Browsersphere

It’s that time again.  Since the last update, major versions of both Opera and Firefox have been released.  Only one of the two has been dominating in terms of Digg presence, though.

• Top 5 Web Browsers That Aren’t IE, Safari or Firefox - A site called OMGLists covers five web browsers that aren’t in what they consider the top three.  However, I’m not sure if I’d agree with calling a media player a web browser.
• Clarification about Firefox 3 system-killing performance - Some misunderstandings about Firefox 3 performance on Linux are addressed.
• Mozilla Firefox 3 Guinness World Record (Actual Page) - News of Mozilla’s attempt at a world record hits Digg.
• Ah, the Irony! Microsoft says Safari isn’t Safe on Windows - Discussion of a “carpet bombing” flaw in Safari.
• Safari Flaw Worse Than First Thought, Microsoft Warns - Moderate flaws in IE and Safari combine to make one critical flaw.
• Firefox to pass 20% before July? - Early speculation about Download Day’s impact on Firefox’s market share.
• Why Firefox 3 matters - Speed, memory use, phishing and malware protection and bookmark management are among the new features of Firefox 3 that make the browser “matter,” according to the target article.
• WSJ’s MOSSBERG: Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser - Walt Mossberg gives a glowing review of the latest Firefox release.
• What’s new in Firefox 3? Check out this demo! - An overview of some of the new features in Firefox 3.
• Best Firefox Addon Ever?
• Beautiful glyphs - font rendering improvements in Firefox 3 - The system that renders text has been completely reworked in Firefox 3.
• Firefox 3 Download Day Pledges Hit 1 million
• Mozilla Announces Release Date for Firefox 3 — June 17th
• Opera 9.5 released
• Firefox 3 and Safari 4 in browser speed race
• Third Firefox 3 Release Candidate available for download
• A Field Guide to Firefox 3: A Full Inventory of the Goodness
• Web Browsers: Speed Testing the Latest Web Browsers - Lifehacker tests the latest major web browsers on Windows (informally) and Firefox, Safari and Opera all win in various categories.
• Don’t forget to be part of Firefox’s Download Day!
• IE8 development: Microsoft should learn from Apple, Mozilla - The article argues that due to Microsoft’s “closed” approach to developing its browser, IE will always be trailing the other major players in terms of development.
• Mozilla prepares for Firefox 3 release and plans for 3.1 - ars technica covers add-on compatability in Firefox 3 and gives a quick preview of what’s in store for Firefox 3.1, codenamed “Shiretoko.”
• 15 Browser Add Ons. No One Knows Them All!
• The History of Firefox 1.0 to 3.0 in Screenshots
• Why You Should Download Firefox 3 Right Now - Over 10,000 diggs on this one.
• Power User’s Guide to Firefox 3
• Firefox Download counter
• Forbes: Why Firefox Matters
• The cake is a lie: IE team bakes a treat for Mozilla
• Firefox 3 launch a success: 8 million downloads in 24 hours
• Mozilla Hits Its Firefox 3 Download Goal…and then some!
• Firefox 3 mentioned on the Colbert Report
• And the fastest browser is… - A quick post on CNET News relays information from Zimbra that Safari is the fastest browser with Firefox not far behind.

Hot on the heels of my recent post about the browser wars on Twitter, it looks like the IE team may now have a Twitter account.  They may also have a Flickr account, but I’m not sure what “meat donuts” have to do with web browsers.

I’m now following the new account in addition to Chris Wilson’s Twitter account, which is where I caught wind of the new ieteam account.

Following a slight server hiccup, Firefox 3 was officially released today at 11:16 AM Pacific time.  That means “Download Day” has officially arrived.  You can track global downloads over at Spread Firefox.  At the time of writing, it appears that the United States, which is in the lead globally, is already nearing the half-million download mark just a couple hours after the official release.  Germany and Spain currently round out the top three countries downloading Firefox 3.

If you haven’t made your mark yet, regardless of where on the planet you might live, head on over to getfirefox.com and download Firefox 3.

Hot on the heels of Firefox 3 potentially being released, I noticed (via Twitter again) that the Flock team has made Flock 2.0 Beta 1, which is based off of the Firefox 3 codebase, available for download.  The key advancements being touted with the beta release are performance, security, the user interface, favorites management and general feature enhancements.

I’ve yet to give Flock a try myself, but this may be the time to do it.  Flock 2.0 Beta 1 is available for download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Amazingly enough, Twitter was available for long enough today to allow the mozillafirefox Twitter account to relay the fact that Mozilla is having some server troubles due to anticipation of the release of Firefox 3, which was set to become available at 10am Pacific time this morning:

The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!).  Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly.  Download day will officially commence once the site goes live.  The 24 hours period will be clocked from that moment.  Thanks for your continued support.

The “Download Day” mentioned refers to the Firefox team’s attempt at setting a Guiness World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period.  More information on the effort is available over at The Register.

I noticed that the server at GetFirefox.com was already having some issues a couple hours before the official, planned kick-off, so it sounds like things have only gotten worse since then.  Even if the Firefox team does manage to get their servers back online, one has to wonder whether the bandwidth will be such that the 24-hour period will accurately reflect the number of downloads that were intended by the browser’s broad user base.

I’ll likely be posting more on this later in the day, so stay tuned.

Sebastiaan de With (remember him?) pointed out via Twitter today an online teaser for a new browser called Mecca.

According to the teaser page, Mecca is meant to be a social browser for Mac OS X.  Keep in mind that Flock has been getting a lot of traction lately (if Twitter traffic is any indication) and it is already available for Mac OS X.

I’m going to see what else I can find out about Mecca.  It definitely looks pretty from what I can tell in the screenshot.  I’m interested in finding out what it is planned to support that Flock already doesn’t.

As I’ve been getting more and more active on Twitter in recent weeks (I’m Bernzilla on there), I’ve noticed that a couple web browsers (and their corresponding organizations) have been becoming more active on Twitter as well.  More than a few times, I’ve seen updates from folks like cheeaun referring to the Twitter accounts mozillafirefox and opera, which look like they were created on May 14, 2008 and April 11, 2007, respectively.  Therefore, I think it’s fair to say that Opera’s got quite a head start in the browser wars on Twitter.  That doesn’t necessarily mean, though, that Opera is the most active in that war.

Today, I noticed that a Firefox upgrade on Ubuntu led to the browser identifying itself as Firefox 3.0, with no information regarding whether it was a release candidate (which it is) or other unofficial release.  I Twitter’d about it, and within minutes I had gotten two replies from a Twitter account named firefox_answers, explaining why I was seeing what I was seeing (kind of).  Keep in mind that this isn’t an automated service.  The answers I received and others I’ve seen posted are very thorough and targetted at Firefox questions and/or feedback being tossed into the Twittersphere moment by moment.

Time will tell who ends up winning or at least dominating the browser wars on Twitter, a relatively young and growing platform, but one thing I can say is that it’s fairly obvious that there are at least two obvious guests who haven’t yet arrived at the party (at least, officially).

As so astutely pointed out by commenter iamcheese, Opera 9.50 was released on Thursday, June 12th.

Those following the Opera Desktop Team Blog likely saw the release coming, as there was a lot of focus on stability in the weeks leading up to the release, and also a preview of some of the major features, including a new default skin (which, like any major theme change, received a lot of immediate feedback) and malware protection.

Impressively, the official release of the browser came only two days after the release of the Opera 9.50 Release Candidate build.  For interesting facts about the release, you can check out the official announcement or the coverage at Opera Watch.  The latter also has some additional coverage on the new skin change.  Or, if you’re interested in the improvements made in Opera 9.5 on the CSS front, be sure to look at CSS3 . Info’s synopsis.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, you can download the latest release at opera.com.

Just over two weeks after the release of Firefox 3 RC1 and about a week after confirmation it would be made available, Firefox 3 RC2 was released today.  You can read more about the release over at Mozilla Developer News, but don’t expect to find detailed information on what changed between RC1 and RC2 (at least, I wasn’t able to).  If you’re already running Firefox 3 RC1, you can go to Help, Check for Updates to upgrade to RC2.  Otherwise, head on over to the Firefox 3 RC2 download page.

I was referred to the following from Mozilla Links tonight (via Twitter):

On today’s Firefox 3 status meeting, the need for a second release candidate was confirmed and it has been tentatively targeted for early June.

RC2 will fix about a couple dozen bugs including some top crashers, some affecting performance and localization related. Most of the bugs already have patches waiting for review or landing and the revised code is expected for tomorrow, with initial builds available on Thursday. QA will start the same day and last for about a week.

If all goes as planned, RC 2 should be released close to June 6 for a new round of tests by Firefox users. Depending on whether a new critical bug is found or not, a third RC could be necessary or RC2 will become Firefox 3 final.

According to some of the notes from the mentioned status meeting, two of the outstanding bugs on the hook for RC2 specifically involve a rendering-related crash and cross-domain security restrictions.