Microsoft Firefox Professional 2007

Now this is hilarious.

Microsoft Firefox plus MSFirefox Mail Beta, with AKobe Phlash & TakeOver Technology... so many brilliant new ideas, I don't know where to start.

From the site:

Unexpected is good. An exceptional streamlined browsing technology known as the Cut Away Effect™, randomly prevents 9/10 of the browser from rendering properly in order to save system resources. This is not a bug.

Plus so much more. Check it out.

IE7 "on schedule to launch with Vista" (so, like, never?)

There's a flurry of news stories going round at the moment all proclaiming that: "Microsoft appears to be on schedule to launch IE7 in tandem with the upcoming Vista operating system".

Of course, this is hilarious, as are all M$ product launch date estimates.

Microsoft have given so many "official" launch dates for Vista over the last few years that you wouldn't be amiss in thinking this news means IE7 is coming out in a couple of decades.

Currently, Vista is "officially" going to be launched January 30, 2007. Yet only a few months ago, Vista was "officially" launching in November 2006. (Prior to that it had been October, after it slipped from August 31, which it slipped to from June, after it missed "early 2006".. and I could very easily go on for an extremely long time with this sentence, but I think you get my drift.)

Microsoft are still planning the November launch, which they're currently saying will be the date they'll ship Vista to businesses. (Translation/prediction: end of November, pushing December!) However, due to some problems with the build planned for that release, they've now had to work on another build -- which means a fresh round of testing, and, likely, another push-back of the date.

So -- IE7 is to be launched with Vista!

Just do not, under any circumstances, hold your breath.

Microsoft knocking at Firefox's door

This is really exciting news! And on the flipside, it's also really scary.

We'll start with the exciting: PCWorld is reporting that Microsoft is currently in talks with the developers of both Firefox and Safari -- IE's two biggest threats in browserland -- in the hope of getting them to integrate its new identity meta-system technology, named InfoCard, into their platforms.

Why is this exciting?

Well, for one, Microsoft is formally recognising Firefox. And Mozilla, and other browsers in general. This is good. Actually, this is great; one of MS's favourite tricks is to stifle all competition with a mix of wide & varied monopolies, and multitudinous bits of proprietary garbage in previously standardised landscapes.

But this brings us neatly to the not-so-exciting part of the picture: Microsoft is yet again trying to dominate in the personal identity & security market. (Remember Microsoft's Wallet, anyone?)

Ok, ok. Yes, I am jumping to conclusions, given that InfoCard technology is potentially not even going to be in IE 7, once it is finally released. And yes, there are others playing in the security sandpit with MS on this product.

The open source scheme InfoCard is based on is a new security protocol, WS-Trust, still being developed. Sun is another contributor to the new standard, and security firms across the globe are incorporating WS-Trust compatibility into their offerings already.

Head on over to the main base for all this exciting development, SourceID, and we find a couple of extremely pertinent quotes from Bruce Schneier, security guru, featured on the home page:

In the cryptography world, we consider open source necessary for good security; we have for decades. Public security is always more secure than proprietary security. It's true for cryptographic algorithms, security protocols, and security source code. For us, open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering practice.

So what is Microsoft doing in the mix then?

CNET's Top 10 Products list places Firefox at #5

Another accolade for the best web browser on the planet, Firefox, this time coming in at Number 5 on CNET's list of the Top Ten Products they've seen in their ten years of operation.

Others on the list included both the Apple iPod (#1) and the Apple iMac (#8), the original Napster (#4), ubiquitous search giant Google (#3), and TiVo (#2), a product we've not yet seen here in Australia, but which most of us (females, at least) know about thanks to Miranda on Sex & The City.

Firefox should have been higher, IMHO, but that's probably due the fact that I use it every single da... actually, nah, it's due to the fact that it's a bloody brilliant piece of software!