Two and half months after Firefox's 1.0 launch, the Mozilla Foundation has more to celebrate than non-stop media coverage: Firefox has surpassed 20 million downloads. The milestone comes just days after new tallies of Web browser usage shows strong gains by the open source newcomer, which is slowly chipping away at Internet Explorer's dominance. Last November, Microsoft IE product manager Gary Schare told BetaNews, "We think that getting the first set of early adopters is a lot easier th...

Use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has fallen for the seventh straight month, and the decline is beginning to accelerate, according to new data from research firm WebSideStory. Usage of IE stood at 90.3 percent, a one month decrease of 1.5 percent. Meanwhile, Firefox usage rose nearly a full percentage point to 5 percent of the market. WebSideStory also showed gains in Apple's Safari browser and Opera Software's flagship browser. The original Mozilla browser showed some weaknes...

I think the price is too high for this service. Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) is launching on Thursday a subscription service that offers users a tight link between the company's MSN Hotmail Web mail service and its Outlook e-mail client PC software. The new service, called Microsoft Office Outlook Live, costs $59.95 per year and includes Office Outlook 2003 for Subscription Services, which is a new downloadable subscription version of Office Outlook 2003, 2GB of online s...

Microsoft plans to drop the "Home" and "Pro" tags with the next release of Windows, code-named Longhorn, and is looking at shipping a single product that includes the features found in today's Windows XP (news - web sites) Media Center and Tablet PC editions. While still mum on many Longhorn packaging details, Microsoft representatives are more willing to talk publicly about the product now that a first beta release is set to ship in the coming months and the decisions about key operati...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Microsoft Corp.'s plan to hardwire computer security into a silicon chip rather than relying on software alone will make its debut in the next release of the Windows PC operating system that will ship late next year. The technology, to be described by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates during a speech in Seattle on Monday, will protect the startup of PCs equipped with a security chip and ensure that sensitive files aren't accessible when someone tries to boot the computer ...

You can order Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 from Microsoft. Link

Focus on Freeware – Vol. 1 I wanted to take the time and continue highlighting some free wareas I did before. In my first article I showed you some of the freesoftware I use for my computer. As I said before, I don't mindpaying for great software, all my software from Stardock is proof ofthat. However, I do believe there are great freeware applicationsthat are better than their paying counterparts. Today I wanted to focus on a piece of software that I think a lot...

Microsoft released the latest patches for this month. Don't forget to go to Windows Update to get them.

Get the latest version of Firefox. They have updated it with several security fixes. Link

I just bought a wireless usb adapter for my desktop. When I plug it into the usb port XP instantly freezes. All the other usb devices like my camera, thumb drive, etc., work just fine. Anybody have any ideas?

I thought this software was a joke or something. They just released a trial for it. Link

I found this great software that you can store your notes, images, etc. Right now it's a free beta download. I have been using it and it works great. Link

This would be great for people like me who can't get broadband. Broadband customers looking for an alternative to cable-modem or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) service may not have long to wait for broadband over powerline service (BPL), according to a white paper published Thursday by a technology-focused research group. After more than 20 BPL trials across the U.S. in 2004 and more expected this year, BPL is ready for commercial rollout and "primed for real growth," according to t...

Longhorn just gets more interesting. SAN FRANCISCO — When Microsoft delivers a beta version of Longhorn during the first half of this year, it will include support for "auxiliary displays," company officials said Wednesday at the VSLive conference. Microsoft Corp. first talked about the auxiliary display concept at the Windows Hardware Engineering conference in 2004. And Intel Corp. showed a prototype of a device with an auxiliary display affixed to a laptop lid at its Intel Develo...

Microsoft has released several patches for Windows. Be sure to run Windows Update. Link