Google Chrome is now 2 years old and has already hit version 6. That’s a much faster release cycle then any other browser out there.
Google chrome 6 brings extension sync to the masses, as well as a boat load of security and memory corruption bug fixes.
Personally I think Google Chrome is great but Google release cycle of a new version every 6 weeks means we could easily hit version 15 before IE9.
Google has yet to fix (or deal with) memory issues resulting from flash (high memory usage compared to Firefox/IE), and Java issues (Pogo still doesn’t work…).
Google chrome has a 7% market share so it’s not as popular as Firefox but it is dwarfed still by Internet Explorer.
I’ve personally used Google Chrome for a while but since my laptop only has 1GB memory I cant use a browser that uses that much memory (Safari is like that too), that’s why I use FireFox because it uses by far the least memory.
Browser tabs where a godsend when they where first designed, now its seen all over, but they can be improved. With more than 12 tabs you run out of “space” and have to scroll the tabs.
This is where Firefox Tab Candy comes in. It’s a new (alpha – as in may never be implemented) way to look at tabs. It’s kinda like expose for your browser tabs.
That way if flash crashes (it happens a lot) then Firefox won’t die out completely.
Like Safari, IE, or Chrome, Firefox is now able to crash with less collateral damage.
“Firefox 3.6.4 provides uninterrupted browsing for Windows and Linux users when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.”
Unknown if Mac users will benefit yet from crash protection.
IE9 Supports The Latest Standards. Image Credit: Microsoft
IE9 Platform preview 2 is now supporting almost all web standards. Microsoft is working hard with W3C to finalize HTML5/CSS3 standards. So far the calibration looks like its working because IE9 Platform preview 2 seems to do the most. In Acid3 IE9 Platform preview 2 supports 63/100 which is greatly improved. Slow progress but Microsoft just may be the first to support the new standards. In the past Microsoft was the laggard but I guess they have caught the hint.
One annoying thing you may miss from Windows is that Chrome/Firefox seem to do not support middle wheel auto scrolling.
Well there thankfully is a fix.
Firefox: Edit –> Preferences. Go to the advanced tab and select “Use Auto-scrolling”. Restart Firefox and boom it now works .
You can also do it via Auto:Config. In the address bar type auto:config. Accept the warning. Type in the box; scroll. Look for the phrase general.autoScroll. Under value set it to true. Restart Firefox.
A new blog post by Mozilla shows that Firefox 3.6 is more stable than 3.5 when it launched, and is now currently the most stable version. Mozilla cares about stability evidently in the chart above. By the charts numbers Firefox 3.6 was up to 40% more stable than 3.5 when it came out. However it shows that 3.5 was the most crash version of the browser. 3.6 is now up to 3.0 stability levels. Looks like soon it be below the 2% mark. Mozilla says that the most often crash reason is flash just like Safari, or even IE. Unknown how it compares to other browsers crashing rates.
While that does not mean that IE8 is safe, or solid it does mean that on average IE8 will block more. IE (7+8) has a 50% market share. IE7 blocks phishing pages (fake pages) like the other browsers. IE8 although is unique in that it will block direct .exe downloads (or otherwise) that it detects are malware. This does help users from downloading malware since IE8 uses it’s malware definitions to detect new threats.
It is surprising to see very low block rates for Firefox, and Opera. I would come to expect more from those browsers (especially more than <1%!). The report shows that most browsers (the exception of Opera) are gaining the battle in the social engineered malware war.
“According to Mozilla, version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader was infected with Win32.LdPinch.gen, and all versions of Master Filer with Win32.Bifrose. Master Flier was removed from the repository on January 25 and had 600 downloads up to that date, while Sothink Web Video Downloader version 4.0 had around 4,000 downloads and was removed on February 2.” -Softpedia
Do an add-on check, if Firefox finds it, it will disable it.
Firefox mobile has finally reached version 1 stable which means if you own a Nokia 900 you now have Firefox as a browser choice.
It has the awesome bar, location aware browsing, syncs bookmarks to and from your desktop, tabbed browsing, 1 click bookmarking, 35 language support and more.
While it is not available on any other platform at this time it is nice to see Firefox is being adapted to mobile devices like Opera is.
.
SocialVibe