Germany have advised it’s citizens not to use Internet Explorer, after an exploit in the software was used to hack google.  Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security advised German Citizens to avoid Internet Explorer versions 6, 7 and 8; a message that web developers have been trying to spread since the dawn of time itself.

This is another knock to Internet Explorer after the European Union recently forced Microsoft to offer a ballot screen of browsers to prevent anti-competitiveness. Seems it’s never been a better time to switch.

Source: Mashable

In a surprise announcement earlier today, Google has revealed that they will be ending censorship in China. In January 2006 Google opened Google.cn to much controversy as they agreed  to censor search results. Many criticised the company deviating from it’s core value of “don’t be evil”.

The decision has been made after attacks on Google servers with their primary goal to access Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google have announced they will start talks with the Chinese government to offer their services without any censorship.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of the Chinese government agreeing to this seems about just as likely as Google going bankrupt, though we’ll have to wait and see. It’s definitely a strong move from Google and they acknowledge in their blogpost that “this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China”.

Source: Google blog