It seems that one of the autofill features allows you to have web forms automatically filled, even if you have never been to the site before, by pulling in your information from your Address Book card. The danger, as outlined by Jeremiah Grossman using a very simple exploit, is that malicious sites could create hidden dynamic form text fields which would then be populated with your information using Javascript A-Z keystrokes.

As shown in the proof-of-concept code (graciously hosted by Robert “RSnake” Hansen), the entire process takes mere seconds and represents a major breach in online privacy. This attack could be further leveraged in multistage attacks including email spam, (spear) phishing, stalking, and even blackmail if a user is de-anonymized while visiting objectionable online material.

Sometimes the best hacks are the simplest ones but it also goes to show that security problems are just the providence of any one tech company.

image courtesy of 9 to 5 Mac

Apple Safari is a hacker’s info harvesting dream is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google’s Chrome browser has passed Apple’s Safari out into third place for US browsers, a milestone the newer browser option achieved in the UK last October.

Chrome, which debuted in October 2008, has been steadily gaining on Mozilla’s Firefox as an Internet Explorer alternative. IE now has a 52% market share, with Firefox following at an impressive 28.5% of users. Chrome edged in ahead of Safari in recent StatCounter data, with 8.97% to Safari’s 8.88%. StatCounter pulled the data from 847 million page views in the US.

The breakdown is a bit different among UK users, with about 55% still using IE. Firefox grabs a much larger share of the (steak and kidney?) pie across the pond, with just over 38% of users favoring it. Even the admittedly underrated Opera is trouncing Safari over there, with 4.4% to Safari’s 3.9% share.

Chrome’s rapid rise is impressive in the browser arena- while Firefox has burrowed deep into the market as a place users go when they graduate from IE, it’s had over seven years to get there. Chrome hasn’t even been available for two, and some of that time is beta only, and without options for Mac or Linux.

Have you ditched Firefox to come over the the Google side? What’s your go-to browser? Is anyone still using Flock?

Chrome surpasses Safari in US popularity, now ranked third is a post from: The Inquisitr

Rumors have surfaced that Apple may be in talks with Microsoft in an attempt to make the Bing search engine the companies default search product on the iPhone, rather than the more popular Google.

Mashable is reporting that the in-fighting between the companies after Google poached their most recent CEO Eric Schmidt and launched their iPhone competing Nexus One has increased, leading Apple into open discussions with Microsoft.

It’s still unclear whether this deal will affect all iPhones or just the next releases of the companies devices. I personally will jump into my Safari settings and change the default back to Google. Currently only Google and Yahoo are found in those settings, which would make the jump to Bing a rather dramatic move for Apple.

Apple iPhone Browser Could Replace Google Default With Bing Search is a post from: The Inquisitr

The release of the lightning fast Safari 4 web browser has pushed Apple’s share of the browser market to above 10% for the first time.

Reports Net Applications (via ITPro UK)

Internet Explorer (IE) retained its dominant position last month, as its average browser share dropped marginally from 68.18 to 68.17 per cent.

Mozilla‘s Firefox gained 0.21 per cent to achieve a 21.96 per cent share, and Google’s Chrome grew 0.03 per cent to 1.16 per cent. Opera grew from 0.68 to 0.70 per cent of the market.

But the main change came with Apple’s Safari, after the version 4 beta of the browser was released last week.

The beta release helped push Apple’s browser market share to 10.91 per cent, or 1.88 per cent more than the same time in the week before its release. Last month, it was 9.04 per cent.

The report also said that the Safari 4 beta release grew its share of users by almost 0.5% a day following its release, to 1.04% on day four, or 10 million users, a quicker uptake rate than ever recorded for previous releases for browsers such as IE and Firefox.

As I type this post on my laptop via a reasonably slow 3G modem, I can only say that Safari deserves the share. As we reported initially, Safari 4 is fast, but you don’t notice the difference as much on a highspeed connection. On a slower connection like the one I’m on now, the difference is remarkable. I’m that impressed that it’s now my number one recommended web browser for people on slower connections.

Safari’s market share passes 10%, and it deserves it is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ve been stewing over this bucketful of crap about the European Union wanting to give Microsoft the good old underhanded grab because Opera is whining about how it can’t get any market share away from Microsoft because of Internet Explorer being shipped as part of the Windows OS. Then Mozilla decides that ya that sounds like a great idea and jumps on the EU bandwagon like a bunch of whiney little brats. Now today Google decides is doesn’t want to be left out of any parties so it petitions to join in on the anti-trust case.

Sorry but the whole argument that Microsoft has a monopoly on the browser market because it ships IE with Windows is nothing short of bullshit – plain and simple. The idea behind a monopoly is that Company ‘A’ has a complete stranglehold on a segment of the market that not a single competitor has a chance to gain customers away from them.

Well excuse me all to hell but perhaps nobody is paying attention to the numbers in this lala-land but tell me the name of the one company that has been losing browser market share over the past year.

C’mon .. it’s not hard. Hell just Google for it and the numbers are there for those that aren’t frikken blind.

The only company to see its numbers go down; and no Opera you don’t count anymore, is Microsoft. Mozilla’s Firefox has continually climbed with numbers of  anywhere between 20% to 30% being commonly tossed around. Even Google’s Chrome in its short life has been taking away users from Internet Explorer so what the hell do they have to bitch about. Then we have Apple’s Safari browser which is also showing strong gains, and speaking of Safari if the big whine point everyone has against Microsoft is that they ship their own browser with their own operating system how come Apple is getting a pass?

The fact is that the browser market is one of the strongest ones out there as far as software is concerned. All the players – the serious ones anyway – hard pushing hard and producing great products. Firefox continues to grow but is facing some stiff competition from both Google and Apple. As far as I am concerned this whole EU nonsense is nothing more than them trying to return to the Microsoft ATM to see if they can grab a few more billion and Microsoft’s competitors are only to willing to tag along.

The EU, Google, Mozilla and especially Opera are a bunch of asshats is a post from: The Inquisitr

Apple has upped the ante in the browser wars with the release of Safari 4 beta.

The new version of Safari, built on top of Apple’s open source Webkit code comes with a range of new features, but it’s speed where it excels.

Apple claims that its new JavaScript engine in Safari runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3, and up to 30 times faster than IE 7. Javascript engines probably don’t mean a lot to most people, but the end results are just as impressive; Apple claims Safari 4 is three times as fast as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 in loading pages.

In practice, the difference isn’t quite as great as three times, but it is clearly quicker from the moment you first load a page. Across a number of sites, the average load speed for Safari was 66% to 100% (1.66-2x) quicker than Firefox 3 on my MacPro. I can’t compare it to the last version, but feels quicker across a range of sites (I use Safari for most browsing). Either way, it’s fast.

The new version also comes with a range of new features that make the browser highly appealing. Safari’s developer tools have had a big upgrade which takes them further into Firebug territory, but with a lot more polish and a range of extras, such as the ability to browse databases and run SQL queries.

For Safari users on Windows, Apple has abandoned the default chrome look taken from Macs and now presents itself as a normal looking Windows app. Not a huge change, but one that makes Safari less foreign for Windows users who are trying it out.

Safari now supports coverflow, allowing users who like to use a lot of tabs to browse through what they have open, and also previously browsed sites. New feature Top Sites aggregates the sites you most regularly browse to in an appealing 3D interface.

The list of changes and new features is too long, but you can read all 150 of them here.

Getting people to change browsers isn’t an easy task, and Safari only has a small market share today. This new release though defines itself by speed and feature set, and it’s a highly appealing package. If you haven’t tried Safari before, or if you’ve tried it but didn’t like it, give this version a shot.

Safari 4 Beta Released: The Need for Speed is a post from: The Inquisitr

New numbers released by Net Applications show IE dropping to 67.55 percent of the worldwide browser market. That’s 0.6 percent less than it had one month ago, and a full 7 percent less than it had in March of 2008.

Firefox, in the meantime, has steadily grown in the same time period. Mozilla’s browser now commands 21.53 percent of the market, up from 17.83 percent last March. And it’s not the only alternative product growing, either:

• Safari is now up to 8.29 percent, from 5.82 percent last March.

• Chrome is sitting at a modest 1.12 percent but showing monthly growth. (It didn’t have any users last March, as it hadn’t yet been released.)

• Opera has fluctuated around the 0.70 percent mark.

Microsoft, of course, is hoping IE 8 — which saw its first release candidate hit the Net last week — will help it regain some of its lost ground. While the browser is undoubtedly an improvement over its predecessor, I don’t see it offering anything that’ll convince other browser users to switch back.

Internet Explorer Loses More Ground While Other Browsers Grow is a post from: The Inquisitr

I love using Safari on my Mac for the stability and speed, but I keep coming back to Firefox for the features. Safari plugin Glims though narrows the features gap.

The completely free package (Mac only) adds the following features to Safari

* Adds thumbnails to Google.com search results
* Adds thumbnails to Yahoo.com search results
* Adds full-screen browsing capability
* Adds Favicons to tab labels
* Adds keyword search from address bar
* Undo “Close Tab” (cmd-z)
* Re-opens last session when Safari starts
* Focus last selected tab
* Type-ahead support (auto cmd-f)
* Forms autocomplete always on
* Dated download folders

Best still: they’re not an all or nothing proposition, and each feature can be turned on/ off to suit individual tastes. My particular favorites:undo close tab, re-open last session, and favicons on tabs. It doesn’t deliver everything I’d want, but with it I’m more likely to use Safari more often.

You can grab Glims here.

(via LifeHacker)

Glims Makes Safari a Whole Lot Better is a post from: The Inquisitr

First, the new release: Chrome version 0.3.154.9 is expected to go out to users automatically within the “next few days,” according to a blog posted last night. It implements a substantial security fix, as well as improved Flash and Silverlight performance, touchpad scrolling support, and some changes to the interface.

Now, the counterintuitive effect: Chrome seems, at this point, to be helping the other browsers on the market. After its initial draw, recent reports show Chrome’s numbers dropping and the number of users on other browsers climbing. Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner sees it as a direct effect. In an interview with GigaOM published today, von Tetzchner said the publicity surrounded Chrome essentially gave him free exposure to an audience who didn’t know his product existed.

“The effect of Chrome so far has been 20 percent more downloads every day,” he told GigaOM. “It’s fairly logical when you think about it, because the biggest hurdle we have is all those people that don’t realize there’s an alternative in the market. Now, with the launch of Chrome there’s focus on the choice of browsers in the market.”

So what’s in the cards for Chrome’s future? Our Inquisitr poll last month asked you what you thought.

• 39 percent of you believe Chrome will stick around and carve out its share of the market.
• 29 percent said it will stick around but never see widespread success.
• 32 percent said it will eventually fade into Google Lab oblivion.

To be fair, Google’s first foray into the browser world is still in beta, so we may be jumping to early judgments on its ultimate success. Then again, Gmail’s still in beta, too, and it’s doing just fine. Chrome came into a market with several popular and relatively advanced browsers, so finding a sizable userbase willing to abandon Firefox, Safari, or Opera may prove extra challenging for Google. So far, though, the team is showing no signs of giving up yet. Let’s see if their efforts pay off, or if — as a third of you predicted — Chrome vanishes into the final resting spot of so many Google projects past.

Chrome Releases Third Beta — Competitors Excited? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The data, from Net Applications, indicates users are reverting back to Internet Explorer and Firefox; both those browsers’ numbers have gone up slightly as Chrome’s have gone down. IE jumped 0.24 percent and Firefox 0.06 percent in the same time period. Safari, the research firm has found, has seen the least effect from Chrome’s introduction.

Interestingly, the numbers for Chrome spike the most during the night hours. It makes sense, though: As Net Applications points out, many people have no choice but to use IE at work. When they come home, they use their preferred browser. Firefox and Safari see similar effects.

Researchers suggest Google’s lackluster marketing may be to blame for the dropping share. Along those lines, it’s surprising to see that Google didn’t snatch up the Chrome branding opportunity within the new Android phone announced today. While the G1 does use a “Chrome-like” browser based on the same foundation, it does not carry the Chrome name.

Can Chrome survive? It still has a lot of growth to do as it moves closer to a non-preliminary release, so we may not have seen its full potential (or Google’s full marketing plan) just yet. Still, it has a lot of ground to gain to avoid becoming another blip on the radar of Google Labs-type products that never make it.

Which way do you think it’ll go? It’s not yet November, but this election is open. Vote below.

Chrome Starting to Lose Steam is a post from: The Inquisitr

As Chrome started building up a userbase last week, American tracking company Net Applications found Microsoft’s browser share dropped by 1.4 percent, to 71 percent of the total browser market, as of Friday. But where it gets particularly interesting is in the figures for the other browsers:

• Firefox: Up 0.3 percent to 19.5
• Safari: Up 0.4 percent to 6.7
• Opera: Up 0.1 percent to 0.75

Most of the early predictions, understandably, speculated Chrome would pull most of its users from Firefox. As you can see, though, that appears to be anything but the case, at least from these new figures. Chrome’s total percentage hovers somewhere around 1 percent of the browser market, meaning that even if all its regular users did come from IE, still more Microsoft users defected and went to other existing options.

So what’s the deal? My guess is that the introduction of Chrome and the wealth of resulting media coverage comparing the browsers probably heightened awareness that hey, you don’t have to use this program that came with your Windows system. It’d be enlightening to get some research into how many of the users who jumped ship from IE had never used anything but IE before. My suspicion is that it’d be a fairly high amount.

In that respect, regardless of whether you love Chrome or hate it, its presence can be deemed a success. Maybe it takes a ubiquitous name like Google to open the general, non-computer-savvy public’s eyes to the less obvious options that exist. Granted, we’re only talking a couple of percentage points here — but it’s a start.

Surprise: Chrome’s Users Coming From IE is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s another bold move from a company that wants to be everything to everyone, but logical in the sense that Google is a web company and the one common thread that all Google users share is using a browser to access the web.

There’s no guarantee that Google Chrome will make a significant impact in browser share, and Google’s previous attempts of extending itself onto the desktop or with services like Lively have shown mixed results at best. Google does have a history of half-hearted releases without backing up the product through promotion or development post release, but I’m willing to bet that this isn’t the case with Google Chrome. Simply, there’s too much money at to be had by getting users to install it, and Google loves nothing more than looking for the next large income stream. We don’t know all the details, but certain things will be a given: Google search as default (will they offer competitors will be interesting to see), Google Toolbar functionality built in, Google page rank tracking goodness for everyone.

But who has the most to fear from Google Chrome?

It’s not Microsoft, who despite ignoring the browser for years still has around a 70% market share (depending on which set of figures you read…it’s closer to 20% among Inquisitr readers for example) and will always be able to depend on a pre-installed base of Windows users who despite having options, either don’t want to change, or don’t know how to. The organization with the most to fear from Chrome has to be Mozilla.

Consider that a Firefox user has downloaded and installed Firefox on their machine, because in Windows and OS X Firefox isn’t offered natively. A Firefox user isn’t afraid to install a plugin, or use tabs. A Firefox user looks for the best experience from their browser, and is aware that there are alternatives and isn’t afraid to try them.

The biggest thing going for Chrome out of the box is that it’s not built on Firefox, but built on Apple’s WebKit, the engine behind the Safari browser. Now Safari hasn’t been a huge success story, but WebKit has one very strong thing going for it: speed. Couple this to the Google built V8 javascript rendering engine that should in theory make Chrome quicker again. Lets presume that the feature set Google has added on top offers at least a half compelling range, and immediately Firefox users will be presented with a viable competitor backed by the largest internet company in the world.

It’s also conceivable that Chrome will start popping up pre-installed on Windows machines. Google already spends good money now getting the Google Toolbar pre-installed, extending that to pre-loading Google Chrome would seem a given. You therefore have Firefox users willing to switch if Chrome offers a viable alternative and/or is better to use, and others getting it preinstalled…not quite a perfect storm, but a compelling use case in the quest for market share.

We’re still missing one thing though from Google: the rabbit in the hat. Offering a great product isn’t going to deliver significant market share without a special mix of something to drive uptake forward. Firefox is one of the best examples of viral marketing, Microsoft uses its presence, but what will Google offer? They’ve scrapped the affiliate program for Google products, but could they reintroduce that? $1-$2 per install will immediately drive Google Chrome ads across the web. Could it be something else we haven’t seen, a cashback scheme on Google Checkout (something a little like Microsoft’s Live cashback scheme) or some sort of direct user incentive that we are yet to consider? Don’t rule it out; if Google is serious about building share, they will have a plan in place. And no matter what way you look at it, Firefox will be the browser to take the biggest hit.

Why Mozilla should be afraid of Google Chrome is a post from: The Inquisitr

The company has just announced it’s acquired Inquisitor, a plug-in for the Safari browser that puts some extra punch into the program.

The software is capable of auto-completing queries and showing results right inside the Safari window, much like the Google Toolbar for IE and Firefox. The features are also similar to Yahoo’s own non-browser-integrated Search Assist utility.

Inquisitor has no relation to The Inquisitr, in case this acquisition raised any inquiries.

Yahoo Acquires Mac-Based Search Software is a post from: The Inquisitr