Good evening, readers-

If you’re an Xbox Live subscriber in the US then Major Nelson has some news for you. Microsoft has rolled out Paypal as a method of payment for MS points, Xbox Live accounts and such, but it’s not what you think. You can’t actually do anything from your console and all transactions take place on Xbox.com.

A couple of things to point out:

PayPal is currently supported for Xbox LIVE users in the U.S. only.
PayPal can only be used to purchase Microsoft Points on Xbox.com.
PayPal accounts are not available for purchasing Microsoft Points on the Xbox 360 console.
You can associate multiple Pay Pal accounts with your Xbox LIVE account.

via MJ

A couple of days ago we brought you scandalous — scandalous — news that PayPal was planning on blocking Apple’s Safari, as well as many other browsers that don’t offer anti-phishing technology.

That’s not entirely so, says PayPal, stating to 9 to 5 Mac that while it is preparing to implement such technology, Safari should be fine. It’s more about the older, un-secure browsers than it is the specific anti-phishing technology.

Well, OK then.

Would all Web browsers considered safe by PayPal please take one step forward?

Not so fast, Safari.

PayPal is planning on barring usage of its site by browsers that don’t include Firefox-like anti-phishing features in the near future. This would include Safari and many older browsers, effectively giving Firefox and Internet Explorer the only real access to its site.

Many other smaller browsers do include anti-phishing technology, but they’re market share is negligible when compared to the big two.

No word on if Apple is planning on including anti-phishing features in the next version of Safari, but considering all the other competitors do so, it’s likely. In the mean time, your using something else for PayPal.

PayPal, darling of the Internet, has warned its users to steer clear of Apple’s Safari Web browser because it doesn’t support anti-phishing technologies. (IE 7 and the upcoming Firefox 3.0 do, however.) Specifically, PayPal says Safari’s lack of support for Extended Validation Certificate, a technology that turns the address bar green when visiting a “safe” site. The Apple-created browser also doesn’t warn users when they’re visiting a potentially dangerous site (independent of the green bar trick).

Putting aside the whole “use common sense when you browse the Web” argument, Apple probably should include some form of anti-phishing in Safari; not everyone who browses the Web are as savvy we (I assume you’re all heavy users) are. Even though a joint Microsoft-Stanford study concluded that people wouldn’t notice the green address bar unless properly trained, what’s the harm in including it? Unless, I don’t know, that would open Apple up to some sort of lawsuit along the lines of, “Your anti-phishing technology failed to work properly, leading me to [something bad].”

And as long as we’re on the topic of Web browsers, I’ve started to use the nightly WebKit builds. It’s Safari, but with the latest rendering engine (WebKit) under the hood. Seems snappier than regular Safari. Give it a shot. The icon’s nicer, too.

PayPal warns: Steer clear of Apple’s Safari browser [InfoWorld]