http://news.hitb.org/content/australian-isp-walks-out-piracy-talks-were-not-internet-police

Australian ISP Walks Out of Piracy Talks: "We're Not The Internet Police"

A leading Australian Internet service provider has pulled out of negotiations to create a warning notice scheme aimed at reducing online piracy. iiNet, the ISP that was sued by Hollywood after refusing to help chase down alleged infringers, said that it can’t make any progress with righthsolders if they don’t make their content freely available at a reasonable price. The ISP adds that holding extra data on customers’ habits is inappropriate and not their responsibility.

http://www.datamation.com/commentary/will-video-ads-wreck-the-internet-1.html

Will Video Ads Wreck the Internet?

Facebook is reportedly bringing auto-play ads to your News Feed. That's just the beginning.

New reports suggest that Facebook will soon unveil video advertising – basically TV commercials on Facebook.

Unlike TV's 30-second standard for ads, Facebook's would be capped at 15 seconds. The ads will be "autoplay," meaning they'll play without any action by the user.

While 15 seconds is short compared with TV, it's long compared with online users' tolerance levels.

The ads would show up in your Facebook news feed in desktop browsers, as well as on mobile phones and tablets.

Auto-play, in-stream advertising is going to annoy users, big-time.

As I mentioned in this space previously, Facebook can get away abusing users more than other social networks because of what I call their "monopoly on everybody."

Google+ has zero advertising -- they don't even let their users advertise.

Video content nearly always has pre-roll video advertising -- those ads that play before the content you want to see starts playing. These have gotten longer and more intrusive over the past couple of years. It's not clear if that trend will continue.

AOL recently found in a commissioned study that short videos do a better job of selling products than longer ones.

Still, whether they keep getting longer or start getting shorter, video ads online are definitely going to become more common.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/143274-internet-explorer-flaw-lets-websites-track-your-every-mouse-movement-and-ms-refuses-to-fix-it

Internet Explorer flaw lets websites track your every mouse movement, and MS refuses to fix it

If you don’t want to be tracked, you do have options available. Firstly, you can switch to a different browser. Chrome or Firefox are fantastic options, and they aren’t affected by this flaw. Secondly, you could turn off JavaScript in IE. While this does hinder the usefulness of most modern websites, it will prevent IE from passing on your mouse movements. These aren’t optimal solutions, but Microsoft has given us little choice in the matter. Unless it steps up and patches this flaw, it just isn’t safe to use IE with JavaScript turned on.

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/11/01/one-month-until-regulate-internet/

One month until they regulate the Internet

Better enjoy Facebook while you can.

A U.N.-sponsored conference next month in Dubai will propose new regulations and restrictions for the Internet, which critics say will censor free speech, levy tariffs on e-commerce, and even force companies to clean up their “e-waste” and make gadgets that are better for the environment.

Concerns about the closed-door event have sparked a Wikileaks-style info-leaking site,

http://wcitleaks.org/

Terry Kramer, the chief U.S. envoy to the conference, says the United States is against sanctions and believes management of the Internet by one central organization goes against free speech.

http://wcitleaks.org/news/

The U.N.'s Internet Power Grab Wall Street Journal
Leaked documents show a real threat to the international flow of information
Keep the Internet Open New York Times
More and more governments are trying to take away the Internet as we know it.
Why is the UN Trying to Take over the Internet? Forbes
The International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the UN, is trying to take over the Internet. Yes, really.
World War 3.0 Vanity Fair
Privacy, piracy, security, sovereignty—the divisions on these issues reflect an even deeper split between those who want tight control and those who want unfettered freedom.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577470532859210296.html

It's easy to understand why countries like Russia, China and Iran would want to rewire the Internet, cutting off access to their citizens and undermining the idea of a World Wide Web. What's more surprising is that U.S. diplomats are letting authoritarian regimes hijack an obscure U.N. agency to undermine how the Internet works, including for Americans.

The failure by U.S. negotiators to stop attacks on the Internet became known only through documents leaked last week.
The process is secret, so it was hard to know what authoritarian governments were plotting or how the U.S. was responding.
Disclosure came when two academics decided to use the openness of the Web to help save the Web. George Mason University researchers Jerry Brito and Eli Dourado earlier this month created a site called WCITLeaks.org. They invited anyone with access to the documents describing the U.N. proposals to post them, so as "to foster greater transparency." These documents are not classified but had not been made public.
The WCITLeaks site hit pay dirt this past Friday. Someone leaked the 212-page planning document being used by governments
"controlling the content that consumers can access online."
Several proposals would give the U.N. power to regulate online content for the first time, under the guise of protecting against computer malware or spam. Russia and some Arab countries want to be able to inspect private communications such as email. Russia and Iran propose new rules to measure Internet traffic along national borders and bill the originator of the traffic, as with international phone calls. That would result in new fees to local governments and less access to traffic from U.S. "originating" companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple. A similar idea has the support of European telecommunications companies, even though the Internet's global packet switching makes national tolls an anachronistic idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/opinion/keep-the-internet-open.html?_r=0

Keep the Internet Open
The Internet stands at a crossroads. Built from the bottom up, powered by the people, it has become a powerful economic engine and a positive social force. But its success has generated a worrying backlash. Around the world, repressive regimes are putting in place or proposing measures that restrict free expression and affect fundamental rights. The number of governments that censor Internet content has grown to 40 today from about four in 2002. And this number is still growing, threatening to take away the Internet as you and I have known it.
The decisions taken in Dubai in December have the potential to put government handcuffs on the Net. To prevent that — and keep the Internet open and free for the next generations — we need to prevent a fundamental shift in how the Internet is governed.
I encourage you to take action now: Insist that the debate about Internet governance be transparent and open to all stakeholders.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/08/09/why-the-un-is-trying-to-take-over-the-internet/

Why is the UN Trying to Take over the Internet?
Yet another anachronistic regulator is trying to flex its muscles over the Internet. But this time the U.S. government is actually the one trying to stop them.
That’s right. It’s the United Nations. Specifically, the International Telecommunications Union, a 150 year-old
bureaucracy that started life establishing telegraph standards. The ITU has since mutated into coordinating international telephone interconnection and radio spectrum, and became part of the U.N. in 1947. But it has never had a meaningful role in dealing with the Internet.

At least until now.
That could change dramatically later this year, when 193 member nations and hundreds of non-voting private members will meet in Dubai for the World Conference on International Telecommunications, or WCIT.
Worse, Internet users who object to proposed changes may not even know what to complain about or who to complain to. Following ITU rules, the proposals are being circulated and deliberated in secret, making it difficult to know what is being proposed and who users can hold accountable.
Countries like Russia, Iran, and China hope to co-opt the ITU into an agency that provides cover for their long-standing efforts to censor Internet content. The phone companies, meanwhile, are using the WCIT process to propose new ways to tax the most popular Internet content, nearly all of which originates in the U.S.
* As Americans learned in last year’s fight over SOPA and PIPA, and as advocates around the world continue to discover in protests over secret global intellectual property treaties including ACTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership *
“Such expanded ‘monitoring capabilities’ for the ITU fit perfectly into Mr. Putin’s vision of the Internet of the future,” he said.
But that will come as cold comfort in December to billions of Internet users, when a secretive UN agency will convene a rogue’s gallery of repressive governments and economic opportunists, closes its doors, and decides the future of a technology it knows nothing about.
That is, unless Internet users around the world wake up and put a stop to this nonsense.

http://en.rsf.org/european-union-down-with-acta-the-eu-must-protect-02-07-2012,42930.html

Reporters Without Borders hails the European Parliament’s rejection of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) today by 478 votes to 39. This is a victory for freedom of information and Net neutrality.
02.07.12 - Down with ACTA! The EU must protect our commons [Signatories] have a look

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/internet-censorship-let-it-rot-in-walled-gardens/1333

Internet censorship: Let it rot in walled gardens
Takeaway: Attempts to shut us up in walled gardens and curb our online freedoms are impossible to implement and police. The nature of the internet sees to it that they are doomed to fail.
The internet was designed to enable military communications to find their way around points of failure in the event of a nuclear war. If one node fails or “drops certain messages because it doesn’t like their subject the messages find their way past that node anyway by some other route”, according to Gilmore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Shield_Project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International_Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/internet-freedom-why-we-must-throw-off-our-online-shackles/1249

If there is a moral here, it is that all attempts to control information are futile because people and technology will always find a way to circumvent them.

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/china-blocking-tor-round-two

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tor-partially-blocked-china

http://www.cs.kau.se/philwint/static/gfc/

How the Great Firewall of China is Blocking Tor
chinese filtering infrastructure This study investigated how the Great Firewall of China (GFC) is blocking the Tor anonymity network.
The scan is run by seemingly arbitrary Chinese computers which connect to the bridge and try to


march12.rsf.org/i/Report_EnemiesoftheInternet_2012.pdf

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/enemies_of_the_internet_not_just_for_dictators_anymore.php

But what's troubling about this year's report is the inclusion of two democratic countries: Australia and South Korea. [2010]
Both countries were included in the report's Under Surveillance list - a sub group of the main Enemies list.
Australia's proposed online filtering system is something RWB says it has "never before seen in a democracy." Additionally, in the state of South Australia it's now against the law to be anonymous online if it's in the context of an election.

http://en.rsf.org/beset-by-online-surveillance-and-12-03-2012,42061.html

This report, which presents the 2012 list of countries that are “Enemies of the Internet” and “under surveillance,” updates the report published on 12 March 2011.

http://en.rsf.org/recommendations-concerning-access-02-11-2010,38724.html

The Federal Shield Law must allow blogs and whistleblower websites the same protection as it does to all other media organizations
To regularly assess domestic press freedom issues and the working conditions of journalists throughout the country

http://en.rsf.org/reporters-without-borders-keeps-13-03-2012,42090.html

Reporters Without Borders denies reports that it was “excluded” from UNESCO during this UN body’s most recent executive council session for a supposed “lack of ethics.” False reports to this effect have been circulated by certain media, especially in Latin America, without any attempt at verification.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17350225

Bahrain and Belarus have been added to Reporters Without Borders' annual list of "enemies of the internet".
India and Kazakhstan have also joined Australia remains on the register France

"Enemies of the internet"

Bahrain
Belarus
Burma
China
Cuba
Iran
North Korea
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Vietnam

"Countries under surveillance"

Australia
Egypt
Eritrea
France
India
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Russia
South Korea
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
It also says that Blackberry's decision to assist the authorities without a prior court order during the London riots is "a worrying development".

http://www.top5ofanything.com/index.php?h=043460fc

The Top 5 Most Blacklisted Websites on the Internet
Blacklisted Website Percentage of Networks Blacklisting
Sources: OpenDNS Report: "Web Content Filtering and Phishing" 2010.
List Notes: Data is for the year 2010. Data is most blacklisted sites where there is a focus by businesses and organizations on preventing traffic to specific websites based on a combination of their popularity and content and thus preventing cyber-procrastination in the workplace or at schools and institutions. Percentages indicate the proportion of networks using blacklisting that reference a given site. OpenDNS is a global DNS service for consumers, schools and businesses which, according to them: "resolves 30 billion DNS queries per day, services 15 million requesting IP addresses per day and handles DNS for 1 percent of all Internet users worldwide."Data is for the year 2010.
1 Facebook.com 14.2%
2 MySpace.com 9.9%
3 YouTube.com 8.1%
4 Doubleclick.net 6.4%
5 Twitter.com 2.3%

Yikes, thanks for sharing, hotdog.

http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Internet-Explorer-security-examined-1721876.html

Internet Explorer security examined

Security expert Brian Krebs has illustrated how different statistical approaches can provide differing perspectives on browser security. For example, if you simply count vulnerabilities, Internet Explorer compares well with its competitors. If, on the other hand, you look only at vulnerabilities which are actually exploited, Internet Explorer fares comparatively poorly, says Krebs.

Krebs calculates that 275 vulnerabilities were reported for Google Chrome in 2011, 97 for Mozilla Firefox, and only 45 for Internet Explorer. Using this method, Internet Explorer appears to be have a solid security story. However, looking at the statistics for zero day exploits actually spread by malicious web sites, Internet Explorer ranks far behind other browsers.

no HBO, Showtime, & Starz in nz only sky or TV 1,2,3,4,maori,& Prime TV
most TV is UK or US Army Wives, America's next top model, the late show with David Letterman, the biggest loser, cops, south park, American Dad, Dr Phill, Dr Oz Show.

just a well I live in new zealand for $ 75 nz $ that be $40 us, I get Phone Voicemail Caller ID Call waiting tolls calls free only national up to one hour, Broadband 30 GB per month

I envy you. I REALLY Envy you. And I'm not the only one -- the Woz [Apple co-founder] is reported to be moving to Australia, taking up citizenship just because of their broadband initiative.

In the U.S. broadband prices start around $40, whether ADSL or Cable. Either can have iffy reliability &/or performance depending on where you live. Unlimited phone service over cable starts around $30, & basic cable with minimum channels starts around $30-$40 as well. Once you start adding the rest of the cable channels, then the premium channels like HBO, Showtime, & Starz you're looking at $100+ -- with all the taxes & fees etc., with average speed broadband [not the fastest], it's real easy to get close to $200 per month & still not have every channel.

You might expect at least a decent picture or signal for that price, & you'd be wrong... To free up bandwidth for Pay Per View, which can make up the majority of the hundreds of channels, the cable companies very highly compress the digital video they provide -- most movies for example are more compressed, have lower quality that what you'd put on your typical smart phone or tablet... A typical SD movie in digital format on a premium channel like Starz is 528x480 poorly encoded mpg2 with a bit rate of 1,846 Kbps -- a DVD is 720x480 mpg2 with an average bit rate of 6,000 - 8,000 Kbps. The few HD premium channel movies are similarly highly compressed -- an HD movie comes in ~7 GB, what you might get on a retail DVD, while a 2 hour SD movie is ~1.8 GB. Assuming you use a high quality source, Neither is comparable to the quality of a movie encoded to AVC with a bit rate of ~1,200 Kbps, which is what you'd typically get with one of the GOTD converters using something like an iPhone template/profile.

Cable companies & their employees are pretty much universally loathed. I've got a Cablecard tuner -- they use what looks just like a PC Card for a laptop [it uses the same case or housing] to unscramble the cable channels [all channels except those already broadcast over the air are scrambled for DRM], so we can use win7's Media Center like a DVR [Digital Video Recorder], like a Tivo without the added monthly fees. Researching cablecard tuners, Tivos etc. on-line, the biggest concern or worry I found was having Any cable company make a service call. Stories like one poor guy who had a $700 entertainment center [the furniture/cabinetry holding his HDTV & video/audio equipment] totally destroyed are not uncommon. I know before they come out I have to disconnect *Everything* & *Hide all the cables* because they always want to re-wire everything, usually damage something in the process, & are prone to take my cables with them when they leave. Because of their DRM, Cablecards have to be turned on, which simply involves the cable company sending a special signal over the cable to activate the things -- it's not uncommon for something so simple to take ~1 month worth of hassles... it took a month in our case, along with ~40 phone calls, 2 trips to stand in line at the local office, & one service call so the alleged tech could tell the office what they had to do -- I had to disconnect everything, hide the cables, move the furniture etc. so this guy could come out, look at the cablecard tuner, & send a text message on his cell phone. To be honest the whole thing was such a hassle I got an RMA on the tuner 3 days into the ordeal -- I only wound up keeping the thing because I was too cheap to feel good about the high restocking fee.

just a well I live in new zealand for $ 75 nz $ that be $40 us, I get Phone Voicemail Caller ID Call waiting tolls calls free only national up to one hour, Broadband 30 GB per month

The U.S. has countless cities, towns, townships, counties, etc., where the local government officials all demand something from any company that wants to run new cable or fiber. It's not always cash, but can be pet projects or whatever. Allegedly because of that no company can afford to run new cable/fiber -- the latest to try gave up [Verizon's Fios]. In big cities another problem is often that the existing infrastructure they're using has been added onto for more than a century, e.g. underground tunnels -- no one knows for sure what they'll run into, e.g. old water, sewer, electric, phone, &/or steam pipes/lines, nor do they know if portions are collapsing or have already collapsed around whatever pipes/lines.

Existing phone, cable, & fiber optic lines are owned by individual companies, & since they effectively have a monopoly [because there's no competing lines], they're often run so inefficiently that in any other biz they'd have gone broke in the 1st 6 months. [Our local cable company, like most others judging from on-line reports, seems to be staffed by totally incompetent idiots -- recently it took 3 people almost 2 days to figure out that they cut the wrong coax line, which was immediately apparent once they cut it! Visit the local office & you're likely to see 1/2 dozen people or more just standing around talking/joking for hours at a time -- you know they stand around for hours because that's how long you're standing in the line at the counter!]

Another factor adding to high costs is the same greed from the same folks who spend their days screaming about piracy -- cable companies pay more than they should for much of the content they provide.

At the end of the day cable TV is terribly expensive because customers have no choice but to pay it. The same goes for satellite TV & services like ATT's Uverse, delivering TV via existing phone lines. Same goes for internet access.

Yeah, companies haven't re-invested profits, nor invested funds they get from the gov in maintaining &/or improving their infrastructure, the cable/fiber they own plus all the switching equipment etc., but that's because they haven't had to, have no incentive to provide better service for their customers. Companies like ATT & Verizon who are loath to improve their landlines & such don't shy way from improving their cellular networks because there they directly compete with one another, plus companies like T-Mobile & Sprint.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-phone-cable-internet-bills-cost-much-130914030.html

Why Your Phone, Cable & Internet Bills Cost So Much

The U.S. has fallen behind much of the Western world when it comes to phone, cable and Internet service. Americans actually pay much more for inferior service compared to their global counterparts.

How did this happen?

"The telecos got the rules changed while we weren't watching," says Johnston in the accompanying interview. Basically, the phone and cable companies lobbied Washington to change laws and regulations to favor their business over their customers.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Internet-Explorer-10-Is-the-Fastest-Browser-Better-than-Chrome-20-and-Firefox-13-293242.shtml

Internet Explorer 10 Is the Fastest Browser, Better Than Chrome 20 and Firefox 13 (I have Firefox 15.0.2.0) old test ?

Internet Explorer 10 is only available in Windows 8

Website performance analysis company Strangeloop recently performed a new test with the most popular browsers on the Internet, revealing that Internet Explorer 10 is the fastest app of its kind at this moment.

No less than 2,000 retail websites have been included in the test, based on their ranking on Alexa.com. Strangeloop used WebPagetest to measure page loading times of Google Chrome 20, Firefox 13 and Internet Explorer versions 7 to 10.

The results are a bit surprising, as IE10 was named the fastest browser on the Internet because it loads pages 8 percent quicker than Google Chrome 20. IE10 was also faster than Firefox 13, according to the long report released by Strangeloop.

The average page loading time for Internet Explorer 10 is 6.392 seconds, while Firefox comes second with 6.395 seconds. Google Chrome 20 is “the slowest” of the three, with an average time of 6.906 seconds.

What's more, Strangeloop says that websites are loading 9 percent slower than in 2011, despite the clear evolution of today's web browsers. This happens because pages feature much more complex content, including large and HD media files.

The only problem, however, with Internet Explorer 10 is that it is available only for Windows 8 users

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7364771/Megaupload-Hollywood-vs-the-Internet

Megaupload: Hollywood vs the Internet

MEGACONFUSION: Just what is going on with Kim Dotcom and the Megaupload case?

And certainly he has plenty to complain about. The raid on his rented mansion by dozens of armed police in helicopters is not the usual Kiwi way of doing things. "Circus" doesn't go near it - this was more like an attack on a gang pad in east Los Angeles.

IPexpress you say many issues Please to my PM he said it all good ?

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/12182

In this article, the researchers respond to this post. It's a bit humorous, because they simultaneously say that the issues their research exposes are "[Trustworthiness] of chip developers who are subcontracted by military but mainly outsource their designs and chip fabrication to China and India" and "we have no idea why people have linked the Chinese to this as it did not come from us".

PS my Mobile Broadband USB Modem not call back to china

Allegations are one thing... proof is another.

I read a lot of "if it came from China it must have an evil back door". Proof is needed on a case by case basis. Otherwise it is nothing but a wild conspiracy theory (which on the internet are a dime a dozen).

Just like you would "like to have the choice" to buy a non-ZTE stick, companies "like to have the choice" to not manufacture products that they believe will not be profitable, or are products that lie outside their core area of expertise.

If someone feels strongly enough about it, maybe they might develop a competing product.

I don't know if you read the news about ZTE and Huawai. They are under pressure by European, US and India. Allegations include price dumping, strong connections to Chinese government and also backdoors included in their products for network monitoring (aka hardware based spyware).

This is a big concern for everyone, not just me. I would like to have the choice to buy a non-ZTE (Huawai) stick if I feel not comfortable with it. It's the same if I don't like iPhone I can buy an android. But with internet USB sticks, you don't get a choice. It's all ZTE and Huawai hardware, not a single Sony Ericsson. I phoned Sony and they say they don't offer USB internet sticks.

Frankly, this really sucks....

Huawei are quite a ruthless company, as are a number of other emerging Chinese companies. Not all bad, but quality and security still a worry with some of these companies that have still to establish a Brand Name that signifies confidence. Huawei, have been around for sometime and I know there have been many issues with partner companies in the UK.

Australia earlier this year blocked Huawei from bidding for contracts in its $38 billion high-speed broadband network due to unspecified security concerns.

But New Zealand say it be ok we get it.
and Thanks for the update mikiem2

US Congress investigating Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/22/us-china-usa-huawei-idUSBRE85L03G20120622

I think I remember you posting a bit on these companies already, hotdoge3

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2154405/microsoft-whinges-ec-google-motorola

Microsoft whinges to the EC over Google and Motorola
Claims Google will kill internet video
SOFTWARE PATENTS BULLY Microsoft is whingeing about Google's buyout of Motorola Mobility and moaning that it could mean the end of Windows PCs, Xbox consoles and viewing home videos of cats over the internet.

How an Omniscient Internet ‘Sextortionist’ Ruined the Lives of Teen Girls

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/sextortionist/

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/10/how-secure-are-you-on-the-internet/

How Secure Are You On The Internet?

Microsoft has improved the security of it considerably, thanks to automatic updates and additional free security tools.

Lets assume you have got your browser updated to the latest version, and that you generally update the application immediately when a new version comes out. You are secure now, right? Nope, you are not. Why? Because it is not only about the browser software. Browsers make automatic use of other applications, commonly called plugins. Popular plugins like Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight or Java are attack vectors as well, and successful ones too.

Thanks, Hotdoge. :)

http://www.comodo.com/products/comodo-products.php

look on the L.H.S. click on Learn more Free Products

Comodo Internet Security Pro 2011 (Try Pro FREE for 1 year!) may be good to get ?

Wi-Fi Protection
Live Expert help
Firewall Protection
Antivirus Software

Am not surprised

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20054433-38.html

Internet poker giants indicted in U.S. crackdown.
The three offshore companies--PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker--are accused of circumventing a 2006 U.S. law that prohibits financial institutions from handling transactions for online gambling sites. Prosecutors say they allegedly tricked U.S. banks and credit card issuers into processing billions of dollars in transactions that appeared to be legitimate sales on hundreds of fake online retail sites purportedly selling jewelry and golf balls.
The Web sites displayed messages saying "This domain has been seized by the FBI pursuant to an arrest warrant."

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/253034,microsoft-dont-compare-ie9-downloads-to-firefox-4.aspx

Microsoft says comparing browsers is like apples and oranges, as Firefox wins on downloads
Microsoft has attempted to cast doubt on Firefox 4's download success, saying comparisons between the Mozilla browser, Chrome and IE9 aren't fair.

The trio of browsers were all recently updated, leading many to compare the number of downloads - which Microsoft said was "premature at best, and misleading at worst."

Mozilla claimed 7.5 million downloads in the first day - well over the 2.3 million Microsoft recorded on IE9's debut day a week earlier. Firefox 4's download tracking page claims more than 48 million at the time of publication.

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/253377,firefox-4-beating-ie9.aspx

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/251348,ie9-a-8216non-event8217-for-most-businesses.aspx

IE9 a ‘non-event’ for most businesses
With no Windows XP compatibility as of yet, the release of IE9 will mean little to most companies.
Most corporate IT departments will not be affected by the release of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), largely because of its current incompatibility with Windows XP, according to an analyst.

thanks for all your ongoing updates, Hotdoge3 - much appreciated.