In celebration of Halloween and trick-or-treaters everywhere, I’ve put together a list of the top 13 online destinations, search engines and services I’ve found over the past week which specialize in the October holiday.

Top 13 Halloween Sites, Searches and Destinations:

1. Yahoo’s Halloween 2.0 : Yahoo was the first of the major search engines to switch over to a Halloween logo a day early, on the 30th (for mischief night?) and has set up a special Halloween section of Yahoo with scary Podcasts, top scary movies, Halloween photo uploads from Flickr, and Yahoo Games especially for the witching hour.

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News source: Search Engine Journal

Internet Explorer 7 is designed to make browsing safer. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the new security features, including Active X opt-in, the Phishing Filter, cross-domain security, enhanced privacy protection, and an international character alert.

Some sensationalistic reports of a security flaw immediately followed Internet Explorer 7’s final release, but the vulnerability turned out to be in Outlook Express rather than IE. In fact, Microsoft has put a great deal of effort into making IE 7 more secure. Here are some of the new IE 7 security features and what they can do for you.

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News source: TechRepublic

Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP offers great new ways to store and enjoy all your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV. Play it, view it, and sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go or even share with devices around your home—all from one place.

Note: Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all versions of Windows XP Service Pack 2, including Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N.

Download: Windows Media Player 11 (x86)
View: Windows Media Homepage

The Lavasoft Support Forums have been deluged with daily cries of help from victims of the “Smitfraud” desktop hijackers that are using fake codec to infect their prey.

Watch out for the Zlob Trojan that poses as a codec needed to view a video, then installs a fake virus and urges its victims to download a rogue anti-spyware program to remove it. Lavasoft has also confirmed that this malware takes advantage of unpatched systems using exploits on web pages. Visit Microsoft Update to ensure that ALL of your critical Windows security pages are updated.

Other victims have been infected by a fake e-card greeting, or even a spoofed e-mail that claims to be Windows Update (Microsoft never sends updates via e-mail). Still more unassuming victims received an e-mail asking them to open a link to see the message (these can be fake e-mails, intended only to infect), or even a link from your ‘buddy’ in instant messages – but don’t trust it if you aren’t expecting it. Even your buddy could be infected without his/her knowledge and the virus on their computer is sending you the link with one purpose, and one purpose only – to infect you!

A few of the fake codecs out there include:
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News source: Lavasoft News

Want to use the extra features within Office? Be prepared to verify that your copy of the productivity suite is genuine. While the so-called Office Genuine Advantage has been around since April, Microsoft did not make it mandatory until Friday. Starting today, using Office Online templates would require the validation, and the ability to download updates would also require verification beginning in January.

The move signals a tougher stance from Microsoft, which recently has begun to crack down on casual piracy of its products by customers. Those who have acquired pirated software without their knowledge, but agree to assist Microsoft in identifying where they obtained it from, would qualify for a legitimate copy of the software. Those who do not agree to help would have to pay the full fee to obtain new software.

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News source: BetaNews.com

After Bill Gates, the man whose name is most closely associated with Windows is Jim Allchin. Allchin, the co-president of Microsoft’s platforms and services business, is in his final months at Microsoft. As previously announced, the 16-year Microsoft veteran plans to leave the company in January, following the retail launch of Windows Vista.

I had a chance to chat with Allchin at length on October 18 about everything from why Microsoft decided to christen XP SP2 a service pack (rather than a new Windows release), to how he’d like to be remembered when he leaves the company.

Q: You say you’ve learned a lot from the whole Longhorn/Vista development process. Could you share some of these lessons?

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News source: ZDNet

A network administrator for a peer-to-peer Internet file-sharing system has been sentenced to five months in prison for copyright infringement.

Grant T. Stanley, 23, was also given five months of home detention, three years of supervised probation and a $3,000 fine for his role in the Elite Torrents service, which used a sharing technology known as BitTorrent. Stanley, who had pleaded guilty to copyright-related charges, was sentenced Oct. 17.

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News source: Washington Post

Security experts have discovered new spambot software that installs its own anti-virus scanner to eliminate competition, alongside a number of other sophisticated features.

SecureWorks has described the Trojan, which it calls SpamThru, in detail. Others vendors have come up with different names for the software. One of the signs of its sophistication though is that few anti-virus scanners are aware of it, SecureWorks said.

“SpamThru is a money-making operation, and the author takes great care to make sure that detection by the major vendors is avoided by frequently updating the code,” said SecureWorks’ Joe Stewart in the company’s analysis.

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News source: TechWorld.com

The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.

Download: FireFox 2.0 (Windows, English 5.6MB)
View: FireFox Homepage

Windows Defender is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware when it’s detected and minimizes interruptions and helps you stay productive. Now with 2 free support incidents for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Download: Microsoft Windows Defender (Free)
View: Windows Defender Homepage