And if it’s not Wednesday, the middle of the week, everybody’s favorite day ( I personally call it the beginning of the weekend), but as weekend is nowhere to being close let’s see what happened lately out there on the net. The first thing that caught my eye this morning was some news about Google, and as I work in the industry, I’m trying to keep an eye on the big G. Now, the guys in Mountain View, California had a very nice page on their domain, where a list of URL’s, user names and passwords were open and visible to anyone that stumbled upon that address. I assume this is part of Google’s anti-phishing (anti identity theft) strategy. A screen shot is available here. Thumbs up guys, we feel so much safer right now. The mistake was reported soon enough to be fixed and the company says they have notified everyone that might have been the victim of a phishing attack. Strangely enough I am quite a fan of Google, I like the way they deal with things usually, and that they don’t overlook details or anything. But two times in two days ? Auuuch … in Europe, to be more precise in Germany, Tuesday morning, visitors of the same search engine were welcomed by … another page. The domain google.de was “kidnapped” by unidentified “hackers” due to a hole in the german legislation regarding domain transferring. Apparently, down there if anyone poses as the owner of a domain and orders a transfer, the operation is being carried out, unless the rightful owner has one or two things to say. And as the orders are automated and of course the Google domain is administered by a company which “overlooked” the notification e-mail, for a few hours many visitors of the page freaked out seeing something totally different from what we are all used to see, thinking that their computer might be hacked or something. Again, the transfer was canceled and everything is back to normal (whatever that means).
Now, everyone has been disappointed once or twice with Microsoft, either because Windows 95 was too slow, or that Win98 with its blue screens destroyed one day’s work, mostly because WinMe was a fragile attempt to make things right or that WindowsXP has been patched so many times that they could have built another operating system out of the fixes. But what about tricked by Microsoft ? Now that could be a new one … personally I’ve never experienced that because I always used illegal copies of Windows (or any other software published by Microsoft – yes I even have a Microsoft Visual Studio cracked ;o) ),sparing myself the trouble so far. That changed some time ago when I bought my laptop which came with a OEM license (hmm did I use that ?!?). Anyway, the last security update for XP came with a cherry on top. Claims are that if you overlooked the customization process in installing the update, it practically tricked you into installing Internet Explorer 7, without any notice or anything, totally removing version 6 and most chances of getting it back. Users have complained about the compatibility of this version with some websites before…and this was too much. Probably MS was a bit disappointed with the unsuccessful launch of its new web browser they cried, ate candy, went shopping, and then cried again (buhuhu), in the mean time observing Firefox’s 2.0 version being largely adopted out on the net. So they huffed and puffed and another brilliant idea came to their mind. What if we just … omitted the fact that they will be updating to the new browser … I’m sure everyone wants it but doesn’t know how to ask … WROONG!
I am a Firefox fan (been so from the start), and I’m not planning into using Internet Explorer even if version 6.0 will not exist anymore … as I believe that the biggest corporation on earth can come with a better software than that lame excuse for a browser.

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