Browsersphere

Google has unleashed extensions and their bookmark sync feature on stable builds of Google Chrome today.  If you’ll remember, the bookmark sync feature was enabled in Windows beta builds back in November, and support for extensions was announced for both Windows and Linux beta builds last month.  It looks like users of stable Chrome builds on Linux and Mac may need to wait a bit, still, however:

To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel. And for those using Google Chrome for Mac, hang tight — we’re working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync and more to the beta soon.

If you’re on Windows, you can either wait to be updated to the new build automatically over the course of the next week, or you can manually upgrade if you want to get your hands on the new features right away.

Once you’ve got the new build, you can head over to Google Chrome Extensions to start extending your browser.  Or you can head on over to the Google Chrome Blog to find out more about what’s included in the new build.

Tags: Beta, Bookmark Sync, Chrome, Extensions, Features, Google, Google Chrome, Linux, Mac, Releases

I debated whether or not I should skip ahead to #14, but I’m not really that superstitious.

General

• SitePoint mentions Firefox, IE and Chrome as “three important browsers to watch” heading into 2010.
• The Windows Club lists 25 (or 26?) web browsers for Windows, many of which have been covered here to some extent.
• Someone important in the history of web browsers, rendering engines, etc., has retired.
• Apparently IE and Firefox users are more likely to click on ads than Safari and Chrome users.

Chrome

• The stable version of Chrome was recently updated to address some crashes.
• As previously mentioned on Twitter, Chrome has overtaken Safari in browser market share, moving into 3rd place overall.
• Though not surprising at all, Chrome extensions are popular with users and developers.
• Google wants you to give Chrome for Christmas.

Firefox

• Apparently envious of Firefox’s use of national park names as codenames, the Thunderbird team has started using the names of beaches as codenames.  No telling if they’ll take their codenames as seriously as Firefox does, though.
• Firefox 3.5.6 was released this week.
• You can take a look at some of Firefox’s top startup bugs, which, once fixed, could improve startup time by 10% in some cases, and up to 25% in at least one case.
• Someone at Mozilla Links has a conspiracy theory about the Red Panda that recently showed up on Bing.
• There’s a Firefox Mobile video on YouTube that needs a little less talk and a little more action, but it’s interesting nonetheless (via Web Browser News and Reviews).

Internet Explorer

• Giorgio Sardo offers up a look at HTML 5 support in IE8.

Opera

• Opera’s CEO has some thoughts on the way things played out with Microsoft’s antitrust case in Europe.
• Opera Mini 5 beta 2 is now available in 26 languages.

The Minor Players

• Avant Browser 11.7 Build 42 was released on Friday.
• AOL Explorer, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant, Sleipnir, and Slim Browser are among the IE alternatives listed in Browsing the browsers: Internet Explorer’s rivals (most likely based on this news).
• TheWorld Browser features a “multi-threaded frame” and “web page mute,” which allows you to disable all sound on a web page via one button.
• Someone made a Korean “translation” for Maxthon.
• This thread clears up why you might see multiple processes running when you use Maxthon (though you can probably guess).
• A YouTube video brought my attention to CometBird, which appears to be a close cousin of Firefox that not many people know about.
• Sunrise, a “web browser for web developers,” has reached version 2.0.2.
• A browser named Vinageer is claimed to be the “third most used web browser in Australia,” and yet the only articles I can find on it appear to be written in French.
• As one might expect, the Flock folks are excited to be included in Microsoft’s coming “browser ballot.”
• Maxthon reached the 300 million download milestone on November 28th.
• Skyfire Mobile Browser 1.5 was released last week with improvements made to their video support.  You can see a short video explaining the new improvements on Vimeo.

Tags: Add-ons, AOL Explorer, Avant, Bing, Christmas, Chrome, Codenames, CometBird, Crashes, Extensions, Features, Firefox, Firefox Mobile, Flock, HTML5, IE, IE8, Jon von Tetzchner, K-Meleon, Korean, Localization, Market Share, Maxthon, Microsoft, Multi-process, Opera, Opera Mini, Performance, Red Panda, Releases, Retirement, Skyfire, Sleipnir, Slim Browser, Sunrise, TheWorld Browser, Thunderbird, Users, Vinageer

Opera 10 beta, codenamed “Peregrine,” was released today.  The high-level features touted on the Opera 10 website are:

• “Opera Turbo for fast browsing on slow connections” – this is essentially the same technology used by Opera Mini to compress content, saving bandwidth and time.
• “New visual tabs and sleek design” – the new design was previously covered here.
• “Speed Dial your way” – users now have the option of customizing the number of websites displayed or the background.
• “Web integration” – tell Opera to use your web-based email client or feed reader as the default for email and feeds, respectively, and it will.
• “Resizable search field”
• “40% faster engine and cutting-edge Web standards support”

While the bulk of those features are notable, it’s pretty obvious that the new visual changes will get the most immediate attention, followed by reviews of the underlying rendering engine, Presto 2.2, once people get some subjective and objective experience with it (does anyone still use a slow connection on their desktop anymore?).

For more on the web standards support added to Presto 2.2, check out Standards support in Opera Presto 2.2 and Opera 10 beta, which among other things, confirms that Opera 10 beta passes the Acid3 test.

To kick the tires on this latest release from Opera, download Opera 10 beta today.

Tags: Acid3, Beta, Features, Opera, Opera 10, Opera 10 Beta, Opera Mini, Opera Turbo, Peregrine, Presto, Presto 2.2, Releases, Web Standards

Did you know that Namoroka is the name of a national park in Madagascar?  Furthermore, and more appropriate to readers of Browsersphere, it has also been chosen as the codename for the next version of Firefox after Firefox 3.5.  While the initial version number is planned to be 3.6, that will most likely change depending on the scope of the changes slated for that particular version.  Based on the fact that the version, also being referred to as “Firefox.next,” is scheduled to be released in “early-to-mid 2010,” my best guess would be that Namoroka will eventually turn into Firefox 4.

The following notes on Namoroka stood out to me upon reading the release’s wiki page:

• Improving performance is one of the key goals (though, I’m pretty sure this is always the case).
• Personalization will be a focus:  “Act in the user’s interests, leveraging existing knowledge about their identity and browsing habits.”
• Certain aspects of the browsing experience may be baked into the browser itself instead of requiring interaction with the associated web page:  “Provide support for executing common web-based tasks, mash-up style, without having to visit a website.”
• There will be a focus on providing a shell for desktop-like web apps, likely similar to the Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) feature that Fluid enables:  “Act as the intermediary between web applications and the user’s OS desktop.”
• The release will be based on Gecko 1.9.2, a later version of the branch that was originally released with the first Firefox 3 alpha (Gran Paradiso) back in December of 2006.

Obviously, the version of Firefox in the limelight right now is version 3.5, but it is still interesting to look ahead every now and then and see what type of road is being paved for our collective web browsing future.  And yes, I know this post is very Firefox-centric, but I’ll certainly post with similar “glances ahead” for other browsers if I can just get my hands on the material.

Tags: Codenames, Features, Firefox, Firefox 3.5, Fluid, Future, Gecko, Gecko 1.9, Gran Paradiso, Namoroka, Site Specific Browsers

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

A couple weeks back, Opera made headlines when it released a browser build supporting the Geolocation API as specified by the W3C.  That prompted Ars Technica to write an article summarizing current Geolocation API support, which mentioned that both Opera and Mozilla (more on the Firefox implementation can be found at Mozilla Links) have released browsers supporting the API.

Now it appears that Safari will soon be supporting the Geolocation API as well.  In documentation that appears to have gone out to iPhone developers regarding new features in iPhone OS 3.0, the following appears:

Safari…supports the Geolocation JavaScript classes, which work with the onboard location services to retrieve the current location of the device.

A Google search for “safari geolocation” doesn’t really turn up much useful information, but it’s obvious from existing WebKit bugs that the feature has been getting some attention as of late.

It’s going to be interesting to see how prevalent the use of this API by web developers becomes as more of the major web browsers add support for its functions.

Tags: Ars Technica, Features, Firefox, Geolocation API, iPhone, JavaScript, Mozilla, Mozilla Links, Opera, Safari, W3C, WebKit

Whoa.  Has it really been like eight months since the last time we went around the browsersphere?  Not good.  I guess we should do something about it…

General

• Lifehacker recently put the major players through some browser speed tests after some boasting by the Safari 4 folks.
• In Mobile Browser Wars, Ed Hansberry takes a look at the browser alternatives available for mobile devices (via Web Browsers News and Reviews).
• Ten Web Browsers that You May Have Never Heard of covers iRider, Lunascape, Ultrabrowser and Shiira, among others.

Avant Browser

• Avant Browser 11.7 Build 22, which appears to be a minor release, was released back on the 26th.

Camino

• Camino 2.0 Beta 2 was released back on the 27th.
• If you’re interested in the Camino schedule, get updated.

Chrome

• Read about improvements in the spellchecker used in Chrome.
• It is believed that extension support is coming to Chrome this May (via Web Browsers News and Reviews).
• See the first screenshots of Chrome running on Mac.
• Full-screen browsing has come to Chrome, but apparently doesn’t live up to the way the feature is supported in Firefox and IE7.

Firefox

• Daniel Glazman takes an in-depth look at monetizing Firefox extensions.
• A new mascot, Foxmosa, was recently added to the Mozilla family.
• Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog discusses the Firefox 3.1/3.5 release schedule and how advancements in other web browsers’ JavaScript engines have impacted the schedule.
• Some interesting file uploading ideas came up at a recent Firefox design lunch.
• Jesse Ruderman sheds some insight into the issues surrounding “continuous integration,” which from what I can tell involves how and when code is checked in and how build machines and tinderbox displays are impacted.
• John Slater, Creative Director at Mozilla, is looking for an intern.
• Take a look at the Mozilla Community Calendar.
• Firefox 3.0.7 was recently released.
• At first it was under consideration, and then the decision was made to version the Shiretoko release of Firefox, formally versioned as 3.1, as version 3.5.
• Here’s a granular look at the type of minor performance improvements that eventually make a web browser faster overall.
• Gotta love bugs that are simply titled things like “Make location bar autocomplete faster” and “Make location bar autocomplete even faster.”
• There is a call “for new Web apps that can help people make a difference while browsing the Web.”
• Is Firefox faster on Windows or Linux?
• Firefox is dominating in Antarctica.

Flock

• Apparently the Flock folks thought Flock would make a good Valentine’s Day gift?  Personally, I’m glad I didn’t heed their advice for my wife’s gift this year.   Though, it looks like the Flock folks weren’t the only ones with this bright idea.
• “People using Flock’s Eco-Edition conducted 80% more searches per user as compared to Flock’s overall population of users.”

Internet Explorer

• The Cost of Internet Explorer attempts to track all the “wasted time and effort” on the part of web developers trying to make websites compatible with IE.
• IE8’s Compatibility View explained (and a recap).
• IE8 Beta testers are making a difference.
• It’s not every day anymore that you see browsers like Internet Explorer 4 and 5.5 mentioned.
• An IE8 Reliability Update has been made available for Windows 7 users (like myself) who are using IE8 (unlike myself).
• It looks like the IE team will be pretty busy at MIX09.
• Check out a video that goes into detail about IE8’s new rendering engine (via Robert O’Callahan).
• Here’s a comparison between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of IE7.
• Is the codename for IE9 “Triton?”
• Sarah Dutkiewicz wonders why Microsoft is held to a different standard when it comes to bundling IE with its operating system, Windows.

Maxthon

• Check out a chromed-out Maxthon icon.
• I think MaxthonGuy and I may have reached some kind of virtual truce.  That is, until the next time the madness reappears over at his blog.
• Learn how to use the custom search feature in Maxthon (via Maxthon Resources).
• A new version of Maxthon 2.5 was released recently.
• At least one Maxthon user is frustrated that his favorite browser isn’t included in the browser reviews found in PC magazines, etc.

Opera

• Avencius’ coverage of the Opera 9.64 release uncovers some details about some platform-specific code that should make Windows users’ browsing experiences more secure.
• Opera unveiled Opera Turbo last month at Mobile World Congress 2009 and it was later discussed at Opera Watch.
• Take a look at a speed comparison between the browsers developed for the Nintendo DS and the DSi.
• Similar to my recent post about various web browser vendors claiming ‘First!’, Choose Opera touches on the topic of whether it matters who developed a feature first or not.  Then, the very next day, they answered their own question.
• Opera Fingertouch is “a technology designed to make interacting with the Web easier and simpler on touch-based devices.”
• Apparently there is a demand out there for making Opera look like IE7 (via Daniel Glazman).
• Check out the Carakan FAQ for more information on Opera’s new JavaScript engine (via Opera Watch).
• Combining Opera with a touch UI.

Opera Mini

• Armenia, a country with around three million people, saw its Opera Mini usage grow by 2800% last year.  See this and other interesting statistics in the State of the Mobile Web report (via Choose Opera).
• “Yahoo! is expected to begin distributing Opera Mini via Yahoo! Mobile and also as a standalone download from Yahoo!’s mobile Web sites in the near future.”

Orca Browser

• The first build of Orca Browser 1.1, Build 1, was released back on the 25th.

Safari

• Avencius’ review of Safari 4 Beta is a very positive one, and some details regarding branding of the new JavaScript engine are ironed out in the comments.

SeaMonkey

• Read a draft of the new SeaMonkey vision (via Mozilla Developer News).
• SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 3 was released this past week.

Skyfire

• Skyfire 0.9 Beta was released back on the 12th.

There was a lot to cover this time around, and there’s much more I haven’t yet covered.  Hopefully that means we’ll see the 13th installment of “Around the Browsersphere” sooner than November.

Tags: Add-ons, Avant, Avencius, Beta, Bugs, Camino, Carakan, Chrome, Compatibility, Compatibility View, Daniel Glazman, Design, Extensions, Features, Firefox, Flock, IE7, IE8, IE9, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 4, Internet Explorer 5.5, iRider, Jesse Ruderman, John Slater, Linux, Lunascape, Mac, Market Share, Mascots, Maxthon, Maxthon 2.5, MaxthonGuy, Minor Players, MIX09, Mobile, Monetizing, Mozilla, Nintendo, Opera, Opera 9.64, Opera Fingertouch, Opera Mini, Opera Turbo, Orca, Performance, Releases, Rendering Engines, Safari 4 Beta, Schedules, Screenshots, SeaMonkey, SeaMonkey 2.0, Security, Shiira, Shiretoko, Skins, Skyfire, State of the Mobile Web, Themes, Touch, Triton, Ultrabrowser, Windows 7

As announced via Twitter about ten hours ago, Opera 9.64 has been released.  The following features are listed as new to version 9.64:

• Feed Preview: Preview a Feed by clicking on the feed icon, and you will see it in clean and efficient multiple-column layout.
• Opera Link: Opera Link lets you synchronize data of your choice online, or among different computers and devices.
• Quick Find: When using Opera, the browser remembers not only the titles and addresses, but also the actual content of the Web pages you visit.
• Opera Mail: Opera browser offers an e-mail client designed to optimize your daily e-mail-handling requirements.
• New browser engine: Opera is quicker to start, faster at loading Web pages and better at running your favorite Web applications.
• Quick and customizable Web search: Get quick access to Google, eBay, Amazon and more with the search field in the upper right corner.

If I’m reading Wikipedia correctly, this release uses “Core 2″ of the Presto rendering engine and the “Futhark” JavaScript engine (as opposed to the new and improved Carakan engine).

If you’re already an Opera user and feel like upgrading (assuming you’re not already on Opera 10), or if you’re new to Opera and want to kick the tires, download Opera 9.64 today.

Tags: Carakan, Features, Futhark, JavaScript, Opera, Opera 10, Opera 9.64, Presto, Releases, Rendering Engines, Wikipedia

I always get a kick out of reading the Maxthon Blog because some of the claims made about either Maxthon or its competitor web browsers are so outlandish.  This time around, a press release was posted claiming the following:

Maxthon’s engineers redesigned the browser’s framework so that each tab associated with a Web site works independent of each other. With that new architecture, if a tab becomes unresponsive for any reason, the other tabs and the browser are unaffected. The computer user can continue to browse normally and can refresh, reopen, or close the tab that is creating problems.

“Basically, our technology separates the tab and the browser,” said Jeff Chen, CEO of Maxthon. “That [sic] why the tab’s problem will not affect the browser’s performance, and so the browser can be a better environment to run Web application in tabs.

“As far as I know, no other major browser has such a feature,” Chen said.

I can understand making a claim like that last one in a press release, since you’re trying to set yourself apart from the competition.  Plus, Jeff Chen said “as far as I know,” which at least keeps the claim from being matter-of-fact.  However, I think it’s pretty inexcusable to make such matter-of-fact claims directly on your product’s blog when common knowledge suggests the opposite.

Before posting the aforelinked press release, the following was posted to the Maxthon Blog:

“…other browsers without [Maxthon's new feature] The Isolator – which would be, let’s see…. All of them. – can’t protect their tabs the way Max does.”

When an astute (or at least, non-delusional) commenter mentioned Google Chrome as a browser already supporting this feature, MaxthonGuy, the persona behind the madness that is Maxthon Blog, had this to say:

“Chrome does have a feature, Crash Control, that has a purpose similar to that of The Isolator. But the two technologies work differently, and Crash Control can’t save you from the Flash-inspired crashes that The Isolator blocks.”

So I guess if a feature has been implemented differently, then it doesn’t actually exist in any other browser.  Using that logic, I suppose Internet Explorer was the first web browser to support tabbed browsing.  But don’t worry, Firefox and Safari fans, your browsers were, too – despite what Opera or NetCaptor might have to say about it!

I just had to get this absurdity out of the way before I post a more in-depth look at multi-process architectures in web browsers.

Tags: Architecture, Chrome, Crash Control, Features, History, Maxthon, Maxthon Blog, MaxthonGuy, Multi-process, NetCaptor, Tabs, The Isolator

Let’s take a look at what web browser news has surfaced over at Digg over the past month:

• Firefox sails past 20% market share, IE drops below 70% – “Mozilla achieved an important milestone in November, sailing past 20% market share over an entire month for the first time since its release in November 2004.”
• Google Chrome Browser To Support Customization – A step in Firefox’s direction.
• Safari Tops 7% Of Browser Market Share, Mac OS X On The Rise – Not quite Firefox’s gain, but movement upward nonetheless.
• Firefox Beats Chrome And Webkit Eats Them For Breakfast – Links to some SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark results for bleeding edge builds of Chrome, Firefox and WebKit.
• Opera 10 alpha – The alpha release of Opera 10 features the Presto 2.2 rendering engine.
• Second Firefox 3.1 Beta Due ‘Very Shortly’ – A reference to the since-released Firefox 3.1 Beta 2.
• New trojan targets Firefox, masquerades as Greasemonkey
• Opera 10 Aces Acid3 Browser Test, Boosts Performance by 30% – More on the Opera 10 alpha release.
• Webkit Still The Best And Rips Opera 10 Alpha A New One – Perhaps the hidden gem in this one is the ground Chrome gained on the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark since the aforementioned link’s resulMozilla to pull the plug on Firefox 2 “soon”ts.
• Mozilla to pull the plug on Firefox 2 “soon” – no complaints here.
• First look: Firefox 3.1 beta 2, now with private browsing – The feature appears to be implemented very similarly to Chrome’s implementation.
• Firefox Adds Multitouch Gestures for Macs
• Google Chrome Comes Out of Beta
• Google anticipates a bright and shiny future for Chrome – Links to an interesting ars technica article covering the challenges Chrome faces in trying to catch up with Firefox and IE.
• Google’s Browser Sheds Its ‘Beta’ Label – One post just wasn’t enough.
• Mozilla reverse-engineers OSX to enhance Firefox 3.1 for Mac
• Google grants outsider Chrome-coding privileges – Given the requirements of becoming a Chrome “insider,” I’m not surprised to read that only one outsider has been granted permissions thus far.
• Internet Explorer security alert
• Exclusive: First look at Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 RC1 – RC1, “which is believed to be the first feature-complete version of the browser, will lack in compatibility with web standards and will not match the JavaScript performance of all other major browsers.”
• Has Internet Explorer ever been safe?
• Firefox Issues Eight Patches for Web Browser
• FireTorrent Brings BitTorrent to Firefox
• Google pushing users away from IE?
• 7 Things Google Chrome Needs – Now That It’s Out of Beta – Links to a pretty good wishlist of Chrome improvements and enhancements.
• Firefox is most vulnerable Windows software in 2008 (PDF)
• Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 on Linux uses less memory
• Which sites will make the IE8 Compatibility Hall of Shame? – Apparently the Compatibility Mode feature of IE8 is one of its most critical.
• Firefox picks up 2 out of 3 users IE loses
• Mozilla releases second alpha of Fennec mobile browser – I haven’t covered Fennec here yet, but apparently it’s a descendant of Minimo.
• Mozilla’s mobile browser gets closer to prime time – By the way, a Fennec Fox is “a small nocturnal fox found in the Sahara Desert of North Africa.”

And now for some bonus coverage from Slashdot:

• Too Good To Ignore — 6 Alternative Browsers – Really, it ends up being five alternative browsers with the Mac and PC versions of Opera counting as two.
• A Cheat Sheet To All the Browser Betas
• Firefox 2.0 Update To Remove Phishing Detection
• Safari and Chrome: Tied For the Worst Password Manager
• Chrome Complicates Mozilla/Google Love-In

Happy New Year, everybody.

Tags: Acid3, Ars Technica, Benchmarks, Beta, BitTorrent, Chrome, Compatibility Mode, Competition, Digg, Extensions, Features, Fennec, Firefox, Firefox 2, Firefox 3.1, FireTorrent, Google, Greasemonkey, IE, IE8, Internet Explorer, JavaScript, Linux, Mac, Market Share, Minimo, Minor Players, Opera 10, OS X, Performance, Phishing, Presto, Private Browsing, Rendering Engines, Safari, Security, Slashdot, SunSpider, WebKit