The research “measuring the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser” was apparently conducted on 100,000 people who went looking for an IQ test.  As I pointed out at the time the data from this research would have been utterly meaningless, as it completely failed to take into account people using web browsers both at home and at work where they would have had no control over the browser they used.

Now it has emerged that the entire thing was a hoax with the BBC reporting that not just they, but other big media organisations including CNN and Forbes were taken in (not gHacks though I’m happy to say!).

It has emerged that the company website for AptiQuant was only set up recently and that all the staff images had come from a perfectly legitimate, and unconnected, business website for a company in Paris.

The BBC contacted the French firm, Central Test, who confirmed that they’d been made aware that AptiQuant has been using its images with the staff names changed.

It was quite an elaborate hoax with an extensive research document (containing grammar errors) and a very convincing website to back it up.  There is no clue at this stage who was behind the hoax.  In the study AptiQuant said…

The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web browser.  From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general, however more research is needed for that, which is a potential future work as an extension to this report.

gHacks readers too it seems are a savvy bunch with Jakin posting “This is a stupid study.   Intelligent people can choose to use IE or use another browser”  though Betttie said “IMHO, the study is among the most robust I’ve come across.”

It can be argued that the reason the hoax was so successful worldwide is because of the venom many people have towards Internet Explorer and the knowledge that some users of Microsoft’s browser can be less likely to know about, or know how to find, download and install other browsers.  With the exception of businesses still using Internet Explorer 6, it can be argued that it’s these people who are unlikely to even have Windows Update switched on, let alone download a new version of the browser whenever the update service tells them that one is available.

This is not proof of people having a low IQ however, far from it.  Instead this is merely proof that technology is very confusing and difficult to use for many people.  That these people should be considered “dumb” was something that gHacks users seemed particularly keen to attack, and good on you for it.

The BBC sought an alternative view to the research and asked Professor David Speigelhalter of Cambridge University’s Statistical Laboratory, he said “I believe these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users.”  When the BBC tried to contact AptiQuant on the number provided on their website nobody was available for comment.

Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos commented that “It’s obviously very easy to create a bogus site like this – as all phishers know it’s easy to rip-off someone else’s webpages and pictures.”  He went on to add that this is exactly the type of behaviour exhibited by phishers and malware writers.  Though he added that the PDF file from the website containing the research appeared to be free of any malware.

They praise Internet Explorer’s SmartScreen filter for protecting users against significantly more social malware than any other current browser, and by the looks of the chart below this is by some significant margin.

In their report the firm describe socially-engineered malware as…

Socially-engineered malware attacks pose a significant risk to individuals and organizations by threatening to compromise, damage, or acquire sensitive personal and corporate information; statistics from 2008 – 2010 show that this trend is increasing at a rapid rate. According to a recent study by AVG, users are four times more likely to be tricked into downloading malware than be compromised by an exploit; criminals continue to increase their use of malware as a cybercrime attack vector. Anti-virus researchers report detecting between 15,000 and 50,000 new malicious programs per day, Kaspersky Lab has even reported detecting up to “millions per month.”

They go on to describe IE’s SmartScreen filter as…

The SmartScreen Filter protection offered by Windows Internet Explorer 9 has two components: URL Reputation, which is included in IE8 and Application Reputation, which is new to IE9. IE9 caught an exceptional 92% of the live threats with SmartScreen URL reputation, and an additional 8% with Application Reputation. IE9 with SmartScreen offers the best protection of any browser against socially engineered malware. Protection against malware targeting European users matched our broader findings from the Q3 2010 global test.

The results are quite something, and other browser makers, Apple, Mozilla and Google will no doubt fight back rigorously with strong statements that their browsers are every bit as safe and secure as Internet Explorer, if not more so.

In the tests though, Internet Explorer 8, the previous generation of Microsoft’s browser, caught 90% of all live threats with IE9 catching 92% and reaching 100% of all threats when the known reputation of applications was factored in.

This is compared to the other browsers.  Apple’s Safari caught just 13% of live threats, Mozilla FIrefox 4 also caught 13% which had dropped from the 19% the browser caught in the same tests last year.  Opera 11 caught only 5% of all threats and Google’s Chrome browser caught, again, just 13% of all live threats.

StartScreen is not a widely talked about feature of Microsoft’s browser.  The company describes it as…

a feature in Internet Explorer that helps detect phishing websites. SmartScreen Filter can also help protect you from downloading or installing malware (malicious software).

They say that is “analyses web pages” as you visit them to “determine iof they have any characteristics that might be suspicious”, “checks the sites you visit against a dynamic list of reported phishing sites and malicious software sites” and “checks files you download from the web against a list of reported malicious software sites and programs known to be unsafe.”

This feature though is only as good as the people who keep the information up to date, which means that a 92% success rate today might not mean you’ll get that tomorrow.

Every week, new social malware is being discovered that is trying to trick users into installing it and surrendering personal information such as their credit card details with ever increasing believability.  The recent attacks on Apple Mac users by Mac Defender is an example of just how convincing this software can be.

The weak link with malware and viruses will always be the user, as it will always be this person who has to click or select something in order for malware to infect their PC.  It’s commonly said that the only safe PC is one that’s still in the box and has never been switched on.

The first demonstration of the new browser, which adds support for CSS Gradients, CSS3 Flexible Box Layout and more, was seen at the company’s MIX conference only today, running in an ARM processor.

The news, which was broken by Engadget, seems to back up my own speculation that the next version of Windows will run happily, though probably a bit slowly, on a 1GHz processor.

It’s exciting news for the tech community as nobody was really expecting any live demos of Windows 8 until the autumn, and certainly not news already about the next version of Internet Explorer.

Usually, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is very critical of big corporations who intrude on people’s privacy, but their criticism was not very harsh. Why? Because Google has developed a web browser plug-in that permits users to opt-out of this scheme.

The plug-in is available for Internet Explorer and Firefox and modifications to browser preferences in Chrome and Safari also allow people to opt-out. Google also maintains an ‘Ad Preferences Manager‘ which allows this tracking cookie to be disabled until the next time cookies are wiped.

There are several reasons to disable these cookies. Firstly, you may not entrust Google with your details. Secondly, adverts based on past browsing may be displayed to other users of the computer… not perfect if, for example, you were buying a present for a family member and they are suddenly swarmed with advertisements about it!

Most tracking cookies can be disabled if you modify browser settings. In Firefox, for example, in Preferences>Privacy, you can refuse to ‘accept third party cookies’.

The latest build of the operating system Windows 7 (build 7048) which leaked to the Internet earlier this week apparently contains an option to uninstall Internet Explorer 8. While this uninstallation does not remove the ties of the web browser in the operating system it does remove the Internet Explorer executable from the computer system.

Users should keep in mind that the Internet Explorer rendering engine is being used for various integral parts of the operating system and that it most likely would require a rewrite to untie it completely. It is unclear if the option to uninstall Internet Explorer has been added because of the complaint. It certainly looks that way considering that the option to uninstall Internet Explorer was not available in the beta build of Windows 7.

The real question is if it will be enough to please the European Union. Most end users will probably never make use of this option as it does not make a huge difference for most users. Many experienced users will install an alternative web browser like Firefox or Opera immediately after finishing the installation of the operating system.

Removing only the executable will not have an impact on system performance at all. What’s your take on this? Should Microsoft offer an option to remove Internet Explorer from the Windows operating system?

Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators help in the retrieval and manipulation of data on websites. It usually involves selected content on a website first and the accelerator to process the content afterwards. This can range from translation services to drawing a map of the location of the near restaurant you just discovered or checking the price of an item on a shopping site.

Whenever the user marks elements on a website that can be processed by installed Accelerators a blue icon appears next to the selected element. A click on that icon will provide access to all installed Accelerators that can be used to process the selected data.

If the user hovers his mouse over an accelerator a small overlay window will usually appear on the screen displaying the contents of the processed data, for example a map if an Internet Explorer 8 Accelerator has been selected that looks up addresses in maps. Some Internet Explorer 8 Accelerators on the other hand do not make use of the overlay.

1.Map on Live Maps – One of the default Internet Explorer 8 accelerators that comes preinstalled. It can be used to quickly lookup an address on Live Maps.

2. Find On eBay – Will look up the selected text on eBay displaying matching auctions.

3. Translhttp://www.ieaddons.com/en/details//ate With Live Search – Another default Internet Explorer 8 Accelerator that can quickly translate selected text in the web browser.

4. Weather.com – Look up weather information at weather.com.

5. Wikipedia Accelerator – Makes it possible to quickly look up information at the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

6. Look up in Google News – Will look up the selected text in Google News.

7. Sent with Windows Live Hotmail – send selected information with an Windows Live Hotmail account.

8. Login Using BugmeNot – BugMeNot is a service that operates a database of public login credentials that can be used log into websites without registration.

9. Blogger – The Blogger Accelerator makes it easier to write about interesting stories discovered on the Internet.

10. Share With delicious – Share information easier with Delicious.

The security update fixes the following two vulnerabilities: Uninitialized Memory Corruption Vulnerability and CSS Memory Corruption Vulnerability. Since it is a cumulative update it does apply all previous security updates for Internet Explorer on the computer system.

The easiest way to update affected systems is to use Microsoft Update which will download and apply the security updates automatically. The other possibility is to download the patch from Microsoft Download and apply it manually.

Microsoft has released three additional security bulletins:

• Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Could Allow Remote Code Execution (959239)
• Vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server Could Allow Remote Code Execution (959420)
• Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Visio Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957634)

Users who cannot wait until Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 RC1 is officially released can download the setup routine directly from Mediafire (32-bit XP, 32-bit Vista) thanks to Devrexter who posted the links on his website.

The download will install the setup for Internet Explorer 8 RC1 which will remove prior versions of Internet Explorer 8 from the system before starting the installation. It will also download and use Microsoft’s Malware tool to check the system for malware.

Internet Explorer will be ready after one or two system restarts. It should be noted that the build number of the Internet Explorer 8 RC1 download is lower than the build number of the release that shipped with the Windows 7 Beta.

Update:

Official Internet Explorer 8 RC1 download links are up

Windows XP 32-bit link
Windows XP 64-bit link
Windows Server 2003 32-bit link
Windows Server 2003 64-bit link
Windows Vista 32-bit link
Windows Vista 64-bit link
Windows Server 2008 32-bit link
Windows Server 2008 64-bit link

The teleprompter software will automatically recognize any txt document with the .txt extension that is located in the same directory. These documents can be loaded into the software where they can be edited or played. Playing means that the prompter will start scrolling the text by 20 pixels per second. The scrolling speed can be adjusted easily in the teleprompter software. It is furthermore possible to start and stop the text scrolling by left- and right-clicking in the text area.

Options can simply be edited by opening the hta files in a text editor. It is for instance possible to adjust the start position of the script or to change the color of the arrows in the teleprompter software depending on the state of the software.

The teleprompter software comes in a windowed and fullscreen version. The fullscreen version of the teleprompter software adds a mirror mode to the software which could be useful if the text has to be mirrored to be visible.

Most web browsers use a different display of toolbars with the menu bar on top and the address bar below which is also the default display in all windows and applications in the Windows operating system. There is however no option to customize Internet Explorer toolbars in the browser itself.

The only way to change the location of the Internet Explorer Toolbar is to edit the Windows Registry. To do that press [Windows R], type [regedit] and hit [enter].

Before:

After:

Navigate to the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\WebBrowser

Add a new DWord by right-clicking in the left panel of the Registry and selecting New > DWord Value. Name the new Registry key ITBar7Position. Double-click it afterwards and give it the value 1.

Restart Internet Explorer afterwards and you should see that the Internet Explorer Toolbars have been exchanged. The menu toolbar should now be on top and the address toolbar below.

One of the main functions missing is a favorites search. Internet Explorer does not offer a way to search in the favorites which is one of the most fundamental functions for many users. Imagine having to scroll through thousands of favorites to find the one you are looking for.

Internet Explorer Favorites Search is a small plugin for Internet Explorer that adds the functionality to search Internet Explorer Favorites to the browser. It should automatically add a icon to the Internet Explorer toolbar which will open a sidebar when pressed.

If the icon does not appear after installation do the following: Right-click a toolbar in Internet Explorer and select the Customize > Add Or Remove Commands option from the menu.

Locate the entry Favorites Search and move it to the list of Current Toolbar buttons.

You only need to press the button and enter a search term to search the favorites in Internet Explorer from then on. The plugin will check both the urls as well as the names of the websites for matches.

Internet Explorer Backup is a data backup software that can backup various Internet Explorer related settings and options such as favorites, proxy settings, autocomplete passwords, cookies or dialup accounts.

It can furthermore be used to migrate the backed up data to another computer system. Even more interesting is the fact that the data can be restored even if Internet Explorer versions differ. It is not a problem to backup Internet Explorer 5 data and restore it on a computer with Internet Explorer 6.

A few options are provided by the backup software upon execution. Data can be backed up or restored. There are additional options to rollback and to create scheduled backups.

A few additional settings can be configured after selecting the initial course of action. Backups can be compressed, password protected, verified and limited in size.

Supported Internet Explorer versions are Internet Explorer 4. 5.0x, 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0. Internet Explorer 8 beta is currently not supported by the backup software.

RoboForm is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems and can be installed directly, on a USB device or on mobile devices such as Windows Mobile, Symbian or Blackberry. The software integrates nicely with web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer or AOL / MSN and displays a toolbar that provides access to all the application’s functions and there is also a System Tray icon providing the same.

The password manager will automatically catch data that is entered in password forms and provides the means to store those passwords in the application so that it can be used to automatically log into the website or service.

Information are stored in so called passcards which do not only contain information like the username or password but additional parameters like cookie length or emails. The information can be protected with a master password which is similar to the feature of the same name in Firefox. The data is therefor protected and save from prying eyes until the master password is provided.

Keyboard shortcuts speed up the process further by providing access to some of the functions and menus. The password manager is only one of the features of RoboForm. It will also aid the user during registration.

It is not a problem to use very long and secure passwords since all passwords are stored in the application. The password generator helps the user by generating a secure password for the website or service.

It provides options to select the length of the password, the allowed characters and the minimum amount of numbers. The password generator will also display the bit strength of the password to give the user an indication of the strength.

Passwords are only one type of information that have to be provided during registration. RoboForm makes use of so called identities that can be used to fill in the other information automatically as well. Identities are data sets that contain information such as names, email addresses, phone numbers and any other type of data the user likes to add.

These information can then be used to automatically fill a registration form which can be a huge time saver for users who regularly sign up for new services on the Internet. Different identities are available to distinguish different users or different environments such as work and home.

Another useful feature of RoboForm is the note taking module. It can be used to store notes securely on the computer. Notes can also be protected by the master password so that no one can access them without providing the master password first. Notes are simple text documents that contain information saved by the user.

RoboForm is an interesting application for users who spend a lot of time on the Internet. If you ever had to register to 20+ services on a day you know how much time it takes to fill out all the information over and over again. Using RoboForm this could have been done in a fraction of the time since the data would have to be entered only once by the user.

We got five RoboForm Pro licenses. If you want one leave a comment below.

Many users fail to notice this and wonder why the Runonce page instead of their homepage is always showing up when they start Microsoft Internet Explorer. The reason for this is simply. Internet Explorer keeps a record if the form on the runonce page has been filled by the user. If that is not the case it will be displayed again which can be very annoying especially if you do not realize that you have to fill the form.

The Runonce page will also be displayed after resetting Internet Explorer settings. Some users encountered an even bigger problem as the Runonce page was not displayed correctly on their systems. This made it impossible to fill out the form so that the page would not be displayed the next time they would start Internet Explorer.

There are various options how the Runonce page can be disabled. The easiest for most users is to run the software IE7 Runonce Remover which is a small application that can remove the Runonce page.

Users who prefer the manual way can change two Registry settings for the same effect. To do that they would press [Windows R], type [regedit] and hit [enter].

Locate the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and change the values of the Registry keys RunOnceHasShown and RunOnceComplete to 1.

The browsers were tested running the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, Kane’s Web Browser Javascript Benchmark and the Acid 3 test. Feel free to run the tests with your web browsers but note that results will vary as the computer’s hardware influences the test on different systems.

The only way to compare results is by running the tests on the same computer system using the same environment. The first two tests are testing the JavaScript engine of the web browser while the Acid3 test is a web standards test.

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (Less is better, time in ms)

Kane’s Web Browser Javascript Benchmark (Less is better, time in ms)

Acid 3 Test (more is better, max is 100)

All values:

Google Chrome managed to beat the competition in both Javascript tests. Opera 10 Alpha on the other hand was the only browser that scored a perfect score in the Acid 3 web standards test.

Internet Explorer 7 was last in all three tests. Microsoft has made advancements in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 but is still way behind in comparison to the other web browsers.

The blacklist would contain websites that should not be allowed to place cookies on the user’s system. A die hard approach would be to start every new site in the blacklist and move it to either the temporarily allowed sites or the whitelist when needed.

The temporary list would contain sites that would require cookies to work properly but that are not trusted enough – or where it is not necessary – to be placed in the whitelist.

Firefox:

If you look at the cookie management features in a blank version of Firefox – that is one without extensions – you notice that it already comes with a few features that are required. The basic settings are to accept cookies / third partie cookies and keep them until they either expire (that would be set by the webmaster of the website), you close Firefox or to ask the user how he would like to handle the cookies.

There is also an option to add exceptions. Exceptions handle cookies from websites that are entered by the user this way. Cookies of those websites can either be allowed, blocked or temporarily allowed which would exactly be what we have been looking for.

Now while this might be everything needed it is highly uncomfortable to work with. Permit Cookies is a Firefox add-on that makes the whole process easier.

Opera:

Cookie management in Opera does not come with an option to whitelist or blacklist websites. Users can accept cookies / third party cookies and also make the browser to disallow all cookies. There is an option to delete new cookies when exiting Opera and an option to ask the user whenever a new cookie is encountered.

The ability to manage cookies is different to that of Firefox. Opera users can manipulate cookie contents and delete already existing cookies. There is however no way to add exceptions.

Opera’s Site Preferences make it possible to configure cookies per website visited.

This makes it possible to accept or block cookies for specific websites.

Google Chrome:

Google Chrome’s cookie management consists of one pulldown menu with three options. Users can either allow all cookies, restrict third party cookies or block all cookies. It is possible to take a look a the cookies with the option to search and remove selected ones or all of them.

Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 7 comes with sufficient cookie management. Users can use a slider to pick on of six available cookie management options. This ranges from accepting all cookies to blocking them all. In between are restrictions for some first and third party cookies.

Internet Explorer 7 makes use of a whitelist and blacklist to permanently allow or block cookies of specified websites. It’s also the only browser with options to override automatic cookie handling to configure first-party and third-party cookies in detail. At least in the main menu that is.

Conclusion:

Firefox and Internet Explorer provide the most options for their users to handle cookies. Everything that is not directly available in Firefox can be added with some extensions. Opera is the only browser that allows cookie manipulation but fails to provide a blacklist and whitelist. Google Chrome on the other hand offers a miserable cookie management.

Opera is the web browser with the most extensive options for managing cookies. It is the only browser that makes it possible to manipulate cookies. Firefox users can add this option by installing add-ons for the browser. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer come with enough options to manage cookies including the possibility to whitelist or blacklist sites.

Google Chrome on the other hand is the only browser that has an inferior cookie management with no options to add websites to a whitelist or blacklist.

The lack of plugins can be problematic if you have to use Internet Explorer due to work policies. The Copy Selected Links plugin for Internet Explorer makes it a little bit easier to copy multiple links (via Shellcity) of a page.

The plugin installs itself automatically to the right-click context menu of Internet Explorer and becomes automatically active whenever at least one link is selected. Links can be selected with the left mouse button easily. Every link that has been selected will be copied to the Windows Clipboard when the option is selected from the right-click menu.

All links are copied with a carriage return meaning that pasting them into another document will return one link per line.

Not included are the browsing history or session cookies which is a bit unfortunate as it could mean to log into several of the websites again if they require that. The extension becomes available in the Tools menu of Internet Explorer after installation where the sessions can be stored or loaded.

The Internet Explorer sessions are stored in the program directory by default. The extension provides the option to store them at the Amazon S3 Service instead which costs $0.150 per GB but has the advantage that the sessions are available online and can therefor be loaded from any computer with Internet connection.

Another option would be to send the session per email or upload it manually to the Internet to access it from a second computer.

One interesting aspect of the session manager for Internet Explorer is the ability to manage the stored urls of each session. Single urls can be loaded in the browser. It is also possible to delete urls from the session.

IE Sessions supports Internet Explorer 6 or on Windows XP or Windows 2000. Windows Vista users should read the information posted on the website about Vista compatibility first before they install the extension.

If a user accesses the Internet with multiple computers he might want to use the same security zone settings on all of them. The easiest way to do that would be to export the security zones on one computer and export them to all others instead of adding sites to the zones manually on all computers.

Internet Explorer is storing the security zone information in the Windows Registry. To export the settings of the currently logged in user one would have to open the Registry with [Windows R], typing [regedit] and hitting [Enter].

The Registry key is located at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

A left click on Domains will select that key. The next step would be to open the File Menu and select Export. Enter a name and save the data as a file on the computer.

The newly created file has to be transferred to another computer. A right-click on the file at the new computer will open a context menu. The entry Merge will add the data to the correct Registry key so that the zone information of the first computer will be added to it as well.

The main reason for moving the Firefox disk cache is therefor performance. Security could be another reason. The disk cache could for instance be moved to an encrypted part of the hard drive, a removable drive or ram disk.

The location of the the Firefox disk cache cannot be changed in the Firefox settings. The only way is to add a new parameter in the about:config dialog to change the location of the Firefox disk cache.

Type about:config in the Firefox address bar:

Right-click and select New > String from the menu. Enter browser.cache.disk.parent_directory as the preference name and the new path to the cache location, for example d:\temp

Opera users can practically do the same by typing in opera:config#UserPrefs|CacheDirectory4 and changing the preference there.

Internet Explorer users can simply change the location in the Tools > Internet Options by clicking on the Settings button under Browsing History.