Internet Archive

Safer Surfing Through Virtualization

If you are a security conscious or have to spend some time on less reputable web sites a great option is to use either Linux or OS X. Because the high majority of security threats which we are exposed to are designed to compromise Windows, by moving to a non-Windows operating system those threats no longer matter. This is not true all the time, especially for spam and phishing, but the possibility of a virus or spyware is greatly decreased. The problem is, of course, that people are reluctant to move to a new operating system, even a free one. A solution to this is virtualization, or basically running one of these non-Windows operating systems from within Windows.

First Windows Browser Based on Apple’s Webkit

"Welcome to GetWebKit, the home of the first and only WebKit based Windows web browser. Featuring the excellent rendering engine used in popular Macintosh web browsers Safari and Shiira, GetWebKit offers a free, powerful, and open-source internet experience." Seems like besides Opera, IE, and Gecko, there is now a 4th mature engine coming to the Windows platform.

WebKit Ported to Qt 4

The KDE team announced a new project to re-synchronize our HTML engine, KHTML, with the WebKit engine. Code named Unity, the project has so far focused on porting the WebKit engine to Qt 4 with minimal changes to the existing code-base. WebKit is a derivative of the KHTML engine by Apple.

REST on Rails

"As Ruby experiences increasing success, developers are seeking to integrate their Ruby applications with applications written in other languages. Rails provides excellent support for Web services. This article introduces Web services in Rails and focuses on a strategy known as Representational State Transfer."

Should ICANN Open up?

This week, The Register ran a story on how the US supposedly had given up its 'control' over ICANN. ICANN, the body which assigns IP addresses and domain names worldwide, currently falls under the US Commerce Department via a contractual agreement; this means the US government can control ICANN. El Reg claimed the US had given up this control; Ars was quick to respond, stating that "the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year." Since the US had stated that it wanted to fully privatise ICANN by 2000, we'll have to wait and see what ICANN looks like in a year. In the meantime, do we really want the US to open up ICANN?

United States Cedes Control of the Internet – Or Not?

In a meeting that will go down in internet history, the United States government last night conceded that it can no longer expect to maintain its position as the ultimate authority over the internet. Having been the internet's instigator and, since 1998, its voluntary taskmaster, the US government finally agreed to transition its control over not-for-profit internet overseeing organisation ICANN, making the organisation a more international body. Update: Ars contradicts El Reg's claims: "Contrary to some reports, things are not about to change. After a meeting at the Commerce Department, Acting Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, John M.R. Kneuer, said that the existing arrangement was likely to continue, at least for another year."

Configure FTP Servers for IPv6

"The next-generation protocol, Internet Protocol version 6, is becoming widely accepted as the future of the Internet and networking world. This acceptance has encouraged various IT companies to develop applications that support and talk with each other through the IPv6 address format. In this article, learn to configure the File Transfer Protocol server for IPv6, and to communicate with FTP servers through a simple Java program that uses the IPv6 address."

Firefox 2 Beta 1, IE7 Beta 3, Opera 9 Compared

"Right at this moment, big changes have or are about to occur in three well-known browsers: Internet Explorer is finally being updated, with version 7 in its third beta and almost ready to roll out the door; Firefox is also ripening an upgrade beta for its Version 2.0 - it's in beta 1; and finally Opera, which has a devoted but smaller following, has recently come out with Version 9.0. So, three new browsers in the same year, after no action for a half decade. How do they stack up?"

Fourth Mac OS X Browser Test

"In our last test, we tested the four major browsers on Mac OS X (Safari, FireFox, Camino, and OmniWeb). It has since become the most popular article on our site. Since then, there have been several improvements on almost all of the browsers, so we decided to test again." More here. Elsewhere, check a preview of Firefox 2.0 too.

Postfix Monitoring with Mailgraph, pflogsumm

"This article describes how you can monitor your Postfix mailserver with the tools Mailgraph and pflogsumm. Mailgraph creates daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly graphs of sent, received, bounced, and rejected emails and also of spam and viruses, if SpamAssassin and ClamAV are integrated into Postfix. These graphs can be accessed with a browser, whereas pflogsumm ('Postfix Log Entry Summarizer') can be used to send reports of Postfix activity per email."

Introducing Drosera

"I would like to introduce a new addition to the WebKit open source tools - a JavaScript debugger. Drosera, named after the largest genera of bug eating plants, lets you attach and debug JavaScript for any WebKit application - not just Safari. One of the unique things about Drosera, like the Web Inspector, is that over 90% of it is written in HTML and JavaScript. This is a true testament of what you can do with web technologies today and the rapid development that WebKit allows."

US Senate Deals Blow to Net Neutrality

A US Senate panel narrowly rejected strict Net neutrality rules on Wednesday, dealing a grave setback to companies like eBay, Google and Amazon that had made enacting them a top political priority this year. By an 11-11 tie, the Senate Commerce Committee failed to approve a Democrat-backed amendment that would have ensured all Internet traffic is treated the same no matter what its source or destination might be. A majority was needed for the amendment to succeed.