Mozilla Firefox has been updated to v3.6.3. This release fixes a critical security issue according to Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2010-25:

Title: Re-use of freed object due to scope confusion
Impact: Critical
Announced: April 1, 2010
Reporter: Nils (MWR InfoSecurity)
Products: Firefox

Fixed in: Firefox 3.6.3

Description:

A memory corruption flaw leading to code execution was reported by security researcher Nils of MWR InfoSecurity during the 2010 Pwn2Own contest sponsored by TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative. By moving DOM nodes between documents Nils found a case where the moved node incorrectly retained its old scope. If garbage collection could be triggered at the right time then Firefox would later use this freed object.

You can update your version through Firefox’s internal updater by opening Firefox and selecting Help > Check for Updates. You can also get the full download here.

Our favorite internet browser, Firefox, has been updated to v3.5. You can update your version of Firefox by opening Firefox and selecting Help > Check for Updates.

Firefox 3.5 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features are:

• Available in more than 70 languages. (Get your local version!)
• Support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio. (Try it here!)
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
• Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• The ability to share your location with websites using Location Aware Browsing. (Try it here!)
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.

Via our contact form, we received an e-mail from Jim asking us for a recommendation on a free, easy to use video converter. Jim said he has several video files he would like to transfer to his iPod, but that they are in the wrong video format and he hates using iTunes. Can’t say we blame you there Jim

Well Jim, I’ve been using this piece of freeware for a while now and love the simplicity.  WinFF is a frontend GUI (graphical user interface) for the popular commandline video encoder known as FFmpeg. 

In other words, WinFF makes it very easy to convert your video files to DVD, AVI, WMV, VCD, Quicktime, cell phone format, etc.  Yes, you can convert your video files to MP4 as well for use on your iPod. A great thing about WinFF is that is supports batch jobs, so you can queue up all your files at once. Keep in mind though that depending on the size of your video files, they can take a while to convert.

You can also use it to convert your audio files to MP3, M4A, WMA, WAV, Ac3, etc.

It should also be mentioned however, that while WinFF is a great file converter, it will not transfer your converted files to your iPod. Since you dislike iTunes, you can use the free Winamp + the ml_ipod plugin to accomplish this task.

Download it here and give it a shot.



Have other suggestions? Leave us a comment!

If you’ve been noticing lately that your system seems to be slowing down, it could be an indication that it’s time to cleanup and defragment your hard drives as well as your computer’s registry.  A lot of people spend money on expensive software to help keep their computers running healthy.  While some software is almost necessary to purchase, I prefer freeware over shareware whenever possible.  I use three pieces of freeware once a month that do just that.

The first program I run is called CCleaner by Piriform. CCleaner is great for cleaning up accumulated junk on your hard drives.  It also includes a registry cleaner.  You can check out all CCleaner’s features here.

The second program I use is called Disk Defrag by Auslogics. With this you can defragment each hard drive installed inside your computer.  It also supports USB hard drives (you’ll have to enable this option in settings) and has a built-in scheduler.

After I run Disk Defrag, I run a third free program from Lars Hederer called NTREGOPT. This small program will defrag your registry on your Windows machine. Once you run this program, it will ask you to reboot to complete the registry optimization process.  However, if you are running Windows Vista, you will need to run NTREGOPT with administrator privileges, otherwise you will receive an error message.

While there can be many more processes to run through when cleaning up and optimizing your computer, this is a good place to start.

Our favorite internet browser, Firefox , has been updated today to v3.0.9.  You can update your version of Firefox by opening Firefox and selecting Help > Check for Updates.  Several security and stability issues have been patched in this latest version.

This update includes:

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.
• Many users experienced an issue where a corrupt local database caused Firefox to “lose” its stored cookies. (bug 470578)
• Fixed an issue where, starting with Firefox 3.0.7, inline image attachments on popular webmail services (like AOL and AIM) would not display. (bug 482659)
• Large forms would sometimes take a long time to submit. (bug 426991)
• In certain cases, new windows would not have proper focus. (bug 446568)

We’ve had a few people ask us how to download a video from YouTube and save it to their local hard drive.  There’s a really easy way to do this.  It’s called save2pc and best of all it’s freeware.  According to save2pc, you can save YouTube and Google videos in AVI, MPEG or FLV video format.  It’s also free of adware and spyware — plus, it’s portable.

You can download the portable version of save2pc here.

Have other suggestions? Leave us a comment!

I have made a thread on our forums listing our recommended security related freeware to keep your computer(s) running safe from those internet nasties.  You can see the list with links here !