Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is again at risk, just days after the company closed another serious security flaw in its web browser.

A new security advisory was posted by Microsoft last Wednesday, notifying users of a potential flaw in Internet Explorer which could allow third-parties access to data.

“Our investigation so far has shown that if a user is using a version of Internet Explorer that is not running in Protected Mode an attacker may be able to access files with an already known filename and location” said the advisory from Microsoft.

At this stage, there are no reported attacks using this vulnerability, but it is bound to be only a matter of time.

A patch is expected in a few days, on Tuesday 9th February 2010.

Mozilla’s Stephen Horlander has been hard at work, working on tab animations for the next version of Firefox, Firefox 4.0. The aim is to improve the user experience.

“One area that animation would be very beneficial is with tab interactions. Specifically moving/arranging tabs on the tab strip, closing/opening tabs and tearing off tabs into new windows. Presently the feedback here isn’t as good or as elegant as it could be” said Horlander.

“Some of the goals for animation are to make browsing feel faster, adding visual affordances that makes tasks more understandable and to make the browser more visually appealing. There is much more detail on the Wiki articles linked above. My goal was to quickly demo how this would actually look and feel because still images and wireframes can only convey so much.”

Below is am image preview of what it might look like when opening a new tab.

Video’s of the preview tab animations can be found in Horlander’s blog post.

Google has pushed out version 5 of Chrome to the dev channel for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Not much has changed so far, but Windows versions will now use the default download folder for downloading files, while the Mac version is now more stable with extensions.

Linux versions now include support for desktop notifications, along with improved support for complex text such as Arabic and Hebrew.

Being development versions, they are prone to instability and crashes. There is currently one known bug in the Mac version, which will crash the browser when a user clears the cookies.

Users can jump on the dev channel version of Google Chrome by following instructions on the Chromium website.

January has been another interesting month for web browser, with monthly data available from Market Share by Net Applications.

Internet Explorer lost more market share taking it down to 62.18%, down from 62.69%, while Firefox also suprisingly lost some ground in the same period.

Firefox finished January 2010 with 24.41%, down from 24.61% the month before.

Google Chrome had a good month, taking its share above the 5% mark for the first time, ending the month with 5.2% share. This is up from 4.63% in December 2009.

Apple’s Safari also gained a small amount of new users, most likely thanks to the holiday season. Safari holds 4.51%, up from a share of 4.46%.

Opera also suffered a small loss, with a market share of 2.38%, down from 2.4% in December.

This year looks set to be another big battle for browser makers, as they try to draw in new users in 2010.

Time appears to slowly be running out for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), as Google has announced plans to drop support for the browser in its Google Sites and Google Docs applications.

“Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers” said Google Apps Senior Product Manager Rajen Sheth.

Not to feel left out, Google is also dropping support for Firefox 2, Chrome 3, and Safari 2.

“While you’ll still be able to access these Google applications, newer features may not be available and some features may even stop working” said Sheth.

Support for these older browsers is due to end on March 1st. Web users are urged to upgrade their web browsers before this time.

After an almost month long release candidate, Mozilla has released the final version of Firefox Mobile for Maemo devices.

Firefox Mobile is almost a direct port of it’s big brother Firefox, with a completely redesigned user interface for touch screens.

The browser includes the awesome bar, a download manager, early HTML5 support, tabbed browsing, add on support, safe browsing, and is currently available in over 30 languages.

Firefox Mobile can be downloaded and installed on the Nokia N900, with more Maemo devices expected on the market soon.

Google has pushed out an update to its Chrome browser on Windows, taking it to version 4.0.249.78.

The update now includes extensions and bookmark sync in the stable version on Windows.

The update also addresses 11 security issues, 4 of which were rated as high severity, 2 medium, and 5 low.

New users can download Google Chrome from the Google Chrome website, while the update will be pushed out to existing Chrome users.

Firefox 3.6 has introduced a new tab behaviour, where new tabs are opened next to your currently selected tab, while Firefox 3.5 and older would open new tabs at the end of all your tabs.

If you don’t like this new behaviour, you can change it back to the way it was. Simply follow these steps:

1. Go to about:config in the address bar
2. Search for browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent
3. Double click the value to change it from true to false
4. Done!

Enjoy surfing the way you are used too.

Microsoft has filled a patent that reveals it is looking at revamping the tabbed browsing experience with Internet Explorer 9.

The patent appears to be an enhancement of the quick tabs found in IE8,which allows users to see all tabs and close them individually. This parent covers:

• Drag and move the tabs within the Quick Tabs interface.
• Tab thumbnails will enlarge on mouse-hover.
• In case your tab row was over flowing with tabs and in Quick Tabs you were to hover the mouse on a tab not currently visible on the tab bar, the overflow icons would change appearance.

Will it be enough to stop IE from loosing market share? Only time will tell.

A technical preview of Internet Explorer 9 is expected by mid March 2010.

Much faster than originally expected, Microsoft have released a patch to address the vulnerability found in all versions of Internet Explorer.

“This security update resolves seven privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. The more severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights” said a note from Microsoft.

The update includes fixes for IE5.01, IE6, IE7, and IE8 on platforms from Windows 2000 to the newely released Windows 7.

The updated is rated critical and will be pushed out to all users who have Windows Update turned on. Alternatively, system administrators can find out more information plus download links in the Security Bulletin MS10-002.