Microsoft’s IE 9 could soon be the third most popular web browser, in spite of the fact that it’s only available on Windows 7 and Vista.

According to NetApplications figures for browser market shares, published on 1st January, IE9 now has 11.48% of the global market, and is closing in on second-placed Firefox 8, which has 12.28%. However, IE8 remains the market leader, with a 27.43% market share, as measured by logging visits to web sites by personal computers.

The December rankings are skewed because Google is currently upgrading users from version 15 (8.71%) to version 16 (7.07%) of its Chrome browser. Since Google more or less forces upgrades, Chrome 16 should soon have a market share of 16+ percent putting it in second place, ahead of both IE9 and Firefox 8.

Microsoft took a big risk by not developing a version of IE9 for the decade-old Windows XP operating system, which still has a large market share. XP users could easily defect to Chrome or Mozilla Firefox instead of upgrading to Windows 7. However, Microsoft decided to bet on the rapid development of IE9, IE10 and future versions rather than invest in XP, which is clearly in terminal decline.

Source: ZDNet

Google Chrome has now captured some 25.7% of web traffic. Firefox now slightly lags behind with a 25.2% share of the worldwide market.

Measuring such things online is an inexact science, and other analysts offer slightly different assessments. But all agree on the trends, prompting questions over Firefox’s chances of keeping pace with two fiercely competitive commercial rivals.

Google’s only remaining superior in market share terms is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the leader of the browser pack now on 40.6%.

When Google released Chrome in late 2008, Mozilla’s Firefox was the only serious rival to Internet Explorer, and for a year that remained true. Firefox’s market share peaked around November 2009, when more than 32% of web traffic came from its users. Since then the trend has been downwards, at an ever accelerating speed.

The force behind Firefox’s decline is clear enough. Soon after its peak, Google began aggressively promoting Chrome, which had mainly been used by only the early adopters and developers. Its alleged speed advantage was advertised on billboards and television, and crucially, users of Google’s dominant web search engine were encouraged to download and use it.

Google Chrome has finally overtaken Mozilla Firefox to become the second most popular web browser in the world, according to new statistics.

Chrome has only been available for three years, but now has a 25.7% share of the global market, according to StatCounter, compared to Firefox’s 25.2%.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains way out in front with a share of 40.6%, but it’s expected that Chrome will continue to close the gap.

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally,” said Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter. “Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also.”

Chrome became the number two browser in Britain in August, although it has a larger gap to close on Internet Explorer than the global average. Some 42.8% of Britons online currently use Microsoft’s browser, according to StatCounter, compared to 45% in August.

Thunderbird 8 arrived today, a new version of Mozilla’s e-mail software that now is linked with the Firefox rapid-release program.

Thunderbird 8 is built using the same Gecko 8 browser engine that’s used in Firefox 8, also released today.

Notably, the new version is accompanied by Lightning 1.0, an add-on under development for years that gives Thunderbird a calendar module, too.

Thunderbird 8 also includes “improvements to attachment handling and accessibility, updated Search and Find shortcuts, and several security, and stability fixes,” according to a blog post by Mozilla’s Rafael Ebron.

The Lightning add-on makes Thunderbird a more capable replacement for Outlook for those opting for an open-source approach to sending, receiving, searching, and archiving e-mail. It’s built to work with Thunderbird 8, but also supports older versions.

The Lightning add-on lets people add calendar entries, subscribe to online calendars, manage a to-do list, and more. For details, check the Lightning 1.0 release notes.

To dowload Thunderbird 8 visit the mozilla web site: www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird

Performance and improved memory use were the goals of Firefox 7, which arrived on schedule on Tuesday from Mozilla.

The wide-release version of Firefox 7 brings changes to the majority of Firefox users that have been available on the beta and Aurora channels for some time. These include claims of significant gains in reducing memory use, “often 20-percent to 30-percent less, and sometimes as much as 50-percent less”, a company representative wrote in a blog post based on work by Firefox developer Nicholas Nethercote.

These performance gains are the first public results of an internal Mozilla project called MemShrink, which, as the name implies, is about reducing the browser’s system impact.

Mozilla cited several specific areas of improvement in Firefox 7, including when the browser is kept open for long periods of time, when multiple tabs are open at once, and when the browser is used concurrently with other programs that also use a lot of memory. The company also noted that MemShrink was successful in part because of the rapid-release cycle that a vocal minority of Firefox users have been criticising.

Other changes in Firefox 7 for desktops include a new version of hardware-accelerated Canvas for faster HTML5 games and animations, and improvements for Web developers. These include support for the W3C navigation timing API, which allows developers to measure page load time and site navigation against factors like bandwidth, and a new set of Firefox tools for developers.

Firefox 7 for Android includes a full list of changes, including the ability to select text in a Web page for copying and pasting. Long-tap on a site, and the Android-style drag handles will appear. There’s a new Quit feature under Preferences/More to force an exit from the browser, the WebSocket API now works on Firefox for mobile devices, and image rendering has been improved on Tegra-powered tablets and phones. The browser also now auto-detects your system default language if it’s supported, and a new Preferences option enables you to change the language displayed in the browser on-demand.

Source: CNET

The Firefox 6 browser was launched in beta form on 8 July and is now scheduled for general release on Tuesday 16 August.

Changes in Firefox 6 are largely under the bonnet but include extended CSS and HTML 5 support, such as the ability to create an HTML 5 progress bar and better display for web sites using iframes. It also enables WebSocket support – previously disabled due to security concerns – and adds a plug-in compatibility checker to the add-ons manager. It also brings a new ‘Data Management Window’ to give users more control over which websites have access to personal information such as cookies, passwords and location information. It is accessible by typing ‘about:permissions’ in the address bar.

The release on Tuesday also coincides with the launch of the Firefox 7 beta as Mozilla continues on its accelerated rolling release schedule.

Some enterprise users of Firefox have complained that the fast-paced releases make it impossible to deploy in large environments.

For future release Firefox 8, which moves to the ‘Aurora‘ channel on Tuesday, will add new features which provide extra security from unwanted or malicious add-ons being added to the browser without a users’ knowledge.

Source: ZDNet

Nearly one in four British internet users now use Google Chrome as their web browser just three years after it was launched.

It is now the second most popular browser, overtaking Mozilla’s Firefox and quickly gaining ground on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), the current market leader.

IE’s market share is still falling despite the programme being pre-installed on almost every computer sold in Britain.

According to new figures, Chrome accounts for 22 per cent of the British web market compared to 45 per cent for IE. Apple’s Safari is number four with a nine per cent share.

Chrome is also the number three browser worldwide, with one in five users preferring it, according to Statcounter, a web metrics firm.

Chrome’s growth comes on the back of Google’s domination of the search engine market, which it is led for years.

Google said Chrome’s surge in popularity could be explained by its speed, security and a new national advertising campaign. Chrome was the first Google product ever advertised on British television.

Lars Bak, the Google engineer responsible for Chrome, said the company’s aims was speed. He said users should “never be happy” with existing speed.

Source: The Telegraph

The Mozilla Foundation has announced the first beta version of Firefox 4, the next generation of its cross-platform web browser.

Although there is some time before the final release of Firefox 4, the beta product is considered to be stable and safe enough for daily use.

Mozilla is aiming to sign up to 4 million users in an interactive process to shape the final release. Feedback opportunities are prominent in the user interface, with users encouraged to submit their thoughts to the developers.

The popular browser is undergoing many changes, both visible and under the hood. The Windows release has seen the most apparent refinements, with tabs moved above the address bar as well as a single Firefox button to replace the menu bar.

Universal changes include a Smart Location bar, updated add-ons manager, replacement of the bookmarks bar with a bookmarks button, support for high definition WebM video, extra privacy protection and crash protection against media plug ins.

For web developers, the main feature to embrace is the new HTML5 parser – which has full support for drag and drop, audio, video, file handling, and in-line SVG and MathML support.

Taking a leaf from the book of Chrome, the rendering of web pages is instantaneous and video sites such as YouTube load up in record time.

Source: Guardian newspaper

Mozilla has announced the first 64-bit Firefox builds for Windows, offering an FTP site for those who want to download it, although the software is not for mainstream users yet.

The builds, announced by programmer Armen Zambrano Gasparnian on Friday, do not yet have an installer, though that work is under way. The software is still one of the very raw “nightly” builds for developers. Support for 64-bit processors is one of the planned Firefox 4 features. Mozilla hopes to release Firefox 4 by the end of November.

The transition to 64-bit computing often offers a modest computing performance boost, but the main reason for the transition is getting around the 4GB memory limit of 32-bit computing. Since relatively few applications today require that much memory – or even whatever fraction remains after the operating system and other applications claim their share – the 64-bit change for desktop computing has taken years.

Source: ZDNet

Mozilla said on Tuesday that it is halting work on the creation of Firefox for Windows Mobile.

“Given that Microsoft is staking their future in mobile on Windows Mobile 7 (not 6.5) and because we don’t know if or when Microsoft will release a native development kit, we are putting our Windows Mobile development on hold,” Stuart Parmenter, mobile team technical lead for Mozilla, said in a blog posting.

Mozilla had been working on a version of Firefox that would run on Windows Mobile 6, part of a years-long effort to bring its browser to Windows CE. As for the new Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft has thus far said that applications for that operating system have to be written in either Silverlight or XNA, rather than in native code.

ZDNet

Mozilla has pumped out the first beta of Thunderbird 3.1, aimed at ironing out problems caused by the switch to the Gecko 1.9.2 rendering engine.

Gecko 1.9.2 is the same rendering engine powering Firefox 3.6, and while the change should bring a raft of improvements including interface tweaks, bug fixes and memory management improvement, the Thunderbird team acknowledges there could be “possible problems caused by the changes in the underlying platform”.

Among these problems are broken add-ons, “crashes and bugs and potentially data loss in profiles,” according to the release notes.

The beta, codenamed Lanikai, is available for PC, Mac and Linux, with a second beta expected to be available in early April, followed by a release candidate at the beginning of May.

The final release of Thunderbird 3.1 is targeted for 1 June 2010

Source: PC Pro

The government has said its departments are free to consider any browser, and should consider open-source software including Firefox.

According to a parliamentary written answer from Cabinet Office minister Angela Smith, there is no rule that says government departments must use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, even though it is the browser most widely used within Whitehall. When asked by Francis Maude MP what the government’s policy on the installation of different web browsers is, Smith said: “Government policy regarding installation and use of web browsers is that all decisions must be in line with value-for-money requirements. “In addition, the open source, open standards, re-use strategy requires departments to consider open-source browsers such as Firefox and Opera on a level basis with proprietary browsers such as Internet Explorer,” she added in a written answer published on 24 February.

The use of Internet Explorer, particularly IE6, by some government departments has caused controversy as the browser is considered to pose security risks. In July 2009, Labour MP Tom Watson told GC News that he was dismayed that some departments still use IE6, adding that civil servants should be given the choice of using Firefox, Chrome or Safari browsers.

Source: ZDNet

Google released Chrome back in 2008, and although it received a lot of good reviews, it never became widely used… until recently. The update that everybody was hoping for finally happened a couple of weeks ago, with Google announcing Chrome would fully support extensions.
The biggest appeal to Firefox is the extensions – as you are able to completely re-skin, extend and improve. Now that Chrome is copying suit, has it become a genuine contender in the browser market? We believe so, and here’s why.

Google Chrome Advantages over Firefox

Speed – Originally, Firefox was a refreshing change from Internet Explorer and other browsers due to how fast it was. From opening the program to opening web pages, Firefox seemed to have got it right, but now Chrome has taken it a step further. Chrome is the ultimate in fast browsing. With Internet connections getting faster and faster, a browser should be able to keep up with the pace of rendering images and content, which is what Google have managed to do perfectly (as you would expect being such an Internet giant).

Simplicity – Firefox can often seem a bit cluttered due to various buttons, options and information bars. Chrome on the other hand has arranged everything in an organised manner, meaning the focus remains entirely on what it should be – browsing the Internet.

Extensions – The extension support in Chrome has been done fantastically. The ease of installing new plugins means no restart is needed, and the browser speed doesn’t suffer when lots of extensions are installed. The functional support for addons means full support for Grease Monkey scripts too, which is a great added bonus.

Google Chrome Disadvantages

With advantages comes disadvantages – but that isn’t to say there are many. The biggest disadvantage could be simply ‘why switch?’. Chrome is fantastic at what it does, but if you are already using Firefox then there isn’t that much of an incentive to make the jump over to Google’s browser.

To succeed in gaining a higher market share in the browser market, it may be best for Google to target Internet Explorer users as opposed to directly taking a slice out of Firefox usage – and ultimately play the long game. Google have already taken strides to target IE users with the Google frame work that plugs straight in to IE6 – directly transforming it to the Chrome engine for free. They are also working on their own operating system, which will of course be shipped with Chrome as the default browser.

So which browser to use? This guide might be best: Using Firefox? Maybe stick with it for the time being – but don’t rule out Chrome for the future. Using Internet Explorer? Switch to Chrome and don’t look back – it’s the future of web browsing. Using Safari or another browser? As with IE users – it is probably best to make the switch to Chrome.

*******************************************************************************************

The above post is courtesy of Axon-IT – Manchester IT support experts, specialising in outsourced IT for small and large businesses across the UK. If your business needs help making the switch, or could benefit from IT support and consultancy, then visit Axon-IT.com today.

Mozilla has been steadily moving towards its goal of releasing the first Firefox browser for mobile phones and, on Friday 29th January, released Firefox 1.0 for Nokia’s Maemo – previously code-named Fennec.

Firefox for the Maemo 5 platform has a few things that set it apart from other mobile browsers, in particular its third-party, customisable, browser extensions. Here’s the rest of the goodies from Mozilla’s blog:

• Awesome Bar – Go to your favorite sites in just a couple of keystrokes with intelligent and personalized searching.
• Weave Sync – Sync your Firefox tabs, history, bookmarks and passwords between your desktop and mobile device for a seamless browsing experience.
• Location-Aware Browsing – Get maps and information relevant to your location.
• Tabbed browsing – View open tabs as thumbnails to easily identify and select the Web page you’d like to go to next.
• Safe Browsing – Get an Instant Web Site ID and easily access and edit security settings.
• Available in more than 30 languages and counting.

Add-ons helped make Firefox the top browser alternative to Internet Explorer in the desktop space. To punctuate the importance of add-ons for Firefox’s mobile browser, Mozilla also released on Friday the general release of its bookmark and history-syncing extension, Weave Sync 1.0, for both desktop and mobile.

Nokia’s open-source, Linux-based Maemo operating system supports mobile Firefox on just two devices: the N900 and the N810, which is an internet tablet.

A last-minute decision to pull wholesale support for Adobe’s Flash plug-in from this latest build will cause problems for users who want to watch videos or view Web sites that rely heavily on Flash content.

As a workaround, Mozilla has released an add-on called YouTube enabler, that early adopters can install to view YouTube videos.

Mozilla is hoping to work out other solutions for those who are wary of optionally installing the Flash plug-in, but still want to see select Flash-based content.

You can download Firefox 1.0 for Maemo here, and read more details in Mozilla’s blog post.

Source: CNET

Firefox 3.6 is the dream Internet browser you’ve always been looking for.

It displays an elegant simplicity and makes your web experience better, much faster and thoroughly enjoyable.

Firefox currently accounts for about 25% of all browsers used worldwide, according to the most recent data from Web metrics company NetApplications.com. With a quarter of the browser market, Firefox is a distant second to IE’s 63%, but enjoys a huge cushion over the current No. 3 browser, Chrome, which has a 5% share.

Performance

Firefox 3.6 is about 15% faster than its predecessor, Firefox 3.5. And with JavaScript that’s more than three times as fast as Firefox 3 and 20% faster than Firefox 3.5, you’ll easily be able to see the improvement in overall speed.

Persona’s

New in Firefox 3.6 are Personas. These are easy-to-install themes that help you personalise the overall look and feel of your browser.

There are thousands of Personas to choose from, with more added every day. You can even create your own and share it with others.

Visit the Personas gallery and start looking for designs that fit your style.

Security

Firefox 3.6 also includes many built-in security-related features, such as the best-of-breed anti-phishing protection, making it the most secure browser on the market today.

This upgraded Phishing Protection takes Firefox’s security to a new level, helping to safeguard your financial information and protect you from identity theft.

Additional security features include Malware protection and enhancements to the password manager. There is also far greater security for add-ons and downloads.

To keep Firefox current with any security fixes, the browser is designed to check for updates automatically and pops up a box on your desktop to inform you when these are available for download.

Usability

Firefox 3.6 has many core features such as sessions restore, built in spell checking, integrated search, pop-up blocker, clear private data and automated ‘behind the scenes’ updates.

The browser interface looks a lot like Firefox 3.5 but there are a few additional add ons that can make your Firefox browser look unique, especially the new Persona’s.

The placement of the main navigation buttons has not changed, they are still on the left.

A company logo will appear before the URL (if ones available from the website you visit).

Immediately after the URL and just before the RSS icon is the Star icon. Click it once to store the page’s URL as a bookmark; click it twice to assign the bookmark to a new or existing folder. You can also give it tags: short keywords to help when searching through your bookmarks.

When you type a URL a blue tick appears at the end of the address bar. If you click this it will take you to the address you’ve typed.

The drop down list after the new Star icon is a list of recently accessed pages.

The Smart Location Bar

The Smart Location Bar was first introduced in Firefox 3. It is also known as the ‘Awesome Bar’.

As you type in a URL, the Smart Location Bar searches through your history and bookmarks and presents a drop-down list of recently accessed pages with that same keyword. It works even if you already know the URL.

Built in Web Search

For searches across the entire Web, a box at the top right provides a shortcut to Google and a drop down menu listing 9 other sites, including Yahoo!, Live Search, Amazon, eBay, Answers.com and Wikipedia.

RSS Support

Firefox 3.6 also supports a built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication) newsreader to fetch updates from websites that publish their content using this standard.

Firefox gives you full control over Web feeds, showing you a preview and letting you choose how you want to subscribe.

Find Bar

In the file menu click edit – find and a “Find” bar appears at the bottom of Firefox’s window which lets you search for words on a page without blocking your view of the page itself.

As you type a query, the first matching item is highlighted in green. “Find Next” and “Find Previous” buttons jump to other matches, and the “Highlight” button paints all of them in purple.

Customising Firefox 3.6

Web addicts can customize Firefox3.6 with browser extensions that add functions, themes and persona’s that alter the browsers look and feel. To customize Firefox even more type about:config into the address bar and you’ll see hundreds of preferences to tweak! But be careful what you change as you could accidentally prevent Firefox from starting up.

Downloading programs, files and images

The Download Manager lets you easily start, stop and resume downloads.

Downloading Firefox 3.6

With greatly improved performance, really useful features and first class security Firefox 3.6 stands out as one of the best internet browser available today.

Firefox 3.6 is free to download and is available on a variety of operating systems : Windows, Mac and Linux. There are also a wide variety of localised language versions to choose from.

If you haven’t already tried Firefox, what are you waiting for?

Mozilla debuted Firefox 3.6 on Thursday, introducing significant under-the-hood changes that make it faster and help it render content better, as well as adding a few visual tweaks.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, the most apparent changes in Firefox 3.6 are improvements made to the TraceMonkey JavaScript rendering engine, making it about 20 percent faster than when it debuted in Firefox 3.5, according to Mozilla.

Although this makes it more competitive with Google Chrome, but not faster, there is more to Firefox 3.6 than speed.

The update sees Firefox maintain its reputation as the most customisable browser around, introducing default support for the next generation of Themes, called Personas. Users will no longer have to download the Personas add-on to get its on-the-fly skinning power.

However, Windows 7 interface support, including tab previews using the Ctrl+Tab hot key, jump lists, and multiple tab previews in Aero Peek will have to wait for another revision. Currently, these can only be activated by changing settings in about:config.

Unlike Firefox 3.5, which was more about keeping the browser current rather than blazing new trails, Firefox 3.6 is once again taking some small but innovative steps. Expect more new features to debut in minor-point updates as the browser works towards Firefox 3.7.

Dowload Firefox 3.6 now.

Source: ZDNet News

A new video gives a first glimpse at Mozilla’s radical plans for the mobile version of Firefox.

Like Apple’s mobile version of Safari, Firefox Mobile concentrates on full web browsing. However, the manner in which users navigate the web is entirely different.

Firefox Mobile works on touch controls, with users scrolling around by dragging their finger across the screen, in a similar fashion to the iPhone browser.

However, none of the normal browser controls – back, forward, reload etc – are visible within the browser window. To locate these controls the user has to drag the page to the left, where the buttons are found in the margin to the side of the web page, and the URL bar fades into view. “By using horizontal panning to access the controls, we avoid the iPhone’s problem of needing to go to the very top of the page to enter

URLs,” says Aza Raskin, the son of interface expert Jef Raskin, who was recently hired by Mozilla to work on the project.

Take a look at Raskin’s video demonstration of the Firefox Mobile concept. www.vimeo.com

Source: PC Pro

Firefox was the application that had the most reported vulnerabilities this year, while holes in Adobe software more than tripled from a year ago, according to statistics compiled by Qualys, a vulnerability management provider.

Qualys tallied 102 vulnerabilities that were found in Firefox this year, up from 90 last year. The numbers are based on running totals in the National Vulnerability Database.

However, the high number of Firefox vulnerabilities does not necessarily mean the Web browser actually has the most bugs; it just means it has the most reported holes. Because the software is open source, all holes are publicly disclosed, whereas proprietary software makers, like Adobe and Microsoft, typically only publicly disclose holes that were found by researchers outside the company, and not ones discovered internally, Qualys Chief Technology Officer Wolfgang Kandek said late on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Adobe took the second-place spot from Microsoft this year. The number of vulnerabilities in Adobe programs rose from 14 last year to 45 this year, while those in Microsoft software dropped from 44 to 41, according to Qualys. Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office together had 30 vulnerabilities.

Mozilla Messaging has finally released the latest version of Thunderbird 3. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Thunderbird 3 introduces several hefty new features and some long-needed improvements, including an overhauled search and message indexing, tab support, and a revamped setup wizard that’s designed to make new account setup quick and easy.

One feature that isn’t included is the calendaring add-on, Lightning. Originally, Mozilla had planned to include the extension into Thunderbird 3, but decided back in February 2009 to change course and leave it up to users to download. Although Thunderbird natively comes with Microsoft Exchange support, there’s no calendar and therefore no meeting support in the default installation. Along with Lightning, there’s an essential Google Calendar add-on for Lightning that gives Google users calendar support in Lightning.

Even without Lightning, Thunderbird makes for an excellent desktop-based e-mail client. Beyond Outlook replacement, it also makes a savvy offline or local-storage tool for the various Web mail providers. Gmail integration has existed in Thunderbird for a while, but improvements in version 3 include better recognition and integration of Gmail’s special folders. These include Sent and Trash, and the non-English versions of Gmail. The All Mail option in Gmail defaults in Thunderbird to the Archives folder.

Undeniably, the killer feature in Thunderbird 3 is the search tool. The most obvious competitor, Microsoft Outlook, doesn’t offer anything that comes close to the level of granular control that Mozilla has given to Thunderbird users. The new search bar is dominant at the top of the interface, and you can change the default Search All Messages to focus on a particular part of the e-mail, filtering down to the Subject, From, Recipient, To, CC, or message body fields, or to a combination of all of them.

Thunderbird 3 rates as a top-notch e-mail client, and it’s definitely the best freeware one around. It will require some fidgeting to get it to be usable in a corporate environment, but it’s far more scalable to user needs than anything else currently available.

To find out a lot more about this major release see the Mozilla Messaging site – en-gb.www.mozillamessaging.com/en-GB/

Compared to Firefox 2, the newly released Firefox 3 offers faster page rendering, a vastly reduced use of system resources and clever new data-mining tools for your bookmarks and browser history.

Firefox 3 also includes many built-in security-related features, such as the best-of-breed antiphishing protection, making it the most secure browser on the market today.To find out more about Firefox 3 read our latest review – www.qbs-pchelp.co.uk/firefox.html