Why Google needs Firefox – now more than ever

Google’s paying the bill for Firefox again – although the details are sketchy.

Most analysts don’t seem to realize that its a co-dependent relationship. They both need each other.

InfoWorld Tech Watch.

UPDATE: AllThingsD reports that Google will be paying Mozilla $300 million per year for the next three years, in exchange for top search engine billing. That’s more than three times as much as Google has been paying for the past three years. I, uh, toldja so.

Firefox may be down, but it’s not out

There’s still a lot of life in the ol’ Fox.

InfoWorld Tech Watch.

Browser share numbers show Chrome way up

And Internet Explorer is slowly falling below 50%.

Fascinating how the worm… er, the market has turned this year.

InfoWorld Tech Watch.

Internet Explorer loses market share rapidly

This is an unusual week – I have two stories in Windows Secrets newsletter, both of which cover important ground for Windows users.

This one talks about the fall in use of IE. Interesting to see what’s in its place.

This is paid content – but remember that you can subscribe to Windows Secrets Newsletter for whatever subscription fee you want to set. You pay what you think it’s worth to you.

Reports of Firefox’s demise are greatly exaggerated

Firefox is here for the long haul. Several important reasons why.

See my InfoWorld Tech Watch blog.

That whooooshing sound: Win7 hits 10% and keeps climbing

Emil Protalinski at Ars Technica reports that Windows 7 now enjoys more than a 10% market share. That’s a rather amazing number, considering how many PCs are out there.

Not surprisingly, you folks are more than a bit ahead of the curve: 24% of all the AskWoody.com hits last month were from Windows 7, with Vista at 28% and XP at 42%.

In the browser wars, 44% of you were using Firefox. 28% were using IE, with IE 8 outdistancing IE 7 by two to one.

Get Firefox updated now

If you run Firefox 24 hours a day (in other words, if you leave it on while you’re sleeping), there’s an update waiting for you that you should apply. Click Help, Apply Downloaded Update Now.

Mozilla released a big chunk of patches, creating Firefox 3.5.6. Get it.

If you don’t use Firefox 24 hours a day, your copy will update itself the next time you start Firefox.

Details, and a separately downloadable copy of 3.5.6, are on the Firefox site.

MS09-054 patch zaps Firefox

Now it looks like this round of patches includes one, MS09-054, that messes up Firefox.

If you have .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed, and you use Firefox, you’re opening up your system to all sorts of mayhem. The mayhem was supposed to be plugged by MS09-054, but it only made the situation worse. The problem? A Firefox plug-in that Microsoft installs called the Windows Presentation Foundation.

Just in from the SANS Internet Storm Center:

if you use Windows, install patches, and also have Firefox, oddly enough you will want to read the following Microsoft KB article entitled “How to remove the .NET Framework Assistant for Firefox“

UPDATE: Ryan Naraine at ZDNet has the details. Yes, Microsoft installed a “patch” with a security hole that affects Firefox. If you have automatic updates turned on, or you got fooled into installing MS09-054, you have to go into Firefox and manually turn off the bleeding add-on that Microsoft surreptitiously put on your computer.

REALLY COOL UPDATE:

I just re-started Firefox and it caught the two suckers. “Firefox has determined that the following add-ons are known to cause stability or security problems.” The culprits: .NET Framework Assistant and Windows Presentation Foundation. Both are blocked by default. Restart Firefox and you’ll be rid of the pests.

Take THAT Microsoft…

ANOTHER UPDATE: One reader left a comment about this patch, and I wanted to clarify. Yes, indeed, this patch was supposed to fix the earlier security hole created when Microsoft took it upon itself to install the .NET Framework Assistant in Firefox. (I cried about that patch in a blog entry four months ago.) While MS09-054 was supposed to fix the hole in Firefox introduced by Microsoft, it’s much smarter to simply disable Microsoft’s .NET Framework Assistant for Firefox. That’s exactly what Firefox has done. (Indeed, it’s what Microsoft recommended!) It isn’t clear, at this point, if MS09-054 makes the problem worse or not – thus the markthrough edits to the beginning of this post.