In a sign that Google and Yahoo are the giants in the search engine business and competing with them is definitely an uphill battle, Ask.com announced that they will leave the search engine business and focus on helping married women manage their lives.

The company’s decision will definitely make it a lot easier for them to compete with iVillage rather than to go head-to-head with Google and Yahoo.

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The infamous computer hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC), best known for creating the Back Orifice some 10 years ago has released a software tool which can make Google hacking a little easier for security professionals and criminals. The open-source software called Goolag lets hackers use the Google search engine to scan websites for security flaws. The software is based on work done by a hacker using the name “Johnny I Hack Stuff”.

So if you are a website operator or a System Administrator, you might want to check your server(s) for vulnerabilities using this tool before hackers use your server(s) for crime or mischief.

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Last January 7, 2008 was the alpha release of Wikia Search, a new search engine built on free software and free culture values conceptualized by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

Wikia’s search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Wikia Search is a response to concerns over the lack of transparency in the way that Google ranks its searches. The release is a milestone in the realization of a long-held dream according to Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales. However, Wikia Search, being currently in alpha release, is still a couple of years from maturity, with many of the details still to work out.

Oh by the way, here is my Wikia Search Profile, you may add me as a friend. Thanks!

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BeeMp3 an mp3 music search engine that provides a huge list of mp3 music available from the Internet.

So instead of using your credit card and pay iTunes for some hard-to-find songs you want, it is much better to give beemp3 a try. After all, you can download any songs in their directory absolutely FREE.

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Netscape Navigator or simply Netscape was a popular and dominant web browser during the 90s. Its popularity evaporated in 2002 after Microsoft included its Microsoft Internet Explorer to Microsoft Windows Operating System and due lack of significant improvements.

Last December 28, AOL has stopped the development of the latest version of Netscape and on February 1, 2008 they will stop supporting the browser. However, Netscape will surely have its place in history. It will be remembered as the web browser who challenged Microsoft and the main component of Microsoft’s anti-trust trial where the court ruled that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows was an illegal monopolistic business practice.

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Another startup company that will compete with Google search, blekko is founded by Rich Skrenta, who created the first computer virus (Elk Cloner), co-founded DMOZ, and co-founded online news site Topix. Blekko’s website displays a picture of a puppet, at least for now. I wonder when will Skrenta eventually launch a full scale website that will compete with Google and other search engines out there.

Let’s wait and see……….

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