Browser Wars News & Articles

It seems that Google Chrome is (still) slowly but surely moving in the frills direction. This spring Google announced the simple browser's first official extensions, and then in September they removed the developer flag, opening up the doors for higher volume participation. 

This week it was announced on Google's blog that the Chromium team is officially accepting submissions from third-party developers. Big G provides information for writing an extension here, and once it's ready to go all a developer has to do is upload a zip file of the code and an icon for easy recognition. Descriptive information in the form of text and screenshots or YouTube videos is also welcome. 

Once an extension is uploaded, Google takes care of packaging and signing, and if a developer wants to update their baby, all it requires is a new file uploaded to the gallery. Additionally, over the next few days Google plans to open up the gallery to a select group of testers in order to provide insights and bug reports. 

And all of this is happening before the beta launch in hopes that things will be extra polished for the real release. 

"We can't wait to share all the great extensions that you'll submit with all of Google Chrome's users," writes Lei Zhing of Google Chrome. And honestly? We're pretty curious ourselves. Let us know what you'd like cooked up, or check out what people are already asking for here.

After a return to some sort of form with IE8, can Microsoft (news, site) transform its browser for the lean and lite generation?

So, you know how almost every time we talk about Google Chrome we make sure to mention its simplicity and lack of bloating extras? Well, you can forget all that because Google recently announced that future development builds of the speedy browser will have extension support flicked on by default.

Firefox? We think this might mean more competition for you.
 

It's a mobile epidemic! And trust us, "epidemic" is in no way too strong a word. Opera's mobile browser, Opera Mini, proves it with recent numbers: for the first time ever, users viewed more than 10 billion pages in one month according to the State of the Mobile Web report by Opera.

Opera (news, site) got on the mobile hype way back in 1998 when they developed their first mobile browser. Since then (especially in recent times), they've done a pretty good job at staying in the spotlight. The mobile browser has seen a growth in user base of over 4.2% globally since May 2009, and over 143% over the past year. Their page views have increased by over 8 percent over the figures for the month of May and for the first time, breached the 10 billion mark in June.

Opera's numbers reflect a quickly growing trend: “More than 10 billion page views in one month underscore that the Web is already the platform of choice for mobile devices," explained Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "Web standards provide a more efficient way to create flawless sites across all devices."

If you're ready to join the movement, it looks like Opera's a good place to start. The self-proclaimed "most popular mobile Web browser" is currently available as version 4.2 and features personalized skins, better video support and synced notes. Check it out here.

We’ve exhausted our clever browser wars word play, so we’ll just come right out and say it: Firefox 3.5 was released for download today. 

The anticipated release comes one year after the launch of Firefox 3, and is being described by its creators as “the best performing browser Mozilla has ever released.” While that may be true—and has certainly got us geeks excited—those seeking one single rock-your-socks feature will be sorely disappointed. It appears that Firefox 3 isn’t about pulling ahead with fancy new functionality, rather, it’s about catching up.

Opera (news, site) was talking about re-inventing the Web recently and its latest release, version 10, isn't just a browser. It's a whole new technology called Opera Unite, featuring a web server in the browser.

Statistically, Flock (news, site) is like the little browser that could, but didn’t. Translate that into numbers and you get 7.5 million people that have downloaded the browser, but only 1.1 million that actively use it.

So, why does Flock keep Flopping? Well, we’re not really sure. Dubbed the social Web browser, Mozilla-powered Flock is made up of all the things we typically love: integrated social networking, micro-blogging, chat, etc. Will the newly released 2.5 version be enough to finally take flight? Let’s take a look at the fresh features:

It seems like it was only yesterday when Google graced us with Chrome and the browser world subsequently went bananas, doesn’t it? That’s probably because it was only 8 months ago. Now, back for round 2 is our dear old uncle Google with a newer, faster release that includes over 300 bug fixes and a 30% faster browsing experience thanks to a new WebKit and Javascript update.

Now an official part of the stable channel, users can also expect the following, more apparent features from Chrome:

Improved New Tab Page: Though it was arguably one of the coolest features of Chrome’s initial release, a lot of users found the the thumbnails on the home page too revealing. Now you can browse without fear of the person nearest you finding out that you frequent Perez Hilton’s gossip blog by clicking the new Remove Thumbnails link.

Full Screen Mode: We missed you, F11 key. Now use every single pixel on your screen by either hitting F11 or selecting the Full Screen Mode option in the Tools menu.

Form Autofill: Don't stress about having to enter your information into the same form fields over and over again. Chrome now remembers it. And, if at any time you wish to clear out your info, you can do so in the Tools menu.

If you’re already using the browser, you’ll be automatically updated to the new version shortly. If you’ve just been convinced to try it, we don't blame you. You can get started here. Need more convincing? Check out a video of all the new features here. 

Mozilla Labs is at it again (aren’t they always?). This time the dream team is aiming to streamline Firefox users’ experiences with extensions.

Say what? We thought the whole extension process was already pretty easy. After all, it doesn’t take much brain power to click an install button and reboot a browser. But…what if you didn’t have to reboot your browser? What if it were as simple as just clicking the install button? Well, now it is. Enter: Mozilla Jetpack. Blast off.

Browser wars time! As they continue to evolve, it’s apparent that the long-standing few all have one goal in common: to become extensions of their users.

That may sound a little hokey, but it’s undeniable that the less thinking we have to do as we trawl the Web, the happier we are. Once again here to help shift the workload from user to browser is Mozilla (news, site), whose lab kicked out a solution called Weave several months ago. Essentially a beefed up password manager, the tool gets users into their preferred sites in one to zero clicks.

With Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) (news, site) now in wide distribution, we thought it a good time to talk about a few ways that with a little bit of applied knowledge you can save some of your valuable time. Come, take a few minutes to tinker with us.

Mobile browsing is one of the few boom areas for telcos, but browser competition is stifled as owners traditionally stick with whatever comes with their phone -- Safari on the iPhone, IE for Windows Mobile, Chrome for Android, Opera on everything else and so on.

Attempting to stir up some competition is Fennec, the cunning little fox from Mozilla that has had an extensive Alpha, going back to last October and is now available in beta, hopefully having recovered from last month's abortive pre-beta test.

Internet Explorer 8 has been officially released. Now it's time to download it and start seeing what it really does to your website or web application. For some, things may go smoothly, for others, not so much. Trouble is, IE8 may be new, but is it already obsolete?

Following a wave of browser related awesomeness, comprised of multi-process architecture (Chrome) and bar-raising sexiness (Safari), a brave and very unlikely candidate has dropped a few breadcrumbs concerning a new solution in the works.

Microsoft’s prototype—codenamed Gazelle—is reportedly after a huge fish. Taking a different route to their desired success than the aforementioned, the company’s research team recently released a thesis on what a secure browser should really look like. The statement addresses a number of security issues that have been around since day one, and the proposed solutions make Gazelle out to be the first browser that thinks like an operating system.

The catch? It’s slower, it uses more resources than IE7 and as of today, it’s still unavailable for test runs. If it’s ever finally released to the public, what do you think the chances are that the world will trade in convenience and speed for security?

Early on Tuesday, Apple slapped an unannounced release of Safari 4 Beta on the table, and the entire Internet subsequently went bananas.

We’ve taken it for a test drive and right off the cuff it feels natural to compare Safari’s upgrades to the features in Google Chrome. In fact, even after sleeping on it, it still feels that way.

Staying true to their reputation for paying extra attention to miniscule details however, Apple has somehow managed to take almost all of Chrome’s popular perks and make them more intuitive. Of course, that’s in addition to Apple’s own innovations, including the integration of an iTunes-like interface. As a mix of both fresher, more popular elements and good ol’ Apple standbys, the new release has got hard core Safari fans shedding tears of joy—and sorrow.