While the Linux-based operating system wasn't really cracked at Pwnium, Google has decided to award a hacker $40,000 for finding an unreliable Chrome OS exploit.

Our pal Hexxeh is at it again, only this time it's not Google's Chromium OS that he's hacking -- it's the Google Chrome OS Cr-48 laptop. We've previously shared posts about installing Ubuntu, Windows 7, and OS X on the CR-48, but the process has been a little on the complex side until now.

Hexxeh's new tool -- Luigi -- simplifies the process greatly. As long as you can follow his 12-step program and don't mind popping open the CR-48 case for a quick bit of hardware tinkering you'll be able to install your OS of choice in no time. Once you've downloaded Luigi using wget from a Chrome OS terminal window, a firmware flash and a reboot is all that's needed to enable booting any OS installer via a USB drive.

Check out Hexxeh's video after the break to see how the process unfolds!

Update: The Next Web has now removed the JavaScript alert bar. Hooray!

You may recall a couple of months ago when I falsely reported on what I thought was a new feature of Chrome. It was admittedly kind of neat: I thought websites could link themselves to a Chrome Extension, and pop up an alert at the top of your browser if you hadn't installed it.

As it turned out, it's just a cheap JavaScript hack that looks just like an official Chrome alert. I had hoped that I wouldn't see it again, but of course that was too much to ask of the Internet. As of today, The Next Web is now using it on every single one of its pages. Click through, check it out -- I'm sure they'll appreciate the extra ad impressions.

For a technology blog, TNW displays disgustingly little foresight. This bar is, in effect, an updated phishing or rogue malware attack. You all know the type: that pop-up that claims to scan your hard disk for viruses but actually installs a bunch of Trojans.

Does TNW not realise that you could make this bar link to a nefarious domain that looks exactly like the Chrome Extensions website? TNW's intentions might be benevolent, but with such high profile use of this JavaScript copycat, I guarantee that phishers and malware writers will soon be using this bar for the forces of evil.

Wouldn't it be easy to change the appearance of the bar so that it's obviously not part of the browser? How about making it pink, or changing the logo on the left to something distinctly un-Chromeish?

TNW has just opened a smelly kettle of fish -- and from now on, I suggest you all read your Chrome alerts carefully before clicking.

Yup, you're not alone: that orange button in the top left corner of Firefox 4.0 just won't move.

Fortunately, with the help of a Neowin forum thread and a little hacking, I am now the proud owner of a see-through Firefox button that's in-line with my tabs! If you'd also like to move that orange button -- or simply change its color! -- follow these easy steps:

• Locate your Profile directory -- click Help > Troubleshooting Information and then Open Containing Folder
• Now navigate to the Chrome directory
• Copy userChrome-example.css
• Rename your copy to userChrome.css
• Open userChrome.css your editor of choice and dump the following code in it:

#appmenu-button-container {

position: fixed !important;

}

 

#appmenu-button {

padding: 3px 18px 3px 18px !important;

margin-top:3px !important;

background-color: rgba(54, 121, 166, 0.2) !important;

}

 

#navigator-toolbox[tabsontop="true"] #TabsToolbar {

padding-left: 95px !important;

}

 

#navigator-toolbox[tabsontop="true"] #TabsToolbar {

padding-left: 105px !important;

padding-top:1px !important;

padding-right:98px !important;

}

Alternatively, download my userChrome.css file and copy it into the directory. Don't forget to rename it.

The second block (#appmenu-button) is the most important. You could easily change the color (54, 121, 166) or the opacity (0.2) -- simply change the values, save, and restart Firefox 4.0.

With some knowledge of CSS you could also move the button around (padding and margin), but I'll investigate more tomorrow. In the mean time, enjoy your less intrusive Firefox 4.0 menu!

(Incidentally, if you missed the previous post, Firefox 4.0 beta 1 is now available for download!)

ExtensionFM is arguably one of the coolest extensions you can find for Google Chrome -- it's a must-have for music lovers. But if you're browsing with Chromium or a Chromium-based browser, you may have noticed that you can't listen to MP3 files in it. What gives?!

Alas, this is one of the differences between the open source Chromium browser and its semi-closed brother, Google Chrome. Many of the audio and video codecs included in Chrome aren't included in Chromium due to licensing, patents -- all that fun stuff.

Fortunately, there's a workaround -- and it's pretty dang simple. All you have to do is copy over the official Google Chrome audio/video components and paste them into your Chromium browser's folder.

Let's go!
If you don't have both Chrome and Chromium installed, you'll need them. Grab a dev channel version of Chrome if you need to, as it's the closest thing to a Chromium snapshot build.

Windows

You're looking for three files: avcodec-52.dll, avformat-52.dll, and avutil-50.dll. They'll be located in your Chrome\Application folder (somewhere like C:\Users\You\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application.0.437.3).
You can get to them pretty quickly by going to start > run > %localappdata% [enter] and then drilling down.

Linux

I'm running Ubuntu, so your folder locations may differ depending on your distro of choice. The file you're after is libffmpegsumo.so and it's located in /opt/google/chrome on Ubuntu.