Browsersphere

As promised, Firefox 3.6 RC1 was released yesterday.  Despite my warnings against downloading the candidate of the release candidate earlier this week, it doesn’t look like there was ever more than one candidate, so if you jumped the gun and downloaded that candidate, you’ve likely got the same build anyway.

Despite the fact that Firefox 3.6 RC1 was released on schedule yesterday, it has received very little attention from the usual official outlets, as far as I can tell.  For example, there is no mention of the new release candidate on the main Firefox page, and there has been no mention of the release via Firefox’s Twitter account.

Nevertheless, the RC1 build looks official, and the following are some of its key features and changes:

• Changes have been made to the way third party software integrates with Firefox in an attempt to avoid crashes.
• Nearly 100 bugs have been fixed since the last beta build to improve stability, performance, etc.
• JavaScript can now be loaded asynchronously, another performance boost.
• Improved DOM, CSS and HTML5 support.

If you decide to give Firefox 3.6 RC1 a spin, feel free to share your thoughts on the new release here in comments.

Update: I should clarify that the RC1 build is at least mentioned on the beta releases page.

Tags: Crashes, CSS, DOM, Firefox, Firefox 3.6, HTML5, JavaScript, Performance, Release Candidates, Releases, Stability

I’ve been doing my best to keep my finger on the pulse of the browsersphere over on Twitter, but you know you’re not getting the real deal until we go “around the browsersphere.”

General

• In addition to needing an editor (”sometimes you a specialist”), Macworld may need to take a look at the latest browser market share figures.  They mention Chrome almost in passing while covering what some of the alternative browsers do better than Firefox and Safari.
• At a WebKit hackfest recently, some improvements were made to context menu handling, including the ability to hold the CTRL key while right-clicking to see the default context menu instead of any custom context menu provided by the current website.  Additionally, some include- and linking-related improvements were made to decrease the overall WebCore build time, which should come as good news to those 80 active WebKit committers.
• Avencius has some interesting thoughts on the competition between Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome and suggests that, despite their lead in browser market share, the Mozilla folks should be worried.
• Some videos from Add-on-Con feature representatives for Chrome, Firefox and Safari and delve into topics such as browser security and mobile add-ons (via Dan Moore).
• Royal Pingdom takes a look at what 2010 has in store for the browsersphere.

Chrome

• In a LinuxCrunch review of the Linux version of Chrome (via Slashdot), it is touted as being “stable and fast,” but downsides such as lacking extension and RSS support are mentioned as well.  Additionally, there’s an interesting note about a KDE-related bug that Google has opted not to fix.

Firefox

• An article at TG Daily (via Digg) calls Firefox “clunky-looking” and says that the news Firefox 4 may not ship until 2011 “comes as some embarrassment for Mozilla.”  It goes even further to claim that Microsoft will now have a “clear advantage” over Mozilla and “bit-players” Chrome and Safari.
• An RC1 build of Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox covered here recently, was released tonight.
• You can get a feel for some of Mozilla’s plans for Firefox in the coming year over at Mozilla Links.
• If you long for the good-old-days of Netscape, you’re crazy the new Rebrand add-on may be right up your alley.
• If you’re experiencing some jumpiness with YouTube videos, The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog has some tips on fixing the problem.
• Daniel Glazman has some thoughts on how notifications in Firefox could be improved.
• If you’re one of those “Danger is my middle name” types of folks, you can already start testing multi-process plugins in Firefox on Windows and Linux.
• As you may have heard, Firefox 3.5 is “the most popular browser in the world.”

Internet Explorer

• Tweak Internet Explorer with IE Tweaker.
• One Betanews reader wants Microsoft to “release [an] HTML5 and CCS3 compliant IE9 by June with a radically new UI.”
• FavBrowser.com points us to some videos from IE9’s JavaScript engine team, namely John Montgomery, Steve Lucco and Shanku Niyogi.

Opera

• In its coverage of Opera’s added support for CSS3 Transitions and 2D Transforms in the pre-alpha build of Opera 10.5, CSS3 . Info mentions that “Opera is the first browser to offer support for Backgrounds and Borders without the need for a vendor prefix, with Firefox and Safari still requiring ‘-moz’ and ‘-webkit’ [respectively].”
• With the pre-alpha release of Opera 10.5, Anne van Kesteren says “we are getting a little better at this iteration stuff.”
• A couple of articles (via Slashdot), Opera 10.50 Unveiled: Opera Is Once Again the Fastest Browser on Earth and Opera 10.5’s new Carakan Javascript engine is fast – Google Chrome fast, go into detail about the impressive performance of Opera’s new Carakan JavaScript engine (which I’ve mentioned here a few times in the past).
• True to form, Opera Watch has a solid rundown on Opera 10.5 pre-alpha as well.
• In reporting on Opera’s State of the Mobile Web report from November, TechCrunch relays that Russia is the top country for Opera Mini usage, but that usage is really growing in Asia and Africa.
• Even though I think it’s a cool feature (which admittedly takes some getting used to), FavBrowser.com lends a hand to those who want to turn off Opera 10.5’s tab thumbnails in Windows 7 (I’m sure this approach works for Safari as well).
• The Opera Core Concerns blog provides some details on Opera’s native support for JSON, including performance comparisons against the other main browsers.
• In Carakan Revisited, improvements made to the Carakan JavaScript engine over the previous Furthark engine are discussed, mainly focusing on garbage collection and caching.  The post also touches on some of the plans for future improvements.
• A New Year’s Eve post unveils a newer pre-alpha build of Opera 10.5 and discusses Opera’s new support for HTML5’s <video> tag.
• Introduce yourself to mouse gestures in Opera.
• If you’re excited about the pre-alpha builds of Opera 10.5, you can show it off with some wallpaper.

Minor Players

• SeaMonkey 2.0.1 was released as a security update this month.
• Now that Avant has been listed as one of the browsers to appear on Microsoft’s browser ballot screen, they need translation help.
• One Maxthon user thinks the browser is so cute that there should be a Windows 7 theme based on it.

There’s a lot more to cover, but that should hold you over until 2010.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Tags: 2D Transforms, Add-on-Con, Add-ons, Africa, Alternatives, Anne van Kesteren, Asia, Avant, Avencius, Carakan, Chrome, Comparisons, CSS, CSS3, CSS3 Transitions, Daniel Glazman, Delays, Development, Digg, Fennec, Firefox, Firefox 4, Furthark, Google, Google Chrome, HTML5, IE Tweaker, IE9, Internet Explorer, John Montgomery, JSON, Localization, Macworld, Maxthon, Microsoft, Mouse Gestures, Mozilla, Multi-process, Netscape, Notifications, Opera 10.5, Opera Mini, Performance, Reviews, Russia, Safari, SeaMonkey, Shanku Niyogi, Slashdot, State of the Mobile Web, Steve Lucco, TechCrunch, Twitter, Vendor Prefixes, Videos, Wallpapers, WebKit, Windows 7, YouTube

While doing some web design brainstorming earlier today, I wondered if any progress had been made on adding support for CSS Gradients beyond WebKit, for which support was first introduced a little over a year ago.  Via MozillaZine, I realized I’m not the only one wondering this, and ended up stumbling upon the Bugzilla bug tracking the progress of CSS Gradients support in Firefox.  Reading through some of the commentary there, it gave me a newfound appreciation for just how fluid the implementation of these kinds of features really is.  For example, it’s somewhat obvious that the original support as announced at Surfin’ Safari was based on some of the canvas documentation related to HTML 5.

Paraphrasing the HTML5 spec and adjusting the language slightly to not be canvas-specific:

“The color of the gradient at each stop is the color specified for that stop. Between each such stop, the colors and the alpha component must be linearly interpolated over the RGBA space without premultiplying the alpha value to find the color to use at that offset. Before the first stop, the color must be the color of the first stop. After the last stop, the color must be the color of the last stop. When there are no stops, the gradient is transparent black…”

Furthermore, it’s obvious that not everyone completely agreed with the initial implementation, and it’s clear that Firefox developers collaborated with WebKit developers to hone in on a more logical implementation.

All of that being said, the reality is that CSS Gradients are not supported widely enough at the moment to be considered tools in the common web developer’s tool belt.  As aforementioned, Firefox support is still in progress (as of yesterday, in fact) and support in Internet Explorer 8 and Opera 10 appears to be non-existent, based on visits to this demo in those browsers.  The demo only seems to work as expected in Safari and Chrome (the latest “Dev” version, at least), which makes sense, since those are the major players that sport WebKit under the hood.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the progress of CSS Gradients support and several other, similar implementations over the coming year.

Tags: Bugzilla, Canvas, Chrome, CSS, CSS Gradients, Development, Features, Firefox, Google Chrome, HTML 5, IE8, Internet Explorer, Opera 10, Opera 10 Alpha, Parity, Safari, Safari 4 Beta, Web Development, Web Standards, WebKit

After reading an article over at the SiteCrafting Blah Blah Blog about different ways to alternate table row colors, it occurred to me that the nth-child approach was not mentioned.  Way back in 2004 I had implemented a ridiculous (hindsight is 20/20) proof-of-concept around implementing tables without using the <table> tag.  However ridiculous the prototype might have been, one touch I added was the use of the nth-child pseudo-class to display alternating table rows in a different color.  Here’s what I wrote about that at the time:

This rule is actually a part of the CSS3 selector set, and if your browser was capable of rendering it correctly (I’m willing to bet it isn’t, at least at the time of posting) you’d see alternate background colors on the table rows (alternating between white and light gray).

Remembering that old proof-of-concept today, I decided to have another look at it.  I was disappointed to find that even in the latest version of Firefox (version 3), over four years later, the alternating row colors were nowhere to be found.  I was happy to see, though, that the latest versions of Opera (9.51 at the time of writing) and Safari (3.1.2 at the time of writing) actually do display the alternating table row colors.  As one might guess, IE7 falls in the Firefox camp on this one.

It’s unfortunate that only half of the major players support this useful feature, but I’m guessing we’ll see support added in Firefox 3.1, of which there is a first alpha targeted for release at the end of this month, since that particular release is meant to include a slew of CSS support geared toward Acid3 compliance.  Furthermore, one can hope nth-child support will show up in IE8, but that may be the least likely scenario between the two.

Tags: CSS, CSS3, Firefox, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.1, IE7, IE8, nth-child, Opera, Safari, Selectors, Web Development, Web Standards

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.

Tags: CSS, Opera, Releases, Security, Themes and Skins

I was pointed to a very interesting blog post by Eric Meyer titled Characteristic Confusion, which reveals how web browsers like Firefox utilize CSS font rules.

It’s been happening ever since the CSS font rules were first implemented. In fact, it’s the basis of the whole list-of-alternatives syntax for font-family. You might’ve thought that CSS says browsers should look to see if a requested family is available and then if not look at the next one on the list, and then goes to render text. And it does, but it says they should do that on a per-character basis.

From a web developer’s perspective, prepare to have your mind blown.  From a browserphile’s perspective, prepare to learn something new about how web browsers honor those font-family rules supplied in style sheets.

Tags: CSS, Eric Meyer, Firefox, Fonts, Rendering

Being interested in web browsers without having any interest in web development or web standards is probably a bit like being interested in telescopes but not having any interest in outer space (or spying on your neighbors).  Therefore, occasionally you’ll see some content here that has less to do with web browsers and more to do with the evolution of web standards, web development, CSS, markup, microformats, etc.  This post is an example.

Peter Gasston posted at CSS3 . Info this week reminding visitors to that site that the closing date for letting the W3C know what your priorities are for CSS3 is Monday, March 10th (in other words, get busy).  You’re encouraged to leave your feedback as a comment over at webstandards.org, where there are already a whole bunch of suggestions.  Some of those suggestions range from requests for the support of constants (though there’s some history on that one) to better form element styling options and control over the color of underlines and strikethroughs to basic animation.  If you look hard enough, you might even find a submission from me that goes way back to 2004.

Anyhow, if you’re one of those people spying on your neighbors…I mean that’s interested in web standards and the evolution of CSS, I’d recommend heading over to webstandards.org and letting them know your thoughts before the end of tomorrow (Monday).

Tags: CSS, Web Standards

With at least a couple more Firefox 3 betas on the way, the release of IE8 Beta 1 and the official release of the Acid3 test, there’s a lot going on in the browsersphere these days.  Let’s jump right into it…

• First off, it’s now March, so Netscape Navigator is officially dead (but do you really believe that?).
• The Opera Desktop Team has released what they are calling a Plugin Milestone Build.
• I think this guy may be more into web browsers than I am.
• Mozilla’s been getting some fan mail.
• Opera has made the switch back to Google for search in Opera Mini and Opera Mobile (see a screenshot of the new Opera Mini start page).  There’s more on this over at TechCrunch as well.
• Sebastiaan de With (remember him?) thinks that the Firefox 3 interface is going nowhere.
• A forum post pointed me toward another minor player called Acoo Browser, which is another browser built on Trident.
• CyberNet claims that Avant Browser 11 will be the best version of the browser yet.
• Ben Moore seems to have mixed feelings about some of the changes made between Maxthon v1 and v2.
• sKatterBrainZ claims that “there’s nothing in Safari that is truly innovative or unique to the world of web browsing.”
• Somewhat contradictory to that, Ian Hixie, the author of the Acid3 test, seems pretty impressed with how quickly the Safari/WebKit team has responded to the issues uncovered by Acid3 (I’ve covered this here as well).
• Ian Clifton had some interesting points to make about the Internet Explorer team’s original stance on standards support in the forthcoming IE8.
• microformatique points out that the IE team has used the hAtom microformat to implement their WebSlices feature.
• CyberNet says the SpaceTime 3D Browser is “mostly for fun” and shows off a video demo of the interesting browser.
• Firefox 3 Beta 3 has replaced Firefox 2 as the default browser in Alpha 6 of Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
• Opera Mini users browsed over 1.8 million web pages back in January.
• Kevin Yank says that table-based layouts will be “the next big thing” (via Simon Willison).
• Daniel Glazman wrote a CSS3 Selector test suite and posted the results for Firefox 3.0b4pre (Minefield), Safari 3.0.4 for Windows, Opera 9.23 and Internet Explorer 7.  He was impressed to see that the latest builds of Opera pass all of his tests.
• Opera Twitters (via Opera Watch).
• Myk Melez talks about what it’s like to sheriff for Mozilla.
• Opera Mini users can now zoom images.
• Mitchell Baker has posted about the Mozilla Steering Committee.
• Jesse Ruderman created a Greasemonkey script for those who spend a lot of time looking at the Firefox tinderbox.
• Opera’s Charles McCathieNevile, Mozilla’s Brendan Eich and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson will square off at SXSW tomorrow in a panel called “Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?”
• It doesn’t look like many CSS3 features have made their way into IE8 yet.
• Konqueror 4 for Windows has been reviewed.
• Someone decided to show off how they made a web browser with Visual Basic 2008 in under three minutes on YouTube.
• Okiwi is a free web browser for the Nintendo DS.
• An online poll asking what the greatest web browser ever is has some interesting options from which to choose.
• A C|Net podcast covers, among other things, BMWs that feature full-blown in-dash web browsers.
• Dan Gayle digs Lynx.
• Auto Web Browser “will consult the search engines from a user defined list, download the pages to your computer, filter and analyze them and then it will automatically surf further, downloading other potentially interesting pages using the links from the meaningful part of the relevant documents.”
• The Off By One Web Browser “may be the world’s smallest and fastest web browser with full HTML 3.2 support.”
• The WorldWideWeb browser (which was later renamed Nexus) turned 17 years old last month.
• You can view your Firefox web browser history visually with ThumbStrip.
• Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Maxthon, Opera and Safari are nominated in the Browsing category of the Webware 100.
• Anne van Kesteren covers some of the “evil” things about IE8.

Amazingly enough, there’s a lot more to post about, but that should hold you over for a little bit.  I’m interested in hearing if Browsersphere visitors are more interested in somewhat random links like this or if it would be preferable to have the links broken down by the web browser to which they correspond.  If you have any thoughts on that, please leave a comment.

Tags: Acid3, Add-ons, Avant, Beta, CSS, Extensions, Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Linux, Lynx, Maxthon, Microformats, Minor Players, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, Opera Mini, Safari, Trident, Ubuntu, Video, Web Standards, YouTube

According to Dave Hyatt, the Safari team has made significant gains of late in achieving compliance with the new Acid3 test.  Apparently they’ve made the leap from scoring 39/100 on the test to 90/100 after addressing issues with CSS3 Selectors, general parsing bugs, SVG and DOM Level 2 features.  According to Hyatt, the remainder of the issues tend to fall into the SVG category, and since they are getting so close to Acid3 compliance, they will be updating Surfin’ Safari regularly with updates on their progress.

Tags: CSS, Development, Safari, Web Standards, WebKit

I stumbled upon CSS Contents and Browser Compatibility today via etc..  It has a side-by-side comparison of web browser support of CSS features broken down by selectors, pseudo-classes, declarations and experimental declarations.  The web browsers compared are IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7, Firefox 2.0, Safari 3.0 (Windows), Opera 9.5 Beta, iCab 3.0 and Konqueror 3.5.7.

It’s not surprising to see that as you scroll down the page semi-quickly, a majority of the red shows up in the Internet Explorer and iCab columns.  Beyond that, it looks like Firefox and Opera deserve some props for having only one red box each for the features in the first three categories.  Konqueror’s not far behind with about two-and-a-half, depending on how you count the “Incorrect” implementation for background-attachment.

What stands out, though, is the support for experimental features.  Konqueror leads in that category with support for three features, Safari’s next with support for two-and-a-half, and then Firefox and Opera with two each.  The other browsers fail to even register in this area (again, not surprisingly).

See anything else interesting in the stats?  Post a comment.

Tags: Bugs, CSS, Development, Features, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Minor Players, Opera, Safari, Stats, Web Standards