Despite all the whining over Windows Vista, the next version of Windows, it seems like Windows Vista is doing pretty well for itself. Figuratively speaking, of course. Windows Vista now accounts for 2.04% of all operating systems installed. This is more than double last month's figure, which was .93%. In direct contrast, despite all the pro-Macintosh advertisements and Macintosh "fanboys", Mac OS X has lost .3% of it's market share, and now accounts for 6.08% of all operating systems installed.

In related news, Mozilla Firefox is gaining market momentum. 15.1% of all internet users access it through Mozilla Firefox, while Internet Explorer users account for 78.6% of all internet users. Apple Safari usage dropped to around 4.51%

Mozilla has issued another minor update to its Firefox 2.0 web browser. New for Firefox 2.0.0.3 is a single security fix that patches up a hole in the browser's FTP PASV functionality. Also new in 2.0.0.3 are fixes to improve Web site compatibility. Firefox users can download the 2.0.0.3 updater from Mozilla's homepage or use the auto update function within the browser.

A serious new flaw in Mozilla's browser, Firefox, has been discovered which could allow malicious sites to exploit a system using the browser with JavaScript enabled. Mozilla's error tracking system classes the vulnerability as critical, and attackers could potentially access your system using a specially crafted HTML file and then run malware remotely. The recommendation from Mozilla is to disable JavaScript in Firefox until a fix is released, but another good idea may be to install the NoScript add-on which will allow you to control which sites can use Java and Flash. This flaw is present on all versions of Firefox, including the new 2.0.0.2 update, and is yet another illustration that Firefox is not immune to security exploits.

Mozilla has officially released an update for Firefox 2.0 taking it up to version 2.0.0.2. Although this is only a minor update, it fixes a couple of security issues (yes, IE isn't the only imperfect browser) and you can update Firefox quite easily by clicking on "Help" and then choosing "Check for Updates". Here are the changes:

• Security Update: The following list of security issues have been fixed.
• Windows Vista Support: Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista are included along with the following caveats.
• New Languages: Beta releases for several new languages are now available for testing.
• Permissions Bug Fixed: In the German (de) locale on Windows and Linux, resolved a problem with certain files tagged as read-only.

Mozilla Firefox appears to have lost some momentum. In January, 13.7 percent of all internet users browsed using Firefox, down from 14% in December. In contrast, Apple's Safari is gaining market usage. In January, 4.7% of all browser users used Safari, up from 4.2% in December. This is most likely due to more people using Mac OS X, which could be caused by all sorts of things (creative advertising, Core 2 Duo based iMacs, etc). Microsoft's Internet Explorer still accounts for 79.8% of all internet browser use.

Firefox 2.0 is still relatively new, but Mozilla is keen to continue its rapid growth in the internet browsing industry with the next version of its popular browser set for Q3/Q4 of 2007. Considering consumers are used to having the same browser for a number of years, with Internet Explorer 6 being around for 5 years, this could be a surprise to many just three months after 2.0 was launched. Mozilla claims that although Firefox 3.0 will contain as many as 50 new features along with security and bug fixes, the next browser will be more of an update for Firefox 2.0, with version 4.0 (set for a 2008 release) intended to be the true next generation of Firefox.

More people are continuing to move away from Internet Explorer as their primary browser, opting for other alternatives such as Firefox. IE started the year with 85.31% of the market, falling to 79.64% during the year. Apple's Safari managed to grow from 3% to 4.24%, but Mozilla was the biggest winner with Firefox usage growing from 9.5% to 14%. Admittedly Firefox is the only cross-platform browser, which could account for some of its success, with IE being Windows-only and Safari being Mac-only. Internet Explorer is clearly still the dominant browser, but this shows a continuing downwards trend that first became apparent during 2005.

Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer's closest rival, made the company $52.9 million in 2005 according to Mozilla president Mitchell Baker. Most of this money came from search engines such as Google, with Mozilla receiving money for all the traffic that the browser's built-in search tools direct to their sites, but small profits were also made from the merchandise sold via the Mozilla store. Mozilla is likely to invest much of this money back into the company, which will hopefully continue its growth and allow it to improve current software and create new applications.

This is only a minor update, but recommended nonetheless. You can get this update by clicking "Help" and then "Check for Updates", or alternatively if this doesn't work, visit the Mozilla site and re-download Firefox. Some browsers may be set to automatically download anyway. The following issues have been fixed in this release:

• XSS using outer window's Function object
• RSS Feed-preview referrer leak
• Mozilla SVG Processing Remote Code Execution
• XSS by setting img.src to javascript: URI
• LiveConnect crash finalizing JS objects
• Privilege escallation using watch point
• CSS cursor image buffer overflow (Windows only)
• Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.0.9/1.8.1.1)

Mozilla Firefox has continued its rapid growth this year, with 23.2% of European web surfers opting to use the browser, according to research by French Firm Xiti Monitor. Slovenia leads the way with 40% of users choosing to use Firefox, whilst it has the lowest proportion of fans in Spain where only 13.7% use it. Germany is relatively high with 33% whilst Britain is still below average with 15.8%. Apparently Firefox is used more at the weekends, suggesting that businesses probably stick to Internet Explorer whilst home users prefer Firefox. In April only 19.4% of Europeans were using Mozilla's browser.