Google's Chrome web browser has overtaken Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the first time to become the world's most-used internet browser.

According to StatCounter, Google Chrome crept up the usage tables to overtake the veritable Microsoft offering for the first time last week.

Though an imprecise measurement system (based on scaling up the results of relatively small survey groups), Chrome's rise has been clear to see for some time. Though Internet Explorer and Chrome were neck and neck for most of the month of this year, the scales are now tipping in its favour at the expense of Microsoft's browser, as well as Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari and the Opera browser, which round out the top 5.
It's been a meteoric rise for Google's browser, which launched in 2008 and features handy extension tools for a more rewarding web browsing experience.

It's not just the desktop browsing scene where Google products are performing well; Android Robot is now also listed as the most popular mobile web browser, overtaking Opera as the most popular on-the-go offering as of March.

Microsoft will not take the loss lying down however. Expect to see a big web-push from the Redmond tech giant with the launch of Windows 8, which will likely also see Internet Explorer 10 released alongside it.

Scott Thomspon has stepped down as CEO of Yahoo after it was revealed that he had lied about qualifications on his CV.

Thompson's biography listed a computer science degree which he in fact had not earned. As a result, he has now stepped down from the top job at the company, as well as leaving the board with immediate effect.

Thompson is replaced as CEO in the interim period by Ron Levinsohn, the company's current head of their global media department. The Chairman of the Board role will now b filled by Fred Amoroso.

Yahoo have also announced that they are in the final stages of arranging a settlement with "activist shareholder" Daniel Loeb, who uncovered Thompson's dubious credentials.

Internet service provider TalkTalk has today switched on their new porn-filtering system, meaning that all new customers to their service will have to specifically request access to X-rated, adult content.

By default, TalkTalk's HomeSafe filter will automatically block access to any website that features pornography, gambling, violence and drug-use, meaning that any new TalkTalk users who require access to such content will first have to "opt-in" through a highly embarrassing call to customer services.

Customers will also have to reconfirm their opt-in choice once a year, just to rub salt in the wounds.

However, TalkTalk see the move as merely a pre-emptive one, believing that the governments plans to use ISP filters as default will come around sooner rather than later.

Some industry experts see the move as just a few short steps short of censorship.

"We welcome a consultation but default filternets are awful," said Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group.

"They block a wide range of innocent material; and nobody should be advocating broader and simpler censorship."

Via: Metro

Nominet has made it easier for owners of .uk web domains to secure their addresses by extending registrations to 10 years.

Owners of .uk extensions such as .co.uk, .me.uk and .org.uk will benefit from the change, being able to secure their domains (and in by extension in some cases, their businesses) by a further 8 years over the previous two-year standard.

"The decision for the new longer term registration is a great improvement to customers who have felt they lacked choice under the old rules," said Sally Tomkotowicz, Customer Acquisition Marketing Manager of domain registrars Names.co.uk

"At Names.co.uk we applaud the decision as we have always understood that our customers want flexibility to control the registration period of their domain name. While the option of renewing your domain for the 10 year period will be a popular one, the added choice of 1 year registration has given more freedom to shorter term opportunities such as one-off events."

As well as hindering cyber-squatters annoyingly poaching recently expired, lucrative domains, the extension should also offer the benefit of improved Google rankings for those who invest in their domain over long periods of time.

Time to shred those go-to page templates web designers; there's a new king of screen resolutions in town.

According to web analytics team StatCounter, they've seen a shift in the most popular screen resolution from 1024 x 768 to 1366 x 768 between March 2009 and March 2012. It's a drop from 41.8 percent in March 2009 to 18.6 percent of web users in March 2012 for 1024 x 768, and a rise from 0.68 percent to 19.28 percent over the same period for 1366 x 768.

The move to a wider resolution has coincided with the growth in popularity in netbooks, where 1366 x 768 is the most widely used resolution; it seems many more of us are browsing the web on our laptops than on a desktop monitor these days.

1280 x 800 is the third most popular resolution at 13 percent. All other resolutions barely have 1% of the market share each.

Click here for more info.

Yahoo! have confirmed that it is to cut 2,000 jobs, equal to 14% of its workforce as they aim to transform into a "bold, new Yahoo!".

Restructuring has been long overdue at Yahoo! as it has gradually fallen from favour with web users who have migrated to services provided by Google and Facebook. A massive leap for the company, they are expected to save $375 million in the restructuring plans, with the cuts likely to affect marketing and development areas the hardest.

"Today's actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo!," said Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson.

"Smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require.

"Our goal is to get back to our core purpose - putting our users and advertisers first - and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.''

The news follows reports that Facebook are counter-suing Yahoo!, having been accused of "basing its entire social network model" on Yahoo! architecture. Facebook struck back with a suit of its own, claiming Yahoo! have infringed on 10 patents belonging to Zuckerberg's empire.

Via: Wall Street Journal

Over 9,000 O2 broadband customers caught illegally downloading pornography will have their personal details handed over to a major porn baron pressing for a settlement payout, it has been revealed today.

Ben Dover, the pseudonym for British porn actor, director and producer Lindsay Honey of Golden Eye International and Ben Dover Productions, was awarded the court order that saw O2 required by law to match iP addresses to the personal details of those downloading Honey's films. 9,124 IP addresses in total were matched up, with Honey now expected to push for a settlement sum.

In O2's defence, the ISP at least put up a good fight, trying to defend the privacy of their users. O2 fended off twelve court orders from the porn producers before unlucky number 13 forced their hand. According to the High Court, they eventually felt that "the claimants' interests in enforcing their copyrights outweigh the intended defendants' interest in protecting their privacy and data protection rights".

O2's fight however may have strengthened the rights of pirates in the future however. O2 may have set a new precedent, having fended off so many court orders demanding the personal details of their users. The speculative invoicing of lawyers like ACS :Law will now likely require far greater proof from claimants before users' details are shared.

Via: The Telegraph

Google Chrome users beware: a series of new extensions claiming to add customisation options to your Facebook profile are in fact malicious tools created by hackers intended to hijack your social networking accounts.

Hiding in plain sight on the official Google Chrome web app store, installing one of the extensions results in a Chrome user losing control of their Facebook account, which then spams all the people on the user's Facebook friends list with links to the extension and adding "Likes" to pages.

As if the presumed credibility given to the extensions thanks to their visibility on the official store wasn't enough, the nasty add-ons are also being advertised on Facebook too! Again claiming to offer customisation options, the adverts redirect to the Chrome store, giving the impression to naive web users that the extension is endorsed by both Google and Facebook.

To make matters worse, the extensions are also masquerading as reputable apps, with one listed as the Adobe Flash Player, adding further confusion to the situation.

The extensions are thought to be used by scammers (in this case based in Brazil) who've been paid to artificially increase a Facebook page's number of fans.

Security experts are now urging users to check and then double-check Chrome extensions' credentials before adding them to the browser.

Chancellor George Osborne, as part of the UK's 2012 Budget announcements, has revealed that 10 cities will benefit from £100 million worht of investment in super-fast broadband.

Christened as "super-connected cities", Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Newcastle will all see improvements made to broadband infrastructure.

By 2015, this will deliver ultrafast broadband coverage to 1.7 million households and 200,000 businesses in high growth areas, as well as high-speed wireless broadband for 3 million residents," said HM Treasury.

"Broadband is moving up the infrastructure ladder, and the 2012 Budget recognises its importance to underpinning business, both those engaged directly in digital content creation, and more traditional businesses," said Andrew Ferguson, editor of Thinkbroadband.

"The level of funding is at a low enough level, that it should not cause distortion to the market, but should allow cities to ensure that commercial operators provide service across all parts of a city, rather than the patchy nature many suffer.

"Whether this will be enough to pull the UK ahead of the pack, and accelerate ahead of the rest of Europe and compete with the Far East with regards to broadband infrastructure, the amounts seem small, but as with the BDUK spending, £100m from Westminster, will be match funded by the local authority and similar funding from private companies, meaning that there may actually be £300m or more to spend in these ten cities."

Super-fast broadband provider Hyperoptic also welcomed the news, though also remained sceptical on the overall impact the investment will make:

"There are big questions to be asked following the Chancellor superfast broadband city proposals. It's clear that there is a need to improve broadband speed and quality for both consumers and businesses, especially in light of recent reports that the UK's economy is evermore relying on eCommerce; the UK currently ranks number one in all G20 nations in terms of the amount the internet contributes to its GDP," said Dana Pressman-Tobak, Managing Director of Hyperoptic.

"But in order to compete in a global broadband arena the government needs to take a long term view and focus on encouraging broadband providers to adopt fibre-to-the-building models in cities. Anything less is not ideal. Currently providers are taking their time adopting this approach, because they don't want to cannibalise their customer base and the technology is not compatible with their legacy network."

Rural mobile coverage is also set to be extended, with 60,000 rural homes along at least ten key roads by 2015 seeing improvements to their service. The roads set for updates include the A2 and A29 in Northern Ireland; the A57, A143, A169, A352, A360 and A591 in England; the A82(T) in Scotland; and the A470(T) in Wales, all being dependant upon planning permission, using the £150 million investment revealed in the Autumn Statement 2011.

The Pirate Bay are considering moving their servers into the sky aboard low-orbit, unmanned drones in an attempt to thwart the ground-based authorities looking to close the file sharing site down.

Looking to harness the power of super-small PCs like the Raspberry Pi, the site claims their new method would require aerial military action in order to see them closed down, evading earthbound piracy laws.

"With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we're going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air," explained the Pirate Bay team in the post.

"This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war."

"We're just starting so we haven't figured everything out yet. But we can't limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore.

"These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we're building, that's more than enough.

"But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy's most resilient system. And all of the parts we'll use to build that system on will be downloadable."

The first signs of paranoia-induced madness kicking in for the Pirate Bay team, or a genius (if crazy) way of circumventing the pressure they're facing from authorities on the ground? Either way one thing's for certain; their ship won't sink without a hell of a fight.

Virgin Media has announced that they are to be the headline sponsor for this year's Eurogamer Expo 2012, and will be using the event to showcase their own superfast broadband packages.

Offering up to 120MB broadband speeds, Virgin Media will show how their service can benefit gamers who play online. Also, as the games industry moves further away from physical media and into download platforms like Xbox Live, Steam and PlayStation Network, superfast broadband speeds will let gamers grab their games (or stream them over services like OnLive) in double-quick time without even needing to leave the house and visit a shop.

"The Eurogamer Expo is a landmark, annual event for UK gamers, who want sneak previews of brand new games and be able to experience the best that technology can deliver," says Luke Southern, head of sponsorship and partnerships at the service provider.

"Virgin Media makes that happen, with superfast broadband as standard. As the UK's fastest broadband provider we offer the best speeds for downloading games, which makes our partnership with Eurogamer Expo, a perfect one."

Tickets for the Eurogamer Expo 2012 go on sale from February 23rd, available through www.eurogamerexpo.com. Virgin Media custoemrs will also be able to buy tickets through tickle.virginmedia.com on the same day. The virgin Media "Tickles" reward scheme will offer VIP early-access passes, free tickets to the show, and the chance to play exclusive titles at the event.

The Pirate Bay have announced that they will no longer be hosting torrent files, and will instead now focus on providing file-sharers with magnet links.

Though one would assume torrent files are the bread-and-butter of the service, this new move will not cause any significant changes to the way visitors use the site. Magnet links will still let users share files through associated torrent platforms, but, as The Pirate Bay will no longer be storing any file information, and instead only the data in the links, it will be much harder for courts to accuse them of copyright infringement.

Pair this with the recent domain move from thepiratebay.org to thepiratebay.se (taking them out of US web jurisdiction), and the site's owners are now in a more powerful position than ever, despite having been refused an appeal to their charges for copyright infringement.

"Quite some time ago we decided to not host torrent files anymore," said Pirate Bay in a statement discussing the changes.

"In following with that decision, we decided to make Magnet links the default option for the Download buttons!

"We've just changed places on the links. Magnet is now default, Download torrent is now where the magnet links used to be. The reason is the same as always: Magnets are now good enough to use, and it's not as easy to block as .torrent files. Also it saves us a huge amount of bandwidth!"

As part of the changes, The Pirate Bay will be torrent free by 29th February, other than those torrents that only have 10 or less peers associated with them.

Via: Torrent Freak

Google have unveiled Chrome 17, the latest stable release of their increasingly popular web browser.

A major upgrade for the browser, it has re-vamped its page pre-rendering process, meaning that when you begin to type a web address into the omnibox bar, the browser begins to pre-load pages based on your bookmarks and browsing history. In some cases, it means pages load near-instantly, before you've even hit the enter key.

"When I visit my favourite sandwich shop, I always order the same thing: a chicken cashew salad sandwich on whole wheat (it's awesome)," said Chrome software engineer Noé Lutz on the Chrome blog.

"Now, the owners know what I want as soon as I walk in the door. Which means they can start making it before I say a word. Which means I get my sandwich faster.

"Chrome now does the same thing. Except not with sandwiches. When you start typing in the omnibox and the URL autocompletes to a site you're very likely to visit, Chrome will prerender the page, so it will appear faster - sometimes, even instantly - as soon as you hit Enter."

Other updates for Chrome 17 include enhanced malware and spyware protection.

Click here to grab the broswer. It's free.

Google are about to get into the cloud storage game, and are all set to launch the Google Drive to rival Apple's iCloud and Dropbox.

"People familiar with the matter" have told the Wall Street Journal that:

"Like Dropbox, Google's storage service, called Drive, is a response to the growth of Internet-connected mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and the rise of cloud computing, or storing files online so that they can be retrieved from multiple devices."

Google's cloud Drive has long been rumoured, but with cloud storage solutions becoming more and more ubiquitous (Dropbox now has 50 million users and is worth almost $2 billion) it seems the time is right for Google to show their hand. Integration into their Android platform, and perhaps with additions like Google Docs support and Google+ photo album storage, Google could quickly build up a loyal following.

Compared to Dropbox's initial free offering of 2GB, Google, through their impressive ad-funded services, could offer far more than that.

With much of the necessary framework already in place, we wouldn't be too surprised to see this launch fairly soon.

Microsoft have teamed up with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to develop a new child-safe version of their IE9 browser to launch alongside Safe Internet Day 2012.

The special broswer has one-click access to the CEOP.police.uk and thinkuknow.co.uk sites, with IE9/Windows 7 integration allowing fro Jump Lists that let parents more easily set the browser to only give access to content that is age-appropriate for their children.

"At Microsoft we always want to provide our customers with the tools to enjoy the web safely and securely," said Gabby Hegerty, Internet Explorer lead in the UK.

"The internet has become a central part of everyday life for adults and children, from learning and communicating to working and playing online. As the leading browser provider, it is important we make the appropriate safety information available and build in features to our software which provide families with peace of mind online."

Peter Davies, CEOP Chief Executive concurred: "We have been happy to work with Microsoft to ensure that IE9 users can access advice and guidance in a way that is quick and easy. We welcome this approach and continue to work with service providers so that help and advice is available whenever it is needed."

The kid-friendly browser is available to download now for free. Click here to grab it.

Starling details of the arrest of Kim Dotcom, Megaupload.com founder, have been revealed following last week's closure of the file-sharing website.

Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, was said to be hiding in the saferoom of his New Zealand mansion, armed with a loaded shotgun, during the police raid. Swarms of helicopters circeld the property, while police cut through electronic locks to apprehend Dotcom.

Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves, Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic-locking mechanisms.

"Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves, Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic-locking mechanisms," New Zealand's Organized and Financial Crime Agency told Reuters.

Last week US federal prosecutors closed Megaupload for violating copyright laws. Prosecutors claim the website has cost copyright holders some $500 million (£320 million) in lost revenue, while Megaupload in their defence state that they were diligent in removing content flagged as pirated.

The FBI have described the action against the website as being "amongst the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States" and said it would target "the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime".

The hacking collective known as Anonymous have carried out a string of DDoS attacks on high profile websites after the file-sharing sites Megaupload and Megavideo were forced to close yesterday.

Hackers attacked the Motion Picture Association of America, the Universal Music website, the Recording Industry Association of America and a US Department of Justice website during a night of retaliation.

Anonymous took their @AnonymousIRC Twitter account to claim responsibility for the attacks, saying:

"justice.gov seems to be besieged by some pirate ships. Can't handle the pirates? Don't sail the proxeas."

Thursday saw the US governement department take down the Megaupload and Megavideo sites, calling the webmasters part of a "Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale."

Many believe the hacked websites are directly linked to the ongoing pressures to have the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills passed by the White House. Each organisation linked to the websites struck by Anonymous have shown their support for the bills in the past.

"For #SOPA supporters their#SOPAblackout is today," the Anonymous Twitter feed also stated.

Jerry Yang, co-founder of web giants Yahoo!, has resigned after 17 years at the top.

One of the first massive web companies, Yahoo! was founded by Yang and David Filo in 1995, dominating the web until peaking in 2007 with their strongest revenues.

However, the Yahoo! fortunes began to wane in the wake of the Facebook era, and a series of poor business choices partly on Yang's behalf made the company stutter. Most importantly, Yang turned down a £31 billion offer for the company from Microsoft back in 2008, a poor decision considering the company is now thought to be worth around £20 billion.

Yahoo! will be hoping that Scott Thompson's rise to CEO will reinvigorate the company, with perhaps Yang's emotional investment in the company blocking much-needed restructuring efforts.

In a statement, Yang said that: "The time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo!. As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo! leadership team, to guide Yahoo! into an exciting and successful future."

My first tip for the new bosses? DROP THAT BLOODY EXCLAMATION MARK.

Via: Yahoo

Google has signed a 3 year deal with Mozilla that will see the latter's Firefox browser continue to benefit from a lucrative search deal.

Google will continue to be the default search provider for Firefox, leading to valuable revenues for the open-sourced browser.

It's been a tense time at Mozilla over the past couple of weeks, with their previous search partnership contract, upon which they rely for a major chunk of their revenue, having run out in November. Since the last deal was signed in 2008, Google's own Chrome browser has been going toe-to-toe with Firefox, and some wondered if Google would make a tactical move to not renew the deal in order to hinder Firefox's progress.

It appears that recent charges of anti-competitiveness may have forced Google's hand.

Mozilla, in an attempt to not fall into a similar trap in the future, have now arranged similar deals with Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Via: blog.mozilla.com

First Apple's Santa iPhone 4S ad, and now Google's latest search Easter egg; it seems everyone's getting into the festive spirit this week!

Head on over to Google.com and type "Let it snow" into the search box.

You'll then be faced with a digital snow storm that lays a blanket of the white stuff all over your search results, with flakes falling slowly down from the top of the screen.

Once the screen is suitably covered, you can take an ice scraper and clean the screen up, or hit a "Defrost" button to start all over again.

What a great little trick! Up there with Google's best, but is it better than the "do a barrel roll" Starfox videogame hidden search treat?

Thanks to Kate L. for the tip-off!