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Despite the awaited and long delayed release of Firefox 3.6 last month, that was hardly sufficient to keep alive the urge from users to favor the Mozilla browser against other worthy alternatives like Chrome, Opera or even Safari. According to January data released by Net Applications, Google's browser was the big winner with a sizable usage share bump from 4.64% in December to 5.20% last month. This came at the expense of both Internet Explorer and Firefox that were marginally down compared to December.

On the side of operating systems, Windows was slightly down to 92.02% overall, while OS X saw a marginal jump to 5.13% and Linux was flat at 1%. Scrutinizing those Windows numbers further, Windows 7 hit an estimated 10% share on January 31st, which likely had something to do with IE8 taking the top browser spot with 22.31% usage share. Painfully to say, IE6 remains to be used by some 20% of users, despite its obvious shortcomings and potential security flaws.

While it's hard to be completely sold on this data, it should remain a pretty good indicator of usage trends over time. Net Apps tracks software usage from 40,000 websites representing about 160 million unique visitors each month.

Mozilla's browser sync tool, Weave, has finally hit version 1.0 after over two years in development. The add-on is available for both the desktop and mobile versions of Firefox, and uses a cloud-based, password-protected service to securely store and synchronize bookmarks, passwords, filled forms, preferences, your web browsing history and even open tabs between multiple devices running Mozilla's browser.


Users need to create an account and authorize it on all computer systems (or Nokia N900 handsets running Fennec) so that the data can be transferred from Mozilla's servers to each device. If you'd rather sync up your data to your own hardware or cloud space, Mozilla also offers instructions on setting up your own server. Weave is open source and licensed, like Firefox, under the GPL/MPL/LGPL tri-license.

Currently another add-on called Xmarks does bookmark and password synchronization too, and across other browsers, but Weave should provide a more comprehensive solution for Firefox users specifically. Future versions of the service should synchronize add-ons, personas, search plug-ins, and even under-the-hood customizations like about:config tweaks.

AMD has pushed out 2010's first batch of Catalyst drivers, complete with the usual round of performance improvements and bug fixes. Catalyst 10.1 brings a 3% speed increase to Left 4 Dead 2 and Crysis on Radeon HD 5700-series cards, and a 4% to Crysis on the 5800-line.

Bug fixes span from Windows XP to Windows 7, and you can read the release notes here (PDF). A summary of the fixes along with download links is below:

• [Catalyst Control Center] The display order will now reflect changes properly when Eyefinity is re-arranged while desktop is rotated to portrait mode
• Hot unplugging one of the displays in an Eyefinity configuration no longer causes rotation modes to disappear from Catalyst Control Center
• [Catalyst Control Center] Enabling LCD Overdrive will no longer cause mouse cursor to magnify when moved overtop of the "Calibration Preview"
• Firefox now works properly and video no longer drop frames when playing Youtube clips with Adobe Flash Player 10
• [Catalyst Control Center] Newly added custom modes will now appear properly in desktop area tree view
• Confirmation dialogue window will now appear when setting up Eyefinity mode
• 120 Hz is no longer missing from display modes for specific digital displays
• Overscan/underscan issue no longer occurs when setting displays to HDTV modes
• Performance drop no longer observed during some scenes of Resident Evil 5cinematics
• Blocky grass and trees no longer visible in Unigine "Heaven" in OpenGL mode

Download: XP 32-bit | XP 64-bit | Vista 32-bit | Vista 64-bit | 7 32-bit | 7 64-bit

Rick Spencer of Canonical -- the company behind Ubuntu Linux -- has announced a new agreement with Yahoo that will change the default search engine of the popular open source operating system. Complete terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Firefox will reportedly be configured to Yahoo upon installation.

The decision seems to be the result of a more profitable revenue sharing agreement, indicating that Yahoo outbid Google, who is -- or was -- the default search provider. "I am pursuing this change because Canonical has negotiated a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! and this revenue will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform," Spencer said.

The switch will appear in the development version of Ubuntu "as soon as reasonably possible" and will be in Ubuntu 10.04, which is due in April. Whether changes will be made to existing stable releases is not known. Regardless, users will be able to easily swap back to Google or any other engine if preferred.

Google has been supporting extensions in the beta release of Chrome for a few months now. However, for those of you who prefer staying on the safe side, the company just pushed out a new stable release which finally brings the much sought after feature to the Windows version of its browser. Google is also touting more than 1,500 extensions in its gallery -- which pales compared to Firefox but it's certainly nothing to sneeze at.

In addition to Extensions, another feature that's moving from the beta channel to stable is Bookmark Sync, which allows users to move from one machine to another while keeping all their favorite links to hand. Google Chrome 4.0 (4.0.249.78) also includes support for several new HTML5 features like LocalStorage, a handful of security fixes, and several performance improvements. The build is supposedly 42% faster than Chrome 3 and 400 percent faster than Chrome 1.

The new release comes less than a week after Mozilla updated its Firefox browser to version 3.6, and as Google's browser is racing past Apple Safari in popularity. If you haven't tried Chrome yet, now would be a good time to download it and give all these new features a spin.

Update: The release is now live at the official Firefox page. As always you can use the browser's "Check for Updates..." feature under Help to get the latest version or choose the appropriate OS below to download.

Download: Firefox 3.6 for Windows | Mac OS X | Other systems and languages

Mozilla has popped out the final release of Firefox 3.6 just a couple of days after its second release candidate was made public. Although an official announcement hasn't been made yet, users can already download the latest version from the company's FTP servers.

Firefox 3.6 is intended as a relatively minor update to version 3.5 which was released in the first half of 2009. Initially planned for availability in November, a variety of 'blockers' (severe bugs) forced Mozilla to postpone the launch on more than one occasion. Curiously, the timing of this release now seems perfect with all the criticism Microsoft is facing from users for IE's role in the recent attacks on Google.

Among the new features users can look forward to are a new Gecko rendering engine, updates to the Awesome Bar, quick theming with Personas, full-screen support for native videos embedded using the video HTML tag, and a 20% performance improvement on page rendering.

Nvidia has rolled out WHQL-certified Forceware drivers v196.21 for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200 and Ion-series GPUs running on Windows XP, Vista or 7. The update brings multi-GPU support for many new (and some unreleased) games, including Avatar Demo, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, City Bus Simulator, Dirt 2, Ferrari Virtual Race, GREED: Black Border, Mass Effect 2, Mortal Online, Ninja Blade, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Demo, Planet 51, RUSE, Serious Sam HD, and Wings of Prey.

Version 196.21 also upgrades the PhysX System Software to version 9.09.1112 and offers a variety of bug fixes in 3DMark06, Allied Force Falcon, BioShock, DiRT 2, Left 4 Dead, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Risen, Shattered Horizon, The Sims 3, and World of Warcraft. If you want to take an in-depth look at the changes, check out Nvidia's release notes for Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 -- or just grab your download below:

XP 32-bit | XP/2003 64-bit | Vista 32-bit | Vista 64-bit | 7 32-bit | 7 64-bit

Alwil Software has released three new security products today, all of which include version 5 of the popular Avast antivirus. Avast Free Antivirus is now the company's flagship product and replaces Avast Home Edition, Avast Pro Antivirus is an update to the old Professional edition, and Avast Internet Security is a new software suite.

Version 5 brings several improvements, such as a smaller footprint that uses fewer system processes, quicker scan speeds, a "Behavioral Shield" for threats not present in Avast's definitions, and a revamped GUI. Meanwhile, the Pro and Internet Security options add a script shield, a sandbox, and a command line scanner. As a suite, of course, Internet Security also has an anti-spam filter and built-in firewall.


The official Avast blog notes that if you're using version 4.8, updating to 5 is painless. You can download the base software here free of charge, but the Pro and Internet Security solutions are $39.95 and $59.95, respectively.

Update: Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 2 is out. With this you can be sure we will have the new milestone finalized before the end of the month. In the meantime, developers have also had their fair share of notice among the delays to get add-ons ready for the next installment, usually the number one reason for not upgrading immediately.

Modifying its development strategy, Mozilla will drop Firefox 3.7, and plans to issue incremental feature changes along with security updates every four to six weeks. Version 3.6 is still coming by the end of January, and Mozilla made the first RC build available last week.

The decision came from working on Firefox 3.6. "We learned an awful lot about what slows down our schedule, and that will help us plan for future releases," said Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox. One of the first additions planned after 3.6 is the separation of plug-in processes from the browser (not Electrolysis in its entirety), and there is a focus on Adobe Flash because it is responsible for more Firefox crashes than any other plug-in.

This approach will be "a huge advantage to users" as they will receive useful additions more frequently, and Mozilla can bypass the time-consuming beta cycles that come with larger releases. Not everything will trickle out in a security update, though, with changes such as the interface revamp for Windows Vista and 7 still requiring beta testing.

It was recently brought to our attention that the popular open source IM client Pidgin — and potentially Adium in the Mac — are having trouble connecting to AIM and AOL messaging clients receiving a “Received unexpected response from http://api.oscar.aol.com/aim/startOSCARSession” error.

There is a simple fix that has been confirmed to work from one of our staff members. Read more in our blog.

Mozilla has pushed out the first release candidate (RC1) of Firefox version 3.6 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The jump from Firefox 3.5.7 (the latest stable build) to 3.6 brings many changes, including a new Gecko rendering engine, a quicker start-up, and improved browser responsiveness.

Other additions include single-click appearance modifications via Personas, notifications for outdated plugins, improved automatic form fill, and support for the WOFF font format, HTML 5 File API, CSS, and DOM. Web and add-on developers should swing by Mozilla's official developer page for more information about the changes.

It's noted that over 75% of existing add-ons are already compatible with Firefox 3.6, so you should be okay to jump the gun. If you run into any compatibility trouble though, we published a workaround last year, and a stable release is expected soon. For those already running a 3.6 beta, it should be updated automatically.

Synaptics has announced Scrybe, which adds gestures and other features to Windows XP, Vista and 7. By drawing symbols and performing actions, users can open and control some applications. For example, you can highlight a word within a browser and then draw a question mark to initiate a search query.

It seems that Scrybe symbols are customizable, so you can take that a step further by binding a symbol ("e" for instance) to a site such as eBay, allowing you to highlight a product name and automatically search for it on your preferred online store. Similarly, you can open Windows applications with the same functions, and manipulate things like media players and photo galleries with taps and swipes.

Scrybe is part of the newest Synaptics Gesture Suite 9.4, and will probably be bundled with OEM systems down the road. In the meantime, you can partake in the consumer technology preview here -- and be sure to tell us about your experience. Watch a video demonstration after the break.

It looks like Mozilla won't be able to deliver on its promise to release Firefox 3.6 by the end of the year after all. According to an update on the organization's Wiki, users of the beloved open-source browser can now expect to see version 3.6 released sometime in the first quarter of 2010, while Firefox 4.0, originally slated to ship late next year, could arrive as a beta in the summer of 2010 and in final form "in late 2010 or early 2011."

Code-named Namaroka, Firefox 3.6 is expected to deliver significant performance improvements, updates to the Awesome Bar, and integration with the Mozilla Labs Personas project to customize the browser's appearance. There's also a Firefox 3.7 in the mix, which will improve Windows start-up time and include the Jetpack system for easier to write, install, and upgrade plug-ins.

For version 4.0, Mozilla hopes to finalize a new feature called Electrolysis that will compartmentalize processes and tasks on a tab-by-tab basis — similar to Google Chrome — for improved stability. The next major Firefox release should also get significant user interface changes and users are invited to submit their own designs.

The delay might come as a disappointment to many loyal Firefox users, but will hopefully prove itself worthwhile when version 3.6, 3.7 and eventually 4.0 finally see the light of day. With Chrome getting extensions support, Microsoft stepping up development of Internet Explorer, and Opera continuing to work on improving JavaScript execution as well as introducing new features, competition is looking better than ever on the browser front.

A few weeks ago we were telling you about a nifty little utility called Connectify that promised to seamlessly turn any Windows 7 laptop into a wireless access point. Available as a public beta at the time, Connectify has now rolled out its production ready 1.0 release, which fixes a handful of bugs and adds support for even more wireless cards, improves its system resources management and -- best of all -- has kept its free status.

Sharing your Wi-Fi connection with Connectify is pretty straightforward. Once installed, simply create an access point name, give it a WPA2 encrypted passphrase and choose the net connection to share. Windows 7 is required on the notebook acting as a wireless hotspot, but any wireless-equipped device, including handhelds and other notebooks running whatever operating system can jump online without any additional software.


Your friends won't see an "ad-hoc" network but rather a full blown Wi-Fi access point served up from a virtual cloned version of your wireless network adapter. The software enables users to save money on multiple Wi-Fi connections while on the road and still get all their devices online simultaneously. It can also serve as a rough and ready solution to extend the Wi-Fi range of your home network without buying a repeater router.

Rather than charging for the Wi-Fi sharing functionality as initially expected, further down the road the company plans to provide a number of value added services within the software that will be made available for a small fee.

Mozilla has released the fifth and reportedly final beta of Firefox 3.6 today as it moves closer to ship the final code by the end of the year. The latest package clears most of the remaining blocking bugs, totaling more than 120 new fixes since November's beta 4 release, among which is a couple that deal with an annoying scrolling bug and one that would expose passwords in plain text.

Although Mozilla claims to have made several improvements in Firefox's performance, stability, and security, beta 5 doesn't contain any significant new features over the last one. For those not following the beta releases, changes and new features in the upcoming browser include support for the HTML 5 file API, a feature called Personas for customizing the browser's appearance, improved JavaScript performance and more.

If you are already running the Firefox 3.6 beta then the new version should be automatically downloaded and updated shortly. Meanwhile, those sticking to the current stable release are also getting a security update. Firefox 3.5.6 patches three critical holes, one rated as high risk, two moderate and one low.

AMD has released its Catalyst 9.12 drivers, bringing DirectCompute 10.1 compatibility to Radeon HD 4700 and 4800-series graphics cards, as well as support for OpenGL 3.2 extensions, performance enhancements and more.

Performance in 3DMark Vantage has been improved by as much as 9% on Radeon HD 5700 and 5800 cards, while the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat will run up to 6% better on single card configurations. Other applications mentioned in the release notes include PowerDVD, WinDVD, IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles, Resident Evil 5, and Tom Clancy's HAWX.

Additionally, AMD has pushed out a separate Catalyst hotfix that allows multi-GPU configurations to work with Eyefinity display setups, introduces DisplayPort audio output capabilities, and adds "full support for GPU acceleration of OpenCL when used in conjunction with the ATI Stream SDK v2.0." This is on top of many bug fixes that include MW2, Wheelman, and various OpenGL titles.

Download 9.12 Driver: XP 32-bit | XP 64-bit | Vista 32-bit | Vista 64-bit | 7 32-bit | 7 64-bit

It appears that last week's release of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux systems has given the Google developed browser a healthy boost in market share. According to NetApplications' latest measurements, which are based on the browser habits of 160 million unique visitors each month to 40,000 partner sites, Chrome outpaced Safari to become the third most popular browser behind IE and Firefox earlier this month.

Of course this is an important milestone but in reality it amounts to just 4.4% of the browser market -- barely edging out Safari at 4.37%. Both browsers are still well behind Internet Explorer which sits under 64% and Firefox at around 25%. That said, it has taken five years for Mozilla's browser to get where it is today and going by these numbers the one year old Chrome is on a rising path.

The recently introduced extensions support in the beta and developer releases may have a bigger impact in terms of market share once it is officially rolled out to the final version. I for one was enticed enough to make Chrome my default browser and have been using it almost exclusively for the last week or so. While the selection is still rather limited, extensions seem to work really well and haven't impacted the browser's fast performance.

On a final note, just to offer some additional facts, looking at our own logs we were surprised to see Chrome usage grew 2.5% among TechSpot readers in the last month while Internet Explorer and Firefox saw a respective drop of 10.83% and 7.45%. Their total share stands at 43.42% for IE, 41.1% for Firefox, and 7.92% for Chrome.

Adobe will reportedly patch a critical vulnerability (CVE-2009-4324) in Reader and Acrobat on January 12, the company's next scheduled quarterly security update, as opposed to an off-cycle release. The zero-day bug is currently being exploited on Reader and Acrobat versions 9.2 and earlier. If used, an attacker could crash the system and ultimately take control of it.

Thankfully, both the rate of infection and risk assessment level are very low, according to Symantec. Although an official fix is still several weeks away, users can utilize a JavaScript Blacklist mitigation feature introduced to Reader and Acrobat versions 9.2 and 8.1.7 in October, which disables access to individual JavaScript APIs.

Webroot analyzed the malware and discovered that it installs three files which resemble Windows system files, and are digitally signed with a forged Microsoft certificate. However, unlike legitimate Microsoft-signed certificates, the malware's lack an email address and timestamp.

The European Commission's discontent with what it perceived as monopolistic practices from Microsoft has resulted in some hefty fines over the years, but it looks like the two have finally settled their differences over the choice of web browsers in Windows. In a statement issued today, European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes said that for the first time in over a decade, Internet users in Europe will have an effective and unbiased choice between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and competing software.

She is of course referring to the infamous browser ballot screen from which Windows users will decide what browser to install on their system. In all, there will be as many as 12 options presented in random order. Users can pick and download one, several of them or stick with Internet Explorer. The deal also means computer manufacturers will now be able to ship PCs in Europe that do not come pre-installed with IE.

The browser ballot will go into effect in March 2010 and the "Choice Screen update" will be available for five years. This should allow Microsoft to avoid another costly legal battle, though the company was warned it can still be fined up to 10 percent of yearly global turnover without regulators "having to prove any violation of EU antitrust rules" if it doesn't stick to the agreement.

After Boxee announced the beta version of their free media center platform last week, many people have been eager to give the latest build a spin. That is now possible, as the 0.9.20.9647 beta is available via BitTorrent. The Pirate Bay is one tracker of several who have posted the beta for download.

The full release isn't due for some time and will probably coincide with the release of the Boxee Box. Still, the beta is exciting -- until recently, only alpha releases have been available. Many new features appear in the beta, such as searching and additional content partners.


The beta is only "officially" available through Boxee, and won't be ready until January. Whether they will try and stop this unsanctioned version from being distributed remains to be seen -- it is freeware, after all.

Microsoft has fixed a problem in Office 2003 that prevented users from opening documents saved using its rights management service (RMS) technology. The feature is used to prevent sensitive documents from being opened by unauthorized users, but ironically left many corporate users in the frustrating position of being unable to open their own files due to an expired certificate.

An error message read "Unexpected error occurred. Please try again later or contact your system administrator" whenever users attempted to open or save protected documents. Microsoft acknowledged the snafu on its Office Sustained Engineering blog last week and posted a hotfix over the weekend. The problem affects Word 2003, Word 2003 Viewer, Excel 2003, Excel 2003 Viewer, PowerPoint 2003 and Outlook 2003. Office 2007 is not affected and neither is the Office 2010 beta, according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

Mozilla is polishing its first version of Firefox for smartphones, and is preparing to launch a release candidate next week with an official debut coming later this month. Codenamed "Fennec" (derived from the Fennec Fox), Firefox Mobile is Mozilla's attempt to claim a chunk of the mobile browser share.

Mozilla's vice president of mobile, Jay Sullivan, claims the feature-rich browser is "almost an operating system." Firefox Mobile currently supports things like geolocation and orientation direction, but even more functionality is on the way. According to Sullivan, the browser will support multitouch displays, haptic feedback, electrolysis, JetPack, WebGL, and the ability to control a camera.

Not to mention that Firefox Mobile and the upcoming Firefox 3.6 are based on the same underlying code, which opens a door unavailable to WebKit-based browsers like Safari Mobile on the iPhone and many others. Firefox Mobile is compatible with many extensions made for its desktop counterpart, for example. Among the 30 or so currently available is AdBlock Plus.

Nokia's unconventional, Maemo-based N900 handset will be the first to receive Firefox Mobile. Nokia is reportedly open to including the browser in the next version of Maemo (due late next year). In the meantime, N900 owners can currently download a beta version by visiting Mozilla.com/m.

The Windows Mobile version of Firefox is currently in alpha testing and should be ready in the first half of 2010. An Android version is in development but few details are available.

Google has finally released betas of its Chrome Web browser for Mac and Linux. Like the original Windows version, Chrome for OS X and Linux attempt to unite a clean, simple design with a responsive and speedy browsing experience. Most, if not all of the noteworthy features present in the Windows version have carried over (such as each tab running in a separate process and the Omnibar), but there are a few additions for both new releases.

For example, the Mac beta integrates features like OS X's built-in sandbox system, spell-checker, and Keychain -- not to mention that 73,804 lines of Mac-specific code were written. Meanwhile, Google designed the Linux version to have tight integration with native GTK themes, updates that are managed by the standard system package manager, and more.

Google did note one small, and hopefully temporary bummer about the OS X version. While Windows and Linux users have access to more than 300 extensions, they "aren't quite beta-quality on Mac yet." If that's okay with you, download Chrome here: OS X | Linux

In response to ongoing complaints from rival browser makers, including Opera and Google, Microsoft has made yet another round of changes to the proposed ballot screen for European editions of Windows 7. Specifically rather than presenting browsers in alphabetical order when users first try to surf the web, which would have placed Apple's Safari as the first option, the software maker has agreed to randomize this list.


Also, to avoid influencing user choice, the browser ballot might be developed as a standalone application, instead of an HTML page that runs in Internet Explorer. The revised proposal has reportedly been submitted to the EU and could be approved as early as next week, on December 15, with the browser ballot expected to be rolled soon afterwards into a Windows Update for existing Windows installations in Europe.

Besides putting an end to rival complaints, which were already getting ridiculous and frankly didn't seem to have the best interests of users in mind, the decision would allow Microsoft to avoid another hefty penalty after being fined upwards of $1.6 billion for violations of European antitrust rules in 2008.

Opera announced today that its November 23 launch of Opera version 10.10 has shattered previous download records. Within one week, 12.5 million people downloaded the Web browser's latest build. This marks a 25% increase from the download rate of Opera 10, which the company released only two months earlier.

Opera 10.10 promised to "reinvent the Web" with a new featured dubbed "Unite". Unite turns any computer into both a client and a server, supporting things like file transfers, media streaming and photo sharing without using third party products. The most recent version also brought "Opera Turbo", a server-side optimization and compression technology that improves browsing speeds by compressing network traffic.

"With such remarkable download numbers, I am confident that we truly appealed to the needs of the Web-using public," said Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner. The company also said its browser currently has about 45 million active desktop users -- a drop in the bucket -- and millions more on other devices. If you're among that handful of people, let's hear your impression of Opera 10.10 and why you prefer it to other, more popular solutions.

Update: Microsoft has denied Prevx's claims, calling them "inaccurate," among other things. Redmond contacted Prevx who responded with a blog post confirming that Microsoft's recent patch was not to blame. Prevx has apologized for the inconvenience, losing some credibility in the process.

Original story: A Computerworld report suggests that Microsoft's most recent batch of security patches may be causing black screens on some systems. According to Mel Morris, the CEO of security company Prevx, the issue was discovered last week and affects Windows 7, Vista and XP. It supposedly stems from changes Microsoft made to the Access Control List (ACL), which interacts with registry keys to create visible desktop features.

The patch alters those registry entries, and some installed applications simply aren't aware of the change, thus malfunctioning. Morris notes that security applications seem to be particularly affected, and called the bug "massively debilitating," forcing some users to reinstall their operating system. Thankfully, Prevx has provided free software that fixes the registry to match the ACL settings, and that should resolve the issue.

Microsoft has not commented on the issue, and Prevx plans to supply Redmond with a copy of the remedy. Check out Prevx's blog post for more information, or simply download the fix here. If you've experienced this problem, feel free to blow off steam in the comments. In the meantime, if you haven't updated Windows yet, you may want to wait -- or at least keep the fix on-hand.

Microsoft has already said it hopes to deliver the final version of Office 2010 in the first half of next year, but the folks over at Neowin apparently have it on good authority that the software giant is right on track for a June launch. As many as six different flavors will be offered to customers, including the limited-functionality Starter edition, which will feature free, ad-supported versions of Word and Excel.

Microsoft's latest productivity suite will also be offered in Home and Student, Home and Business, Standard, Professional and Professional Plus editions. No official pricing for the full or upgrade versions of Office 2010 has been announced yet. Additionally the company will make Office Web freely available to anyone with a Live account, and plans to launch Office 2010 for Mac OS X sometime next year.

In the meantime, Windows users can get a glimpse at the suite's newest features by downloading the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus beta here.

Nvidia has pushed out a new WHQL-candidate GeForce driver, version 195.62. Dated November 20, the latest build adds several bug fixes and improved stability to the previously released 195.55 WHQL-candidate driver. Among the fixes is one that remedies the occasional frame stutter in Fallout 3, and another corrects antialiasing in Borderlands when applied through the NV Control Panel.

Windows Vista and 7's Windows Media Center will no longer crash on the GeForce 210 when playing VC1 or MPEG2 HD content at 1080p resolution. Other fixes address poor performance and flickering in Need For Speed: Shift on the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 280, and failed transcoding in Badaboom when browsing a video file. Release notes are made available separately for Windows XP and Windows Vista/7. Download your copy of 195.62:

Windows XP | XP 64-bit | Windows Vista | Vista 64-bit | Windows 7 | 7 64-bit

You don't have to wait until sometime in 2010 to try Google's web-centric operating system on your netbook. Since its unveiling to the world a few days ago people have been eager to know how well it performs -- even at this early stage -- and with the source code available online details on how to set up and run a virtual machine version were quick to emerge.

Today a new build is doing the rounds on torrent sites, one that will let you run Chrome OS from a USB drive instead of on a virtualized environment. The folks over at Engadget were able to put it to the test on a Dell Vostro A90 netbook and were pleased with its performance as well as the improved boot time. From power up to the login screen, Chrome OS took around 22 seconds to load and was immediately ready to start browsing.

One major setback right now is that its device drivers are in the very early stages of development. That means some parts of your computer may not respond when using Chrome OS, and in fact Engadget's demonstration didn't include Wi-Fi functionality. Nevertheless if you are feeling adventurous, you can try it out on your netbook by grabbing the bootable image based on the Chromium OS build of Twitter user Hexxeh.

Setup instructions are available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Also, be sure to check out Google's list of devices that are known to work with the latest development version of the upcoming OS.

Support for community developed extensions is arguably the main reason why Firefox has grown to be so popular. It allows the addition of features that have specific or limited appeal, and lets people modify the browser more to their liking. Google knows its Chrome browser is well behind in this respect, but the company has actually been testing the functionality for some time in the latest development releases.

Luckily, it appears that a public roll out isn't far away as they have now opened up an extensions gallery for developers to upload their creations. This gallery isn't yet offering any downloads, but Google says that they will open it to a small group of "trusted testers" in the next few days.

The feature will make its official public debut in an upcoming Chrome 4 beta release. In the meantime, those developers who want to slot their add-ons into Chrome can find all the appropriate information here and the option to submit their code for review and approval at the developer dashboard.

The move should help Google attract more developers and end users at a time the company is working hard to extend the browser beyond its current ~3.5 percent market share. It would certainly make life easier for users coming from other browsers -- primarily Firefox -- which may support extensions "they can't live without."