10/30, 11:10am
Neglected browser approaches major update
Mozilla has posted a first release candidate for Camino 2.0, the next major edition of the company's Mac-focused web browser. RC1 makes relatively few changes compared to previous betas, but it does enable new AppleScript abilities, improved Full Keyboard Access support and per-site whitelisting or blacklisting of Flash. More significant may be an upgrade to the Gecko 1.9.0 engine, which includes bugfixes, better treatment of plug-ins and greater standards support, for instance through the use of JavaScript 1.8.
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10/28, 11:00am
Cuts off theoretical attacks
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.4, a minor but still significant update to its multi-platform web browser. The patch fixes 16 vulnerabilities, 11 of which are said to be critical. Among these are problems with third-party media libraries, the core and JavaScript engines, web worker calls, the GIF color map parser and the string-to-number converter.
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10/16, 1:00pm
Draws fire from Mozilla designer
Apple's Safari browser may occupy too central position in upcoming European versions of Windows, critics say. Users should soon be presented with a special browser ballot, explaining what web browsers are, and more crucially offering a choice of apps beyond Internet Explorer. The feature comes as a result of pressure from the European Commission, which has accused Microsoft of hampering competition by bundling IE with Windows, forcing developers to design for it and potentially limit their innovation.
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10/09, 12:20pm
Timeframe suggests accelerated development
The Mac version of Chrome should be released before Christmas this year, suggests Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The executive made the revelation at a New York press conference, in the middle of answering a question about the browser's overall marketshare. Chrome's share has been disparaged by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who recently called the browser "a rounding error." Microsoft's Internet Explorer remains the dominant web browser worldwide.
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09/07, 10:30am
May close some common vulnerabilities
Beginning with two Tuesday updates, all future iterations of Mozilla's Firefox browser will check for at least some outdated plug-ins, the company has announced. Firefox 3.5.3 and 3.0.14 will both scan for the latest version of Flash, prompting users to visit a link where an updated plug-in can be downloaded. "For now, our focus is on the Adobe Flash Player both because of its popularity and because some studies have shown that as many as 80 percent of users currently have an out-of-date version," says Firefox security team member Johnathan Nightingale.
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08/10, 10:10am
Firefox 3.6 alpha debuts
Mozilla has published the first alpha preview of Firefox 3.6. The upcoming release is codenamed Namoroka, and in its completed form should represent an intermediate step towards Firefox 3.7, a major browser upgrade expected sometime in 2010. The v3.6 alpha nevertheless includes several important changes, such as a new Gecko rendering engine, upgraded to v1.9.2.
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08/05, 1:25pm
Firefox 3.5.2 update
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.2, updating its multi-platform web browser. A key fix in the release aids photographers, illustrators and other graphics professionals, by now properly rendering images with ICC profiles on all monitors. Such profiles are used to define color spaces, ensuring that the colors depicted on a display are those intended.
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07/08, 4:45pm
Safari 4.0.2 update
Apple has posted the v4.0.2 update to Safari, its Mac and Windows web browser. The patch implements a relative handful of changes, primarily upgrading the Nitro engine to include new security and compatibility fixes. Nitro is responsible for JavaScript rendering, and is thus linked with many speed improvements over Safari 3.
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07/03, 9:55am
Post-Firefox 3.5 patch
Having just released Firefox 3.5 on Tuesday, Mozilla is already developing a minor troubleshooting update. The company says it expects Firefox 3.5.1 to be released in mid-to-late July, fixing three bugs and "topcrashes," referring to the most common crashes experienced by users. "[The] goal of this release should be a quick turnaround that fixes topcrashes and bugs we almost held ship for," a note states.
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07/01, 9:20pm
FireFox hidden gestures
MacMagazine has released a tutorial on how to enable multi-touch gestures in Firefox 3.5. The gestures allow users to alternate tabs via twisting. By opening a new window or tab in FireFox and typing “about:config” into the address bar, users can gain access to a filter list; in some cases a warning message may pop-up when loading the filter list. Users then search for “browser.gesture” within the filter search bar, in order to get a full list of settings which consists of controls and gestures.
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06/12, 10:25am
11M Safari 4 downloads
Over 11 million copies of the final version of Safari 4 have been downloaded in a space of three days, Apple claims. The software became available for Macs and PCs on Monday, following Apple's WWDC keynote. Prior to the keynote, a beta version of the web browser had been available since February. It is not known how many downloads of the beta were recorded.
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06/08, 2:00pm
Safari 4 official release
Apple today announced the official release of Safari 4. A public beta version of the web browser has been available for several months, and introduced the Top Sites feature, along with a slightly modified interface. The official release has refined problems users reported with the beta, and also includes several new enhancements. Safari 4 is one of the few browsers to score 100/100 on the Acid test, and Apple also claims to have upped the browser's Javascript performance by 50 percent, arguing that Safari 4 is now 7.8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8.
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06/05, 11:30am
Early Chrome for Mac build
Google has begun distributing a very early build of Chrome for the Mac. The company warns that the browser -- still in developer channels -- remains very unstable, and may exhibit behaviors such as crashes. The software is moreover missing many basic features, such as the ability to print, change privacy settings or even load Flash videos from sites like YouTube.
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04/28, 3:30pm
Firefox 3.0.10 update
Only days after the release of v3.0.9, Mozilla has posted a another update for Firefox, bringing the web browser to v3.0.10. The update is mainly intended to fix a "major stability issue," but also fixes a security flaw related to the @nsTextFrame::ClearTextRun() command. It is available as a 1.5MB download through the Firefox auto-updater, or else from the Mozilla website.
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04/23, 11:15am
Firefox 3.0.9 update
Mozilla has posted the v3.0.9 update to Firefox, its multi-platform web browser. The patch is mainly said to address "several" security and stability problems. Also fixed though is a recurring problem with database corruption, which would previously prevent Firefox from accessing stored cookies.
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04/13, 7:10pm
CoolIris updates plugin
CoolIris has updated its plug-in that is designed to improve the way web browsers display pictures, video and other digital content. The new version offers enhanced support for Facebook galleries, new ease-of-use improvements and options to add metadata to photos and videos. For the first time, users can also display images stored on their hard drives.
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03/10, 10:25am
Firefox 3.1 becomes 3.5
The next major update for Firefox, v3.1, will instead become v3.5, says Mozilla's director for the browser, Mike Beltzner. Developers have allegedly complained that the v3.1 designation does not reflect the number of changes in the browser, which is already at v3.0.7 and yet missing components key to the former v3.1. Central is the addition of TraceMonkey, an engine which allows native code compilation within Mozilla's JavaScript technology.
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03/05, 10:50am
Stainless 0.5 browser
Mesa Dynamics has released what it calls a "significant" update to its proprietary web browser, Stainless. The app is now being developed as a full product rather than a technology demo, and predominantly features separate processes for each tab, as in Google's Chrome software. The scheme can dramatically increase speed and memory efficiency while browsing, as well as stability.
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02/24, 9:45am
Apple posts Safari 4 beta
Apple has released a public beta version of Safari 4, its next web browser. The software introduces a number of new features, most notably the Nitro engine, which is claimed to run JavaScript functions 4.2 times faster Safari 3. The browser additionally incorporates HTML 5 support, which allows offline storage of web application data, and CSS 3 styles, which can incorporate gradients, reflections and precision masks.
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02/16, 4:05pm
Custom Chrome for Mac
A primitive Mac version of Google's Chrome browser has been compiled by an independent coder and released to the public. The build, number 9780, is actually based on the development Chromium version of the Mac browser, which is still in a early state and may not produce a formal Mac version of Chrome until as late as June. The custom build is nevertheless said to add working links, and be less than 50ms slower than a recent WebKit nightly build.
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02/13, 12:25pm
Mac Chrome in early phases
The Mac version of Google's Chrome web browser continues to make progress, but at a slow speed, one of its developers hints. Work during the past couple of months is said to have mostly revolved around basic layout tests and WebKit compatibility, and only recently progressed to developing the interface. Links remain non-functional, and renderers are said to regularly crash.
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02/09, 1:10pm
Mozilla joins EU vs. MS
Mozilla is throwing its support behind a European Commission ruling on bundling Microsoft's Internet Explorer with Windows, according to the company's CEO. Microsoft received a Statement of Objection from the Commission last month, accusing it of violating European competition laws. The action was initially sparked by a complaint from Opera, which produces third-party web browsers. Mozilla itself develops the Firefox browser.
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02/05, 3:40pm
Firefox 3.1 optimization
Mac owners searching for a faster version of Firefox may be able to turn to a custom-developed build, an independent coder claims. While the current official build of the web browser is v3.0.6, Mozilla is presently seeding a beta of v3.1, sometimes known as Shiretoko. The Mac beta is said to be unoptimized for Intel processors however, which has led to Chris Latko's creation of a custom version under open-source rules.
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02/05, 10:10am
Firefox 3.0.6 update
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.0.6, an update to its popular web browser. The company claims to have resolved several security issues, as well as stability problems which triggered crashes. Some security fixes include preventing people from changing a form input control's type during the restoration of a closed tab, which could be used in altering the input type to steal the content of a user’s local file. Also blocked is a Chrome XBL method that could be used with window.eval to execute JavaScript.
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01/27, 3:10pm
Alternate iPhone browsers
Recently-introduced "alternative" browsers for the iPhone are mostly weak, and not truly separate from Safari, reports allege. Though Incognito
is said to be useful for its ability to privatize browsing information, it along with browsers like Squeaky, WebMate
and Shaking Web
are said to be simple extensions of Safari, with one or two unique features sometimes coming at the expense of core aspects like bookmarks. The only major free title, Edge Browser, is in fact said to lack forward and back buttons.
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01/14, 9:25am
3rd-party iPhone browsers
A slate of new third-party web browsers has unexpectedly appeared at the App Store, reports indicate. The browsers were all published within a short space of time, and include titles such as the 99-cent WebMate, which queues up multiple links without switching to them, and the $1.99 Incognito, which deliberately omits any history tracking. Apple has not made any special notice of the software's existence.
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01/13, 10:10am
Safari RSS vulnerability
A vulnerability in both the Mac and Windows versions of Safari may present serious privacy concerns, says coder Brian Mastenbrook. The problem, said to have been confirmed by Apple, is specifically related to the application's built-in RSS reader, which may be exploitable to read the contents of a person's hard drive. The exploit is triggerable by visiting a malicious website, and could in theory allow access to items like e-mail and passwords.
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01/02, 11:45am
Safari use rises in Dec.
Minority browsers grew in popularity again during the month of December, according to tracking figures from Net Applications. Marketshare for Mozilla's Firefox reached 21.34 percent, up from 20.78 percent in November; Apple's Safari jumped from 7.13 to 7.93 percent, and Google's new, Windows-only Chrome browser shifted from 0.83 to 1.04 percent. This marks the first time the software has been over the 1 percent mark.
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12/30, 2:25pm
iPhone use during Xmas
Adding to recent iPod figures, new data suggests that the iPhone sold well throughout the Christmas shopping season as well. During the week of Christmas, iPhone browser share is said to have risen 35.7 percent over the week before, reaching 0.57 percent of all browser use. This figure is also more than 50 percent higher than the average iPhone share in November, which was 0.37 percent.
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12/15, 4:55pm
Highbrow for Mac
Helium Foot Software has announced Highbrow, a browser management utility for Macs. Allowing users to switch between web browsers at a whim, the program presents three main options: choosing a preferred browser, the most recently-opened one, or manual selection. Highbrow provides a small menu on the Menu Bar that enables users to simply click on a browser of choice and surf the web, without having to adjust preferences in an individual browser.
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12/10, 3:50pm
Firefox 3.1 B2 adds touch
A newer beta version of Firefox adds multi-touch support, Mozilla has announced. For owners of MacBooks with multi-touch trackpads -- new and old -- Firefox 3.1 beta 2 includes a variety of supported gestures, mainly swipes. Swiping left and right with three fingers will move forward and backward through a browser's history, while swiping up and down will jump to the beginning or end of a page.
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10/30, 4:35pm
No Opera Mini for iPhone
iPhone owners should not expect to see the Opera web browser on the device anytime soon, says Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, CEO of the company. Von Tetzschner notes that while engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini for iPhones, Apple is blocking release through the App Store, due its competition with the built-in Safari browser. Opera Mini is used frequently on other smartphones, and speeds up mobile browsing by delivering stripped-down versions of websites.
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10/15, 10:10am
Flock 2.0 browser released
The developers of Flock have announced v2.0 of the browser, which is launching today across multiple platforms. Flock is oriented towards social networking sites, and thus has built-in functions for sites such as Digg, Flickr and Twitter. The second edition adds support for MySpace through the MySpace Data Availability platform, which lets users track contacts via the People Sidebar, and browse or share photos, links and videos.
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10/15, 9:15am
Firefox 3.1 beta 1 posted
Mozilla has posted the first beta of Firefox 3.1, a major update to the group's multi-platform browser. This release is said to be a test of v3.1's new features, which include web standards improvements within the Gecko engine, support for CSS 2.1 and 3 styles, and a variety of new technologies, including offline applications, geolocation, SVG transforms and JavaScript query selectors. Site coders should now be able to use the "video" and "audio" elements.
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10/10, 4:45pm
ChunkIt web search tool
TigerLogic has unveiled ChunkIt!, a tool for searching "behind the links" in Google searches or on any other web page. The application automatically scans the links on a page, and fetches information from them that might be valuable to filtering by relevance, without actually navigating to each site. When shopping sites are browsed, keywords are highlighted in item descriptions; research sites -- including LexisNexis, JSTOR, ScienceDirect and Wikipedia -- can all be previewed through the software.
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10/08, 10:55am
Opera updated to 9.6
Opera Software has released the latest version of its web browser, Opera 9.6. The update enhances the performance of Opera's built-in e-mail client, and also adds new features to Opera Link, a free browser synchronization service. Opera Link now lets people synchronize custom search engines and typed history, meaning visited websites will be available across all of a user's computers. A new feed preview has been added as well, permitting users to see RSS feeds before subscribing to them or creating bookmarks.
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09/26, 11:25am
WebKit gets perfect score
Maciej Stachowiak, of the WebKit development team, has announced that a version of the engine underlying Apple's Safari browser has become the first to fully pass the Acid3 test, including the smooth animation rendering test. Acid3 is a test page that scores how well a rendering engine follows defined web standards, including DOM and JavaScript. The test provides a metric for comparing different engines, and has pushed developers to work towards better performance.
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09/25, 11:15am
Mozilla, Apple fix exploit
Crash errors in Mozilla's Firefox browser have been fixed with help from Apple, the organization says. Bugs in earlier versions of Firefox 3 were said to have been crashing the software, sometimes generating memory corruption at the same time; Mozilla comments that while no threats have emerged, the potential existed for launching arbitrary code, such as malware. Two of these bugs -- found in the image rendering code -- were discovered by Drew Yao of Apple Product Security.
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09/25, 10:40am
Apple Safari patents
Newly-published patent applications may point to enhancements in Safari 4 or other versions of Apple's web browser. Originally submitted earlier this year, the filings depict two different browser-based technologies, beginning with the concept of a visual history. Apple notes that most browsers display history as a straight list of pages, something which may be "confusing." The company also comments that relying on forward and back buttons can be "cumbersome," and that histories may incorporate files not meant for web browsers.
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09/19, 1:25pm
SquirrelFish Extreme debut
The team behind WebKit -- the rendering code used in browsers like Chrome and Safari -- says it has developed a dramatically faster version of its JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish. SquirrelFish Extreme is said to use four different technologies, such as bytecode-level optimizations, that together contribute to performance more than twice that of the current engine or 10 times the level in Safari 3.0. Speed is expected to increase as Extreme development progresses.
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09/17, 11:40am
Chrome vs. Safari
Google's Chrome browser is not displacing Apple's Safari software as it continues to gain marketshare, says Net Applications. The company has posted tracking results for the second week following Chrome's release, which show an increase in use from an initial 0.67 percent to 0.85, based on data collected from some 40,000 websites. This has come at the expense of several competing browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.
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09/12, 3:00pm
Webbla updated to 1.1
Celmaro has released a v1.1 update to its visual management system for bookmarks, Webbla. The software creates webpage thumbnails for each bookmark, and allows personalized organization. The patch focuses on adding support for more web browsers, along with a feature that searches and filters website content. Bookmarks can now be added or modified directly within Camino, Firefox, Omniweb, Opera and Safari, all with user-definable shortcuts. Webbla 1.1 can be downloaded as a 15-day trial, or purchased with a single-user license for $15.
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09/04, 4:35pm
Brin on Chrome for Mac
The Mac version of Google's Chrome web browser should arrive in "a matter of months," says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. The executive, interviewed by Wall Street Journal writer Kara Swisher, claims it is "embarassing" that a Mac version is not already out, since both he and Swisher use Macs. To cope with the situation, Brin says he is relying on virtualization software from VMware. At present Chrome runs only on Windows.
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09/04, 12:10pm
Chrome EULA, security
Google's newly-launched Chrome browser -- currently Windows-only but expected to launch soon for Mac and Linux -- is already taking some serious criticism, according to various groups. An initial concern was Google's end-user license agreement (EULA), which effectively claimed the right to use anything posted online via the browser, raising issues of both privacy and intellectual property. This language was actually a mistake, Google now claims.
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09/02, 11:45am
iPhone browser share up
Browser marketshare for the iPhone has been driven up 58 percent between July and August, according to CNET and reports from Net Applications. This should be welcome news for Apple, as browser usage had hit a plateau over the summer before the upgraded phone was released. Since that point, usage has surged dramatically.
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08/21, 11:15am
MobileMe browser security
Apple's MobileMe service is lacking in a useful security measure, a new report suggests. Observers note that while the web component's login process is encrypted, it does not appear to use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or any other type of encryption when actually sending data. Theoretically, this means that a hacker sharing the same Wi-Fi hotspot could intercept data a person is sending via their web browser.
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08/20, 9:30am
iPhone 3G & browser share
The iPhone is currently maintaining a steady growth in its browser share, figures provided by Net Applications show. Although its share of the browser marketplace actually decreased slightly in the weeks before the release of the iPhone 3G, since the July 11th launch, these numbers have been on a continual increase, and surpassed June levels within less than a month. The last reported figures, from August 18th, show a share of 0.23 percent.
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08/19, 4:35pm
Cooliris 1.8 update
Cooliris has released an update to its self-titled browser extension, bringing it to v1.8. Formerly known as PicLens, the plug-in lets users access more elaborate, full-screen galleries of images and videos on a website, presented in a "3D Wall" view that lets users rapidly scroll through dozens or hundreds of images. A site must be Cooliris-enabled for the technology to work, but some supporting sites include Google, YouTube and Facebook.
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07/17, 4:35pm
Firefox 2 and 3 updates
In an unusual move, Mozilla has released updates to two versions of its Firefox web browser. The current browser has been updated to v3.0.1, while its otherwise outdated predecessor has been updated to 2.0.0.16. One of the reasons for the patching is a remedy to a potential "carpet bomb" attack against Windows users, who must have both Safari and Firefox installed on the same computer. The attack also requires that a person actually have Firefox closed, while still running another online application. Having even the unpatched browser up and active will prevent any intrusions.
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07/02, 10:45am
Safari share vs. security
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.
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