Techno-woes for Google and Firefox

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

Search monster Google didn’t have such a good time on Saturday. It seems a domain name server problem put the site out of action for 15 minutes. The company has denied rumours that the problem was caused by a hack attack.

In an effort to convince reluctant organisations to install Service Pack 2 (SP2) Microsoft has revealed that it changed or eliminated more than 400 major features in the XP operating system and fixed two new classes of security flaws.

In proof that Microsoft isn’t the only company to have security headaches, Mozilla has issued an alert to warn users of its Firefox browser that a combination of bugs could let the bad guys gain access to their personal information. Take heart, the company is working on a fix but it just goes to show that no company is able to build 100 percent safe and secure software.

The more popular any piece of software becomes, the bigger target it is for those unscrupulous cretins who lurk in the shadows online.

Apple, too, has been in clean up mode. Part of the company’s iTunes 4.8 update included a patch to fix a flaw that could have allowed a remote attack on some unsuspecting victim’s computer.

Last week, Apple also released 20 patches for its OS X operating system, commonly known as Panther.

Do these low-life idiots have nothing better to do than try to ruin some innocent victims online experience?

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