Google's Free Web Application Security Scanner

Google has made public a beta version of one of its internal tools used for testing the security of Web-based applications.


Google Gives Away Free Web Application Security Scanner

Google has released for free one of its internal tools used for testing the security of Web-based applications.

Ratproxy, released under an Apache 2.0 software license, looks for a variety of coding problems in Web applications, such as errors that could allow a cross-site scripting attack or cause caching problems.

"We decided to make this tool freely available as open source because we feel it will be a valuable contribution to the information security community, helping advance the community's understanding of security challenges associated with contemporary web technologies," wrote Google's Michal Zalewski on a company security blog.

Ratproxy -- released as version 1.51 beta -- is quick and less intrusive than other scanners in that it is passive and does not generate a high volume of attack-simulating traffic when running, Zalewski wrote. Active scanners can cause problems with application performance.

The tool sniffs content and can pick out snippets of JavaScript from style sheets. It also supports SSL (Secure Socket Layer) scanning, among other features.

Since it runs in a passive mode, Ratproxy highlights areas of concern that "are not necessarily indicative of actual security flaws. The information gathered during a testing session should be then interpreted by a security professional with a good understanding of the common problems and security models employed in web applications," Zalewski wrote.

Google has posted an overview of Ratproxy as well as a download link to the source code. Code licensed under the Apache 2.0 license may be incorporated in derivative works, including commercial ones, but the origin of the code must be acknowledged.

Google Steals Search Share From Rivals

Extending its dominance in the search market, Google grew its share of queries in April at the expense of rivals Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Ask.com.


Google Steals Search Share From Rivals

Google's U.S. search query share in April grew to 61.6 percent, up from 59.8 percent in March, comScore announced Thursday. Google accomplished this although the number of search queries dropped 2 percent overall in April to 10.58 billion, compared with March, comScore said.
So even with the overall monthly decline, Google managed to increase its search queries by 1 percent, from 6.44 billion to 6.51 billion.

Meanwhile, the other four major search-engine players saw their queries and their market share drop in April, compared with March, not a great situation for them to be in, considering that search advertising accounts for about 41 percent of U.S. online advertising, according to the latest report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Yahoo's market share of queries dropped to 20.4 percent, and its number of queries fell 6 percent. Microsoft's market share shrunk to 9.1 percent, while its queries fell 5 percent. AOL, down to a 4.6 percent share, saw its queries drop by 6 percent. Ask.com, whose share slid to 4.3 percent, had the biggest fall in queries percentage-wise with 9 percent.

A desire to improve its position in search was a primary driver for Microsoft's now-abandoned acquisition bid for Yahoo. However, Microsoft is reportedly trying to strike a search deal with Yahoo, which is also in similar negotiations with Google. It's not clear whether Yahoo would be open to selling its search-advertising business outright or instead seek a deal to outsource part of it to Microsoft or Google.

Whatever happens, comScore's figures for April leave no doubt that Microsoft and Yahoo have resoundingly failed to slow down Google in search, and that Google remains well-positioned to use its search dominance to continue boosting its revenue and profits.

In a research note commenting on the comScore report, Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney wrote: "As Google continues to take share, we continue to believe a deal between Yahoo and Microsoft would be necessary -- though not sufficient -- to compete effectively with Google."

Google Holds Meeting on Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Executives of Google Inc. held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the implications of revived talks between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc.



Google Holds Meeting on Revived Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Executives of Google Inc. held an emergency meeting last night to discuss the implications of revived talks between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., according to a report in The Times in the U.K.

Over the weekend, Microsoft said it might be interested in buying part of Yahoo, but not all of it.

For the past month or so, Google has been in talks with Yahoo to extend a two-week test whereby Yahoo would deliver Web advertising from Google alongside its own search results. According to various reports, that deal could be solidified this week.

Google and Yahoo could not be reached for comment at deadline. Microsoft declined comment

Speaking at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Hertfordshire, which was hosted by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company CEO Eric Schmidt said, "After this press conference, the three of us will meet and decide what our response is," according to The Times.

The renewed talks between Microsoft and Yahoo come as billionaire investor Carl Icahn gears up to launch a proxy fight to replace Yahoo's board of directors. Icahn and other investors are angry that Yahoo snubbed Microsoft's initial offer to purchase the company for US$44.6 billion.

In addition, according to The Times, Brin said Monday that he would give Yahoo's CEO, Jerry Yang, "refuge within Google" if he were forced out of the company. Brin also said Google had not yet ruled out a deal with Yahoo, The Times said.

source:
For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld.

Yahoo's Answer to YouTube

Flickr, the well known photo sharing site, has announced that it will begin offering video Streaming in an effort to rival the dominant market leader, YouTube.

Flickr to add video streaming

Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo!, made the announcement today but with a hitch. Movies will be Limited to only 90 seconds long and 150 MB in size. The movies will be shown as thumbnails next to user's uploaded photos.

All Flickr visitors "will be access all of the tools for videos that they can currently for photos - namely users can add comments, captions, comments, geotags, and privacy restrictions so only friends or family may view their videos." The videos can also be embedded on other sites.

Flickr's staff said the new decision was based on the fact that an increasing number of digital cameras and DSLRs offer video recording. Although it will now offer video streaming, the company insists it does not want to be the next YouTube and instead wants a more personal touch for friends and family to upload short movies.

"People aren't using YouTube to share their personal short-form video clips", said a Flickr spokesperson.

"Ninety seconds helps us define that rebroadcasting commercial content is not what this site is for", added Neilson.

The only other hitches are that only "pro" subscribers will have the ability to add videos and the site only supports AVI, MPEG, and MOV formats.

Microsoft to Google: You Owe Us

Google has succeeded partly because Microsoft built up the business, an exec says.

Microsoft to Google: You Owe Us

Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie said Tuesday that competitor Google owes its business in part to Microsoft, and that his company is not concerned about losing its position as an innovator in the technology market to the search and advertising leader.

"If we didn't succeed at the PC, they wouldn't have a business," Mundie said of Google, in comments made via Webcast at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

He said Google was able to grow so quickly because it introduced a new business model for the Web at just the right time. "It wasn't that many years ago that Google didn't exist," Mundie said. But now that the industry and competitors like Microsoft are catching up to Google's online advertising strategy, "I don't think they can do anything we can't do," he said.

In fact, Microsoft's longevity versus its relatively new competitor gives it a substantial advantage long term over Google, Mundie said. "I'd like to think we're strategically open-minded, we've made adjustments [to our business model]," Mundie said. "I'd like to see Google and someone else come up with something that really threatens our business model."

Part of that business model is to combine forces with Yahoo to compete with Google in the advertising market. Microsoft is currently in the middle of what could end up becoming a hostile takeover of Yahoo, after the company rejected the software giant's US$44.6 billion cash and stock offer. Microsoft is now rumored to be mounting a proxy fight for Yahoo.

While Mundie acknowledged that he couldn't discuss much about the ongoing Yahoo proceedings publicly, he did concede that Microsoft is eager to acquire the company and move ahead on the Web. "Right now we'd just like to close the Yahoo deal," he said.

Even if the deal does not go through, however, he said Microsoft is confident its own Web strategy, fueled by a combination of software and services rather than an entirely Web-based portfolio, will eventually help the company catch up to Google -- barring a "major screw-up" on Microsoft's part.

Moreover, Microsoft has a multiyear lead on Google in providing software in mobile phones, another area where the Internet company aims to compete. "They're sort of late to the cell-phone thing," Mundie said, noting Microsoft's success with its Windows Mobile OS, which powers millions of smart phones worldwide

The Search Wikia

The widely-awaited open-source search engine, from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, makes it debut today.

Wikia Search Engine Goes Live Today

Search Wikia, the widely-awaited search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is slated to make its official debut today, Monday. It's been said that this open-source, community-driven search engine will eventually place it in competition with Google.

The search engine is still in very early alpha stage, and users who want to test-drive the engine shouldn't expect a Google-killer. It still needs time, and will need participation from volunteers to grow and be refined, Wales said.

With that in mind, Search Wikia is expected to be developed and refined, similarly to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written and edited by a community of volunteer collaborators, who have expanded it and improved it over the years.

"Search Wikia is an extremely alpha project. It's a project to build a search engine and not a full-fledged competitor to Google yet. We want to make sure people understand that it's in its very early days," Wales said.

Wales expects the project to provide an alternative to commercial search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft.

"I don't know how long it will take to reach industry-standard quality search results, but I'd say at least two years," he said.

People interested in volunteering will find a variety of options at Search Wikia, including working with the software to improve and extend it, as well as suggesting pages for the index and evaluating and rating search results.

Those who register to participate in the project will join a social networking environment where they can have a list of friends, upload photos, build profiles and be notified of friends' actions.

Users of the search engine will be presented with what Wales calls a "mini article" at the top of the results list. This can be a photo, a text definition, an external link or whatever else has been determined is the best answer to that particular query.

Below the "mini article" will be the list of results, picked from the Search Wikia index, which on Monday will have anywhere between 50 million and 100 million Web pages. Wales concedes that number is small, but said it will continue to grow over time.

Users will be able to rank the quality of individual search results, and Search Wikia will factor in that feedback when solving future queries. "That way, people will be able to influence the algorithmic search results," he said.

Those who try to abuse the system for, say, search engine spamming purposes, are bound to be quickly noticed by administrators and other community members, and they will swiftly be blocked and banned, Wales said.

Happy New Year!

Google celebrates the New Year and the birth of TCP/IP 25 years ago, milestone invention leading to the modern Internet.


The New Year Article

Google's Search page's logo changes from time to time, usually to reflect current events or special days. Today, January 1, 2008, Google's logo celebrates the new year and the 25 years of TCP/IP. Clicking the logo leads you to a search results page with articles about TCP/IP.

Google logo for the celebration of New Year and 25 Years of TCP/IP
courtesy by Google.com

Today's IP networking represents a synthesis of two developments that began in the 1960s and 1970s, namely LANs (Local Area Networks) and the Internet, both of which have revolutionized computing.

The Internet protocol suite came from work done by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the early 1970s. After building the pioneering ARPANET in the late 1960s, DARPA started work on a number of other data transmission technologies.

In 1975, a two-network TCP/IP communications test was performed between Stanford and University College London (UCL). In November, 1977, a three-network TCP/IP test was conducted between the U.S., UK, and Norway. Between 1978 and 1983, several other TCP/IP prototypes were developed at multiple research centres. A full switchover to TCP/IP on the ARPANET took place January 1, 1983.

Of course, today is also the start of a new year.

Here we are in 2008, and I thank you people for visiting Sonicsoft Wired's blog. Happy New Year everyone!

Google Yourself!

Have you Googled your name lately? A research firm made a survey on how many people are doing a Google Search on their names.

Go Ahead, Google Yourself
Have you Googled yourself lately? A survey made by Pew Internet and American Life Project said that there's a good chance you have.

The survey found that 47 percent of Internet users have searched for themselves through Google, an increase from 22 percent in 2002. Only 3 percent of those searching for themselves on Google claim to do it on a regular basis, with 22 percent claiming to search for themselves "every once in a while." A majority of 74 percent said they have searched for themselves once or twice.

Another interesting tidbit from the Pew survey is 53 percent of Internet users have Googled someone else’s name. Reasons include reconnecting with past friends (36 percent), searching about a coworker (19 percent) or a job applicant (11 percent), or even finding information about someone they are dating (9 percent).

Not included in the survey is the statistic that approximately 100 percent of those who read about the survey will Google their own name just to see what all the fuss is about. I of course did, and was both disappointed and relieved to find no information about myself.

While it's nice to know Google gawkers can't pull up anything on me if they tried, there's a strange emptiness to not having a digital footprint.

The Pew survey found that 60 percent of Internet users are not concerned with how much information is available online about them. A similar number of online adults (61 percent) claimed not to limit the amount of personal information they reveal online, while only 38 percent claimed to have taken extra precautions to limit that information.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/

Wikipedia's Rival

Google is developing an online publishing service where people can write entries based on subjects they know


Google Creates Wikipedia Rival
Google is developing an online publishing platform where people can write entries on subjects they know, and idea that's close to Wikipedia's user-contributed content but with several differences.

Currently, the project is in an invitation-only beta stage, similar to Gmail way back. It allows users to create clean-looking web pages with their photo and write entries on a particular subject, like exercise. These entries are called "knols", for "unit of knowledge", Google said.

The search giant aims to develop a deep repository of knowledge, covering a wide gamut of topics, such as history and entertainment. This looks promising, but it has to catch up with Wikipedia's already 7 million articles in 200 languages. Anonymous or registered users can contribute to an entry in Wikipedia that's edited by a network of vetted editors.

But Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.

"We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.
Google said anyone can write about any topic, and repetition of entries on the same subjects is beneficial. Google will provide the Web hosting space, as well as editing tools.

Google also gives users an option to place ads on their created knols, giving contributors a "substantial" portion of the revenue generated by those ads.

Entries cannot be edited or revised by other people, unlike Wikipedia. However, readers will be able to rank and review others' entries, which the Google's search engine will utilize.

The concept of peer-reviewed information is nothing new and is implemented in different ways on various Web sites. Yahoo, for example, has an "Answers" feature where users can ask questions, and the response is ranked on quality. Also, most blogs have forms where readers can comment on the author's entry.

Despite those other formats, Google probably feels that "a service like Knol might be necessary to stay competitive," wrote Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, in a review.

Gmail Combats Spammers, Blocks Users

An overzealous antispam measure mistakenly blocked legitimate users from their accounts


Antispam Measure Blocks GMail users
As an attempt to combat spammers, Google recently mistakenly disabled Gmail accounts of some users. Midweek, people started reporting in the official Gmail Help Discussion forum, that Google had locked them out of their accounts.

A Google staffer who oversees the forum and posts messages on behalf of Google acknowledged the existence of a problem at midafternoon Thursday.

"I understand that some of you have had a frustrating experience with your accounts being inappropriately disabled. Our team is aware of the problem, and our engineers are continuing to investigate," this person, identified as Google Guide, wrote.

Several hours later, the Google staffer declared the problem fixed "Our efforts to prevent breaches of our Terms of Use caused a number of users to be incorrectly identified," the staffer wrote.

The Google Guide also detailed some information about the situation in a subsequent post to the forum. The staffer said that it was the result of an effort to rid users who abuse the mail service, such as spamming.

Accounts which were disabled by mistake should have regained access to their mail with no data lost, said the staffer.

However, spokesperson Courtney Hohne said that Gmail would not reject any incoming messages to those disabled account, returning a "bounce-back" notice to senders, and will not automatically attempt to redeliver those rejected messages.

"Our goal has always been to keep Gmail free of people who abuse the service and to keep Gmail inboxes free of spam. We've been targeting a large network of spammers to keep them out of the Gmail system and accidentally disabled access to some other accounts," she wrote. Hohne said the mistakenly disabled accounts affected "a small fraction," well below 1 percent of the tens of millions of Gmail users.

Late Friday morning, some people are still complaining that their accounts were still locked.

The discussion thread is one of the longest in recent months, and is full of frantic pleas for help from affected people who use Gmail as their primary e-mail service for personal or work communications.

Along with disabled Gmail accounts, users were also complaining in the past month about a problem with the mail service. The new version of Gmail, dubbed Gmail 2.0, became extremely slow, often fails to load pages, and even crashes their browsers, users complained.

Gmail, which features an ungraded contacts manager and is designed to be faster and more stabled, is based on what the company calls "a major structural code change".

One of several threads devoted to this issue in the Gmail Help Discussion forum continues to grow, with nearly 300 messages at this time.

Google to Combat Malicious Sites

Last month, news about malicious sites taking advantage of Google's PageRank to stay on top of the search results, drawing unsuspecting users into their malware-ridden sites. Google creates an online form so users can report any malicious sites they may see.


Google's Response to Malware Sites
News leaked out about malicious sites using a technique called Google Bombing and spamdexing to stay on top of the search results, last month. Malware sites will likely to occur on the top of the search results, drawing unsuspecting victims into their malware-ridden sites, by exploiting Google's PageRank system. Once the user enters the site, it will try to install a number of malwares on the system.

Security vendor Sunbelt Software said hackers appeared to be using various tricks to ensure their malicious sites appear high in Google's search results. Sunbelt said it turned up 27 different domains hosting malware, each with up to 1,499 malicious pages, or some 40,000 pages in total.

Google's initial response was to purge from its index these sites, although Google has not confirmed that this happened. At least, your search result will now less likely contain a malicious website. It was the first search engine to act on this situation. After all, it is its technology being used to bait users. Yahoo and Windows Live Search has not yet reported to the said breakout.

Currently, we know of hundreds of thousands of Web sites that attempt to infect people's computers with malware. Unfortunately, we also know that there are more malware sites out there," Google's Ian Fette wrote in the company's security blog.

To protect online users even more, Google launched an online form so ordinary web users can report any website they suspect that contain malicious code. It contains a simple form that lets users enter the URL of the site and additional information. It also features a CAPTCHA to prevent automated bots from reporting sites automatically.

Google Cleans Up Malware

Reports say that certain malware distributing sites are making their way to the top of Google's search results, taking advantage of their PageRank system.

Google Purges Malware Websites
This week, news spread in the web saying that malware sites are taking advantage of Google's PageRank system to appear on the top of the search results. Researchers confirmed this Wednesday that Google Inc. has cleaned its index for malware websites.

Malware websites forced its way to the top of search results in Google search by processes known as spamdexing and Google bombing. Spamdexing creates invisible text in the websites that is used to lure users to the websites and is usually irrelevant to the page's content, while Google bombing employs the work of bots that increases the PageRank of a page. For more information about these techniques, see the article, Clicking Google Search Result May Lead to Malware in Sonicsoft Wired.

Researchers, however, said that Google has purged the malware sites from its index, effectively removing these sites from appearing on their search results.

The malware sites, once visited, will attempt to install tons of spywares, viruses, password stealers, rootkits onto the user's system. These malwares are easily prevented by the most recent patches available and uses no new exploits of software.

"They look gone to us," said Alex Eckelberry, the CEO of Sunbelt Software Distribution Inc., the company that broke the news Monday of a massive, coordinated campaign by attackers to spread malware through search results on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live Search and other sites.
Google did confirm yesterday with us that they were working the case, and they are good about nailing this stuff," Eckelberry added. He notified Google about his research this Monday.

Ironically, Google refuses to confirm or deny that it did remove from its index the 40,000 malware hosting sites, or even that they had existed. "Google takes the security of our users very seriously, especially when it comes to malware," a company spokeswoman said Wednesday. "In our search results, we try to warn users of potentially dangerous sites when we know of them. Sites that clearly exploit browser security holes to install software, such as malware, spyware, viruses, adware and Trojan horses, are in violation of the Google quality guidelines and may be removed from Google's index."

However, she did not mention how long Google made the purge, and if the company had ever done any countermeasures against malware sites from perform this kind of trick in the future.

Microsoft has just confirmed the presence of the malware sites, and are working on it, says a representative of the Live Search team. Yahoo has not yet made a comment.

Google Trouble

A new wave of malware distribution is stewing, and it utilizes Google's PageRank system to appeal to users.


Clicking Google Search Result May Lead to Malware
Google is really famous for this technology, and is probably why it's service is leading from its rivals, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. Google's PageRank technology was designed so popular websites appear on top of search results.

Google's PageRank uses a nifty logic to determine which page is important and which are not by counting the websites that links to the website. In an example, let's say we will need to rank Page A. Google's spiderbot will count how many websites will link to Page A, thus adding a vote to the site, and increasing its rank. The higher the number of sites, the higher the rank would be. All websites are ranked using this technology. For more information about Google PageRank, see this page.

Although this may look like a very good system, it's not without its flaws. A technique known as Google bombing is a technique used to manipulate the search results of Google Search. Since Google uses PageRank, which counts how many websites that links to a page, Google bombing involves creating tons of websites, or blogposts, that links to a page you want its rank to increase. If enough false websites or posts links to the page, it might appear on top of the search result of Google. Also, a technique called Spamdexing, is closely related to Google bombing, employing a different technique, usually involves creating invisible text (like white text, that blends perfectly with the background) to increase the likelihood that the page is ranked higher.

Malwares are now using these techniques to direct unsuspecting users to enter the website, that installs tons of viruses, trojan horses, rootkits, and password stealers. A bot may be used to create hundreds of blogposts that links to the malware page, effectively increasing its rank, and increasing its chance to appear on top of the search result page. Innocent keywords, from 'how to I teach my dog to play fetch' to 'how to cisco routing vpn dial in', may produce links that leads malicious websites on the very top of the results. Most users wouldn't suspect anything's amiss with the rogue results, although the ultra-wary might be suspicious because many of the malicious URLs are just a jumble of characters, with China's .cn top-level domain at their ends.

Once a user enters the bogus site, he'll be bombarded with malware installation. It may guise itself as a fake video codec. If that doesn't get the user, its IFRAME will. "This is what's doing the most damage," added Sunbelt malware researcher Adam Thomas. "It's loaded with every piece of malware you can think of, including fake toolbars, rogue software and scareware."

One site that Thomas encountered tried to install more than 25 separate pieces of malware, including numerous Trojan horses, a spam bot, a full-blown rootkit, and a pair of password stealers. All the malicious code pitched at users is well-known to security vendors, and can only exploit PCs that aren't up-to-date on their patches.

The Google Edge

Google extended its lead in web searches, ComScore says.

Google Remains On Top of Web Searches

Google still remains on the top of the pack, with still increasing share of internet search engine market in October. According to market researcher ComScore, Google broadened its lead over its rivals Yahoo and Microsoft by winning 58.5 percent of all US searches in October, an increase of 1.5 percentage points over September.

Yahoo took second place with 22.9 percent of the search market, down from 23.7 percent, while third ranked Microsoft dropped to 9.7 percent from 10.3 percent. Ask Network remained steady at fourth place with 4.7 percent of the U.S. search market in October, while Time Warner Network dropped a tad to 4.2 percent from 4.3 percent a month earlier, ComScore reported.

Google captured 6.1 billion of the 10.5 billion Internet searches Americans conducted in October, ComScore said, far more than second place Yahoo's 2.4 billion.

Leading Search Engines - October 2007

• Google: 58.5 percent (+1.5 points)
• Yahoo: 22.9 percent (-0.8 points)
• Microsoft: 9.7 percent (-0.6 points)
• Ask Networ: 4.7 percent (no change)
• Time Warner Network: 4.2 percent -0.1 points)

Source: ComScore. (The company only counted search engines with nearly 5 percent or more of the search market in its survey.)

GMail Reaches 5 Gig

Google Mail's, or Gmail, inbox and storage capacity has been increasing ever since it was released to the public this February, and now it has reached new heights


GMail's Mileage Reaches 5 Gigabytes of Storage
As of today, November 19, 2007, Gmail's storage capacity has reached over 5,000 Megabytes or 5 GB of online storage. That's all for free online, and that also includes your Picasa and Blogger accounts.

Google's Gmail capacity has been increasing at about 1 megabyte per hour ever since it was released to the public last February of 2007. Google's promise is that they will increase the storage capacity indefinitely, or as long as they have space on their servers.

After Gmail's initial announcement and development, many existing web mail services quickly increased their storage capacity. For example, Hotmail went from giving some users 2 MB to 25 MB (250 MB after 30 days, and 2 GB for Hotmail Plus accounts), while Yahoo! Mail went from 4 MB to 100 MB (and 2 GB for Yahoo! Mail Plus accounts). Yahoo! Mail storage then proceeded to 250 MB, in late April of 2005, to 1 GB. Yahoo! Mail announced that it would be providing "unlimited" storage to all its users in March 2007 and began providing it in May 2007.

These were all seen as moves to stop existing users from switching to Gmail and to capitalize on the newly rekindled public interest in web mail services. The desire to catch up was especially visible for MSN's Hotmail, which upgraded its e-mail storage erratically from 250 MB to the new Windows Live Hotmail which includes 5 GB of storage. As of November 2006, MSN Hotmail upgraded all free accounts to have 1 GB of storage. In August of 2005, AOL started providing all AIM screen names with their own e-mail accounts with 2 GB of storage. Another source of competition came from 30Gigs who were offering 30 gigabytes of storage, initially through invite only but now available publicly.

Other than the general increase of storage limit, there has also been an improvement of the e-mail interfaces of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail after the launch of Gmail. Gmail's ability to have an attachment size of 10 MB was also matched by Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail during 2005. Following the footsteps of Gmail, Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Mail Beta service and Microsoft launched Windows Live Hotmail, both now incorporating Ajax interfaces. Google increased the maximum attachment size to 20 MB in May 2007

Story:
Copyright 2007 Sonicsoft Corporation
All Rights Reserved

Google Shmoogle

Google was cited by Fortune Magazine as the #1 out of 100 best company to work for, and this is made even more obvious by Google's gimmicks and its tradition of April Fools jokes.



It's All Google Fun
Google's motto: Don't be evil. They said that you can work and make money without being evil. What I like about Google is they make their business fun. They take away the complicated bits and pieces and instead present their service in a very user-friendly way.

For example, if a pop-up blocker prevents Google from opening a window, it would say, 'Grr.. a popup blocker is preventing Google from opening your page' (or something like that). Or, the "Hooray! No Spam Here!" message inside an empty Spam folder in Gmail. If you frequently use Google, you might notice they also change the Google logo every once in a while to reflect current events, like Halloween, or a birthday (or death) of a popular person. You can find more special Google logos here, at the Google page.

Google celebrates New Year 2007

Google celebrates Leonardo da Vinci's birthday

Google celebrates Edvard Munch's Birthday

Google celebrates Louis Braille's Birthday

Google's relaxed corporate culture is made more obvious by Google's tradition of April Fools jokes. In case you missed some of them, here they are:

2000: Google MentalPlex
Google announced a new "MentalPlex" search technology that supposedly read the user's mind to determine what the user wanted to search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the search query.

What Google said is you must think of your search query and look at the rotating circle. Clicking the circle will display your search result.

See for yourself:
Google MentalPlex page
Google MentalPlex FAQs page
Google MentalPlex Usage Illustration page

2002: PigeonRank
Google reveals the technology behind its PageRank System — PigeonRank. Google touts the benefits of this cost-effective and efficient means of ranking pages and reassures readers that there is no animal cruelty involved in the process. The article makes many humorous references and puns based on computer terminology and how Google PageRank really works

See for yourself:
Google PigeonRank page

2004: Google Lunar/Copernicus Center
Fictitious job opportunities for a research center on the moon. Luna/X (a pun to Linux as well as a reference to the Windows XP visual style and Mac OS X) is the name of a new operating system they claimed to have created for working at the research center.

See for yourself:
Google Copernicus Center page

2005: Google Gulp
Google Gulp, a fictitious drink, was announced by Google in 2005. According to the company, this beverage would optimize one's use of the Google search engine by increasing the drinker's intelligence. It was claimed this boost was achieved through real-time analysis of the user's DNA and carefully tailored adjustments to neurotransmitters in the brain (a patented technology termed Auto-Drink). The drink was said to come in "4 great flavors": Glutamate Grape (glutamic acid), Sugar-Free Radical (free radicals), Beta Carroty (beta carotene), and Sero-Tonic Water (serotonin).

This hoax was likely intended as a parody of Google's invite-only email service called Gmail. Although ostensibly free, the company claimed the beverage could only be obtained by returning the cap of a Google Gulp bottle to a local grocery store: a causal loop. In the Google Gulp FAQ, Google replies to the observation "I mean, isn't this whole invite-only thing kind of bogus?" by saying "Dude, it's like you've never even heard of viral marketing."

See for yourself:
Google Gulp page
Google Gulp FAQs page

2006: Google Romance
On April Fool's Day 2006, Google Romance was announced on the main Google search page with the introduction, "Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance." It pretends to offer a "Soulmate Search" to send users on a "Contextual Date". A parody of online dating, it amusingly had a link for "those who generally favor the 'throw enough stuff at the wall' approach to online dating" to Post multiple profiles with a bulk upload file, you sleaze in addition to Post your Google Romance profile. Clicking on either of these gave an error page, which explained that it was an April Fool's joke and included links to previous April Fool's Jokes for nostalgia.

See for yourself:
Google Romance page
Google Romance FAQs page
Google Romance tour page

2007: Gmail Paper & Google TiSP

Gmail Paper

At about 10:00 PM Pacific time (where Google has its headquarters) the day before April 1, 2007, Google changed the login page for Gmail to announce a new service called Gmail Paper. The service offered to allow users of Google's free webmail service to add e-mails to a "Paper Archive," which Google would print (on "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum") and mail via traditional post. The service would be free, supported by bold, red advertisements printed on the back of the printed messages. Image attachments would also be printed on high-quality glossy paper, though MP3 and WAV files would not be printed. The page detailing more information about the service features photographs of Ian Spiro and Carrie Kemper, current employees of Google. Also featured are Product Marketing Managers of Gmail Anna-Christina Douglas, and Kevin Systrom.

Gmail Paper Index
Gmail Paper Announcement
Gmail Paper Program Policies

Google TiSP

Google TiSP (short for Toilet Internet Service Provider) was a fictitious free broadband service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use of a standard toilet and sewage lines to provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbit/s (2 Mbit/s upload) (or up to 32 Mbit/s with a paid plan). A user would drop a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in their toilet and flush it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would be recovered and connected to the Internet by a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)." The user would then connect their end to a Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied installation media on a Windows XP or Vista computer ("Mac and Linux support coming soon"). Alternatively, a user could request a professional installation, in which Google would deploy nanobots through the plumbing to complete the process. The free service would be supported by "discreet DNA sequencing" of "personal bodily output" to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and personal health. Google also referenced the cola-and-Mentos reaction in their FAQ: "If you're still experiencing problems, drop eight mints into the bowl and add a two-liter bottle of diet soda."

Google TiSP
Google TiSP FAQ
Installation page
Press Release page

Finally, Google also created a 404 - Not Found page:
Not found page - April fools version

Good 'ol Gmail

Google's answer to the email rivalries is the Gmail. It's free, and has unique features that really make it stand out among its competitors


Google Gmail Exposed

Gmail has come a long way since it first debuted. In April 1, 2004, Google's web-based email service was released as a beta, but to a limited users only - you need an invitation from a Gmail user to create your own email account. In February of 2007, it was opened to the public, and anybody can create an account without any invitations.

Before the invitation-only status was removed, Gmail has the largest email storage capacity - 1 GB in size, compared to Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail's megabytes-sized inboxes. It was the choice for people who have to store lots and lotsa emails. And when it opened to the public, that storage capacity soared to 2 GB. As of now, Gmail's storage capacity is creeping to 5Gb and still increasing to a little more than 1 MB an hour.

The unique feature of Gmail is it's unique presentation and foundation. It uses AJAX, a technology that allows you to refresh certain areas of a webpage, without refreshing the entire page. That allows faster load times, and very responsive page. Clicking the Inbox immediately shows your inbox folder (without the page refreshing). In the same way, clicking any folder shows the folder's contents almost instantaneously.

And it's unique 'conversational view' allows you to see the thread of your email in one single view. All messages in the email are grouped together in a stack, so all the replies to the email and your replies to the email are readily available.

But these are the ones that makes Gmail stand out among the rest. You won't see these in Yahoo! and Windows Live Hotmail:

Security
By default, all your emails and data go through unencrypted connection. However, changing the http:// in the address bar to https://, you can manually force Gmail to use a more secure, encrypted connection to retrieve your emails. That reduces third-party sniffing for data and user information, like your contacts.

Plus Addressing
Gmail has this handy, and unique feature, that allows you to plus your addresses. If you receive the Sonicsoft Wired Update email, you'll notice that it is used extensively. Plus addressing allows users to send emails to username+extratext@gmail.com, where extratext can be any string. Emails will still be sent to username@gmail.com. This is especially useful when subscribing to online websites. So you can filter out the messages received from a subscribed site, a user might register the email address as username+websitename@gmail.com.

The Dot Addresses
Another useful feature of Gmail is that it doesn't recognize the dot or period. It ignores them instead. So, all emails to goog.le@gmail.com, g.o.o.g.l.e@gmail.com, and g.oog.le@gmail.com will still go to google@gmail.com. This is useful to sort out or filter messages you receive.

You might have noticed that Gmail is still in beta state - meaning it's not yet released as final. It's been beta ever since it was released, and many people are wondering whether Gmail will get out of beta state, or might go on forever as beta, known as the perpetual beta. Google says that it will remain in beta so they can improve their services whenever it is needed. Last month, Gmail was updated to version 2.0. However, some people are reporting problems with the new format. Users are allowed to go back to version 1 anytime they like.

Check out the Official Gmail Blog for more news.

Story:
Copyright 2007 Sonicsoft Corporation
All Rights Reserved

Block those Popups

We hate those annoying popups, so why not fight against it? Of course, choose a robust and smart blocker. In this post, we examine some of the popular popup blockers available


How Tough is Your Blocker?

We all agree - we hate those annoying popups. They really sap away the internet surfing experience. Popups are those little, sometimes borderless and modal, windows that contain nothing but advertisement. Nowadays, popups are not limited by that description no more. Advanced popups uses the DOM and JavaScript to convey their messages and annoy the average web surfer.

Of course, you could always use a popup blocker to purge those pesky windows, but how effective is your popup blocker? If you are using a popup blocker, test how effective it is by going to the Popup Test site. It contains every available popup method to see if your popup blocker can detect these type of 'attacks'.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 has included its own popup blocker, and it's quite effective - but not always. Some popups bypass the blocker unless it is set to strict mode, where every popups are blocked. To override the setting, just hold CTRL while clicking the link. If you haven't installed a popup blocker yet, here is a list of some of the popular ad blocking programs that you can try. Some of them are free, while others have free limited-time trial. Find a one that works for you.

PopUp Ad SmasheR
PopUp Ad SmasheR has a weird name, but it stops most of the typical browsing annoyances in Internet Explorer. You can configure it to stop pop-up and pop-under ads, animated and floating ads, Flash ads, timer ads (which can prevent you from accessing a Web page), deceiving dialog box ads, and message box ads.

Ad Annihilator
Ad Annihilator is good--very good, in fact--at blocking pop-up ads, banner ads, Flash ads, and other distractions, including cookies. Once you've started blocking ads, the program's "suppression mechanism" (which sounds like an antibiotic) recognizes and kills similar banners and pop-up windows. If you identify a keyword or character string that often appears in ads, you can add it to the program's Web content filtering and blocking feature.

AdBarricade
AdBarricade is a network-based ad-blocking service that supplies you with new DNS (Domain Name System) numbers; as a result, ads are blocked before they get near your PC. You have nothing to install, and the service works with every browser and operating system.

Super Ad Blocker
Super Ad Blocker tackles even the most annoying ads, including pop-ups, banners, and the distracting fly-in and slide-in types. It works nicely on all counts; if you're curious about how well it does, you can obtain detailed logs for all the blocked ads. Super Ad Blocker comes with a comprehensive configuration panel showing you its options for stopping ads, including those that annoy you while you're using instant messaging programs.

ZeroAds
ZeroAds tries to remove all types of ads, but it's most proficient at blocking simple banners and pop-ups; it didn't touch most of the Flash ads on the sites I tried. The program includes a cookie remover and an active antispyware module. The 15-day trial will help you decide how well the $30 product works at blocking ads on the sites you visit.

Popup Free
Popup Free is a small, no-frills tool that stops pop-up, banner, and Flash ads, and loads into the system tray when Internet Explorer launches. It halts most banners and some Flash ads reasonably well, yet has trouble stopping slide-in and fly-across ads. If Popup Free nails a legitimate pop-up window, you can add the item to your whitelist to let it through in the future. The tool is free, but to continue using it, you'll need to obtain a free registration code within 14 days.

Google Toolbar Pop-Up Blocker
You probably know the Google Toolbar as a terrific search tool for Internet Explorer or Firefox. But it also comes with a free pop-up blocker that works as well as some of the pricey ones do; it's amazingly accurate at diagnosing and blocking pop-ups that I don't want to see while letting "good" pop-ups appear. The toolbar supports Web-based bookmarking, and throws in a spelling checker and an automatic form-filling feature

Yahoo Toolbar
Yahoo's free Toolbar fits snugly into your browser, right under the address field, and protects you from pesky pop-ups.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do anything about the other annoyances, namely banner and Flash ads. If you don't find those bothersome, however, Yahoo's customizable Toolbar might be the choice for you. It's loaded with other features, too, including competent Web searches, the ability to check Yahoo Mail, and free Norton antivirus and antispyware scans. The Yahoo Toolbar also lets you create Web-based bookmarks that are separate from your system-based bookmarks, ideal if your other browsers also have the Yahoo Toolbar installed.

The Giant Google

Google is expanding, and it can have so much data about you that you might not even aware of. But can we trust it with so much data?


Is Google Too Big?

Google is popular as a search engine, but it's really more than that. Now you have emails run by Google, along with word processors, spreadsheets, and presentations. Add to that Google's Picasa, Maps, and other things. Google is becoming big - too big perhaps.

With all that online services available from Google, it's not really a shocking revelation that it knows a lot of information about you.

The question is can you trust Google with your data?

This is a short list of what Google knows about you:

• Google Search
  Tying your search history to your browsing activities via the DoubleClick advertising network gives the company a much more detailed view of your online activities
  


• GMail
  The routing information and content of your mail--including any attachments--reside unencrypted on Google servers. Loss of, or unauthorized access to, business correspondence increases your company's legal exposure
  


• Google Docs and Spreadsheets
  Your files are stored unencrypted on Google servers. A business could be found negligent if it loses, or allows unauthorized access to, business documents. Until applications supporting Google Gears arrive, you lose access to your files when your Internet connection fails
  


• Picasa Web Albums
  Photographs in albums designated "unlisted" can still be viewed by anyone who knows the URL. At present you have no option to view or back up your albums offline
  


• Google Calendar
  Your daily schedule and associated information reside unencrypted on Google servers. Loss of, or unauthorized access to, business information puts your company at risk. You can't open your calendar without an Internet link, although this will change with the arrival of the Google Gears browser extension
  


• Google Desktop
  If you neglect to lock the search function, anyone using your PC has access to your personal files. Copies of business documents may be stored on Google servers, making them susceptible to loss or unauthorized access
  


• Google Talk
  Instant-message logs can be archived and searched in Gmail
  


• Google Product Search
  A log of your product searches could be associated with your browsing history via the pending DoubleClick acquisition
  
  Source: PCWORLD.com

The question is, can you trust Google with all that information about you? And since the data resides unencrypted on Google's server, who knows who can access your data - the government? agencies, hackers, rival business?

Google's online trove of personal and sensitive information is proving attractive to law enforcing agencies. In the previous year, Google has prevented the Department of Justice from demanding millions of search queries, stating that this is an invasion of privacy.

Google also said that it will begin clearing out some personal information of users, like their IP address, after 18 months from its logs, though this step may be insufficient for security-conscious users.

I'm not saying your data is at-risk all the time, but you should take precautions over what to store with Google. Also, Google should take steps to prevent unauthorized access and enforce privacy restrictions on the data it stores.