July 2 - 10:45am EDT   Apple's Safari web browser remains in third place in terms of adoption, a new study reveals. According to results from the middle of June, Safari usage accounts for approximately 3.4 percent of the market, at 48 million daily users. Mozilla's Firefox is in second place with 227 million users (16.1 percent), while Microsoft's Internet Explorer is by far dominant, with 1.1 billion users (78.3 percent). The only major browser below Safari is Opera, which has 11 million users, or just 0.8 percent. [full story]

June 12 - 3:35pm EDT   Beating FIrefox to the punch, Opera Software today released version 9.5 of it’s multi-platform web browser. Opera says the free surfing tool is the first “publicly available browser to protect you from malicious software on the web,” defending against malware and phishing. Opera 9.5 is a significant rework from earlier versions with a host of new features and speed improvements, the company said. [full story]

April 11 - 3:25pm EDT   Continuing a string of research on the cellphone industry, ABI Research today said in a new report that it expects the use of mobile webbrowsers to grow ten times its size in the next five years. The analysis firm estimates that 76 million copies of browsers were in use by the end of 2007 but that this should grow to 700 million by 2013. The surge is credited to a surge in smartphone use, which is expected to bring full web browsing as well as a greater number of mobile-oriented websites. [full story]

March 19 - 9:40am EDT   Helio today revealed that the Ocean would be the first cellphone to have free access to Opera Mini. The update gives the dual-mode slider phone browsing that more closely resembles desktops rather than the basic WAP browsing it had used before; as with Apple's mobile Safari, users can see a zoomed-out version of the full, accurately rendered page and then zoom in to focus on specific articles. Opera's unique remote caching approach also helps make the most of the Ocean's 3G connection by cutting down on load times. [full story]

February 13 - 3:00pm EST   Archos will be one of the first to provide a dedicated portable media player with cellular Internet access, the company has revealed during this week's Mobile World Congress show. While short on information, the news indicates that at least one device in Archos' next generation of players will include 3G or better services that allows it to connect to the Internet anywhere it can receive an appropriate signal from a cell tower. The feature should provide extended access to the web through the Opera web browser included with the company's higher-end players. [full story]

February 5 - 11:10am EST   Opera today rolled out its self-titled Opera Mobile 9.5, the latest version of its browser for smartphones. The new version is built around Opera's in-house Presto web renderer and now offers panning and zooming, giving viewers an iPhone-like ability to either view a page at full size or center on content for a clearer look. The update is also said to draw sites much faster than before: even complex sites with AJAX and other Web 2.0 technologies render quickly and accurately, Opera says. Support for Flash Lite 3 also provides support for MySpace, YouTube, and other sites that are heavily dependent on Flash audio or video. [full story]

January 2 - 4:25pm EST   Sheep Systems today released Bookdog 5, an update to the bookmark management utility that adds integration with del.icio.us bookmarks alongside a new user interface and support for the new release of Netscape Navigator. Bookdog allows users to sort, import/export, migrate, and verify bookmark collections in Safari, Firefox 1-2.x, Camino, Google Bookmarks, del.icio.us, OmniWeb, Opera, Shiira 2.x, and Netscape Navigator. Bookdog 5 is priced at $20 for a 2-Mac license with one year of upgrades, and requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later for basic functionality. Mac OS X 10.4 or later is required for some features, such as del.icio.us support. [full story]

December 13 - 8:45am EST   Browser developer Opera today announced that it has filed a formal complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission. Along with unnamed industry supporters, Opera has alleged that the Windows developer continues to abuse its monopoly in operating systems by tying Internet Explorer to Windows as well as consciously ignoring calls for the browser to use certain widespread web standards. The complaint would have Microsoft unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and force the Redmond, Washington-based firm to render sites according to common web practices, ensuring that pages have a consistent look regardless of the browser. [full story]