Internet Explorer browser

As in the real-estate market, a key factor in the browser wars has been location, location, location. In the virtual space that browsers inhabit, the most valuable location is to be preinstalled on the computer you buy -- and Google wants that choice location for its Chrome browser.

In its latest move to increase Internet search traffic, Microsoft Corp. has turned to an old rival, Sun Microsystems Inc., for marketing help.

Under the terms of a deal being announced Monday, Sun will promote a Microsoft toolbar for the Internet Explorer browser to U.S.-based Web surfers as they download Sun's Java software -- which is required to view some Web sites. The toolbar has a built-in box for queries to Microsoft's Live Search and buttons that give people access to MSN content.

Microsoft is making yet another attempt at pay for search. Following in the footsteps of Cashback, a program the company launched in May, Redmond's latest effort is called SearchPerks.

SearchPerks lets Live Search users earn "tickets" toward prizes -- up to 25 tickets a day. The program is free to join, but Microsoft is instructing users to register by pasting the GetSearchPerks.com URL into an Internet Explorer browser. The program doesn't work with Mozilla's Firefox or Apple's Safari. Users also have to use a Windows PC.

Marc Andreessen, an entrepreneur and software engineer behind the Web's earliest browsers, has joined the board of the online hangout Facebook.

Andreessen's appointment could bring additional clout and insight to a young but growing startup headed by Mark Zuckerberg, 24, who started Facebook as a Harvard undergraduate.

Your new Internet browser is ready -- several of them, actually.

They're all free, so take your pick.

The Mozilla Foundation, whose Firefox browser has already snared over 18 percent of the world's Web surfers, has just introduced its latest upgrade, Firefox 3. For a nonprofit outfit, Mozilla can really sling the hype. The foundation practically dared us to visit getfirefox.com on Tuesday and download the new browser, in an effort to set a world record for the most file downloads in a single day. Suckers that we are, at least 7 million of us fell for it.

The company that runs many of the Internet's core directory systems has won a patent for its controversial service that helps Internet users find sites even when they mistype addresses.

VeriSign Inc. said it has no intentions of resurrecting the Site Finder service, but it declined further comment on its plans for the patent, including bloggers' speculation that it could now demand licensing fees from EarthLink Inc. and other companies that have since started similar efforts.