Still hesitating to use Safari? I know, when talking about the Windows platform, Safari has a lot of competitors, and it's enough to name Opera 9.5 and Firefox 3 to make things clear. Later this year, probably we'll get to see Internet Explorer 8 joining the crowd too, so Apple's browser has to fight a war that's hopeless for the time being, but I am sure it has its own followers, although not that many. The best part is that Apple seems to be careful with the Windows version of its browser, exactly as Mozilla and Opera do, because they have just updated Safari to version 3.1.2, fixing some security flaws.

Do you remember the carpet bombing issue? Well, that one has just been solved! Another problem fixed is the BMP or GIF image error, an out-of-bounds memory read vulnerability labeled CVE-2008-1573. Next, we have CVE-2008-2306, a IE flaw only affecting Windows XP and Vista users, as well as a memory corruption vulnerability with WebKit's handling of Javascript array, CVE-2008-2307.

Detailed information about all the patched flaws can be found on the Australian Computer Emergency Response Team website, while the update can be easily performed using the Apple Software Update utility, or directly from Apple.com, of course.

For millions of people, iTunes is more than just "a digital media player application," because I dare to say that Apple managed to turn iTunes into much more. I am not thinking about the fact that iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, after reaching the second place last February, and I don't even care about the fact they may be losing money, because I am sure Apple won't go bankrupt because of this. In the end, I am sure the iTunes Store brings some serious profits, and today I have just found out something interesting about the songs on iTunes...

<-125x125 Button - left->Should I keep the truth hidden any longer? No, I guess not. I am stunned, that's the truth. Apple's smart moves have pushed iTunes where no music retail service has gone before! No, they didn't start selling music to aliens just yet, but I am sure that will happen, as soon as we'll have some aliens available. For the time being, the number of songs sold through iTunes has changed. Obviously, that number is changing every second, but I am talking about the BIG one. How big? 5 billion! Almost one iTunes song sold for each human on the planet(well, about 20% less, I guess, but anyway...)!

This is no rumor, because Apple has just announced that iTunes Store's customers purchased and downloaded more than 5 billion songs, while the iTunes Store also has the largest music catalog online, with over 8 million tracks. Even more, the iTunes Store is now renting over 50,000 movies daily, turning it into the most popular movie store, too, with a catalog of over 20,000 TV episodes, over 2,000 films, of which over 350 are available in HD quality.

Impressive! To be honest, I am not crazy about iTunes, because I usually buy full albums, or at least singles. I am addicted to losless music, and most people I know feel the same, but that doesn't minimize iTunes' merits. Good job, guys!

I am sure Firefox 3 didn't escape your eagle eyes, but I am not trying to tell you what you already know. Firefox 3 arrived today, with a lot of problems for Mozilla.com and other sites, mainly because a single reason - incredible load! Can you imagine more than 400,000-500,000 people refreshing the same page, at the same time? I can't, but probably exactly this happened less than a day ago, when everyone expected Firefox 3 to become available for download! Since that happened, we should see what's up with it today, and what Mozilla has to say about the version for Mac, but not only limited to it. After all, there's only one Firefox, running on multiple platforms...

<-125x125 Button - left->Before anything else, I should mention that if you want to spend some time with a Firefox 3 review, I advise you to check the Firefox 3 for Windows review published yesterday on SoftDistrict. Now, let's see what is there to know about Firefox 3, as promised, shall we?

According to Fred Paul's post on bMighty, the new Firefox is just as fast as promised - "The first and most important thing you'll notice is that Firefox 3 is fast. Not just a few ticks faster than Firefox 2 and IE6 or IE7, but significantly and noticeably faster. I was stunned the first time I loaded a page in FF3. It finished loading while I was still getting ready to see how long it would take. There's lots more to Firefox, but it would be the browser of choice for that alone."

Now I just found out why I wasn't able to update Firefox 2 directly - according to Mozillazine, this is not possible, and the reason is obvious - Firefox 3 tries to enter into the Guiness Book! No need to get inside the details - just check the Download Day counter and you'll understand.

Mozilla's chief executive John Lilly said "We're really proud of Firefox 3 and it just shows what a committed, energized global community can do when they work together," and I totally agree. We'll get back to this as soon as Firefox 3 gets the "most downloaded software in a 24-hour period" badge!

As you can see below, the iPods managed to have an impressive growth in sales since 2002, growing like in fairy tale. The interesting part is that every fairy tale has its end, but Apple's media players seem to have a bright future ahead...or at least in the quarter ending with this month. Want to hear more about it?

<-234x60 Half Banner - left->According to the analysts with Piper Jaffray quoted by iPodNN, Apple is expected to sell up to 11 million iPods by the end of this quarter, even higher than previous predictions. Obviously, the reason is they got more recent NPD data, covering the month of May, but I still have to ask "WHY," because the iPhone 3G has been announced already, and for an excellent price.

I know - some people just want to listen to their favorite music, not to end up tied up with AT&T for a few years, but for how long are iPod sales going to grow? Good question, and since the largest part of the quarterly sales are made in June(at least this is what happened so far), I think Piper Jaffray may end up being slightly wrong. I don't know why, but I think they have underestimated the effect of the iPhone 3G.

What do you think? Are we going to see 11 million iPods sold by the end of this quarter, or is this number going to be about 10% smaller?

Unfortunately, talking on the iPhone while flying in a commercial airplane is not possible yet, but seeing iPod and iPhone connectivity added to in-flight entertainment systems it's a big step forward. The problem is that, as we speak, this is only possible when using United Airlines planes for your flights, but I am sure others will follow...

Yesterday, United Airlines announced its plans to offer this system only on some of its aircraft, but that's only a minor issue for now. The best part is that the 30 pin connectors of these in-flight entertainment systems allow you to attach your iPod or iPhone and use the 15.4-inch LCD display available for each business and first-class passenger to watch your own content. Even better, you will also be able to charge your gadget while it is connected to the system, just like using a regular docking device.

The first flight allowing its passengers to use the new system was United flight 936, from Washington, D.C., to Zurich, Switzerland, but soon, the chances to fly and use your iPod and iPhone to watch your own videos will increase, because, according to United Airlines, "United’s entire fleet of international, widebody aircraft are being reconfigured over the next two years with lie-flat seats, on-demand entertainment, and iPod and iPhone connectivity in first and business class."