The attack exploited a previously unknown vulnerability, nicknamed Aurora, in Internet Explorer. The attacks took advantage of buffers in a file, mshtml.dll, engineers at Maxthon explained. When the buffers are flooded with more data than they can store, it creates an opening to computer, through which a trojan is downloaded. The trojan program gives access to the compromised computer that the attacker can use to scan and download files.

The latest version of Maxthon Browser 2.5.12 beta, under testing since late 2009, has already included a security measure called “Safe Box” that protects against Zero-day vulnerabilities such as that exploited by Aurora. Zero-day refers to a weakness that has not yet been spotted or fixed by a program’s developers. When the first victim triggers the attack by opening an infected email, download, or Web site, that is the “zero-day.” Microsoft has so far not issued a security patch although it has promised one by January 21. Users of the latest version of Maxthon are already protected against such attacks. It can be downloaded at the Maxthon Forum, http://forum.maxthon.com/viewthread.php?tid=77881.

A person using Maxthon and who is tricked into a Aurora trap would see a dialog box similar to this one.

A harmless simulation of the Aurora vulnerability is provided for demonstration at
http://www.maxthon.com/test/security.htm

If your browser is not protected by methods such as the Safe Box in Maxthon, the demonstration could crash your computer or launch Windows’ calculator, but it does no permanent damage.

More information on Maxthon Browser is available at http://www.maxthon.com/index.htm
——By MaxthonGuy

MAXTHON — Seize the Web!

Maxthon CEO Sees Browser’s Inclusion on European ‘Choice Screen’ as a Win

Beijing–The CEO of Maxthon International said his browser’s inclusion on the European browser ballot—or “choice screen,” as it is now being called—is a “big win” for Maxthon because it recognizes that Maxthon is a full-fledged browser in its own right, not simply an add-on shell for Internet Explorer, as it is often depicted.

The decision to include Maxthon on the choice screen was made by the European Economic Commission as part of the commission’s settlement of an antitrust action with Microsoft. The screen will be used by European Web surfers will use to choose their default browser(s).

The decision puts 12 browsers on the choice screen. According to a commission FAQ, “the five most widely used browsers will be prominently displayed and the other seven browsers will be shown when the user scrolls sideways.”

Despite the basic separation of the browsers into first page and off page classes, the commission attempted to avoid giving any one browser an apparent advantage by being first on the ballot. The order of the browsers on each page will rotate each time the screen is loaded.

Speculation has been that the first five spots would be rotated among Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox, and Opera. The remaining seven slots go to Maxthon, Avant Browser, AOL, K-Meleon, Flock, Sleipnir, and Slim Browser. The market share of all the browsers will be reevaluated every six months, making it possible for Maxthon to jump from the second screen to the first.

“We are pleased that Maxthon is on the ballot,” said Maxthon CEO and Founder Jeff Chen. “For too long many people have thought Maxthon was only an Internet Explorer add-on. This recognizes that Maxthon is its own, independent browser. Being on the ballot is a big win for us.”

Although numbers collected by research firms—and which browsers they include in their surveys—vary from one research firm to another, the counts by Net Applications, the most often quoted firm, indicate it’s a neck-and-neck face between Opera, in fifth place, and Maxthon, apparently in sixth place.

Emphasizing how close the competition among browsers is, Chen noted, “Our global share of the market is just one twentieth of one percent behind the market share of Opera,” Chen said. “In terms of a dollar, that’s like a penny cut into 20 slices, and Opera has just one more of those tiny slices that we do.

“We plan to change that,” he added.

Maxthon is ready to take on the European market, Chen said, regardless of ballot position.

“Maxthon became No. 2 in China without the advantages of some best ballot position. It’s been a success on the basis of its security, its wealth of features, stability, and old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Give us a little time, and we can have the same success in Europe.”

Microsoft has until mid-March 2010 to make the Choice Screen update available to users, at which point it will be directly available to Windows 7 users. The roll-out to all users of Windows XP and Vista will be completed within five months. The updates will remain available for five years.

The Choice Screen update will be displayed on more than 100 million PCs in Europe when it is launched in mid-March 2010 and to around 30 million new PC users each year over its five year term. In addition, from mid-March 2010 onwards, anyone can view and use the Choice Screen at www.browserchoice.eu .

Maxthon has been voted the best browser two years in a row in the Webware 100 Awards. In November downloads of Maxthon reached the 300 million mark. Maxthon is a free browser available in more than 40 languages. It may be downloaded at www.maxthon.com.

Further details about the European decision may be found in the commission’s written decision at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1941&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en, at a user’s guide to the choice screen at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/559&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en,  and in the official FAQ at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/558&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.

Although Maxthon originated in China, where it is the second most popular browser behind Internet Explorer, Maxthon is available in more than 40 languages, and is quickly building a fan base in all parts of the world. The authoritative market research firm, Net Applications, puts Maxthon use internationally at 1.33 percent, just one twentieth of one percent less than use of the fifth-ranked browser Opera.

On the morning it became apparent that Maxthon was going to hit the 300 million mark, Maxthon CEO/Founder Jeff Chen emailed all Maxthon staffers a message: “On the Brink of 300 Million Downloads,” in which he wrote:

“…At this moment, while watching the download counter ticking and remembering the road Maxthon has traveled, I truly can’t help getting emotional. In 2005, a couple of spirited fellows worked hard in a warehouse in a remote area of Beijing. Today, we are working diligently in an office at the center of the city. Maxthon is growing and the environment is changing, but the pursuit of our dreams does not change. The environment is better now but the pressure is also higher. Fortunately, we have more people today to write new splendid chapters together.

“Approaching the 300 million milestone, we are witnessing a historical moment. And we are sensing the heavy burden even more…In some African countries, all boys have to go through a tough initiation ceremony to become a man. Let’s take the Browser Wars as the initiation ceremony of everyone of us at Maxthon.”

Starting from this version Maxthon supports various Windows 7 new features including the exciting “Multi-Touch” capability. Coupled with Maxthon’s powerful “Mouse Gestures”, “Multi-Touch” will provide fascinating experience to Touch Screen users.

[changelog]
[Windows7]
+ support Windows 7 new features
[Quick Access]
* fixed possible crash problem when opening Quick Access which contains very long URL
[Plugin]
* fixed a potential plugin security problem
[Interface]
* fixed problem that status bar text color set in skin does not work
* fixed problem that web page becomes blank when Maxthon is run and restored from minimized
* fixed problem that under windows7 web page may become blank when Maxthon is dragged or resized

We don’t normally like to belittle the weaknesses and mistakes of our competitors. The competition, after all, is made up of dozens of browsers that strive to be better and most often succeed by being different, creating a diversity of technology that pays off for everyone, software developers and software users alike.

But there are times when you have to rub it in if only to make a valid but ignored point. Which is, friends, why I’m just mentioning—not making a big point of it…not passing judgment– that Firefox has just recently been shown to be responsible for nearly half of all browser vulnerabilities.

Cenzic, which creates intrusion detection for Web sites, said in a written report that vulnerabilities in Web browsers were concentrated among Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari. In the first half of 2009, browser vulnerabilities accounted for about 8 percent of all Web vulnerabilities.

Mozilla Firefox had the greatest share of the vulnerabilities at 44 percent. The Safari browser had more vulnerabilities—35 percent–than in Cenzic’s previous report because iPhone Safari’s flaws were also included. Internet Explorer came in third at 15 percent, and Opera trailed with six percent of total browser vulnerabilities.

Cenzic has some theories as to why Firefox took the lead in vulnerabilities, which are bits of the software’s code or structure that can be manipulated by hackers to gain control of a system.

“It’s a combination of different things,” Lars Ewe, chief technology officer of Cenzic, told InternetNews.com. “They’ve gotten more traction as a browser, which is good for them, and the more you get used the more exposure you have. As well a fair amount of the vulnerabilities have come by way of plug-ins.”

One key area that Ewe said was responsible for a number of reported Firefox vulnerabilities is with how the browser handles plug-ins.

“They can’t control security aspects of all the plug-ins and the vulnerabilities are a side effect of that,” Ewe said.

Now the reason I’m so ungraciously spreading the word about Firefox’s weaknesse is that I’m sick and tired and tired and sick of reading online comments and reviews that toss Maxthon aside with only a comment that, “Of course, since Maxthon is just riding on Internet Explorer, it shares the same security weaknesses as IE.”

First, that’s so not true for two reasons. One is that Maxthon in not “just riding” on top of Internet Explorer. Maxthon uses the same rendering engine that IE uses to display Web pages correctly. The rendering engine, Trident, accounts for only about 20 percent of the code in Maxthon. The other 80 percent is made up of technology and code that is exclusive to Maxthon and that far exceeds anything done in Internet Explorer—or Firefox. Among that 80-percent is security code created by Maxthon’s developers and which has replaced quite completely the security technology of Microsoft’s browser.

The results are that Maxthon’s susceptibility to hacking is far smaller than that of the “Big 4” browsers. And that’s why when it comes to Firefox, I must, in the immortal words of Monty Python, say, “You empty-headed animal-food-trough wiper! I fart in your general direction!”

Chen Xiao Xu. Director of the new Maxthon R&D Center, said strong competition led Maxthon to create the center, which will push to create more new technologies to meet the challengers of completion.

Giving a speech at the ZOL Software Summit 2009 about the technological issues surrounding browsers, Chen admitted that Maxthon has encountered problem coming from the competition posed by rivals. Chen, also known by the name Huipk in the development world, said that competitive pressure led to the establishment of the Maxthon R&D Center, which was announced last week by Jeff Chen, CEO of the Beijing-based Maxthon International.

“First, product development must be backed up by technology,” Hulpk said. “Second, cross-platform strategy requires even greater technology support.”

He said that Maxthon currently has “a pretty good” market share in Russia. To grow that international business to the point where it can compete globally, in 2009 Maxthon shifted from competing solely for market share to competing also for technology. The biggest browser R&D center in China was established to ensure high standard of Maxthon’s core technology.

Speaking of future development of Maxthon, the center’s director said that Maxthon has already deployed an independent browser engine in Maxthon 3.x, and will inject more resources to develop Maxthon 3.x alongside the Internet-based Maxthon 2.x.

“A Browser is a platform. Maxthon is willing to more openly connect websites to people, and connect people to people, he said. “Maxthon will explore new areas in the development community, and work together with business partners to provide Internet users one stop service.”

editors notes :
• huipk a.k.a Chen Xiao Xu, is the director of the Maxthon R&D Center.
• ZOL is short for ZhongGuanCun On Line, www.zol.com is the largest IT portal in China engaging in IT news coverage and sale promotion. It is considered having the highest commercial value among professional IT portals in the Greater China.

——MaxthonGuy

BEIJING, Nov. 9 — Maxthon International Ltd. ( http://www.maxthon.com ) has announced the establishment of the largest browser research and development center in China. CEO Jeff Chen, accompanied by dozens of business partners and user representatives, announced the creation of the Maxthon R&D Center at a press conference in Beijing, the location of the center.

The center has an initial capital investment of more than RMB2 million (approximately US$300,000). Maxthon’s goal is to develop an R&D center capable of competing internationally within two years, Chen said. The center will provide support to Chinese-made browsers in addition to those developed by Maxthon itself. It will also expedite the development of a variety of Internet technologies in China, including Web page display and security.

The center currently has a professional team of more than 30 researchers and developers, who have obtained two patents and who have several other new technologies in the patent process. The technologies will be applied in the near future to provide internet users a higher quality browsing experience. Plans call for the recruitment of other technical experts to form a staff of 100.

According to Net Applications’ latest research, the global market share of Maxthon is 1.55%, which exceeds that of Firefox 2 and comes close to the market share held by the Opera browser. In China Maxthon has 22% of the browser market, making it the 2nd most popular browser behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The China Internet Network Information Center reports Chinese Internet users exceeded 338 million in the first half of 2009. These numbers translate to about 9 million Maxthon users in China alone.

“The strategic importance of the browser as the gateway to the Internet,” Chen said, “is obvious in view of the substantial resources invested by Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Firefox in the last 2 years.”

All of those companies have either introduced a new browser during the period or have upgraded established browsers.

“In the view of many people,” Chen added, “Maxthon could be very ordinary as a business focused solely on browser development. That’s why we will assist Chinese Webware developers to join us as part of the ‘Innovation Base’ of Chinese-made Internet software.

“The unbundling of Internet Explorer from the European Windows editions in 2010 will break the Monopoly of IE and bring new opportunities to the worldwide browser market,” Chen said. “And the establishment of the Maxthon R&D Center will inevitably lead to a new wave of competition in the local browser market.”

——MaxthonGuy

“Windows 7 will be a milestone in the development of the windows operating system,” Chen said.

“A browser is not merely an application, but a platform that also provides endless new development possibilities,” Chen said. “Windows 7 has many browser-related new features that can significantly improve users’ browsing experiences.

“In addition, the European edition of Windows 7 will contain a browser ballot showing most browsers for selection by users. This could significantly change the worldwide browser market,” he said.

The Beijing executive said that the Maxthon Browser has passed the Windows 7 compatibility tests.

“Existing versions of Maxthon can already be used in Windows 7. The soon-to-be released Windows 7 optimized version of Maxthon will support various mew features of Windows 7, such as windows management, task bar enhancements like preview and jump list, and a multi-touch touch screen feature,” according to Chen.

Describing Windows 7 as “a small step in technology, a big step in the industry,” Chen believes that the blending of Windows 7 and Maxthon will provide a brand new experience to users.

The following is an abstract of the interview created by Maxthon language specialists.

Tencent: Do your products already support Windows 7? If not, when do you expect them to support it?

Jeff Chen: Full support of Windows 7 new features will be available in the soon-to-be released optimized version of Maxthon. As the leading browser developer in China, Maxthon is dedicated to innovation. We closely monitor the needs of users, and always put user experience first.

Tencent: How much work or changes are required to support Windows 7?

Jeff Chen: Windows operating systems have good backward compatibility. Existing versions of Maxthon can be used in Windows 7 directly. Yet the soon-to-be released Windows 7 optimized version of Maxthon will support various new features of Windows 7 in the future.

Tencent: From your experience supporting Windows 7 in your products, what do you think about the new operating system? What are the most impressive characteristics?

Jeff Chen: The new task bar design is very convenient and the half screen snap is useful to big screen and widescreen users. But I find the dedication to innovation and attention to details the most impressive. It is similar to Maxthon’s dedication to user experience and innovation.

Tencent: Do you have anything about Windows 7 to add?

Jeff Chen: Recognize the need for technology, keep innovating? A small step in technology, a big step in the industry!

————MaxthonGuy

BEIJING, Oct. 21 — After months of polishing the new features and code in Maxthon 2.5.9, the final version of the popular Web browser’s interim edition was released this week. This release of the award-winning, free browser, which may be downloaded at http://www.maxthon.com/download.htm , was aimed at fine-tuning a host of improvements and new features.

In the time since the release of Maxthon 2.5, developers of the second most popular browser in China have relentlessly come up with new, original functions and features for the tabbed, Windows browser.

In these days of multimedia Internet, one of the most impressive improvements was detachable video that lets a user click on a video or flash animation or game and move it to a different location on screen. The video or game will continue to play while the user surfs other pages. The same button that activates detachable video may also be used to block ads that manage to slip past Maxthon’s normal ad defenses.

Another multimedia feature is an onscreen mute button that silences sites that open up with music or spoken product pitches. By clicking the mute button in Maxthon’s status bar, the user turns off the music.

A Clear History menu has also been added to the Search Bar to provide users control over what information that has appeared in the search bar remains and which is deleted.

A new built-in feature, Quick Access, is similar to a plug-in called Speed Dial that Maxthon users have had access to for several years. When a Web page would ordinarily be blank, Quick Access displays a sidebar containing some frequent and recently visited sites along with nine configurable sites shown in a grid of thumbnails.

Lastly, a new technology called “The Isolator” was also introduced to version 2.5 to protect the freezing of one page tab from spreading to other tabs. The Isolator revives tabs that have stopped responding to mouse clicks or keystrokes. At the same time, the Isolator protects other tabs from also becoming frozen because an unresponsive tab is monopolizing a computer’s resources. The computer user can continue to browse normally and can refresh, reopen, or close the tab that is creating problems.

In the latest decimal-point version, support for Internet Explorer toolbars has been re-enabled, and some download manager issues have been fixed, support has also been added for additional audio playback and improved keyboard support of Magic Fill, which enters passwords and other information into Internet forms.

A comprehensive list of changes can be found at http://www.maxthon.com/changelog.htm .

——MaxthonGuy

BEIJING, Oct. 16 — Yandex, the largest Internet search engine provider in Russia, has teamed up with Maxthon, the most popular Chinese-made browser in China.

Under the two companies’ agreement, Maxthon International, based in Beijing, will produce an official Russian edition of its popular browser. Maxthon’s Russian edition will set Yandex’s home page as Maxthon’s default start page and include Yandex’s search engine by default. The Russian version is expected to appear soon.

Leveraging an extensive knowledge of the complicated Russian language, Yandex has become the largest search engine provider in Russia and the second largest search engine provider in Europe. According to comScore, Yandex has a 44 percent share of the Russian search market, 10 percent more than Google.

According to research company Net Applications, Maxthon’s global market share reached 1.55% in August 2009, and the largest overseas market is Russia. The cooperation with Yandex is another step in Maxthon’s development of the overseas market after years of solidifying its place in China.

“We are delighted to cooperate with Yandex. We hope that our cooperation will improve both the browsing and the search experience,” said Jeff Chen, CEO of Maxthon.

For years Maxthon has been pursuing its mission of improving the Internet browsing experience in several languages and cultures. Maxthon’s cooperation with Yandex will improve the browsing experience of Russian users by providing localized features in the Russian edition.

——MaxthonGuy