I am a regular user of the Alexa Toolbar. This toolbar monitors browsing habits and sends information back to Alexa to help them determine the most popular websites. Because of what it does, some people consider the Alexa Toolbar to be spyware. However, it doesn't do anything malicious, when you install it, you should be aware of what it is doing. Spyware Doctor, an anti-spyware program decided that the Alexa Toolbar was spyware and removed it from my system. It didn't do it the friendly way by running the uninstaller provided by Alexa; instead it entered the ...

Bill Gates has said that Windows 7, the successor to Vista, could be released sometime in "the next year or so". We guess this means in 2 years because he went on to say that the new version is scheduled for 2010. Microsoft's estimated release dates are notoriously optimistic, so it's certainly unlikely to be within the next year. Bill Gates did not reveal any details of changes or novel features to the operating system, although he did say that he was "super-enthused about what it will do in lots of ways". The Developer Programme for Windows 7 has already been started ...

Microsoft is planning to cut the price of Vista sold at retail outlets. They haven't specified a date for the cuts, but they say that it will affect copies sold in 70 different countries. A typical price cut for Vista Ultimate (the top-end version) in the USA will be in the region of $80, bringing it down to $319 - a reduction of 20%. The cuts apply to the retail versions of Vista - bought by people upgrading exisiting operating systems. This accounts for about 10% of Microsoft's OS sales - the remaining 90% being installed on new PCs. Microsoft has now sold ...