Firefox hits 1 billion mark!!!!!!!

The Mozilla Foundation announced Friday morning that the open source Firefox Web browser has been downloaded over 1 billion times. This significant milestone, which was reached several days earlier than expected, is a clear sign of the browser's growing mainstream popularity.

Firefox has transformed the Internet by bringing innovation and a strong standards-based browsing experience to the masses. Its swift rate of advancement has been accompanied by rapid adoption, leading to the emergence of an enormous following of loyal users. The Firefox phenomenon has contributed greatly to leveling the playing field on the Web and reigniting competition in the browser market. Formidable alternatives are also gaining ground and helping to popularize emerging standards. This trend of emerging competition could eventually unseat Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer.

Mozilla celebrated the 500 millionth Firefox download last year. The total number of downloads has doubled in only 17 months. The release of Firefox 3.0 and 3.5 has likely played a major role in boosting the download count. Mozilla orchestrated a download day event for the 3.0 release, leading to over 1 million downloads in the first four hours alone and 8 million downloads during the first day. Firefox 3.5 brought in 5 million downloads during the first 24 hours.

Recent market share statistics show that Firefox has claimed 22.51 percent of the browser market, followed by Safari with 8.43 percent. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer's marketshare continues to decline. Here at Ars Technica, Firefox is the most popular browser and is used by nearly half our readers.

Microsoft's recent decision to offer Windows users a browser ballot in response to pressure from EU regulators could accelerate Firefox's growth in the region and further erode Internet Explorer's marketshare.

Mozilla has come a very long way since its humble beginnings as a Netscape spin-off. The Firefox developers are working on a number of exciting projects—including a mobile browser, a sophisticated synchronization framework, and an initiative to implement multiprocess browsing—that will help the browser remain relevant and continue to gain marketshare as its new competitors and Microsoft introduce new features.

Acer's Aspire Predator gaming rig gets even faster, stays just as orange

Just a few weeks too late for a Transformers 2 tie-in, Acer has announced a new revision of its Aspire G desktop, a.k.a. Predator. It shares the same case with the earlier edition that hit the US of A late last year, but naturally has some better specs this time 'round.

Acer recently announced their latest M-Series desktop PC known as the Aspire G. In other circles, it is also known as the Predator, and judging by its innards, it will surely live up to its billing as you take a look at the specifications below.

• Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz processor
• 6GB DDR3 RAM (up to 12GB)
• Intel X58 Express chipset
• 1TB SATA hard drive @ 7200rpm
• Two Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 (1GB VRAM)
• Blu-ray disc drive
• 11 USB 2.0 ports
• Two eSATA ports
• Multi-memory card reader
• Four DVI-D ports
• Two Gigabit Ethernet ports

Powered by a copy of 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium operating system, this €1950 won't leave you with any excuses the next time you lose a deathmatch by virtue of being bundled with the Logitech G15 keyboard and the G9 Laser mouse as well.

Corsair intros premium RAM kit for Phenom II

Corsair has introduced a new high-end DDR3 RAM kit “designed specifically” for socket AM3 Phenom II CPUs. At launch, the kit will be comprised of two 2GB modules, to make 4GB in total. Each is tested to run at a frequency of 1,600MHz with 6-6-6-18 1T timings at 1.65V.

Corsair has added support for AMD’s Black Edition Memory Profiles, so changing that configuration should be a breeze with AMD’s OverDrive Windows utility. Keeping the module’s memory chips and PCB cool are Corsair’s DHX+ heatsinks, which have removable fins to support Corsair’s liquid cooling products, and the kit itself ships with a clip-on air cooler with dual 60mm fans.

Corsair's premium DDR3 kit can be yours for $350 by heading over to their online store

Creative unveils Android-based iPod touch rival

A filing with the FCC last month offered some evidence that Creative had a new touch screen portable media player in the works. Named after the system-on-a-chip processor the company showed off during CES 2009, the Zii Egg has been officially unearthed today and its feature set actually shows promise.

Clearly envisioned as a competitor to the iPod touch and Zune HD, the Android-based device can reportedly output 1080p video, run 3D apps written in OpenGL ES, and supports Flash Lite. The handheld features a 3.5-inch 480x320 multi-touch display, 32GB of internal memory and a full-sized SD card slot, two cameras (an HD video camera on the back and a VGA camera on the front for video chat), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, a GPS, X-Fi audio processing, an accelerometer, a light sensor, a speaker, and a microphone.

Interestingly, though, we may never actually see the Zii Egg released to consumers as an official Creative product. At least for now the company is looking to sell it directly to other manufacturers as an OEM product so they can re-brand the device and sell it as their own – possibly even adding 3G capabilities.

Creative is currently bundling the Zii Egg with its Plaszma development kit for $399; however the device alone will eventually be available priced as low as $199 if bought in bulk. You can find a video of the device in action after the jump.

Encryption on iPhone 3GS deemed useless

The iPhone 3GS’s encryption feature is reportedly so easy to crack, that forensics expert and iPhone developer Jonathan Zdziarski has rendered it “broken.” It is nearly useless when it comes to safeguarding sensitive data such as credit card and social security numbers; making it one of the worst implementations of encryption he’s ever seen.

While Apple boasts of its enterprise-friendly security, according Zdziarski the 3GS’s encryption can be cracked with the enlisted help of a few free utilities. Accessing private information on the 3GS is just as easy as on the 3G. Live data can be extracted in as little as two minutes, and an entire raw disk image can be made in about 45 minutes.

Zdziarski demonstrated how a thief could effectively use popular jailbreaking tools like Red Sn0w and Purple Ra1n to install a custom kernel. At that point, it’s as easy as installing a Secure Shell client to port the iPhone’s raw disk image across SSH onto a computer. Once the extraction starts, the iPhone actually begins decrypting the data on its own.

The iPhone’s security is even further compromised, according to Zdziarski, because pressing the Home button and zooming in on a screen automatically creates a temporarily stored screenshot. Not to mention that keystrokes are logged in a file on the phone. On top of that, John Casasanta, founder of iPhone development company Tap Tap Tap says that it's possible to tweak an app to send user’s personal data behind the scenes without Apple knowing.

Apple rejects Google Voice iPhone app

Just as many anticipated, Google’s Voice application for the iPhone has been rejected from the App Store presumably on grounds that it duplicates features in the popular smartphone. The move once again calls into question the control Apple maintains over approving applications and whether or not the rejection constitutes anticompetitive behavior.

Currently available by invitation only, Google Voice is already offered as a mobile app for Android and BlackBerry handsets. The service ties together multiple landline and mobile phones under a single number and includes some features that compete with services AT&T charges for. Chief among them are free SMS messages and cheap long distance calls as well as advanced call screening features – you can see where the conflict of interest lies. Many are blaming AT&T for the rejection, but the companies have yet to clarify this issue.

In the meantime, iPhone users can still access many of Google Voice’s features by using the web interface. It won't work as seamlessly but it’s something. The question remains, though, should Apple get to decide what applications your iPhone can run?

Google shows off 'Donut' update for Android

Details of Android’s forthcoming Donut update have been few and far between. Over the weekend, however, developers were able to get their hands on some new Android code from Google and now fresh information regarding its features is starting to emerge. Contrary to rumors, Donut is not Android 2.0, but many of its capabilities will likely be found in the next official firmware update.

First the bad news: system wide multi-touch with gesture support is still not available for Android, even though the platform can clearly handle it as it has been demonstrated by unofficial sources. The feature is considered to be the single most important distinction between Android and Apple's iPhone or Palm’s Pre. But Donut still brings a slew of much lauded features; including CDMA support, universal search, text to speech, WPA enterprise Wi-Fi encryption, support for VPN, and automated backups.

A new camera application and improved camera performance are also expected, as well as some new widgets built into the user interface for quickly powering on or off functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

No word on when existing Android devices will have access to these new features; and since Donut is a development branch, its code is there as a test bed and is not guaranteed to appear in whichever official Android release comes next. That said, Google has also shared plans to issue biannual updates for Android, so a 2.0 release with most (if not all) of the aforementioned features will likely arrive towards the end of the year

Critical vulnerability found in Adobe Flash Player

Adobe has posted a security advisory for Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player. The company states that a critical vulnerability is present in the current versions of Flash Player (v9.0.159.0 and v10.0.22.87) for Windows, Macs and UNIX operating systems and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat v9.x on the same operating systems.

The vulnerability (CVE-2009-1862) could cause a crash and allow an attacker to gain control of the compromised system. It is reportedly being exploited in targeted attacks against Adobe Reader v9 on Windows. Naturally, a fix is in the works and is expected to be delivered by the end of the week.

For the time being, users can mitigate the threat by deleting, renaming or removing access to authplay.dll. Doing so will cause your program to crash when attempting to view a PDF containing SWF content, however. Adobe is also recommending that users enable UAC and that they avoid untrusted websites using Flash.

Faulty AVG update breaks iTunes

A database update from AVG over the weekend left users with crippled iTunes installations. According to numerous online reports, the update – which came out on Friday – appears to be mistaking iTunes.dll and iTunesRegistry.dll for a Trojan horse identified as Small.BOG, and thus consigning these files into quarantine. As a result, iTunes will not run, and is not fixable by a reinstall.

After the faulty update was released, users began voicing their complaints on Apple's support page and then turned to AVG's official forums when it was discovered the free antivirus was to blame. In response, AVG published a corrected update, issued a statement on Saturday apologizing for the confusion, and explained how to restore iTunes to normal operation.

This isn't the first time a false positive in AVG has wreaked havoc. Back in November of last year the antivirus software misidentified a key Windows system file as malware, leaving non-English versions of XP unbootable. Its link scanner tool has also been accused of being a huge bandwidth hog and a generator of false web traffic, though this issue hassince been addressed by the company.

Intel's first 34nm SSDs suffering from BIOS flaw

Intel announced last Tuesday that it had started shipping its new “Postville” solid-state drives based on a 34nm manufacturing process – a shift that promises faster performance and lower prices. With only a few days on the market, however, online retailers including Newegg have pulled the new X25-M G2 SSDs from their websites due to a recently discovered firmware defect.

According to OEM system builder Puget Systems, those who already purchased the new 34nm SSDs may experience data corruption when adding, deleting, or modifying the drive’s password in the system BIOS. Intel had initially told Puget that the drives might require a complete reworking. However, the chipmaker said it has come up with a firmware fix that it expects to deliver in about two weeks.

For those who do not intend on password protecting their SSDs there ultimately should be no problems. On the other hand, if this is a feature you are likely to use then you should wait for the factory patched drives to be released, or until the firmware fix is posted here.

Maingear boasts world's fastest laptop, eX-L 18

It’s been a little over a month since CyberPower claimed the title of “world’s fastest” with their 17” X7-Xtreme S1 laptop, and now Maingear has topped it with their eX-L 18. While I can’t vouch for the validity (or the seriousness) of Maingear’s claims, I can honestly say I haven’t come across any notebooks that match the eX-L 18’s prowess.

Coming in at just under 6-grand, the new contender features an 18.4” 1080p display, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz, dual 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280m in SLI, an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD, dual 500GB Seagate Momentus HDDs in RAID 1 and a dual layer Blu-ray burner. The eX-L 18 also houses an Intel PRO/Wireless 5300AGN, a Bluetooth module, HD audio with surround sound, biometric security, a backlit keyboard with a numeric keypad, 7-in-1 card reader, as well as eSATA, HDMI, USB 2.0 and Firewire ports.