Browser Wars News & Articles

A new year is here, but the Microsoft Internet Explorer team might be wishing they could roll back the hands of time. The latest statistics from data firms StatCounter and Net Applications shows that Internet Explorer is consistently losing market share to rising star Google Chrome. 

This week in Google, Chrome surged ahead of IE to become the most popular browser of all. New features were also released, including a multiple signin and a new API for Google Analytics. 

The official e-mail went out to Google Apps administrators this week: As of August 1, Google will only support modern browsers across Google Apps. For Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3 and Firefox 3.5, this means the end of the line. 

Facebook copped this week to hiring public relations firm Burson-Marsteller in what turned out to be a failed attempt to encourage the press to write about supposed privacy issues with Google applications, causing a wave of mea culpas to sweep over the industry.

Go go gadget Chrome 11! The latest stable release brings bug fixes, speech-to-text features and a brand new look. 

Fact #1: Firefox is my preferred web browser. Fact #2: I have written a few articles chronicling the government’s and web browser’s efforts to provide Internet users with a Do Not Track option. Fact #3: I had to consult Firefox’s support page to learn how to enable the “Do Not Track” feature.

Web browsers are often a highly personal choice. You would usually have a preference based on speed, feature set and compatibility. With the recent release of IE9 and Firefox 4 claiming to be faster than ever, tests have been run to determine speed and stability on each.

Google touts the whole of its Chrome browser as simple, quick and efficient, but there are a lot of nifty supporting features that don't get much spotlight time. Here are 5 that are sure to help you work better and faster: 

Google took this week as an opportunity to beef up its social search, show up Apple on the digital subscription front, and release yet another version of Chrome. 

As in many things having to do with the Internet, there’s a predilection to complicate rather than simplify, exaggerate rather than plainly-speak and obfuscate rather than be transparent…and the current privacy solutions being offered by the Web browser triumvirate -- Microsoft, Mozilla and Google -- are no exception.

Who will ultimately win more hearts, minds, and -- most importantly -- wallets? After a sensational fourth quarter it looks like Google has nothing to fear from obvious competitors (Microsoft, Yahoo), but what about Facebook? After all, the king of social networks did surpass the Internet giant as the most-visited website in the U.S. 

In an attempt to comply with the recent wishes of the Federal Trade Commission, the World Wide Web's biggest browsers are each working on solutions aimed at helping users avoid behavioral targeting. 

The latest action on the browser wars battlefield is a dual of opt-out skills. Yesterday, both Mozilla and Google announced the inclusion of tools in their respective browsers that make it easier for users to withdraw from behavioral tracking. 

Sticks and stones! There was a lot of teasing on the playground this week after Google announced the removal of H.264 video support. 

Browser wars are not only about market share -- they can also be about support for different technologies. This is why it was rather strange to hear that Google will remove H.264 video support in future versions of its Chrome browser.