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This week, a hacker competition, called Pwn2Own, took place. The competition challenges hackers and security experts to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in web browsers. The browsers to be hacked included Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome, for PC and Firefox and Safari for Apple.
Once the hackers find the problems, they are awarded the computer they were able to corrupt and the competition purchases the winning vulnerabilities from them, which they then hand over to the affected vendors.
This year, the only browser to escape un-hacked was Google Chrome. Although a security hole was found, the additional security features prevented it from being exploited.
So, congratulations to Google Chrome, for creating a sweet, safe browser.
Also, while I have you, I’d like to turn this into a “Google Chrome” Rave. I have used Google Chrome on and off for a few months. Two of my favorite features are Crash Control and the New Tab Page. Crash Control allows a single tab to be non-responsive, rather than freezing the whole browser. You can then close that single tab, instead of restarting the whole program. The other feature, the New Tab page, makes browsing much quicker. When you click on “new tab,” it shows 6 boxes, each with your most-visited web pages. This allows you to either click on one of the pages you usually visit, or go to a different page, as you would any other browser. It’s a small feature, but I think it’s very clever.
I highly recommend trying it out. Give it a week and see what you think.