Stories by Gregg Keizer

Microsoft, Vista activation researcher butt heads

Microsoft Monday declared that a technique to delay Vista's activation as long as a year just "doesn't work." The researcher who published the activation extension claimed otherwise.

No Vista 'pop' on 2007 PC sales, predicts Gartner

The launch of Windows Vista won't do much for PC sales this year, a research firm said Tuesday, with the new Microsoft operating system giving "at best, a limited boost" to PC units shipped during 2007.

Apple trumped by HP, Acer in laptop sales gains in Q4

Although Apple's climb in computer market share has been largely fuelled by its laptop lineup, other PC makers have done even better at boosting global laptop sales, according to a research firm.

Firefox hit by fewer flaws than IE in 2006

Mozilla's Firefox suffered from 26 percent fewer vulnerabilities in the second half of 2006 than Microsoft's Internet Explorer, a security company's research said Monday.

New QuickTime exploit hits MySpace, steals passwords

A Trojan horse exploiting a flaw in Apple's QuickTime that was patched two weeks ago is infecting MySpace.com users' computers, collecting confidential information, including passwords, several security companies said Monday.

'Wiki' finally legit, says OED

Six years after Wikipedia.org debuted, editors at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have finally deigned to add the word "wiki" to the OED's online version.

Microsoft concedes: OneCare AV software 'not stellar'

Microsoft last Thursday acknowledged poor test results of its OneCare antivirus software, but promised it would do better by paying more attention to malware actually in the wild.

Microsoft guru wants Vista bugs rated less serious

Microsoft's own bug hunters should cut Windows Vista some slack and rate its vulnerabilities differently because of the operating system's new, baked-in defenses, according to the developer who is often the public persona of the company's Security De...

Run Vista legally without activation for a year

Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end run around one of Microsoft's key antipiracy measures, according to Windows expert, Brian Livingston.

Apple patches Mac OS X, updates OS to version 10.4.9

Apple Tuesday made up for Microsoft's patch sabbatical by releasing a security update that featured fixes for 45 vulnerabilities, a third of which addressed flaws first made public during a pair of bug-a-day projects in late 2006 and early this year....

Mozilla wrestles with Firefox 3.0 security moves

Mozilla is still wrestling with adding a security feature to Firefox that its browser rival, Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, uses on Windows Vista to keep malware from hijacking computers.

Microsoft fixes OneCare, but it's late for some users

Microsoft quietly deployed a patch to its Windows Live OneCare security suite earlier than expected to fix a bug that has erased some users' e-mail.

MacBook burns, user says battery not part of '06 recall

An Australian MacBook user reported Monday that his Apple laptop burst into flames, apparently because of a bad battery. He said that the laptop battery had not been on last year's recall list.

Microsoft's Raikes: Office won't go online

Microsoft will deliver future versions of Office as software, not as a service, and as complete packages, not modules that do incremental updates, Jeff Raikes, president of the company's business group, said late last week.

WGA reappears on XP by design, Microsoft says

Although users can tell Windows XP to ignore updates to Microsoft's antipiracy technology, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Notifications will be offered again the next time the component is upgraded, the company said Friday.