Google Takes Chrome Out of Beta
It's good when a product doesn't stay in Beta forever and ever. It probably helps to get out of Beta faster when you have so many people using your product. Google says they have already had ten million people download Google Chrome. Google has now taken its Chrome browser out of beta. Google also says they've increase the stability of plug-ins, the browser speed and improved the bookmark manager.
Better stability and performance of plug-ins (particularly video). Video and audio glitches were among the most common bugs fixed during the beta period. If you had problems watching videos with Google Chrome in the past, you should be pleasantly surprised with the performance now.
Even more speed. Google Chrome starts up fast, loads pages quickly, and just keeps getting faster. Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark - and there is more speed to come.
Bookmark manager and privacy controls. We heard you! Better bookmark features were a top request from our users. It's now easier to switch between another browser and Google Chrome with the bookmark import and export features, and we added a new simple way to manage large numbers of bookmarks, too. We also wanted to make it even easier for you to control your browsing data, so all of the features in Google Chrome which affect user privacy are now grouped in one place with detailed explanations for each one.
Posted on December 12, 2008
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Firefox Reaches 20% of Global Browser Marketshare
ReadWriteWeb reports that Mozilla is excited about a new report that shows Firefox with over 20% of the global browser marketshare.
The good folks at Mozilla are trumpeting a new report by global analytics service Net Applications that documented a 20% global market share for two out of four weeks in October. It's a new high bar of popularity for the 2nd most popular browser in the world.Sites focused on tecnology tend to have an even higher percentage of Firefox users which means the trend toward Firefox may continue to rise as the browser reaches more and more non-techies.
Firefox is safe, standards compliant, extensible...and not made by Microsoft. That's what most people like about it and the number of fans is growing.
Posted on November 19, 2008
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Google Launches a New Browser Called Chrome
Google has launched a beta version of a new browser called Chrome. Google is pushing the security aspects of Chrome. The Chrome has a feature called the omnibar that pulls in the top three or four search results from Google. PC Magazine compares the Omnibar to Firefox's "Awesome Bar." Other features with Chrome include tabs and desktop shortcuts.
Topher Kohan handles search engine optimization for CNN.com and discusses Google's new Web browser in the video below. He calls the browser fast, quick and secure. Kohan mentions one problem - there is no "Home" button. You can add a home button though by changing the preferences. You can also configure Chrome to bring up several of your favorite sites upon launching.
Posted on September 4, 2008
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Iterasi Lets You Bookmark Dynamically Generated Pages
Iterasi is a new bookmarking website that let's you save dynamically generated pages and Flash pages. You can see a video about the new service here.
At iterasi, we love the Web. So much so, that we want to keep it. Forever.You can see up a scheduler to bookmark pages for you. You can also share the pages you have saved with others using a shortened URL.
That's why we're taking steps to move beyond traditional bookmarking. Because, these days, saving the address of a page isn't half as important as being able to save the page you created.
Our first product, iterasi, makes it simple for any Web user to save the dynamically generated pages that are increasingly becoming the bulk of today's Web experience. With iterasi, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, and database driven technologies, like PHP and ASP, can all be saved—in their current state—with the push of a button.
Posted on September 2, 2008
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How to Delete Web Browser Cookies
This video from Mahalo Daily will give you a basic overview about how to delete cookies - the files that track your online movements. You don't want to delete all cookies because some of them may help the websites you use remember who you are and store your personalization features.Direct video link
Posted on December 5, 2007
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Apple's Safari For Windows
AppleInsider reports that Apple is making its Safari 3 web browser available for Windows users for the first time. The browser can be downloaded here.
Safari 3 features easy-to-manage bookmarks, effortless browsing with easy-to-organize tabs and a built-in RSS reader to quickly scan the latest news and information.Joel on Software has a post about Safari's speed. Lifehacker says you can get Safari's best features in Firefox.
Beginning today, Apple is making a Safari 3 public beta is available as a free download for Macs and PCs over at its Safari website.
"We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari," said Jobs. "Hundreds of millions of Windows users already use iTunes, and we look forward to turning them on to Safari's superior browsing experience too."
The speed of Safari combined with its intuitive user interface lets users spend more time surfing the web and less time waiting for pages to load, Apple said. Other Safari features now available to Windows users include SnapBack, one-click access to an initial search query; resizable text fields; and private browsing to ensure that information about an individual's browsing history isn't stored.
Posted on July 7, 2007
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Agloco Reminds Some Bloggers of AllAdvantage
A website called Agloco is promising to pay you to search the web. Members get paid for running a "Viewbar" on the bottom of their browser and by referring friends. A GigaOM post compares Agloco to AllAdvantage, a pay for surfing scheme that collapse during the dot com crash in 2000.
TechCrunch also compares this new pay-to-surf site to AllAdvantage. A VentureBeat article notes that a couple of the people working for Agloco also worked for AllAdvantage. Shawn Collins says don't call it a comeback but others like Geeks are Sexy say "there's really nothing to lose by signing up."
It is unclear whether or not Agloco will work but it is annoying they spell their name in all caps on their website -- that always looks like spammy shouting to us.
Posted on December 6, 2006
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2 Million Firefox 2 Downloads in 24 Hours
Asa Dotzler at Mozillazine is reporting there over 2 million downloads of Firefox 2 in the first 24 hours.
For those that don't remember, here's what we looked like compared to our earlier releases:If you don't already have the new browswer you can get it here.
Firefox 1.0: 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours.
Firefox 1.5: 1.5 million downloads in the first 24 hours
Firefox 2: 2 million (actually slightly more) people using Firefox 2 in the first 24 hours.
Maybe we should jump straight to Firefox 10 and see if we get 10 million users in the first 24 hours ;-)
Posted on October 30, 2006
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Firefox 2.0 Final Release Available
BetaNews reports that Mozilla has posted the final release of Firefox 2.0.
BetaNews says some of the improvements with Firefox 2 include security enhancements, spell checking and improved RSS feed subscription tools.
New features in Firefox 2.0 include enhancements in security, tabbed browsing, performance, and extensions. The browser update also includes a built-in spell checking and an anti-phishing feature, much like Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, which launched last week.Firefox 2 can currently be found here. The release comes with the following warning:
JavaScript 1.7 and improved subscribing of RSS feeds are also among the additions. The update to Firefox's JavaScript interpreter is an important change, especially as more Web sites take advantage of the new benefits of Asynchronous JavaScript -- especially as they embed objects or functionality from Google and Microsoft Windows Live.
As Mozilla vice president for engineering Mike Schroepfer told BetaNews in an interview, JavaScript 1.7 is an interim build - a "check point" on the way to finally implementing JavaScript 2.0, which is based on (actually a superset of) the ECMAscript 4.0 proposal that Netscape made to the ECMA standards body in 2003, and which incorporates Macromedia's (now Adobe's) ActionScript 2.0.
Firefox 2 Release Candidate 3 (RC 3) is a preview release of our next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for download to Web application developers, our testing community and users who want to get a sneak peek at the next version of Firefox. Please note that at this time, users should not expect all of their extensions, plugins and themes from previous versions of Firefox to work properly.The version listed on the Firefox homepage is still version 1.5.
Posted on October 23, 2006
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IE7 Browser Now Available
The launch of the new IE7 browser has been announced on the IEBlog.
We listened carefully to feedback from many sources (including this blog) and worked hard to deliver a safer browser that makes everyday tasks easier. When I first posted publicly about IE7, I wrote that we would go further to defend users from phishing and malicious software. The Phishing Filter and the architectural work in IE7 around networking and ActiveX opt-in will help keep users more secure. IE7 also delivers a much easier browsing experience with features like tabbed browsing (especially with QuickTabs), shrink-to-fit printing, an easily customizable search box, and a new design that leaves more screen real estate for the web site you’re viewing. IE7’s CSS improvements are incredibly important for developers as many of you have made quite clear. I also think IE7’s RSS experience and platform are important, powerful, and innovative.The IEBlog also says companies like Yahoo and Weather.com are releasing customized versions of the browser.
In addition to our release of IE7, Yahoo! has a customized version of the browser available today and over the next few days partners such as Weather.com and USA TODAY will offer their own customized versions. These versions will tailor the user experience with specific toolbars, additional search engines, favorites, and RSS feeds.Yahoo customized version is already up and can be found here. Search Engine Watch says the most visible change is the built-in search box. You can find a list of search engines to add to IE7 here. More discussion of IE7 can be found here on Slashdot.org.
Posted on October 19, 2006
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Firefox's Browser Marketshare Grows to 15% in US
OneStat.com reports that Firefox has grown to a 15% marketshare in the U.S. browser market.- Microsoft IE: 79.78%
- Mozilla Firefox: 15.82%
- Apple Safari: 3.28%
- Opera: 0.81%
- Netscape: 0.20%
Posted on July 21, 2006
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The Toolbar Wars Have Started
A News.com article says the battle for computer real estate has moved from the desktop to the web browser and major Internet companies are battling it out for the best toolbar positions.The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the companies are mulling a three-year partnership that could bring as much as $1 billion in revenue to the PC maker for letting Google install its software on Dell machines. The Dell representative declined to comment on the future of the relationship between the two companies. A Google representative confirmed the two companies were testing the search giant's products on new Dell PCs, but declined to comment further.It makes sense that the browser would be coveted real estate because many people have it open for hours a day. Getting people to download and install toolbars is not always easy so having them pre-installed is a big advantage. A big list of toolbars can be found here on Search Engine Watch. Yahoo has a smaller list here.
The browser, not the desktop, has become the most sought-after piece of real estate on a new PC, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. Five years ago, PC companies were giddy over the prospect of renting space on their boxes' desktops to the highest bidder, after Microsoft's antitrust settlement with the U.S. Justice Department forced it to open up the Windows desktop to increased competition.
Companies such as America Online and CompuServe rushed to get prominent placement for their dial-up services on new PCs, but the move didn't pay off as they had hoped. PC users simply ignored icons they didn't wish to use, or used cleanup programs to remove all icons from their desktops or start menus, Kay said. However, just about every PC user who's connected to the Internet uses the browser at least once a day, and browser toolbars that contain useful utilities such as Google's search engine will grab a user's attention, he said.
Posted on March 3, 2006
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Microsoft Releases IE 7 Beta 2 Preview
Microsoft has released the IE 7 Beta 2 Preview. The new browser includes increased security features including anti-phising and anti-spoofing technologies. It also includes tabbed browsing which was made popular by the Firefox browser and RSS management features. A post on the IEBlog discusses the favorites center in IE 7 that lets you navigate your favorites, feeds, and history from one place. Another post on the IEBlog discusses the new printing features available in IE 7. (via HowToWeb)Posted on February 6, 2006
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HelpFirefox.com Raises Money for Firefox
HostSearch.com reports that Loopia, a Swedish web hosting company, and Loopia's founder Sam Nurmi, have launched a website called HelpFirefox.com in a bid to raise money for the Firefox web browser. The website is based on the MillionDollarHomepage.com's pixel advertising concept. Apparently, it is working because a message on HelpFirefox.com reads:The first 24 hours of this site has been a true success, with more than 13 800 pixels being sold.ZDNet says the site crashed from heavy traffic.
We have to take down the site for now but we hope to be back as soon as possible.
Posted on January 16, 2006
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Firefox Did Not Quite Make 10%
It was a great year for the Firefox browser. However, Firefox fell just short of its goal to have 10% of the browser marketshare by the end of 2005 according to an InformationWeek news story.According to WebSideStory, a San Diego-based Web analytics provider, Mozilla's Firefox closed 2005 with 8.9 percent of the browser market, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer wrapped up the year with 87.6 percent.Firefox may have come up short simply because many websites are still not Firefox compatible. A Techworld article says there are still many sites that are Firefox incompatible.
Last week, NetApplications said that Firefox owned 9.6 percent of the market, and IE accounted for 85 percent.
"Despite making strong gains in 2005, Firefox did not meet its reported goal of 10 percent market share by year's end," said WebSideStory in a statement. "[But] although Mozilla didn't reach its intended goal, the browser still made significant strides over the last year."
Firefox may have ended 2005 with nearly 10 percent of total browser market share, but new users are in for a nasty shock, according to recent research, which claims one in 10 websites don't allow full access to Firefox users.If the popularity of Firefox keeps growing eventually some of the slower-to-convert sites will update their webpages to become Firefox compatible.
The research, from UK site testing firm SciVisum, was based on tests of 100 leading UK consumer websites. The firm found three percent turned away users of browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer, while another seven percent used code that could only be rendered in Explorer.
Posted on January 12, 2006
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Use of Firefox and Safari Growing
Macworld UK reports that use of alternative IE browsers like Firefox and Safari is climbing while use of Internet Explorer is falling.Safari has become the world's third most-used Web browser while Internet Explorer continues to lose its grip on the worldwide information superhighway.IE still retains a healthy 86% of the marketshare but Firefox has a lot of buzz from bloggers.
New research from Web analysis firm Market Share shows Safari with 2.78 per cent of the market, up from 1.56 per cent in December 2004.
The research also confirms the continued rise in popularity of the Firefox browser, now the world's second-ranking Web surfing tool with 8.84 per cent (from 4.64 per cent in December 2004).
Posted on December 6, 2005
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Firefox 1.5 Debuts
Firefox has announced the launch of Firefox 1.5. The new version promises to be faster, more secure and better at blocking pop-ups.
According to the non-profit Mozilla Foundation Latest News about Mozilla Foundaton, which distributes the open-source browser, Firefox 1.5 offers enhanced securityRelevant Products/Services from Microsoft and privacy Latest News about privacy features, improved pop-up blocking, faster load times and automatic update capability.Firefox generates some strong buzz in the blogosphere. The keyword Firefox has been one of the top five keywords on Technorati since the new release was announced.
"It's going to render your web pages faster, and the automatic update feature will make sure your browser is always up to date," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of products.
"As a user you will notice the difference with this new version."
Posted on December 1, 2005
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Flock Browser Works With Web Tools
Flock is a new open source browser that works in conjunction with popular Internet tools like del.icio.us and Flickr. Flock also works with several blogging tools to help websurfers post to their blogs. A recently Associated Press article discusses more of Flock's features.Flock also gives you a way to easily tag the online bookmarks to help with sorting and discovery. Instead of placing a link for a site on "Lost" in an arbitrary folder, you can tag it "television," "Lost," and even "ABC."Currently Flock is in what is being called a Developer Preview status which is aimed at developers only. It is not recommended for use as your primary browser yet according to Flock's faq.
You can use Flock's "favorites" manager to see only links carrying a certain tag, or you can search through other people's Del.icio.us collections by tag.
Flock also has a number of features meant to help people post to their Web journals, or blogs. A built-in word processor lets you submit entries directly to some of the leading blog services, including Six Apart Ltd.'s TypePad and Google Inc.'s Blogger.
If you come across something you like on the Internet, you can highlight the text, right-click your mouse and select "Blog This." The word processor launches, with the text and a link to the site already filled in. All you need to do is add some comment, a title and click "publish."
Posted on November 4, 2005
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Opera Browser Goes Ad-Free
TechNewsWorld reports that Opera has announced that they will no longer charge for an ad-free version of their browser. Web surfers can now download the ad-free full version of the Opera browser from the company's website for free.
Opera was previously available free of charge with an ad banner. Users had the option of paying a licensing fee to remove the ad banner and receive premium support.
The move comes just two weeks after the Norwegian company celebrated its 10th anniversary: On August 30, Opera gave away complimentary registration codes for its browser for 24 hours.
Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox told TechNewsWorld that the company had a fairly good response to its anniversary promotion. "The response to Opera's free offer was probably a catalyst in this position," he said. "It may have confirmed a strategy that the Opera folks were already thinking about."
Posted on September 21, 2005
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IE7 Will Be Feed Friendly
InternetNews.com reports that IE7 will be very feed friendly. A Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitch told InternetNews that IE7 will make it easy for people to find and use RSS and Atom feeds."Feeds are like a TiVo for the Internet," said Dean Hachamovitch, head of Microsoft's (Quote, Chart) IE7 team. "With RSS, subscribe replaces browse and search."Mozilla's Firefox browser already allows people to subscribe to feeds and automatically recognizes when a feed is available. Firefox displays an icon in the bottom right corner of the browser that lets people quickly subscribe to a blog or website's feed.
The new browser version, released in beta Aug. 3, makes it easy to find, preview and subscribe to feeds in the RSS or Atom formats. A 'feeds' button lets users determine whether a site offers such content. Clicking on the site's various feed buttons shows a preview of how the feed would look in the main browser window.
A search bar is integrated into the preview, so that users can identify how keywords and concepts are used within that content. Users subscribe to feeds by clicking their favorites button. Feed subscriptions are automatically placed in a special section within the favorites list.
Posted on August 22, 2005
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NTT Developing 3D Browser
Akihabara News reports that NTT Software Corporation will release a 3D web browser called the SpaceBrowser this October. The browser works with Windows XP and Windows 2000. You can see more about the browser on this translated Japanese page.Posted on August 18, 2005
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Firefox Loses Marketshare to Internet Explorer
Mozilla's Firefox browser gave a little back to Microsoft in July after months of grabbing marketshare from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Computerworld reports that a study by NetApplications found Firefox's browser marketshare fell from 8.71% to 8.07% while Internet Explorer's marketshare increased slightly.Last month, Internet Explorer, by far the most used browser, regained lost ground and pushed back the upstart Firefox for the first time since Version 1.0 of the open-source browser debuted late last year, according to NetApplications.com, an Aliso Viejo, Calif., maker of applications for monitoring and measuring Web site usage.Firefox starting gainging on Internet Explorer after IE faced repeated virus problems and Firefox released hot features like tabbed browsing and RSS tools.
Firefox's share shrunk to 8.07% from 8.71% in June, while Internet Explorer grew its market slice to 87.2% in July from 86.56% last month.
Posted on August 16, 2005
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Yahoo Browser?
The Denver Post reports that Yahoo chief executive Terry Semel indicated that a Yahoo browser might be possible someday:"You could look to Yahoo to do most everything that makes sense on the Internet going forward," Semel said in an interview in New York. Developing a browser may make sense "at some point in time," he said.There has been endless speculation about an upcoming Google browser but so far a Google browser has not been launched.
Posted on June 13, 2005
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Firefox Funny Campaign Creates Huge Traffic
Wired.com reports that Firefox's viral ad campaign called FunnyFox is really working. Firefox has had to add extra servers because of the large numbers of people who want to watch the video ads.The latest tactic for the 100,000 members of the Spread Firefox movement is to make commercials. Funnyfox, three humorous video clips showing web surfers using the browser for the first time, is the slickest contribution to date. Designed to be e-mailed to friends, the videos -- one of which shows a user's head falling off -- have proved so popular that extra servers had to be set up to cope with the load.
Posted on May 24, 2005
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Internet Explorer Getting Tabs
The IE tab browsing rumor has been confirmed by the IE Blog. IE7 will have tabs according to a post on the blog by Dean. Tab browsing is a popular feature in the Mozilla Firefox browser. Dean at IE Blog writes:The tabbed browsing experience in the upcoming IE7 beta is pretty basic. Expect additional end-user functionality to come in after the beta.(via Life Hacker)
You can browse with tabs with IE6 (and some earlier IE versions) today in a few different ways. Several third parties, like Maxthon, have built browser experiences with tabs on top of the IE platform. Several third parties have built toolbars to provide tabs within IE as well. MSN's recently released toolbar will also be providing support for tabs within IE when they update it in the coming months.
I think all of these are great! They demonstrate how extensible the IE platform is. They also provide tabbed browsing in IE on top of Windows versions (like Win98) that IE7 will not support.
Posted on May 16, 2005
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Mozilla Launches Camino Browser for Macs
The Mozilla Organization, the developers of the Firefox browser, have now launched an open-source browser called Camino for Mac users. Features include download manager, tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, keyboard codes and more. CNet's John Rizzo already has good things to say about the new rowser: "Camino offers top-notch performance, elegant tabbed browsing, and an easy way to view and hide histories and bookmarks." Posted on March 25, 2005
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The Return of Netscape?
Netscape has launched version 8.0, a beta test release of the once popular browser. MSNBC.com says the new browser is nothing like the old Nestcape and that it combines the best elements of Internet Explorer and Firefox. The browser offers Firefox's tabbed browsing and it enters into a green shield state when it recognizes a "safe" website and
runs more IE components. Netscape 8.0 also provides an
interesting multi-bar feature which condenses tool bars into single buttons. The MSNBC reviewer said the downside of the Netscape browser is it tends to focus on AOL content and web services and some third-party tools and plug-ins might not (yet) be compatible with Netscape 8.0.Posted on March 18, 2005
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Firefox Growth Slows
A study finds that the growth of Firefox has slowed since it grew rapidly after Microsoft's Internet Explorer was plagued with a series of security breaches and warnings. But Microsoft's browser dominance continues to fall despite the slowdown in Firefox growth. News.com reports that two recent browser tracking surveys found that people using Microsoft browsers had dropped below 90%. Firefox is around 4-5%, Netscape around 2% and the remained ias made up by Safari and Opera. The News.com article also discusses how browser usage varies in different countries.Posted on March 1, 2005
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Firefox 1.0.1 Released
Mozilla has released an updated edition of the Firefox browser. InternetNews.com reports that the latest browser version contains patches to stop spoofing and phising. The upgrade also contains fixes for over 40 browser glitches. Firefox continues to grab some of Internet Explorer's huge lead in the browser market.Posted on February 25, 2005
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