The team at Tom’s Hardware have run their latest head-to-head test of web browsers. All the leading browsers for the Mac and PC platforms were tested and included Opera, Firefox, Safari, IE 9 and Chrome. Coming out on top for the Mac platform was Apple’s own Safari browser, while Mozilla’s Firefox is currently the fastest browser available on the Windows platform.
Apple may be intentionally delaying the creation of a formal standard for how touchscreen devices interact with web content, claims Haavard, one of the developers behind the Opera web browser. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is currently at work on the standard, known as the Touch Events Specification. Apple, though, has allegedly submitted "invalid or irrelevant" patent claims in a way that is holding up the specification's progress.
Opera has released a milestone upgrade for the Windows version of its browser. Release 11.60 incorporates several enhancements to the user interface and improves performance (free, Windows). Key among these are a new email client, quicker access to favorite sites, improved Web compatibility, and faster, more secure connectivity.
Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have designed a device that can cut the power consumption of at least 3G smartphones up to 74 percent. The device serves as a network proxy that sits between the Internet and mobile phones. It handles most of the effort required to transfer data to a smartphone, potentially significantly reducing power consumption.
Canadian Wireless provider Telus will soon be offering the Motorola Motokey Social to its prepaid customers. As its name implies, the phone targets users with a strong interest in social networking, and incorporates a dedicated hard key to access Facebook much like the smartphone-level HTC Status. The UI provides five different home screens, two interface themes and built in links to Twitter in addition to Facebook; Opera Mini gives it slightly more sophisticated web browsing.
Opera has announced that its Mini and Mobile browsers have been updated on all platforms, including Android, iOS, S60, J2ME, BlackBerry, S60 and MeeGo. A data usage view is the primary new feature available on all devices, enabling users to take a quick look at how much data the browser has used and a comparison between the original page sizes and the savings due to Opera's compression technology.
Apple broke through a symbolic barrier at the start of September as a study of desktop market share from NetApplications revealed that it had broken through the six percent mark in desktop usage share for the first time. The Mac hit 6.03 percent in August and had gained nearly a full point over the course of one year. Although it had yet to dislodge Microsoft from its dominant spot, almost all the gain was at Windows' expense, as the OS dipped from nearly 94 percent last August to 92.9 percent.
One of Android's better-known apps, Dolphin Browser, has been given a long-requested port to the iPhone (free, App Store). The iOS version of MoboTap's software uses Apple's WebKit engine but brings features that have yet to reach Safari. It already has tabbed browsing ahead of iOS 5, a Firefox-style address bar with search results, and gesture-based shortcuts for common tasks.
Google had an unusual celebration Wednesday as it claimed that Skype 5.5 was now using the video format behind WebM, VP8. WebM Product Manager John Luther said that that any video chat between two or more users on 5.5 will switch over to VP8 for the stream. The format had been chosen in part because of its low lag in live situations and ability to gracefully handle lost data.
The MPEG-LA video group's attempts to find patent violations in WebM proved successful as the company late Thursday claimed that 12 companies and organizations had their technology infringed. The so far unnamed dozen said the VP8 video codec underlying Google's format copied technology used in H.264, the standard MPEG-LA supports. The collective was considering forming a patent pool to demand licenses, and MPEG-LA was "facilitating that discussion," CNET was told.
The web versions of Apple's WWDC 2011 session videos are being blocked for browsers outside of Safari, according to complaints. Both the stable and Canary versions of Chrome, for instance, are unable to access the videos. Similarly, neither Firefox nor Opera will work, regardless of whether the browsers are running on a Mac or Windows system.
Opera's creator Jon S. von Tetzchner surprised the industry on Friday with word he was leaving the company. The web browser developer is due to leave June 30 and will do so on friendly terms. He has made no public mention of why he will be leaving but currently has "ideas about new projects" that are being kept secret.
Opera started off Tuesday by launching a version of Opera Mini 6 for iOS (free, App Store). The major remake is the first to support the iPad and carries a new look to take advantage of the extra space. Apple's tablet now gets pop-overs for menus and a large visual tab browser that helps pick out tabs by content.
Nintendo in a Japanese update dated its launch plans for the browser and download store for the 3DS. Both the e-Shop for games and the browser are expected to go live the evening of June 6 in the US, just hours before Nintendo's E3 keynote. Not said was how it would work, such as whether classic console games would get any special treatment on the 3DS.
The WebM Project took a defensive measure on Monday with the creation of the WebM Community Cross-License. The approach will see 17 companies and groups give licenses to any WebM-related patents they have to other CCL members. Google, Matroska, and Xiph.org form the core but are joined by AMD, Cisco, Huawei, LG, Logitech, MIPS, Mozilla, Opera, Pantech, Quanta, Samsung, STMicro, TI, and Verisilicon.
YouTube in an update Tuesday afternoon said it was now encoding all new videos in its in-house WebM standard. The format would let viewers using new versions of Chrome as well as Firefox and Opera see video in HTML5 using the open format. Videos would still be playable in the H.264 format and the original Flash containers.
Opera took its own turn at revamping its browser by launching Opera 11.10. The upgrade has a new version of its distinctive Turbo compressed browsing mode and is now about 15 percent faster than it was before. The shift comes in part both through deeper compression and the use of Google's WebP picture format, which itself is about 40 percent more efficient than usual JPEGs and similar images.
The Opera Mini browser has finally returned to smartphone app store GetJar, after several weeks of absence due to a competitive conflict. The reason for GetJar's turnaround remains unclear, although the company originally cited the embedded app store in Opera Mini as a violation of its terms of service and the primary reason for rejection.
Microsoft has staked an interesting claim regarding Internet Explorer 9, essentially labeling it the greenest browser. In an IEBlog post, the company graphed results from power consumption tests using IE9, Chrome 10, Firefox 4, Opera 11 and Safari 5. The first three browsers showed close numbers on an idle system, however IE9 achieved the lowest wattage when visiting a news site and running HTML5 applications.
As promised earlier, Microsoft at midnight Eastern (9PM Pacific) should post the finished version of Internet Explorer 9 on its download page. The Windows browser brings a much improved engine with genuine web accuracy, faster JavaScript, hardware acceleration, and support for most current forms of HTML5. A new, minimalist interface, support for pinning sites to the Windows 7 taskbar, and detailed control of what sites are allowed to track cookies and other private info are also included.
The app store for virtually all smartphone platforms that is GetJar on Wednesday announced it has rejected the Opera Mini web browser from its offerings. Citing a competitive conflict, GetJar CMO Patrick Mork, explained that Opera Mini has an app store embedded in its browser. This was after the company posted a tweet that stated Opera Mini violated GetJar's terms and conditions.
Net Applications said it was forced to rework its Internet market share figures on Tuesday after the CIA updated its Internet usage to better reflect worldwide computer use. The surge in Chinese users relative to the US meant that alternatives to Microsoft lost share in February. Firefox had not only been "over-reported" and dropped a full point to 21.74 percent, but Internet Explorer made an artificial jump from exactly 56 percent to 56.77 percent, its first market share gain in half a year.
Google's WebM video standard came under renewed threat on Thursday with an MPEG-LA request. The video standards group is asking members for any instances in which a company believes one of the VP8 format patents behind WebM might have violated its patents. It hopes to streamline creating a joint license that it could offer for "essential" patents.
Mobile Apple hardware reached a milestone today as new findings showed iOS cracking two percent share of the web for the first time. The iPad, iPhone and iPod reached 2.06 percent of Net Applications' traffic study worldwide and were in even higher use in certain areas. In English-native and other more mobile-driven countries, the share was disproportionately higher, ranging from 3.4 percent in the US to almost 10 percent in Singapore.
Sony and Opera, the web browser traditionally associated with mobile devices, have teamed up on a scheme to put the latter's software onto the former's Bravia HDTVs and Blu-ray players. The network-connected hardware would support some fledling Internet standards as a result, such as HTML5, HbbTV and OIPF. At the same time, it would offer users an option other than the Google TV platform that's being embedded into some Sony hardware.
Google in a defense of its decision to pull H.264 from Chrome's HTML5 revealed that it will put out WebM plugins for Internet Explorer 9 and Safari. Expecting no official support from Apple or Microsoft, Google plans to develop extensions that would load its self-owned video codec. No timetable was given.
Microsoft Client Platform team member Tim Sneath jabbed Google for its decision to drop H.264 support in HTML5 for Chrome in favor of WebM. He compared it to a country deciding to drop English as a language in favor of artificial languages like Esperanto and Klingon. The remarks pointed out the irony of claiming to promote openness and choice by artificially removing the most practical, popular option.
In a short video, Opera announced on its blog that it will demo the new Opera for Tablets at CES 2011. The video shows the browser running on the Samsung Galaxy Tab and highlights its scrolling and zooming functions. The video did not clarify whether Opera for Tablets would be available solely as a download, such as Opera Mini for iOS (App Store) and Mobile for Android, or if it would also be customized and embedded in yet-to-be specified tablet devices.
Adobe, Apple, HTC and several other corporations are being sued over a basic interface command, court documents show. The plaintiff, Hopewell Culture and Design, accuses other firms of violating a patent titled Double-Clicking a Point-and-Click User Interface Apparatus to Enable a New Interaction with Content represented by an Active Visual Display Element. While seemingly covering a fundamental, long-used interface trope, the patent -- first filed for by Actify in 2002 -- suggests that double-clicking had previously "not been used to effect user input to a Web browser that uniquely corresponds to the double-click input."
The Opera 11 browser has now exited its short-lived beta stage, and offers tab stacking, among other new features. The functionality, highlighted earlier, lets tabs be created simply by clicking and dragging. Other changes include a clearer safe address bar, about 200 extensions and extra translation options.
Opera announced the availability of a beta for Opera 11, which most significantly supports tab stacking. An open tab management feature, it lets users stack their tabs, grouping them by site or by theme. The process is easy and involves dragging one tab on top of another.
Opera has announced that its Opera Mobile 10.1 web browser beta is available for download. The revised browser loads pages more quickly courtesy of Opera Turbo, its server side data compression service that pre-compresses popular sites by up to 80 percent. Also enhanced are the multi-touch functions such as panning, scrolling, and zooming in order to make the experience more fluid. The new tabbed browsing experience, called Opera Presto, provides a visual tab experience.
The Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) founded earlier this year has just aggregated 32 new members. The newcomers include Opera Software, Oracel, Fujitsu, Rogers and China Unicom, among others, joining the original 24 companies such as LG, Samsung, Telefonica and Orange. The goal of the alliance is to create a common, global app store that will offer software for multiple platforms and devices.
Opera has announced that it is releasing a full Opera Mobile web browser for Android within the next month. It will be made compatible with all versions of Android, and optimizes the user experience by employing hardware acceleration and pinch-to-zoom. In current versions of Opera for mobile devices, the zoom function is limited to two levels which is a limitation that has been removed for the new Android version.
Toshiba after months of teases confirmed its launch into the mobile tablet space through the Folio 100. The 10-inch tablet runs a heavily modified version of Android 2.2 and is one of the first major shipping devices to use NVIDIA's Tegra 2. The dual-core ARM chip is powerful enough to play 1080p over a mini HDMI output but is still efficient enough to give the tablet a meaningful, if short, seven hours of battery life.
Toshiba's previously leaked out Folio 100 tablet was confirmed today with a sighting at the company's IFA booth. The Android 2.2 tablet didn't have a specification sheet attached in Pocket-lint's viewing time but was clearly running a heavily customized front end with large buttons for Flickr photos, DailyMotion videos and 7digital's music service. Toshiba Places, also mentioned, may either be a social network or a name for some or all of its interface.
Toshiba's Android tablet has been given a more definitive name and specs in a scoop that points to an Apple influence. Now labeled by Notebook Italia as the Folio 100, the device not only has a proprietary Apple-style dock connector but a similar cradle to match. Toshiba will also try ot take a cue by running its own store, Toshiba Marketplace, as a supplement to Android Market.
The launch of the iPhone 4 triggered the single largest increase in the iPhone's web share since it launched, Net Applications said today. Use of iPhones jumped from 0.59 percent in June to 0.7 percent in July, or an 18.6 increase in the number of owners in just one month. The growth rate also debunked some beliefs about Android as Google's OS grew at just half the pace.
Opera today claimed a handful of records by launching Opera 10.6. It now tries to regain the title of the fastest browser as its JavaScript engine should be about 50 percent faster than the already quick 10.5. The app is equally the first polished browser to support the controversial WebM video standard in HTML5 and recognizes other new HTML5 features, such as geolocation and web app caching.
Months in development, Adobe has finally released Flash Player 10.1, a major update of its web media plugin. The software makes a host of changes, most notably the inclusion of GPU hardware acceleration, which can speed up rendering of overlays, filters and other effects. Developers can also use 3D effects, and custom real-time ones created with Pixel Bender.
The first Android-powered handset offered under a prepaid pricing scheme has shipped thanks to the the Motorola i1 from Boost Mobile. The push-to-talk handset will be offered with Boost Mobile's Monthly Unlimited service, which talk, text and data for $50 per month. The i1 gets a 5-megapixel camera and a 3.1-inch display, with the new Opera Mini 5 web browser preloaded.
The iPhone has become the third most popular platform for Opera Mini in just a matter of weeks, Opera found today. Over 2.6 million Apple devices downloaded and used the browser in its first two weeks of presence on the App Store. The popularity was enough to make the iPhone the most popular Opera device in the US, toppling the BlackBerry line, and fifth in the UK.
Nokia and Opera have both committed to backing Adobe amid Apple's bashing of Flash technology, according to a Reuters report. Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner, speaking at the Open Mobile Summit in London, acknowledged that his company will support Flash with its own mobile browsers.
The primarily Google-led WebM group will likely still have to pay royalties, the MPEG-LA group's CEO Larry Horn said late Thursday. In spite of Google insisting WebM was patent- and royalty-free, the video standards group is assembling a patent pool that would let it ask for royalties for WebM and other standards. The costs would leave little reason to adopt the standard for HTML5 movies over H.264 and could result in lawsuits against Google, Mozilla, Opera or others who don't pay.
Apple chief Steve Jobs signaled his own doubts about using the new WebM format for HTML5 video. When asked about his thoughts by UK developer Kris Bloe, Jobs simply posted a link to a recent teardown of WebM that challenged not just its features but its legality. WebM's VP8 video codec bears a strong resemblance to H.264 and may violate multiple patents.
The new WebM codec shown at the Google I/O day 1 keynote may run afoul of patents, according to an early analysis. Although pitched as a royalty-free HTML5 video standard using a combination of VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis, x264 developer Jason Garrett-Glaser notes that some of the implementations in the now Google-supported format are copied not just from On2's original creation but appear to be directly patterned after H.264, making it entirely possible that WebM violates patents. It resembles an only slightly improved version of the H.264 Baseline Profile and so could invite lawsuits from the MPEG-LA standards group for anyone that uses it.
Mozilla director Mike Beltzner has proposed a major reworking of Firefox in time for 4.0. The browser would get a major interface redesign with a "tabs on top" design somewhat like Chrome, simplified settings and pop-ups, and multi-touch. The renderer would get a lift through at least some HTML5 and CSS3 support, and geolocation could be built-in for any OS that can feed position data into the browser.
Opera involved itself in the debate over Flash today by criticizing Adobe for its long-term stance. Product analyst Phillip Grønvold said that browsers like Opera Mini still need to support Flash but that this will likely have to change. Flash is well-suited to "dynamic content" but is inefficient as a video wrapper because of the demands it puts on a device's resources.
Internet Explorer has dropped below a 60 percent share of web traffic for the first time, Net Applications found in its latest study. Microsoft's browser dropped to 59.95 percent of web use in April after Google Chrome leapt half a point ahead to 6.73 percent in the same timeframe. Firefox and Safari also ate into Internet Explorer's share with small gains that put them at 24.59 percent and 4.72 percent each.
Opera has posted a new Mac version, v10.52, of its self-named desktop web browser. The release is the first non-beta update for the Mac since v10.10, and is claimed to be over 10 times faster than its predecessor. This can be attributed in part to an updated JavaScript engine, Carakan, and an updated graphics library, Vega.
