As reported by the BBC, current users of all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer browser are currently vulnerable to getting hijacked due to a serious security flaw that has yet to be fixed.

It’s been reported that at least seven versions of the browser have been affected by this flaw and as many as 10,000 websites have been compromised.

Tricking the victims into visiting ‘contaminated’ websites is the main objective. Once in the site, user’s computers get infected with a malicious programming code which then allows hackers to take control of the user’s entire PC: personal information, documents, passwords, etc.

“Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer,” the firm declared in a security advisory alert about the flaw.

Apparently, the unforbidden sites are Chinese and their purpose is to steal passwords that can be sold later on the black market.

Microsoft has announced the flaw is only affecting 0.02% of internet site, however we should bear in mind IE is the default browser for most of the world’s computers; vulnerability is everywhere.

The advice to users, switch browsers!- although Microsoft is seriously battling against this particular action. Instead, they are keeping these news rather quiet while attempting to comfort users by letting them know such threat will be soon resolved.

Google Chrome is the Big G’s new open source web browser that should be reachable at http://www.google.com/chrome, however, it doesn’t seem to have gone live yet.

Anyways, it should be up anytime soon. In the meantime, I’ll fill you in on the wonders of this new browser.

It is designed to be faster and more practical for users. It claims among other features to offer improved speed and responsiveness together with a more powerful JavaScript engine adaptable to today’s web applications, which is not exactly the case with existing browsers.

Another prominent feature as explained by Mark Hendrickson from TechCrunch , is that of the multi-process design , which naturally requires more memory, however, the chances that your browser will freeze in the middle of a search will decrease immensely.

So if you’re a multi-task person or one who loves to have a million windows open at once, Chrome allows you to have all tabs open as needed since each tab will have a memory of its own and processes won’t be slowed down.

Also, the browser gives you a starting page that records all your recently viewed pages, plus all recently stored bookmarks and search engines visited. The ‘Incognito’ is another feature that opens as a window and it serves basically to isolate all your activities within one given space; no activity is recorded there.

Some other improvements Google has made for its new browser to make it quasi flawless is refining the security process. Chrome is malware and phishing sites- immune. It will continually download a list of phishing sites and malware sites to your computer, which will be used to warn you every time you visit them.

To get the full story behind Chrome and the reason for its existence, check out the Official Google Blog.

To know more about the actual performance of this new browser, keep posted on Matt Cutt’s upcoming blogs, where he will be discussing his personal experience using Google Chrome.

And finally, for more on the comic book that has been virally spreading on the web, check out the Google on Google Chrome Comic Book.