500 million Firefox downloads: complete; 500 million grains: in progress

Firefox just reached  500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station.

windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 on Windows Update

Microsoft’s enthusiasm on Vista SP1 almost made us believe that they had forgotten about Windows XP’s long-awaited SP3, but that’s not the case. Yesterday, they gracefully rolled-out Release Candidate 2 of XP’s Service Pack 3 via Windows Update.

In order to obtain SP3 RC2 through Windows Update, you’ll need a specific registry key (38 KB). Unlike always, you won’t have to hunt down the registry key on torrent sites, instead you can download it directly from Microsoft’s website.

Before attempting to try SP3, you’ll need to have SP2 installed on your machine. Also note that you must uninstall all pre-release versions before updating to RC2.

CHAT MAKER

On the web, Most of our communications are done via emails and instant messages, but for group discussions instant messengers are not always favorable. Not favorable for the reason that it requires all members of the discussion to stick to the same instant messenger. IRC is preferable, but it requires a chat client as well.

ChatMaker lets you create disposable chat room within no time. Just come up with a nice name for your chat room and press the ‘Go’ button. Now invite others to join your chat room by sending the link to your chat room.

No forced registration, no client required. You’ll just need a browser and a bunch of people to talk. As of now, ChatMaker is quite primitive, but extensive administrative features are yet to come. Those who are already familiar with IRC commands will love ChatMaker because it can recognize come commands like "/nick" "/me".

Google India Launches 5GOOG Text Messaging Service

Finally, Google has launched beta version of their text messaging service in India. Mobile users can now use Google to access information on-the-move without using an internet-enabled mobile device.

Mobile users can use the service to check weather, movie show timings, search for businesses and more by sending text messaging their queries to 54664 ("5GOOG"). Supported mobile operators are Airtel, Aircel, BPL, BSNL and Reliance. Google SMS is a premium text messaging service, so it will cost you more than standard text messaging rate. Interactive demo of the service is available here.

HOW MICROSOFT KILL GOOGLE

When Steve Ballmer yelled at a departing Microsoft employee that he would “kill Google” we had no idea just how direct a method he had in mind. Buying all or part of AOL may be the first part of the master plan, as Google relies heavily on the advertising pages that come from Yahoo!, since it now syndicates its search to Google.

One estimate suggested that Google would lose as much as $380m of advertising revenue if AOL dropped its search engine and took on MSN's. That would cut Google’s profit by something like 25 per cent, potentially giving its huge share price something of a tumble. No wonder Google is thought to be entering the bidding to partner with Time Warner on AOL instead of Microsoft.

However, the move by Microsoft could still potentially backfire, although with its cash mountain you would expect it to win the day. Google only chance is to paint a sufficiently rosy future picture to Time Warner’s management about what kind of outcome there would be for an AOL partnering Google, then perhaps a lot more than that $380m could be saved.

For instance the new physical fiber network that Google is believed to be in the process of putting together, be used to transport more than just voice, advertising and wi-fi traffic. This could also become a conduit for video services, providing another route to market for the remainder of Time Warner’s content? Could the Google Video search capability index all of Time Warner’s precious content and give it another lease of life?

It’s too late for the Google Talk VoIP service to go out to all the AOL customers because AOL has launched its own complete VoIP package service. The AOL Time Warner merger had some original logic and perhaps a company as imaginative as Google could make that logic work.

On the other hand Microsoft in June 2003 paid Time Warner $750m, mostly in settlement of legal disputes, from when AOL inherited the complaints of Netscape when it bought that company right in the middle of the Microsoft anti-trust trial. But the deal also gave AOL rights to use certain Microsoft tools and the two said that they would collaborate on long-term digital media initiatives, some of which they are well into.

That agreement was certainly not a mere settlement of differences but included the Free use of Internet Explorer by AOL for seven years, collaboration on Windows Media player and DRM software and early access to Microsoft technology for AOL.

And since then the two companies, Time Warner and Microsoft, have become almost inextricably interlinked, working together on standards and buying into companies like ContentGuard together.

So Microsoft must be ahead on this deal as it comes to the table and has the money to tempt Time Warner.

The New York Post has been painting the deal as if it was a 50-50 partnership, with Microsoft buying half of AOL with other statements suggesting that the deal is nothing like that adventurous and is just a form of marketing co-operation.

Yahoo! also has time to throw its hat in the ring, and discussion between it and Time Warner has also been reported. AOL has been losing subscription customers rapidly, which is why it recently switched its business from purely subscription based to increasingly advertising-based.

YAHOO TRACKER

Yahoo Tracker is a free web based service that tells you about the online offline activity of your Yahoo messenger friends. It is currently tracking more than 50,000 yahoo ids and their database is increasing at a rapid pace as more and more people are getting to know about this cool service. Your yahoo buddies won’t know whether someone is tracking on them, and you can track on even those yahoo ids which are not even in your own messenger’s list.

Your own yahoo id and password are not required to use this service, so don’t worry about your privacy. You remain completely anonymous. The service updates the data every 10 minutes. So, what you just have to do is register on Yahoo Tracker via cool ajaxied fast interface, believe me it took only 20 seconds for me to register. Then login into your account from the left sidebar, again ajaxified interface. Add yahoo ids you want to track or spy upon. Thats it!!. The rest of the work will be done by Yahoo Tracker itself. It will start updating the data after every 10 minutes from then onwards. Now, just sit and track on the activities of your buddies.

The registration is absolutely free. So, go and enjoy the service.

Steal This Wi-Fi

Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people -- and attracts the most criticism -- is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.

To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it's both wrong and dangerous.

I'm told that uninvited strangers may sit in their cars in front of my house, and use my network to send spam, eavesdrop on my passwords, and upload and download everything from pirated movies to child pornography. As a result, I risk all sorts of bad things happening to me, from seeing my IP address blacklisted to having the police crash through my door.

While this is technically true, I don't think it's much of a risk. I can count five open wireless networks in coffee shops within a mile of my house, and any potential spammer is far more likely to sit in a warm room with a cup of coffee and a scone than in a cold car outside my house. And yes, if someone did commit a crime using my network the police might visit, but what better defense is there than the fact that I have an open wireless network? If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence.

This is not to say that the new wireless security protocol, WPA, isn't very good. It is. But there are going to be security flaws in it; there always are.

I spoke to several lawyers about this, and in their lawyerly way they outlined several other risks with leaving your network open.

While none thought you could be successfully prosecuted just because someone else used your network to commit a crime, any investigation could be time-consuming and expensive. You might have your computer equipment seized, and if you have any contraband of your own on your machine, it could be a delicate situation. Also, prosecutors aren't always the most technically savvy bunch, and you might end up being charged despite your innocence. The lawyers I spoke with say most defense attorneys will advise you to reach a plea agreement rather than risk going to trial on child-pornography charges.

In a less far-fetched scenario, the Recording Industry Association of America is known to sue copyright infringers based on nothing more than an IP address. The accused's chance of winning is higher than in a criminal case, because in civil litigation the burden of proof is lower. And again, lawyers argue that even if you win it's not worth the risk or expense, and that you should settle and pay a few thousand dollars.

I remain unconvinced of this threat, though. The RIAA has conducted about 26,000 lawsuits, and there are more than 15 million music downloaders. Mark Mulligan of Jupiter Research said it best: "If you're a file sharer, you know that the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid."

I'm also unmoved by those who say I'm putting my own data at risk, because hackers might park in front of my house, log on to my open network and eavesdrop on my internet traffic or break into my computers. This is true, but my computers are much more at risk when I use them on wireless networks in airports, coffee shops and other public places. If I configure my computer to be secure regardless of the network it's on, then it simply doesn't matter. And if my computer isn't secure on a public network, securing my own network isn't going to reduce my risk very much.

Yes, computer security is hard. But if your computers leave your house, you have to solve it anyway. And any solution will apply to your desktop machines as well.

Finally, critics say someone might steal bandwidth from me. Despite isolated court rulings that this is illegal, my feeling is that they're welcome to it. I really don't mind if neighbors use my wireless network when they need it, and I've heard several stories of people who have been rescued from connectivity emergencies by open wireless networks in the neighborhood.

Similarly, I appreciate an open network when I am otherwise without bandwidth. If someone were using my network to the point that it affected my own traffic or if some neighbor kid was dinking around, I might want to do
something about it; but as long as we're all polite, why should this
concern me? Pay it forward, I say.

Certainly this does concern ISPs. Running an open wireless network will often violate your terms of service. But despite the occasional cease-and-desist letter and providers getting pissy at people who exceed some secret bandwidth limit, this isn't a big risk either. The worst that will happen to you is that you'll have to find a new ISP.

A company called Fon has an interesting approach to this problem. Fon wireless access points have two wireless networks: a secure one for you, and an open one for everyone else. You can configure your open network in either "Bill" or "Linus" mode: In the former, people pay you to use your network, and you have to pay to use any other Fon wireless network. In Linus mode, anyone can use your network, and you can use any other Fon wireless network for free. It's a really clever idea.

Security is always a trade-off. I know people who rarely lock their front door, who drive in the rain (and, while using a cellphone) and who talk to strangers. In my opinion, securing my wireless network isn't worth it. And I appreciate everyone else who keeps an open wireless network, including all the coffee shops, bars and libraries I have visited in the past, the Dayton International Airport where I started writing this and the Four Points Sheraton where I finished. You all make the world a better place.