Remember, the browser security has also include other important aspects, such as plug-ins , JavaScript, or implementation of security-oriented plug-in, functions of block drive-by exploits, and security vulnerability response time.

Edited By Henry Lu

Speaking of social networking website, many people will immediately think of Facebook or MySpace. But in fact In addition to these friend making, entertainment social networking website, there are more professional or commercial orientation websites, which Among them, LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) is the outstanding one.

Founded in May 2003, LinkedIn is growing rapidly since past few years, and becomes a favourite website for white-collar and business people to connect and make industry friends with similar business background. TechCrunch reported that according to science and technology media, LinkedIn’s rapidly growing number of members and recently has more than 60 million members registered.

As the Business Social is more important for many professional people, including hiring, cooperation and other business acts require a social networking platform for the coordination of inter-personal, hence make LinkedIn becomes popular. In December last year, the number of members is 55 million, but there are 5 million new members registered during January this year, which shows a strong potential in this site!

LinkedIn actively expand its global market, recently it set up two offices in India and Netherlands, and that it will soon expand the business to the world’s major countries.

Edited By Henry Lu

The available global IPv4 Website address is less than 10% now, and will fully deplete next year. If this issue is not tackled immediately, new users will face a problem of no IP Address available in the future.

According to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the deployment of next generation Internet protocol IPv6 site transition should hurry up, to avoid this situation. Secretary of Global website resource allocation management institutions, NRO, Raul Echeberria said that with the popularity of Internet, mobile phones, notebook computers, servers, routers and other devices, which are consuming IP addresses greatly, and cause the imbalance of supply-and-demand.

CNNIC experts, Zhang Jian said that due to China doesn’t have the control right of ip address, only 4.5% IPv4 resources are allocated for China, but the rate of Internet users in China keep growing, so China is facing with IP Address “supply and demand gap,” the situation is even grimmer.

Zhang Jian pointed out that in the next five years, the demand of mobile network IP Address is expected to reach 500-900 millions, the current IPv4 site resources are far to meet the rapidly increasing demand, if not take timely response, then operators, users and equipment providers, will have series of adverse knock-on effect.

Zhang Jian believes that to face the scarce IPv4 resources, network administrators should take immediate measures to promote the IPv6 network deployment plan.

CNNIC published “the 25th China Internet Development Statistics Report” shows that Chinese Internet users reached 384 million, with growth rate of 28.9%, and the growth rate of IP addresses number is far behind this.

Edited By Henry Lu

Apple’s product line between the iPhone and the MacBook less one thing, and it is not a Netbook, but a iPad which is on the hands of Steve Jobs.

iPad appearance, as predicted, like a an enlarged version of iPod Touch, supports multi-touch, storage capacity from 16G to 64G. 0.5-inch thick body, 1.5 pounds, plus 9.7-inch IPS screen; as about the power issues, it claims to have 10 hours for normal use, and stand-by to a month. Most of the hardware does not seem too much surprise us, but it is worth mentioning that Apple’s own 1GHz A4 processor, its performance should be part of the expectations.

In the software part, iPhone’s App can be used on top of the iPad the, Apple also unveiled the iBooks Store, Steve Jobs even claimed to use Amazon as a sample to develop its own online shopping mall. The game entertainment is another big highlight, Electronic Arts (EA) has sent (Travis Boatman) to express the new racing game for ipad, and the direction and motion-sensing games (such as baseball) will be the next new trend.

In addition, Apple will also unveil the iPad dedicated iWork software: Keynote, Numbers, Pages and it is only 9.99 U.S. dollars each, that is very attractive!

As we are most concerned about the price, the cheapest 16G model(supports Wi-Fi) is 499 U.S. dollars. For the model that supports both Wi-Fi and 3G costs 629 U.S. dollars. Top of the 64G models (Wi-Fi +3 G), is 829 U.S. dollars, compared to the original forecast of 1000 U.S. dollars, it is cheaper than we expected.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google announced the launch of the new search features: Near Me Now, for Android browser and iPhone users to use Google Mobile Search and enjoy this feature.

However, the phone users must first be able to use Google Mobile Search page link below to access the location data set. After that, Google Mobile Search page will appear the search button “Near me now” link. When user clicks the link, the page will return a list of a variety of topics of local places, including restaurants, cafes and bars, or the bank or ATM and so on. Click the menu “Explore right here” will show users bunch of the nearby shops. And this option is only available when users provide accurate location of mobile phones.

Google Operations Engineer John Eric Hoffman, and Jussi Myllymaki explained in their blog posting, “Near me now” feature is designed to help users find information on where they lived, making certain common search, such as cafes and ATMs easier.

At that time Google has also announced other technologies, including Google Goggles and the iPhone and Android supported Japanese voice search. With the growth of mobile computing devices and the popularity of portable devices, Google will keep developing more mobile applications for users.

Edited By Henry Lu

Microsoft’s search engine Bing Beta version was introduced in China in June 2009. Right now, although Google gaining the market share, but Baidu still dominates in China.

Analyst said that in China even the world’s largest search engine Google have failed to take over the local search engine giant, Baidu, hence Microsoft Bing still have a long way to go. For new search engine, it requires time to obtain user recognition, and it needs to compare user’s current recognition of existing search engine. Hence Bing needs time to achieve a breakthrough in China’s search engine market.

Microsoft needs new search technology and User experience to enhance its market in China, but Bing is still not particularly prominent in these two aspects of the performance, hence with 1 to 2 years, Bing won’t threaten the current positions of Baidu and Google.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google has signed co-operation contract with another 24 news media,
Including the Forum (Tribune Co.), and McClatchy Newspaper Group.

Since 3 months ago, Google launched FastFlip, a website has 50 newspapers, magazines, news agencies, television and radio stations, and total of about 90 external website links for visits.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is the original FastFlip media Initially added, also there were “the British Broadcasting Corporation” (BBC), “The New York Times” (The New York Times), “Washington Post” (The Washington Post), “Ko Dream Bodin” (Cosmopolitan), “Newsweek” (Newsweek ), etc..

FastFlip allows users to quickly browse Google news media websites. Users can click large arrow on webpage to jump to the next article and the browsing speed is quite fast compare with others.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google plan to change the way of web search, and fight back its competitors.

Google will provide computer, iPhone and Android devices the real-time search results page. It also added a new search technology called Google Goggles, which allows users to upload a picture to search, rather than enter a keyword to query.

Google is expected mobile devices will become a transit point for network activity next year, announced by Google engineering vice president, Vic Gundotra, and chief engineer. Amit Singhal. Singhal describes real-time search is “the most exciting thing in my career.”

Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google search products said that this technology is the future of search engine. This new search engine will help users to find the best answer instead bunch of links. Mayer said, the four directions of Google search technology in future: model, media, language and personalization. New search functions such as voice or image search will be the top priority for the search engine advertisement.

Gundotra also shows the Google Mobile Search can accurately identify many language queries, such as English, Chinese and Japanese. Google translator also supports 51 languages, Gundotra said during first quarter of 2010, our real-time translation function will be available for the mobile device. “Our goal is to support all major languages around the world,” he said.

Google is also planning the geographic search for text and voice information services. Google Maps service is available in the Android 1.6 or above It includes “What’s Nearby” which lists closest place for users who look for services. This service will also be available for iPhone and other Android devices.

Google Goggles represents the starting point for Google to enter the computer field. This service is currently only in the Google Labs, and can only identify a few kinds of objects.

Google is able to do facial recognition, but for privacy issues, it decided to defer to promote the service.

Google Instant Search is made from numbers of social network partners. Google recently signed a search cooperation contract with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Identi.ca, in order to provide public information in real-time search.

Instant Search is currently unavailable, but is expected to be on-line very soon.

Edited By Henry Lu

According to the report from Internet research institutes Net Applications in November, Microsoft (Microsoft Corp.; MSFT-US), Web browser, the IE is gradually losing market share, and Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome is slowly take over market position of IE.

For 3 months, Internet Explorer has loss at least 1% of market share. In November the market share of IE drop to a new historical low of 63.6%. During the 2008 period, Microsoft’s IE has lost 8% total market share.

Microsoft launched the latest version of the IE8 in March this year, and hope to improve safety of IE and offers more modern new products that can keep the pace of Internet users. But even IE8 officially launched, It still didn’t slow down its market decline.

Firefox is expected to reaching 25% market share in the Internet browser market and the present market share in November had reached 24.7%. Google’s Chrome grows rapidly and its market share rose from 0.4 to 3.9%.

Google already pointed out, Chrome is currently only available for Windows computer system, and Apple version will be published in 2010.

Edited By Henry Lu

Google Webmaster Tools has recently released an experimental feature that can help webmasters to find out if there is malware infection on the website.

Google already had added website index search with automatically scan function, if there is suspicious malicious programs, it will add a warning sign on the search results. Google also provide this function for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and other browser users, when browsing infected websites. Google will notify webmasters by email.

However, the information is too sketchy, and cannot provide much detail. And Google plan to add “Malware details” to strengthen this tool.

Webmaster can use this tool from laboratory (Lab) menu located on the left menu of webmaster tool, including “malware details link” which will display all found malicious programs listed on Google, as well as samples of malicious content.

This tool is sometimes really able to find malicious code, even if the JavaScript that is not easily be identified. The greatest significance of the amendment is to make website maintenance easier. However, Google reminded, at present, the information of malicious programs is not complete, so website administrator cannot rely entirely on this Google tool.

Google engineer Lucas Ballard said: “Google scanning function and current database can not cover all the malware samples. And we do not recommend that you only use our webmaster tools to remove malware. If you have not identified and fix the underlying weaknesses of your website, your site is very likely to be infected again.

Edited By Henry Lu