GOOGLE CHROME 12 AVAILABLE

Google's Chrome browser has been updated to version 12. This stable version brings expanded malware protection. In addition to Chrome’s existing phishing defenses and Google’s Safe Browsing integration, Chrome can now warn users before malicious files are downloaded. Another handy security-related update in Chrome 12 is that its built-in file clean-up tools can now delete Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects) in addition to standard browser cookies.

And since updates are always about adding functionality, it’s worth noting that Google Chrome 12 has finally done away with the Google Gears plug-in.

Chrome 12 has hardware accelerated 3D CSS enabled by default. To check out the capabilities head on over to the Chrome Experiments site and play around with some of the fun demos.

If your using Google Chrome you can wait for it to update automatically or click the wrench and then About Chrome. If you need to download Chrome, click here.

SKYPE ACKNOWLEDGES ANDROID VULNERABILITY, WORKING ON FIX

Skype has come forward and acknowledged that there is indeed a rather serious vulnerability in Skype for Android that could let malicious third-party applications access your personal information. Unfortunately, it's not offering much else in the way of help just yet, with it saying only that it is "working quickly" to protect folks from the vulnerability, and that they should simply be cautious of third-party apps in the meantime.

GOOGLE REMOVES 21 MALICIOUS APPS FROM ANDROID MARKETPLACE

Within minutes of being informed of 21 malicious apps by Android Police, Google removed the offending programs. All the apps were published by Myournet and did all sorts of nasty things to your phone from trying to root the phone to adding a backdoor to allow more malicious code to be downloaded and executed.

Also some of the apps are pirated versions of existing apps that have been re-uploaded at zero cost to the user, which makes them appealing... and the trick apparently works quite well, because the 21 managed to clock over 50,000 downloads before getting taken down.