Apple’s new Safari extension gallery looks a lot like the iOS App Store, populated with colorful icons that hold strange and wonderful things. In case browsing the 100 extensions Apple offers for Safari 5.01 is too much effort, here are eight good ones to get you started:

TrueNew

Gmail users who can’t keep up with their inboxes should appreciate TrueNew, which shows not only the number of unread messages, but the number of messages that came in since you last took any inbox action. Ignorance of unread messages is bliss. TrueNew is also available for Google Chrome.

DeFacer

Facebook’s “Like” button seems ubiquitous, and it’s only been around for two months. If you’re sick of all those little blue thumbs, DeFacer wipes web pages of Likes, Recommends and Shares, so you’ll never be reminded of how Facebook is dominating the Internet.

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The latest Chrome browser is currently in the version of 5.0.375.125 for Linux, Mac, and Windows to address multiple vulnerabilities.

Google who released the new version earlier on monday said that these vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or obtain sensitive information.

Some of the vulnerabilities that were fixed inlclude:

• [$500] [42736] Medium Memory contents disclosure in layout code. Credit to Michail Nikolaev.
• [$500] [43813] High Issue with large canvases. Credit to sp3x of SecurityReason.com.
• [$500] [47866] High Memory corruption in rendering code. Credit to Jose A. Vazquez.
• [$500] [48284] High Memory corruption in SVG handling. Credit to Aki Helin of OUSPG.
• [48597] Low Avoid hostname truncation and incorrect eliding. Credit to Google Chrome Security Team (Inferno).

Full details can be found on Google’s Chrome blog over here.

If you are using Google Chrome and you forget to update you plug-ins such Adobe Flash, you might be able to watch YouTube or use other Flash stuff.

The Google Security team recently announced that Chrome will refuse to run outdated plug-ins, which are potentially vulnerable to known bugs.

Some of the security features already in place is the automated update for Flash. Chrome will automatically update Adobe’s Flash Player behind the scene.

Google did not mention when this new “outdated plug-in blocking” feature will be added to Chrome.

Read the blog post from Google Security Team

Google has released Chrome 5.0.375.86 for Linux, Mac, and Windows to address multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or conduct cross-site scripting attacks.

More details of the update can be found over here.

The primary goals for Firefox 4 will be making a browser:

• Fast: making Firefox super-duper fast
• Powerful: enabling new open, standard Web technologies (HTML5 and beyond!),
• Empowering: putting users in full control of their browser, data, and Web experience.

Usually software producers don’t present these sorts of plans in public until they’re finalized, but Mozilla is a little different.

Watch the presentation

An “extremely severe” security vulnerability in the Opera browser could put web surfers at risk of remote code execution attacks, the software maker warned today.

The vulnerability, now patched with the new Opera 10.53, affects Opera for Windows and Mac.

Get full article

Google has released Chrome 4.1.249.1064 for Windows to address multiple vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code or bypass the same origin policy in the browser.

According to Google in a blog post:

This release fixes the following issues:

* Google Chrome was not using the correct path for the Java plugin for Java Version 6 Update 20.
* 4.1.249.1059 was much slower on JavaScript benchmarks than 4.1.249.1045. (Issue 42158)

This release also fixes the following security issues:
Please see the Chromium security page for more detail. Note that the referenced bugs may be kept private until a majority of our users are up to date with the fix.

* [$1000] [40445] High Cross-origin bypass in Google URL (GURL). Credit: Jordi Chancel.
* [40487] High Memory corruption in HTML5 Media handling. Credit: David Bloom of Google Security Team.
* [$500] [42294] High Memory corruption in font handling. Credit: wushi of team509.

If you find issues, please let us know: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/entry

We encourage users and administrators to review the Google Chrome Releases blog entry and update to Chrome 4.1.249.1064 for Windows to help mitigate the risks.

Microsoft has released a platform demo version of Internet Explorer 9. To try the new browser you need Windows Vista SP2 (With Platform Upgrade) or Windows 7, and an existing Internet Explorer 8 installation.

How the future browser might look like, from Microsoft’s perspective- Test drive IE9 now

Look like Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates can be broken and no longer safe now days.

The trick in the latest type of attack is that all a criminal would need to do is put the name of a legitimate Web site before that null character, and the browser will believe that the site it’s visiting – which is under the criminal’s control – is legitimate.

The criminal could then forward the traffic onto the legitimate site and spy on everything the victim does on that site.

It’s a complicated attack, but it highlights a significant weakness in the very technology widely used to assure people it’s safe to navigate sensitive sites.

Read the whole story on TheStar Business

In a recent unpredicted move, Microsoft, the world largest software maker said that it will give Europeans a choice on web browser for new computers running Windows Seven, the company’s latest upcoming operating system.

The European Commission has so far slapped fines totalling €1.68 billion ($2.9 billion) on the US software giant for infringing EU antitrust rules.

The company said users will have the option to download third party browsers that could possibly include Firefox, Opera, and Google’s Chrome browser.

However it is unclear if other parts of the world will be given similar option when Microsoft ships the new Windows Seven expected to be available by the end of the year.

Read: Microsoft Offers Europe a Choice of Browsers