Microsoft has announced in the IE Blog that Internet Explorer 8, now in early beta, will have DEP memory protection turned on by default.

DEP, also known as NX (for No eXecute) is the use of hardware features built into modern CPUs to block the execution of code from areas of memory that are supposed to contain data. Most severe software vulnerabilities consist of finding a bug in the software that allows the program execution path to be diverted to code introduced by the user, which will almost certainly be in a data area of memory. Therefore, DEP should block the exploitation of vulnerabilities in those applications—when it is active.

DEP has been in Windows since XP Service Pack 2, but since this same technique causes problems for a lot of software either with bugs or cavalier programming techniques, Microsoft started it out turned essentially off. They have been slowly turning on aspects of DEP over the years. System code in Vista is protected by DEP, although applications have to be opted in by the user. In Vista SP1 and XP SP3 a new set of APIs allows a program to opt-in on it's own.

Turning on DEP by default should make IE8 a considerably more difficult attack target, especially when combined with ASLR, IE Protected Mode and other Vista features. Remember that the DEP protection extends not just to IE, but to add-ins installed in it.

The compatibility problems that caused Microsoft to be so conservative with rolling out DEP are less compelling years after its introduction, with all the time programmers have had to adapt to it. If problems in an IE add-in cause it to blow up under DEP the user should look no further than the author of the add-in for responsibility.

Mozilla has released the next beta in the row to the final 3 version. This is the beta 5. I have been using beta 4 since it has been released without any problem. As a matter of fact it is very stable, uses so much less resources that it would be the one major reason for me to keep using it! The downside so far? If you do use a lot of addons you will be confronted with a lot of incompatibility. They won't be available for the beta versions (yet). Do I miss them? None whatsoever........
You can get the beta version in your language right here...

Firefox Beta versions

I think it is pretty exciting that one of the worlds leading Graphics program is going "live" online for FREE. It seems like we just found out a couple days ago this was going to happen! Yep, PhotoShop is now available to anyone with an internet connection for FREE. It is a slimmed down version from the one that is purchased, but for those who would not have a chance to ever have it otherwise, it is most fantastic.

Learn More and Download

As of now the Vista SP1 are available for download for both the 32 bit and 64 bit version. I found them on fileforum but I reckon they are available on Microsoft too. Of course I have put the link for both versions up right here

Vista SP1 32-bit

Vista SP1 64-bit