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With fewer defects being found in major open source projects than in large proprietary software packages, what are the security strengths and weaknesses of open source development?

Naturally, the first few comments we saw when Microsoft announced their latest incredibly powerful and fantastically thin tablet PC was some variant of “It’s a shame it is running Windows”. We decided to fix that, and here’s what came out of that experiment.

In the self-aware spirit of Jimmy Kimmel, Linus Torvalds, the guy behind Linux, is reading people’s mean tweets about him.

The ISOs approved for Linux Mint 17 aka Qiana stable release are already uploaded and available for download. The release hasn’t been announced yet but here’s your chance to install and enjoy the latest version of the popular Ubuntu derivative! 32 and 64-bit versions of both the Cinnamon and MATE variants are available.

If there's one area of Linux that gets more scrutiny than any other, it's the desktop. From every corner, the haters and detractors abound. Nearly every publication that offers any focus on the Linux desktop at some point posts a piece about getting rid of the default Ubuntu desktop. Cinnamon is one of the primary replacement contenders.

Here’s an idea crazy enough that it just might work: Pave the streets with solar-powered panels that have their own built-in heat and LED lights. That’s what Scott and Julie Brusaw hope to accomplish with their ongoing Solar Roadways project, which they just funded through a hugely popular crowdfunding campaign.

Bro is a powerful network analysis framework that is much different from the typical IDS you may know.

Something odd is happening with the popular open source encryption program TrueCrypt. The download page for the program was changed Wednesday to display an ominous warning about the software: "Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues," it reads. "This page exists only to help migrate existing data encrypted by TrueCrypt."

Codenamed Moorefield, Intel's latest 64-bit chip is expected to make a high-profile appearance at the upcoming Computex conference.

There have been more than a few tiny computing boards released in the past few years, and this trend won’t be slowing down any time soon. So meet VoCore, which is quite possibly one of the smallest Linux computers ever made.

Nowadays, it's just a sanctuary for my father to play marathon sessions of Diablo 3. But a little over 15 years ago, the breakfast nook in my parents' kitchen more closely resembled a coliseum where man (my father) was pitted against machine. Back then, it wasn't uncommon to hear strings of profanities streaming out of the room while he sat in front of a desktop computer hunched over in defeat -- all in an attempt to run Linux.

The announcement has gone out. The gist? Flash will no longer work with Chromium on Linux. Many of you are probably wondering, "What is Chromium?" Essentially, Chromium is the open-source version of Google's massively popular browser, Chrome. The big Flash debacle is simple: the old way of handling Flash (within a browser) is insecure. It was driven by the Netscape Plugin API (NPAPI) -- an architecture that dates back to Netscape Navigator 2.0. NPAI that's insecure, obsolete, and doesn't work well on smartphones and tablets -- which is a death knell in and of itself.

The fuss over so-called net neutrality is quite odd and has turned into the kind of mass hysteria I've not witnessed in the tech world, ever.

The last time KDE released a major revision of its interface, users protested bitterly, and the project took several years to live down the reaction.

X2Go is a Remote Desktop solution which enables you to access a graphical desktop of a computer over a low bandwidth (or high bandwidth) connection.

Last month Google offered refunds to users who bought a fake antivirus app from Google Play, but the scam seems to be catching on and security researchers have recently identified similar apps in both the Android and Windows Phone app stores.

High fives are in order for Google's Gmail team, as Gmail is the first Android application to notch 1 billion downloads in its belt. The feat, which actually occured a few days ago, was announced today by Google VP Sundar Pichai, who posted the achievement on his Google+ page. It was a succinct (albeit excited) recognition, though crossing 1 billion downloads doesn't mean there are a billion people using Gmail.

For most video-watching aficionados, VLC is an essential piece of software. The open-source app is well known for being a fantastic movie and music player, but there are a few clever tricks that can help you get a lot more out of the media player. We gathered seven fun and useful VLC features, that will help you get the most out of the media player.

Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre announced an important decision taken on the Mint release cycles. Starting immediately with Linux Mint 17 “Qiana”, the Ubuntu-based operating system will be based only on the LTS releases.

I’m asked this all the time: is using Linux on the desktop more secure than Windows?