Download Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15

End users will still have to exercise their patience when it comes down to downloading, installing and test driving the latest development milestone for the next iteration of the Mozilla open-source browser, but in the meantime they can keep busy with two updates offered for older versions. Firefox 3.5.4 and 3.0.15 are now available for download straight from Mozilla for all the platforms supported by the browser. At the time of this article Mozilla was yet to release Firefox 3.6 Beta, officially or otherwise, but make sure you keep your eyes on this space and I will make sure to provide an update once the downloads get the green light.

As per the tradition associated with the evolution of Mozilla browser versions, Firefox 3.5.4 and 3.0.15 are nothing more than security and stability updates. In this regard, both refreshes bring to the table a variety of security fixes. Mozilla has patched no less than 10 vulnerabilities in Firefox 3.0.15. The same range of security issues were addressed with the release of Firefox 3.5.4, although the latest Firefox 3.5 refresh contains a fix for an additional security hole, taking the total of vulnerabilities patched to 11.

“As part of Mozilla’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.5.4 and Firefox 3.0.15 are now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as free downloads,” revealed Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance engineer at Mozilla. “We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3.5 or Firefox 3, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.”

Mozilla has confirmed that it will release Firefox 3.6 Beta on October 28th, 2009. And it’s going to be October 28th all day long, and I’ll make sure to monitor Mozilla and try to grab the download even before the official announcement. In this regard, you will be among the first to know when Firefox 3.6 Beta will be released.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 7 begins to release to the public across the world

Right now, it's October 22nd in some parts of the world, and Microsoft has begun releasing Windows 7 across the world at various launch parties and events. In New Zealand, Microsoft held events in Auckland and Wellington to promote the launch of Windows 7 by gathering a crowd and making a big Windows 7 logo with them.

Windows 7, is available worldwide today to the general public, whereas before now it has only been available to technet/msdn subscribers, as well as VLK owners and university students around the globe. Windows 7 had the largest beta testing process in the history of Windows release cycles, with well over 8 million copies of the public beta being downloaded in 3 months.

In May, Microsoft made the Release Candidate, Build "7100", available to the public through until August 20, stating that this version of Windows 7 would be free for "six months" if you continued to use the RC until it expired. This build had over 100 fixes and tweaks that Microsoft had provided thanks to testers feedback. On August 6, Microsoft made available the RTM code, Build "7600", of Windows 7 to Technet/MSDN users, and general availabilty on October 22 marks the final phase of Windows 7's release - after 3 years of development and testing, which was heavily user driven.

From today, Windows 7 will be available from retailers around the world, as well as online stores such as Amazon.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Office 2010 Public Beta Available for Download in November

Microsoft is gearing up toward the release of the first public testing Build of the next iteration of the Office System. The Redmond company confirmed officially, at the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas, that it would start offering public downloads of Office 2010 Beta as early as next month. Come November 2009, the general public will get the chance to download, install and test drive Office 2010 Beta for free, the software giant confirmed. Microsoft did not reveal the specific availability deadline for Office 2010 Beta, and as such, testers and early adopters will have to exercise patience a little longer.

The past week, a new development milestone of Office 2010 made it out of Redmond and into the wild. Office 2010 Build 14.0.4514.1009 was leaked and offered for download from various illegal third-party sources, but especially BitTorrent trackers. It was not the first time that a Build of Office 2010 was leaked to torrent websites, but it is the most recent testing milestone that became available outside of Microsoft and the company’s closed circle of testers, signaling that progress was indeed being made on the development of the productivity suite.

Microsoft initially released Office 2010 in July 2009 via a limited, invitation-only testing program. The Technical Preview of Office 2010 was a precursor of the Beta build, but at that time the Redmond company did not consider the release ready for wide distribution. I have been a member of the Office 2010 Technical Preview program since day one and using the development milestone ever since on multiple machines, and only encountered minor glitches. As far as I can tell, Office 2010 Technical Preview sits at the same level as Windows 7 Milestone 3 quality wise. Yes, there are some bugs, but they’re inherent to any product in development.

If anything, I was surprised of how stable and reliable Office 2010 was even ahead of the public Beta milestone. Microsoft has also worked to make the next version of the productivity suite faster, cleaner and more intuitive via the Ribbon/Fluent GUI. I would say that it’s definitely worth a download and a test drive once Office 2010 Beta becomes available. At the start of this month, Robbie Bach, president, Entertainment and Devices Division, noted that the RTM version of Office 2010 would be offered to customers in spring 2010.

 

source: www.softpedia.com

1.5 Million Microsoft Security Essentials Downloads in a Week

Microsoft’s first example of a free antivirus might have gotten its fair share of criticism and raised eyebrows but fact is that the security solution is right on track to becoming a success. In just the first week since its debut on the market, Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 (formerly codenamed Morro) has been downloaded in excess of 1.5 million times around the world, Microsoft reveals. Joe Faulhaber, from the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, notes that the key contributor to the early adoption figure explosion is the price of Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0, or lack thereof. Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 is available as a free download to all Windows users that are running genuine copies of the operating system.

“Now that Microsoft Security Essentials is generally available to consumers in 19 countries, we've had a chance to go over the data, and there are some very interesting results. Just in the first week we saw well over 1.5 million downloads of Microsoft Security Essentials,” Faulhaber noted.

The software giant released Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 to the public at the end of September 2009. Compatible with the 32-bit flavor of Windows XP, as well as with the 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials 1.0 is nothing more than a basic security product offering core protection for its end users, but without the bells and whistles of major security suites.

“Computers reporting detections up to October 6: almost four million detections on 535,752 distinct machines. The detections are eight times the machine count because many computers are infected with multiple threats,” Faulhaber added. “Microsoft Security Essentials is available in 8 languages and 19 markets at RTM, which covers a lot of the PC using world. The geographic distribution of detections so far still closely follows the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta countries, and is ramping up in other countries that use the 8 languages.”

source: www.softpedia.com

Windows 7 vs Snow Leopard benchmarks

CNet.com has benchmarked Windows 7 and Snow Leopard using the same hardware to test both operating systems. The performance test ran using software available on both operating systems including iTunes 9, QuickTime, Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare and Cinebench R10; testing multimedia multitasking, shutdown time, boot time and iTunes encoding.

The laptop used was a 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.5Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM with a 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT video card. Snow Leopard was installed on a stock 320GB hard drive (Hitachi model HTS543232L9SA0), while Windows 7 64-bit was installed on a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue (model WD3200BEVT). The hard drives were identical in the tests, both supporting SATA 3Gpbs interface with 8MB of cache memory, spinning at 5,400rpm.

Windows 7 64-bit was running on Boot Camp 3.0. The computer was set for high performance in power management for optimum performance on both operating systems. All software tested was in 64-bit, except QuickTime and Call of Duty 4.

(image courtesy of: CNet.com)

The Benchmarks

The benchmarks indicate that Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) performs better, on a MacBook Pro. However, Windows 7 64-bit seemed to run applications like, Cinebench R10 and Call of Duty 4 better, even on Mac hardware. The battery performance test was a bit skewed because Boot Camp and the drivers were using more energy than Snow Leopard would have been. Windows 7 64-bit has been seen to last longer on a full charge with other laptops.

(images courtesy of: CNet.com)

Conclusion

It appears that Snow Leopard users are getting better performance than Windows 7 would, but by seconds. Windows 7 64-bit users would be the better choice for gamers, who would get better performance when running games, not to mention more games are available for Windows PCs than Mac computers.

 

source: www.neowin.net

Firefox 3.6 Beta Tailored to Windows 7’s Windows Aero GUI

The upcoming development milestone of Firefox 3.6 is a clear indication that Mozilla is tailoring the next iteration of the open source browser to Windows 7. Released to manufacturing on July 22, Windows 7 is heading for General Availability next week, on October 22. By the time Windows 7 hits the shelves, Mozilla will have already released the fully fledged Beta 1 for Firefox 3.6, which is currently scheduled for availability on October 21. Firefox 3.6 Beta has been adapted to Windows 7, especially to the evolution of the graphical user interface.

In the image below, you can see the Taskbar Thumbnail Previews that are now supported by Firefox 3.6 in concert with the Windows 7 Superbar. Hovering the mouse over the Firefox 3.6 Beta now causes the browser to display thumbnails of each opened tab, the same functionality that is offered by default by Internet Explorer 8. Users can simply preview and navigate to a certain tab or opened Firefox 3.6 window via a Thumbnail Preview (via Mozilla Links).

If you are willing to give Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 a try for yourselves, Mozilla is already offering a preview build. This week, the company code froze Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 and started providing nightly builds for testing purposes through its FTP servers. Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Build 1 is available for download and installation on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, but testers need to understand that this is not the final Beta, which will only drop one day ahead of the Windows 7 official launch.
At the same time, there are additional changes for the integration of Firefox 3.6 into Windows 7. In this regard, Mozilla has also worked on having Firefox 3.6 support Jumplists, namely mini-Start menus that offer, via right-click on the browser icon on the Taskbar, easy access to the most visited websites. Users of Firefox 3.6 in Windows 7 will also be able to enjoy the same functionality when it comes down to browser downloads as it is currently offered with Internet Explorer 8, namely a visual indicator of the action’s progress.

 

source: www.softpedia.com