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Norwegian browser maker Opera ASA said on Friday that Microsoft’splan to ship its Windows operating system in Europe without its Internet Explorer web browser was not enough to restore competition.

On Thursday the world’s top software maker Microsoft, countering pressure from European regulators, said it plans to ship the newest version of Windows in Europe without its Internet Explorer web browser. “I don’t think what Microsoft announced is going to restore competition,” Opera’s Chief Technology Officer Hakon Wium Lie told Reuters. “I don’t think it’s going to be enough, I don’t think it will get them off the hook,” he said.

Microsoft’s abrupt reversal comes shortly before the European Commission is due to rule on antitrust charges brought against the company in January, claiming that it abuses its dominant position by bundling its Explorer browser, shielding it from head-to-head competition with rival products.

Until now, Microsoft has claimed that the browser was an integral part of the operating system and should not be pulled out, but it now plans to do that for a European version of Windows 7, due to be rolled out later this year. A European Commission official said the EU watchdog will examine the conditions under which Microsoft will ship Windows 7 without browsers to manufacturers and suppliers, warning that the Commission will find out if there are any conditions attached. “We never suggested that they have to sell Windows without Internet Explorer. We suggested that they might have to give the possibility to customers to chose between different browsers,” the official said. The official added that it was in Microsoft’s interest to inform the Commission of any conditions attached to the rollout. The Commission, which enforces competition rules in the 27-nation European Union, said it planned to decide shortly on its latest case against the U.S. tech giant. It has to date fined Microsoft nearly $2 billion for various offenses.

The Commission can impose a fine of up to 10 percent of a company’s turnover and other remedies if found to have breached EU rules. Last month, it slapped a record $1.49 billion fine on the world’s biggest chipmaker Intel for anti-competitive practices.

Adobe and Facebook have announced a joint effort to enable Web developers to create more compelling applications using the Adobe Flash Platform and Facebook Platform.Officially supported by Adobe and Facebook, the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is a free and open source programming language library that is expected to be a complete resource supporting all Facebook application programming interfaces (APIs) including Facebook Connect.
Documentation, example applications and code are now available for developers to start building rich applications with Adobe Flash and Flex software and Facebook Platform.
Ethan Beard, director of platform marketing, Facebook, said, "Our vision is to empower the world’s developers to make the Web more social with Facebook Platform and through Facebook Connect. With our official support of the ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform, our innovative community of developers can more easily use the Adobe Flash Platform to create the next generation of applications that will allow users to engage with the people they care about in even more expressive ways."
"Combining social functionality with the Adobe Flash Platform gives the millions of Flash developers the tools to create Web experiences that are truly differentiated," said Bryant Macy, director of product marketing for the Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Flash developers are already creating great applications for Facebook, and the new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform will accelerate the pace of social innovation on the Web."
Many developers already use Adobe Flash software, including the open source Flex framework, to build applications on Facebook, or use Facebook Connect. The new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform affirms that applications created with the Adobe Flash Platform will continue to be an integral part of the Facebook ecosystem.
The new ActionScript 3.0 library for Facebook includes support for 60 new APIs, which are consistent with current Facebook Platform APIs to ensure seamless implementation. It is the object-oriented programming language for Adobe Flash technology, which is ideally suited for developing rich Internet applications (RIAs). It joins JavaScript and PHP as officially supported client libraries for Facebook Platform.
The ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform is available immediately as a free download along with developer documentation and tutorials at http://www.adobe.com/go/facebook.

A new variant of the Koobface worm has returned to menace users of Facebook.

A new kind of virus has been found on social networking site Facebook. As per latest news this virus sends messages to friends on the social networking site which contains links to some videos. Once the link is clicked it asks the users to download a Adobe Flash players files from a certain site which contain the worm’s payload.

Once the code is executed the Windows PC gets infected. Once the worm completes attacking one user it then moves on to the friends list of infected users. This malware was first spotted in July and since than has taken nasty steps and has been flared up again since last week.

The latest variant of the malware typically comes in a less salacious package. The first wave of infections came with messages such as “Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf on the Street” whereas the latest variant is more likely to pose as “secret video by Tom” or some such. The latest Koobface variant is programmed to hijack search queries and divert infected users to bogus sites, benefiting crooks through related ad hijacking and click fraud in the process.

Facebook’s advice for dealing with the worm can be found here. The social networking utility is in the process of purging spammed links to the malware from its systems, reports McAfee, which has a full write-up of the threat here. Though various antivirus software have been used to quarantine the virus but the effort has been unsuccessful because of the nature of its code.

Call me fickle, but I switched my default browser back to Firefox for the time being. In doing so, I discovered the features I really miss about Chrome.

Why did I switch back so soon after lavishing praise on Google’s open-source Web browser? Well, when Google added the option to use a cutting-edge "developer preview" version, I signed up, and guess what–it’s not as stable. Specifically, both 2.0.156.1 and the newer 2.0.157.2 that I now have installed inexplicably become unresponsive for long periods of time–at least 10 seconds, which is about 9.5 seconds longer than my tolerance limit.

But I like some of Chrome’s new features, so I didn’t want to downgrade to better-tested stable or beta versions. Instead, I thought perhaps I’d see what my second-favorite browser felt like again while waiting for the newer Chrome features to settle down.

I was a little surprised. What got me to switch to Chrome two months ago was performance, but what I missed most upon heading back to Firefox was Chrome’s user interface.

More than once, I found that even after a few weeks of Chrome, my muscle memory had been reprogrammed to expect different behavior. Switching back to Firefox wasn’t just different, though–I wanted the old features. Here’s a list of what I didn’t even know that I’d come to like.

The location of new tabs
When you open a link in a new tab with Chrome (I often middle-click to do so), the new page shows up in tab immediately to the right of the current tab. This naturally groups related tabs, and for me at least, eases the process of switching among many.

When you open a new tab in Firefox, it appears to the far right of the list, and it’s harder to get to it. It takes just that little extra bit of time to locate and navigate to the tab.

Good news, though: Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard pointed me to a blog post by programmer Mike Beltzner, which says the same behavior is coming to Firefox:

• tabs that are opened from links will open to the immediate right of the current tab
• new tabs created by the New Tab button or keyboard shortcut will open at the end of the tab strip
• if multiple tabs are opened (in the background) from links, they will open sequentially to the right of each other; as soon as focus changes, this sequential opening behavior will stop, and tabs will go back to opening immediately to the right or at the end of the tab strip as per the above

Searching from the address bar
I think Firefox’s awesome bar does a better job digging previously visited links out of my history, but searching directly from Google’s Omnibox, which adds online search into the mix, is more useful. I search dozens of times a day, and now I have to remember either to visit a search page or head over to Firefox’s special search box (to do the latter faster, I hit Ctrl-L, then Tab).

Some folks are concerned about sending lots of juicy personal data to Google’s servers, which monitors what you type so it can supply suggested search results. But except for typing in Web sites, it’s the same stuff I’d type into a search page anyway.

One less keystroke
When typing addresses into the address bar, both Chrome and Firefox offer a list of suggestions in a drop-down box. But Chrome highlights its top pick, while Firefox puts it one entry below the box.

That means if the pick is right, I just have to hit Enter with Chrome, but the down arrow, then Enter with Firefox. It’s a tiny thing, but I do this hundreds of times a day. (full Story)

Internet regulators on Thursday voted to relax rules on domain name like .com .edu which could pave the way for companies or individuals to create an array of new addresses for the web.

The Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers, or ICANN, also approved measures that will allow top-level domain names in script such as ARABIC or CYRILLIC.

Top=level domain names or TLDs, refer to Internet name suffixes such as the ubiquitous .com .net and .org among others. Currently there are more than 200 top-level domain names which also include the two character country codes used by websites, such as Britain’s .uk.

ICANN officials said some technical issues for the new system must be worked out, but it could be reviewing the first applications for new TLDs as early as next spring.

The application fee is expected to be $100,000. Individuals, companies or group could apply to have any string of letters established as a domain name. It could be a vanity name, for example-.smith-or a category name like .sports or .perfume. A company could also change to reflect its brand, so Apple.com could become Apple.mac, for instance. Straight forward applications will be approved quickly. A review process would be undertaken for controversial strings.