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News

• Mozilla plans to silently update Firefox

  Taking a page from rival Google's playbook, Mozilla plans to introduce silent, behind-the-scenes security updating to Firefox 4.

• More than 1 in 10 Mozilla bug finders turn down cash

  The open-source Mozilla project has been offering cash bounties for security bugs for six years now, but often bug finders simply turn down the cash.

• Internet Explorer 9: Next stop, public beta

  With the success of Internet Explorer 8 - gaining 1.38 percent market share in the United States to lead the pack with more than 42 percent of the market--it is easy to forget that Microsoft is hard at work developing Internet Explorer 9. Today, Microsoft unleashed the fourth Platform Preview release for developers, and told partners and developers to start preparing--the public beta of IE9 is coming soon.

• Microsoft's IE snatches share for second straight month

  For the second straight month, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser gained ground in the usage share race, a company manager said today.

• Microsoft slates IE9 beta for September

  MIcrosoft will ship a beta of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) in September, a company executive said today.

• Researcher finds Safari reveals personal information

  A feature in Apple's Safari browser designed to make it easier to fill out forms could by abused by hackers to harvest personal information, according to a security researcher.

• Mozilla re-patches Firefox 3.6 to fix plug-in problem

  For the second time in two months, Mozilla on Friday rushed out a fix for Firefox to patch a problem with a browser update issued just days before.

• Google to rev up Chrome release schedule

  Google on Thursday said it will pick up Chrome's release pace by issuing a new version of the browser about every six weeks. According to Anthony Laforge, a Chrome program manager, the new schedule will put a a new "stable" version of the browser in users' hands roughly twice often as in the past. The picked-up pace will debut over the next few months.

• Google calls, raises Mozilla's bug bounty for Chrome flaws

  Google on Tuesday hiked bounty payments for Chrome bugs to a maximum of $US3,133, up almost $2,000 from the previous top dollar payout of $1,337.

• Mozilla patches 16 security bugs in Firefox 3.6

  Mozilla on Tuesday patched 16 vulnerabilities, nine of them critical, in Firefox 3.6, the largest update for the open-source browser since March.

• Adobe to beef up PDF security with Reader sandboxing

  Adobe Systems Inc. today announced that it will harden the next version of its popular Reader PDF viewer, a frequent target of attacks, by adding "sandboxing" technology to the software.

• Mozilla yanks password-stealing Firefox add-on

  Mozilla on Tuesday warned users that a password-stealing add-on slipped into Firefox's extension gallery more than a month ago had been downloaded nearly 2,000 times before it was detected.

• With fix now out, Microsoft sees jump in XP attacks

  Microsoft urged Windows users to update their software Tuesday, saying it's now seen more than 25,000 attacks leveraging one of the critical bugs fixed in July's monthly security patches.

• Firefox 4 picks up speed

  Firefox 4's first beta is 27% faster than Mozilla's more stable browser, Firefox 3.6.6, but still lags behind rivals including Chrome, Opera and Safari, benchmark tests show.

• Microsoft IE gains browser market share (this is not a typo)

  Internet Explorer has been in a freefall compared to its hotter rivals Firefox and Google's Chrome lately, but Microsoft's browser has finally reversed a small portion of its worldwide market share losses.