In Google Reader Play, items are presented one at a time, and each item is big and full-screen. After you’ve read an item, just click the next arrow to move to the next one, or click any item on the filmstrip below to fast-forward. Of course, you can click the title or image of any item to go to the original version. And since so much of the good stuff online is visual, we automatically enlarge images and auto-play videos full-screen.

Reader Play adapts to your tastes — as you browse, you can let us know which stuff you enjoy by clicking the “like” button, and we’ll use that info to show you more items we think you’ll like. If you want, you can also choose categories, and we’ll personalize your stream to only show you stuff from those categories. And you don’t even need a Google account to use Reader Play. Of course, if you want to star, like, or share items, we’ll ask you to sign in to your Google account. Since Reader and Reader Play share the same infrastructure, any actions you take in one will be reflected in the other.

You might be wondering where we find all the awesome stuff in Reader Play. It uses the same technology as the Recommended Items feed in Reader to identify and aggregate the most interesting items on the web. If you sign in, Reader Play will also be personalized with items that people you’re following have shared in Google Reader, and items similar to ones you’ve previously liked, starred, or shared.

Since Reader Play is an experiment, it’s launching in Google Labs for now. To be clear, Reader Play isn’t intended to replace Google Reader: both Google Reader and Reader Play are about finding and reading interesting stuff online. In essense, Reader Play is a different view of Reader. It’s designed to be a fun and easy way to browse interesting items, while Reader is a highly customizable way to organize your feeds, keep track of what you’ve read, and much more. In Reader, you can switch to this view by clicking “View in Reader Play” from the feed settings menu.

Related posts:

1. Google Reader Gets a Social Makeover, Adds Likes and Followers
2. New Blog Search tools: Feeds, Hot Queries and Latest Posts
3. YouTube Redesign: Becoming the Google of Video?

When you want to to share music, movies, photos, or other files online, you’ve got countless options. We’ve examined most, and for our money, one tool emerges on top of the heap for its ease of use, wide support, and all-around excellence.

Sharing files publicly has always been a subject of hot debate, but put aside any legal concerns for the moment and consider: What if you want to just share some home videos or music privately with a few friends rather than the internet at large? What’s the easiest way to share large files?

The Answer: Opera Unite

For this writer and tech enthusiast’s money, the easiest and best way to share large files of any kind with your friends and family is to simply install Opera Unite, walk through a couple of quick configuration screens, and then send them the URL and password to access your content from any browser.

Plenty of web sites let you send large files around, usually by uploading a file and then sending a link to the content, and BitTorrent is also great for sharing large files, but the problem with both of those is that you’re unnecessarily putting your content out there online for others, and wasting bandwidth by sending it to third parties. (You could set up private torrents, but those still require an open tracking server, which aren’t always reliable.) Opera Unite sets up a fast, direct connection to share your files, it’s extremely easy to use, and best of all, it’s free!

Update: Many commenters have pointed out that Dropbox is an excellent way to share files, and we wholeheartedly agree. However, Dropbox has a 2GB limit for free accounts, which is hardly enough space to share a collection of large files with your friends—plus, you have to wait for an upload to finish before you can share it. With Opera Unite, you can share large directories of any size instantly, for free.

Setting Up Unite is Easy

Since Unite is just a component of the Opera browser, all you have to do is download and install the latest version of Opera. Unite comes along for the ride automatically, but you’ll need to activate it by opening up the sidebar, clicking the Unite icon, and going through the wizard to set up a free Unite account (see screenshot).

Note: You don’t have to switch to the Opera browser to use Unite, so if you’re a Firefox or Chrome loyalist, you can still choose to use Opera just for your file sharing needs.

Once you’ve set it up, you can right-click on Opera Unite Home and access the Properties, or you can select the File Sharing module and click the Start button to open up a short configuration wizard to help you share your files.

The Technical Bits

Internally, Opera Unite is nothing more than a web server that runs inside of your web browser, and uses the standard HTTP protocol so your friends and family can access your shared content from any browser. Your free Unite account gives you access to Opera’s dynamic DNS service, which means you can share your content with an easy-to-remember, unique URL that you can send to anybody. Unite automatically hooks into your router using uPnP to dynamically open port 8840, but it can also use a Unite proxy server when you’re behind a more restrictive firewall—though it will obviously be slower.

Everything is password protected, so even if you’ve set up file sharing and the URL is public, it doesn’t mean that people will be able to see what you are sharing—only those that you’ve given both the public URL and the password to can access your files. You’ll probably want to change the default passwords, though.

Share Files With Your Friends

Now that you’ve set up Unite, it’s time to start sharing. Click on the Unite icon in the left-hand pane of Opera (it’s the swirly-looking one), then double-click the File Sharing module.

You’ll be asked to choose the folder you wish to share. You can click the Advanced button and set up a few additional properties, but that’s pretty much all you’ll need to do to start sharing your files—a URL and password will be automatically generated for you so you can share those files quickly and easily.

After setting up your file share, the next time you double-click on the File Sharing module in the left-hand Opera panel you’ll open up the administration page. Look over to the right-hand side, where you can see the URL and the automatically generated password. You can copy and paste those to your friends, and they’ll be able to access the files immediately—but you should probably change the password to something slightly more difficult first.

Your unique Opera Unite URL will always be set to the [devicename].[username].operaunite.com address format, so you can actually have multiple devices set up on your network and easily share files with each one. If you would prefer to get a little more geeky, you can actually set up your own domain name for Opera Unite, but that’s probably overkill for just sharing some files with friends.

Accessing the Shared Content

Once you’ve sent somebody the URL, they’ll be prompted for a password to access the shared content, at which point they can browse through all the files you’ve shared and download them. Since Opera Unite usually enables port-forwarding on your router automatically with uPnP, the connection is surprisingly fast if you have a decent internet connection—it’s going to be slower if it has to go through the Opera proxy server.

What makes this really great for sharing with your less tech-savvy friends is that they don’t have to install any applications, or even install Opera—all of the content should work from any browser.

Taking Unite Beyond Simple File-Sharing

Since Opera Unite is nothing more than a web server, it also enables many downloadable modules to do any number of things that you could do with a full web server setup—like create your own streaming music server so you can access your content from anywhere. Just double-click on the media server module in the Unite panel, choose the location of your music folder, and then make sure to set a more difficult password. Just like that, you’ve enabled your entire music collection to be streamed from any browser anywhere, directly off your home PC. There’s a player embedded directly in the page so you don’t even need a media player installed on the other machine.

The fun doesn’t stop with media serving—there are modules for a simple HTML web server, photo sharing, whiteboards, chatrooms, file sync, and more.

Related posts:

1. Upload and store your files in the cloud with Google Docs
2. Google Adds Facebook Friends to Results
3. Dazzboard, An Open iTunes For Just About Any Portable Media File (500 Invites)

We cover a lot of tips every day on Lifehacker, but we get our greatest pleasure from putting together in-depth, step-by-step guides. From Windows 7 to Hackintoshes and beyond, here’s a look back at our most popular how-to features of ’09.

How to Do Everything with Windows 7

Windows 7 was a huge part of 2009, and the Lifehacker crowd was eager to try it out early on—but not necessarily ready to ditch XP or Vista outright to do so. This guide got you up and running with a Windows 7 and Vista/XP dual-boot system. Once you got it up and running, our complete guide to Windows 7 got you started with the most important parts of tackling your new operating system. We toured Windows 7′s best, most underhyped features, schooled you on its impressive list of cool new shortcuts, and detailed how to pull a little XP mode in Windows 7. It was a pretty good year for Windows users.

How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish

The Apple tax is always a little higher than a lot of people are willing to pay, so this year’s guide to building a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, start to finish, followed up by the simplified guide to install Snow Leopard on your Hackintosh PC, no hacking required made a pretty big splash.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network’s WEP Password

Whether you’re verifying the security of your own network or up to something a little more dubious in nature, this guide to cracking a Wi-Fi network’s WEP password with BackTrack—followed by this WEP cracking redux post that took WEP cracking out of the command line realm proved popular.

Google Wave First Look

Google Wave made a serious splash this year, and while a lot of people still aren’t sure how to best put it to use, there’s no doubt that there’s a lot of interesting technology going on there. We did our best to help you understand how you might use it yourself, starting with our Google Wave first look, moving onto a few best use cases for Wave, and rounding it out with a guide to Wave keyboard shortcuts, filters, searches, and more with our Google Wave 101 guide.

Clean Up and Revive Your Bloated, Sluggish Mac

Feel like your Mac isn’t the speedy little box it used to be? Our guide to cleaning up and reviving your bloated, sluggish Mac will get your machine back to running like a champ. (PC users, we’ve got you covered here.)

Prep Your Mac for Snow Leopard

Windows users had the Windows 7 release, Mac users had the Snow Leopard upgrade, and this guide detailed how to prep your Mac for Snow Leopard for a painless transition.

Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center On the Cheap

The future of home entertainment isn’t in your cable box as you know it today—it’s in powerful home theater PCs. There was a time when you’d need a big, noisy box next to your computer if you wanted to impress with your HTPC, but this guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap turns an inexpensive, tiny nettop computer into a standalone XBMC set-top box.

The First-Timer’s Guide to Building a Computer from Scratch

Ever been interested in building your own PC from the bottom up but always been a little scared of rolling up your sleeves with computer hardware? Building a computer from scratch is easier than you think, and it’s also one of the most satisfying projects a tech enthusiast can tackle.

Programmer 101: Teach Yourself How to Code

Whether you just want to do some simple scripting or you want to start down the road to an entirely new skill set, our 101 guide for teaching yourself how to code is a great place to get started.

How to Fix Your Relatives’ Terrible Computer

If you didn’t already fix every one of your relatives’ computers over Thanksgiving, don’t worry—the holidays are quickly approaching, and you know your the resident IT person for your friends and family. Our guide to fixing your relatives’ terrible computer can help.Photo by Justin Marty.

Cut the Cable For Good with Boxee and Apple TV

If our above guide to building a silent, standalone XBMC media center wasn’t quite your bag of chips, consider our step-by-step guide to cutting the cable for good with Boxee and Apple TV. You remember Boxee, right? They’re the killer media center folks who had to fight it out with Hulu all year, and they just updated with an impressive new look and feel. Photo by philcampbell.

Six Ways You Should Be Using Twitter (that Don’t Involve Breakfast)

Twitter may be taking the world by storm, but it’s often- and much-maligned by many of our readers. (47 percent of you say you’d never even use it.) Say what you will about tweeting, but if you’re not using Twitter for at least search, we think you’re missing out.

Properly Erase Your Physical Media

A whopping 40% of the used hard drives on eBay contain easily recoverable personal data. This guide details how to properly erase your physical media when you get rid of anything containing a hard drive so your personal data doesn’t end up in someone else’s hands. Photo by Robert Scoble.

The Definitive Guide to Finding Free Wi-Fi

Spend a lot of time on the road and out of the comfort of your home or office? Our definitive guide to finding free Wi-Fi can help you find some fast internet while you’re out of your home territory. Photo by °Florian.

The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Virtual Machines with VirtualBox

We play around a lot with various pieces of new software and even entire operating systems around these parts. Play it safe or just play around with our beginner’s guide to creating virtual machines with VirtualBox, a free, open-source virtualization tool.

Use Firefox to Fix the Web’s Biggest Annoyances

The web is an amazing place. It can also be an extremely annoying place. Skip the annoying flashing ads, turn off auto-playing movies and sounds, skip the auto-refreshing pages, and more with our guide to fixing the web’s biggest annoyances with Firefox.

How to Build a Web Site from Scratch with No Experience

Ever wanted to try your hand at building a web site you’ve been dreaming about—but have no experience with web development? We’ve been there (I was proud to release MixTape.me earlier this year), and this guide for building a web site from scratch with no experience will point you in the right direction.

You’re Backing Up Your Data the Wrong Way

Your data is the most important thing you’ve got on your computer—in fact, it’s everything. If you aren’t backing it up correctly, one bad move and all that information—and all those memories—goes the way of the dodo. If you’re not sure if you’re backing up the right way, this how-to will steer you in the right direction.

Ten Must-Have Gmail Filters Available for Download

If your inbox is overflowing and you feel like you’ve lost control, these 10 must-have Gmail filters will get you started slicing and dicing your inbox into a more manageable place.

An Exhaustive Guide to Saving Your Smartphone’s Battery

If you spend a lot of time outside your home or office, your smartphone is likely your lifeline to the rest of the world. Problem is, your pesky battery can die pretty quickly if you’re not mindful of how you’re using it. Follow our exhaustive guide to saving your smartphone’s battery and you may be able to squeeze a few more hours out of that gadget of yours. Photo by [177].

Make Free VoIP Calls from Google Voice

Soon free-calling functionality may be built into Google Voice (now that Google’s bought Gizmo5), but in the meantime, here’s how you can make free phone calls using Google Voice.

Hack Your Wii for Homebrew without Twilight Princess

If you’ve got a Wii and want to undertake a little homebrew fun, the Twilight Princess hack used to be the only way to go. Not so anymore, and our guide to hacking your Wii for homebrew without Twilight Princess walks you through how to go from zero to homebrew step by step.

Related posts:

1. VMWare Fusion 3 Makes Running Windows on Mac Almost Fun
2. Dazzboard, An Open iTunes For Just About Any Portable Media File (500 Invites)
3. Windows 7 Is On Sale. Should You Buy It Now?

Twitter has just rolled out the new version of its homepage that new potential users and users who are not logged in will see. The design has been completely overhauled from the previous version which was fairly cluttered (see it at the bottom of the page). This new version is sleek and features trending topics by the minute, hour and day.

Most importantly, the new version features search functionality front and center. This way people who aren’t even Twitter users yet can search for things being said on the service. And results are nicely placed on the same page below the main area.

You’ll also notice that when you click on any of the popular topics, a description of why that topic is being featured appears along the top of the search results. This is something that is very helpful, as quite a few trending topics seem to make no sense on the surface. It looks like Twitter is using the third-party service What The Trend? to populate these descriptions.

It’s important to note that nothing has changed about Twitter’s UI and functionality for those who are logged in. This is simply part of Twitter’s goal to make the service more accessible and obvious to new users, as well as increase engagement, and the use of search/trends. The bigger goal is to make it easier for businesses to use Twitter, which will allow the service to finally make some money. It’s new Twitter 101 area is another of the initial steps in that direction.

Find screenshots below of both the new main page and the old version. As well as what the new main page search results look like.

Update: And here’s Twitter’s post on the new homepage. Here’s the key blurb:

The open and timely exchange of information will have a positive impact on the world and Twitter has a role to play. We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information.

We’ll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas. We’re eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter.

Update 2: It also looks like Twitter is using this new homepage search interface to highlight some of the lesser-used search operators, like the “:)” symbol for results with “positive attitude.”

Update 3: As Adobe’s Ryan Stewart notes on Twitter, this homepage change seems like it could be a fairly big shot across the bow of Google. After all, if everyone now visiting twitter.com sees search front and center, it’s pretty clear that the product is being positioned as a major player in the search game. It will be interesting to see Twitter’s next step, which undoubtedly will include another homepage redesign to match this new Twitter home screen. Will we also see the search box more prominently featured there?

Related posts:

1. Bing and Ping: Share Search Results on Facebook and Twitter
2. Seeing the world with improved Google Search results
3. Twitter Launches a Twitter 101 Guide for Business

Social media was not without controversy this week, though. Digg was engulfed in controversy when it changed its short URL service, the DiggBar, early this week, and a contest by Electronic Arts, “Sin to Win,” resulted in a Twitter backlash. Here are this week’s top 12 social media stories:

1. Confirmed: Digg Just Hijacked Your Twitter Links – The social media site Digg changed its short URLs early this week, but it didn’t come without strong backlash from publishers and Digg users. Find out what happened.

2. Twitter Correcting Follower Counts: 1000s of Spammers Perish – Twitter made changes that initiated a major purge of spam accounts, dropping follower counts everywhere. Pete Cashmore explains.

3. HOW TO: See the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century Online – The most extraordinary solar eclipse of the century occurred this week. Miss it? The web can help you relive the event.

4. First Look: Firefox 3.7’s New Design – Mozilla provided a sneak peek into Firefox 3.7’s new look. We provide the info and the screenshots.

5. Google Wave is Coming: 100,000 Invites Go Out on September 30th – Two months ago, Google Wave was announced to the world. And two months from now, the general public will have a chance to use it. I have the scoop on getting access.

6. Alice in Wonderland Trailer Hits YouTube, Disney Deletes It – The trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland hit the web a little early. But instead of riding the momentum, Disney pulled the plug. Find out what they did wrong.

7. Google Maps Gets Wise to How We Actually Travel – Jennifer Van Grove analyzes a new Google Maps feature that lets you (finally) save multiple destinations and directions.

8. Small.bog: AVG Sparks iTunes Trojan Horse Alert – Anti-virus software AVG made some heads turn when it identified iTunes files as viruses. Pete Cashmore has a breakdown of the false positives.

9. “Harrass a Booth Babe”: A Twitter Contest Too Far? – A contest by Electronic Arts at Comic-Con is causing controversy for asking you to “commit acts of lust.” We have the fallout.

10. Want to Find Marijuana? There’s an App for That – A new iPhone App is making waves for what it can help you find: Cannabis. I provide the details on this legal marijuana locater.

11. Kurt Cobain Is Probably (Rick)Rolling in His Grave – This remix of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” is a must-see.

12. Twitter Launches a Twitter 101 Guide for Business – Twitter released a guide for getting started with Twitter, “Twitter 101 for Business.” Can it help the company fix its user retention problem?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AndrewJohnson

Related posts:

1. Digsby Passes 1 Million Users; 3 Million IM and Social Media Accounts
2. Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Jobs in Social Media & Digital Marketing
3. Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Jobs in Social Media & Web Development

Instant messaging has become so ubiquitous, an entire generation of internet users is probably unaware there was ever life without it. Check out the following five most popular instant messengers to to help you communicate across networks and the world.

Last week we asked you to share your favorite instant messenger with us, and now we’re back to share the top five candidates for the title of Best Instant Messenger. The following instant messengers all support multiple IM protocols, more than we could reasonable list in every single entry. If you’d like a quick way to compare clients while reading over the list, check out the extensive instant messenger comparison chart at Wikipedia.

Digsby (Windows, Free)

Digsby’s widespread popularity has recently taken a few lumps after they began including crapware in their installer and offering affiliate money to users who help them spread said crap. Despite these two moves, which have left quite a few users grumbling, Digsby is still a chat client with quite a lot to offer (and you can skip the bloat with the right download). Digsby supports multiple chat networks and allows you to merge your friends’ multiple usernames into one unified entry on your contact list. When you have Digsby minimized to the system tray, you’ll receive notification-style pop-up bubbles when messaged that you can reply right in. Digsby also supports email notifications for popular web-based email services through IMAP and POP3. Social networking isn’t left out, either, as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn can all be viewed and updated via Digsby.

Adium (Mac, Free)

Adium is an open-source chat client for Mac OS X. Adium supports multiple chat and social networking services like AIM, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, MySpace, and Facebook, among others. Thanks to integration with the Mac OS, Adium can pull from your address book to populate your contacts list, use system themes, and issue system notifications including Growl notifications. Adium also has support for all kinds of plug-ins and the hundreds of “Xtras”—Adium’s label for customization packages. If you’d like to keep things private, Adium also supports encrypted chat via Off-The-Record Messaging and is the only client in the Hive to have native support for it—though Pidgin and Trillian can take advantage of it via plug-in.

Pidgin (Windows/Linux, Free)

Pidgin is another open-source offering with a great feature set and support for popular chat networks such as AIM, ICW, Google Talk, and MSN Messenger, among others. You can download a variety plug-ins to enhance your chat experience by keeping spam away, encrypting your conversations, connecting to social networks, and more. Pidgin doesn’t have the most bells and whistles of the clients represented in this Hive, but its open-source code, cross-platform availability, and portable version keep many people coming back to use the streamlined tool. If Pidgin is the apple of your IM eye, be sure to check out our ten must-have plug-ins to power up Pidgin.

Meebo (Web-Based, Free)

Meebo is a web-based instant messaging solution. Rather than requiring you to install a client on your computer, you handle all of your instant messaging affairs through the Meebo web site (although they do have a lightweight system tray notifier available for Windows users). Registration is optional if you’re using a single service like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, or MSN Messenger; you can simply use your credentials for that service to log into it through Meebo. If you want to build a more fleshed out profile that logs into multiple services at once, you’ll need to sign up for a free Meebo account. One bonus for people behind a corporate firewall, assuming that your firewall isn’t blocking the actual Meebo site, is that as long as you can use secure web sites (those with the https:// designation), you can connect to all your favorite chat services.

Trillian Astra (Windows, Basic: Free, Pro: $25)

Trillian seemed to all but disappear from the instant messaging scene for a while there, but it’s come back in full force with the beta-release of Trillian Astra (which most were suspecting may have been vaporware). Trillian Astra has an extensive feature list, although some of the juicier features are disabled after 30 days if you don’t upgrade to the Pro edition. Trillian supports the regular customers like AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, and MSN Messenger, as well as Facebook, MySpace, Skype, IRC, and Twitter. While video and audio support are notably lacking from most of the entries in the Hive, Trillian circumvents the problem of trying to play nice with 3rd party protocols by sporting its own video and chat service that is run through the Astra network.

Now that you’ve had a chance to look over the contenders for best instant messenger, it’s time to cast your vote in the poll below:

Which Instant Messenger is Best?(poll)

Have a plug-in for your favorite instant messenger you just have to share? Can’t believe your favorite didn’t make the cut? Sound off in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Digsby Passes 1 Million Users; 3 Million IM and Social Media Accounts
2. Instant Answers in Google Suggest

It’s not a unique concept, however: TweetTranslate and Tweetrans offer similar services, while TwitTrans offers to manually translate your Tweets in one hour, resulting in a much better translation than a machine could achieve.

Which Twitter translation tools did we miss? Let us know in the comments!

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1. ​And now for something completely different
2. HOW TO: Start a Petition on Twitter
3. PSP2 to be based on iPhone-esque PowerVR GPU, rival original Xbox in power?

Just minutes ago, Twitter released Twitter 101 for Business, a guide for getting started with using the Twitter service. It covers the basics of Twitter, how to get started, the lingo, and includes case studies. Here’s how Twitter describes its value to businesses on its new Twitter 101 website:

Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.

Will this get more business on Twitter, and more importantly, will it fix Twitter’s user retention problem? It probably can’t hurt. In fact, we launched our own Twitter Guide Book to help people understand and learn more about Twitter as well.

Related posts:

1. New Twitter Homepage Goes Live With Search Front And Center
2. Twitter for Beginners: 5 Steps for Better Tweeting
3. Google Launches A Major Offensive Against Microsoft With “Going Google”

The company announced this afternoon that it reached a major milestone: 1,000,000 users. Considering that Digsby only launched 18 months ago, that’s an average growth rate of over 50,000 users per month – not too shabby for an IM startup.
Digsby also revealed that while there are just over a million users, there are actually over 3 million IM, email, and social media accounts in the system – meaning an average of 3 accounts per user. While that number still doesn’t compare to Facebook’s 1 billion chat messages per day or Fbchat’s preinstalled 250 million users, it’s still an impressive count.

Then again, they support Facebook Chat, so FbChat’s growth is probably only a good thing for Digsby.

Related posts:

1. Facebook Now Has 250 Million Users
2. The Top 12 Social Media Stories This Week
3. Russian Firm Investing Another $100 Million In Facebook

Not my words, but the official words of the company that makes and enables BlackBerry handheld devices , RIM, on its own forum.

Particularly chilling are these words: “Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server.”

This directly contradicts the words of telco Etisalat, which made a formal statement to media last week, “These upgrades were required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas.”

But RIM goes a lot, lot further in its formal statement on the whole affair. In fact, the company says:

“RIM confirms that this software is not a patch and it is not a RIM authorized upgrade. RIM did not develop this software application and RIM was not involved in any way in the testing, promotion or distribution of this software application.

RIM further confirms, in general terms, that a third party patch cannot provide any enhancements to network services as there is no capability for third parties to develop or modify the low level radio communications protocols that would be involved in making such improvements to the communications between a BlackBerry smartphone and a carrier’s network.

In addition, RIM is not aware of any technical network concerns with the performance of BlackBerry smartphones on Etisalat’s network in the UAE.”

So someone‘s been telling porkie pies, haven’t they?

The link to BlackBerry’s site is HERE and if you have a BlackBerry and implemented the update, you’ll be relieved to know it contains a removal tool provided by RIM for its customers to use in getting rid of the performance-sapping software.

RIM has done the right thing – in contrast to security company SS8, the organisation presumed to have actually coded the software behind this awful little mess and which has maintained a total silence in the face of media requests. Similarly, etisalat’s reaction (ignore it all and hope it goes away) has hardly been customer focused – people are still helping each other with ‘broken’ BlackBerries and Twitter is still ringing with plaintive Tweets for help from grounded BB users.

Do get the word out to friends and family that an ‘official’ fix is now available to roll back the update and, belatedly, ameliorate the impact on users of this muckle-headed catastrophe.

Etisalat still has 145,000 people to answer to, BTW… And, one rather suspects, a media that will be baying for its blood…

Link to the RIM statement, hosted on the Chirashi Security blog, HERE. Enjoy!

Related posts:

1. BlackBerry to Finally Release Desktop Manager for Mac
2. Windows 7 build 7600 arrives in a torrent of RTM speculation (update: it’s not RTM)
3. BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked