Browsersphere

My last post pointed to an ars technica article titled When in Rome: engineering the Firefox 3 user experience (via Digg) in which Alex Faaborg revealed that the Vista theme for Firefox 3 will not support transparency.  In Vista terms, that transparency is commonly referred to as Vista or Aero “Glass,” and you can read a bit more about it here.

Anyway, I later came across a screenshot (via Twitter) of Firefox 3 very clearly making use of (or at least pretending to) the Vista Glass transparency.  That transparent look comes courtesy of the Glasser extension for Firefox, which is currently “alpha quality,” according to its creator.  The extension can also be seen as the only hope for Firefox 3 users who wish to see the browser blend in with the Vista operating system like Internet Explorer does, since it could be very likely this feature doesn’t make its way into Firefox until version 4.

As an aside, if you like the theme shown in the aforementioned screenshot, you should take a look at Phoenity Aura, which, according to its author, will be compatible with Firefox 3 RC1.

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.

I just caught this over at David Naylor’s blog:  Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for developers is now available to download.  The seven main points the IEBlog had to share with news of the release were:

1. Our goal is to deliver complete, full CSS 2.1 support in the final IE8 product.
2. We’ve contributed over 700 test cases to the W3C CSS working group.
3. We’ve delivered better scripting performance.
4. We’ve started delivering support for HTML5.
5. We’ve delivered the first installment of great, built-in developer tools.
6. We’ve delivered a better way for web services to integrate into the user’s workflow.
7. We’ve delivered a better way for web services to enable their users to keep an eye on interesting parts of a webpage within the browser.

I’ve just downloaded the beta and am in the process of installing it.  I’ll likely have more feedback later.  If you’re interested in trying it out, head on over to the download page.

This just in from the IEBlog:

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

If you’ll recall, there was a bit of an uproar about a month ago when it was announced that web developers would need to opt-in in order to take advantage of IE8’s improved web standards support (I got to the news late and a combination of that and pure laziness kept me from posting anything specific here, especially since you literally had to be living under a rock to have missed the debate as it burned across the web).  As a result of the uproar, the IE team seems to have changed its stance on the matter.

Here are some more details from today’s IEBlog post:

Our initial thinking for IE8 involved showing pages requesting “Standards” mode in an IE7’s “Standards” mode, and requiring developers to ask for IE8’s actual “Standards” mode separately. We made this decision, informed by discussions with some leading web experts, with compatibility at the top of mind.

In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting “Standards” mode in IE8’s Standards mode. Developers who want their pages shown using IE8’s “IE7 Standards mode” will need to request that explicitly (using the http header/meta tag approach described here).

In the end, I think the IE team has made the right decision.  As a web developer myself, I really feel that it is in the best interests of the web to encourage the migration to the latest and greatest web standards, and hey, if a bunch of legacy code suddenly needs a retooling to catch up with the times, that can only mean more work for web developers, right?

What do you think of the decision?

Believe it or not it’s been over three months since the last edition of Around the Browsersphere, so we’re long overdue.  Let’s get to it…

• Mozilla turned ten last month.
• Camino 1.5.5, a maintenance release, was made available a couple weeks ago, and Camino 1.6 Beta 2 was released a couple weeks before that.
• Add-on developers need to get their butts in gear and start updating their extensions to work with Firefox 3, primarily because the browser will be out in a couple months and secondarily because I don’t like using the Minefield builds without my favorite extensions
• The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog points out that over 600 million Firefox add-ons have been downloaded, and that in anticipation of the release of Firefox 3, addons.mozilla.org is being redesigned.
• The Opera Desktop Team has been experimenting with document.all cloaking and is giving users more control over tab-related behavior (more on that here) in the latest builds.
• SeaMonkey 1.1.8 was released earlier this month.
• The Safari team has added support for the new W3C Selectors API and appears to be busy chipping away at bugs related to the Acid3 test.
• The WebKit team has been spending some time focused on SVG performance improvements and a native, Cairo-based Windows port of the rendering engine.
• The forthcoming Opera Mobile 9.5 (not 9.0) is twice as fast as Opera Mobile 8.65 and four times faster than Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile.  Screenshots and videos of the new release have been appearing quite a bit.
• Alex Faaborg has provided a second glimpse at the icons to be used in Firefox 3 (you can see the full sheet of icons here).  Apparently the throbber is still up in the air.
• Firefox has about:config, now Opera Mini has opera:config.
• Glubble is a parental controls suite for the Firefox browser (via Asa Dotzler).
• Will IE8 really pass the Acid2 test?
• Cross-window messaging is coming to Firefox 3 (via Simon Willison).
• VnTutor has a list of 10 hidden features of Konqueror.
• The creator of KHTML, Lars Knoll, has been promoted to VP of engineering at Trolltech.
• Everyone has a pet feature.
• Take a look at Maxthon’s split-view feature in action.

As usual, web browsers are getting plenty of coverage over on Digg.  Let’s take a look at some of the hot topics over the past month.

• GStreamer brings HTML5 video support to GTK/WebKit - The GTK port of the WebKit HTML rendering engine has gained support for the HTML5 video element.
• First look: Firefox 3 beta 2 officially released - ars technica takes a look at the latest Firefox beta.
• Internet Explorer 8 passes ACID2 test! - An internal Microsoft build of the browser to be called IE8 passed the Acid2 test.
• Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 Is A Win For Linux - FOSSwire drools over the GTK support in the latest Firefox beta.
• Mozilla Announces Weave - “This project will be known as Weave and it will focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences.”
• Firefox 3 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 7.10 - How to get the latest, bleeding edge version of Firefox on Ubuntu without waiting for it to be distributed to you.
• Hands on with Mozilla Weave: Personalize your own cloud - links to ars technica’s take on the ambitious new project from Mozilla.
• 5 Things You’ll Love About Firefox 3 - links to ComputerWorld’s take on the latest Firefox beta.
• Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development - “sad” being a very, very relative term.
• NEW! Firefox Live Support Chat! - “fill in the fields and you will be answered in less then 20 seconds.”
• How to surf the web even if Internet Explorer is disabled - “how to use the Help function from basic Windows programs to surf the internets.”
• Barclays says no to Firefox - Barclays displays yet another sad example of misinformed browser sniffing.
• Chris Mills on “Why Opera?” - Opera’s developer relationship manager on why designers and developers should consider choosing Opera.
• Mozilla Gets a New CEO ahead of Firefox 3 - Meet John Lilly - “Mozilla COO John Lilly will take over the CEO position and plans to make a strong Firefox 3 release his top priority.”

If you’re as into following web browsers as I think you are, you probably already heard that an internal Microsoft build of the next version of Internet Explorer, which will be dubbed IE8 (and not something else), recently passed the Acid2 test.  The news spread quickly, as it was featured on sites like Slashdot and Digg, and was relished, praised and congratulated by many, and met with some criticism by others.  Robert Scoble gave kudos to Microsoft and the IE team; Opera Watch called it an “exciting and positive step in the right direction for Microsoft and the Web;” Simon Willison gave some technical examples of what the news means, Slightly Ajar called the news “a great win for standards;” Dave Shea called it a “huge leap forward.”

On the more skeptical front, both Asa Dotzler and Slightly Ajar questioned just what exactly the IE team meant when they referred to “IE8 standards mode.”  Furthermore, Dave Massy responded to some criticism and other questions about the forthcoming browser.  When Bill Gates was asked about some of the secrecy that has surrounded the release in a recent interview, he expressed surprise and allowed that there aren’t any deep secrets about what is going on with the development of the browser.

To say that all the recent ramblings have gotten people talking about the browser would be an understatement.  Beyond sparking interest in IE8’s handling of the Acid2 test, the buzz has spurred ideas and suggestions about what other features should be included in the release.

If you’ve gotten through this post and you’re still itching for more information about IE8, which is reportedly due out in the first half of this year, the original announcement at the IEBlog is packed with details, including the checkin log from when the feature landed in the central IE build, a Channel 9 interview features IE GM Dean Hachamovitch and Architect Chris Wilson, and a post titled IE8 Expectations, written by Jonathan Snook, is one of the better written posts on the subject, including everything from details about the underlying Trident rendering engine to predictions about what will and won’t be supported.  So be sure to give those links a read as well.

I caught this back in September and it took me until now to post it. Nice.

Anyway, without further ado, Dwight Silverman offers up his take on IE7Pro and how it brings parity with Firefox’s “Restore Session” feature to IE7. He also lists several other advantages to using IE7Pro, including built-in spell checking, an ad blocker, support for mouse gestures and a feature that sounds similar to Greasemonkey support in Firefox.

A couple of articles were written recently discussing the relative silence from the Internet Explorer team regarding the next version of the web browser, Internet Explorer 8.

Internet Explorer 8 Buried and Asphyxiated in Microsoft Utero takes the approach that Internet Explorer is losing ground to Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0, and that being silent about the future of IE8 isn’t helping things.

A Seattle P.I. article on the subject focuses entirely on the Internet Explorer team and how their silence has started to alienate web developers dependent on development-related news to make sure their websites will continue to work in Internet Explorer with the next release, whenever it may happen.

I’m a little surprised to see that the Internet Explorer team isn’t a little more sensitive to the whole going AWOL thing, given that they all but vanished from the face of the earth for several years before finally deciding to work on Internet Explorer 7.

It’s also a shame that they haven’t really made an effort to become more transparent now that IE7 is out in the wild and getting so much feedback from the web development community.  The Seattle P.I article says “it’s not like an open-source project, where features are determined in a largely transparent process.”  But why not?  I remember before IE7 was released, the Internet Explorer team was soliciting feedback from everybody about the types of CSS support they would be adding and what major bugs they’d be fixing.  Even if they can’t reveal the big features in an open forum at this juncture, it seems like they could throw a bone or two in developers’ direction by discussing things like CSS support that are well-known, well documented, and waiting to be implemented by anyone and any team that so chooses to implement them.

Anyway, given that the Internet Explorer team has decided to remain tight-lipped about its next browser release, we can put IE8 in the “vaporware” category, somewhere in between Duke Nukem Forever and the Phantom.

Reza.com reports that according to recently released web browser statistics from Net Applications, all of the major web browsers seem to be at a standstill in terms of market share.  According to the stats, which cover the last couple of months, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari have all seen very slight losses in their share of the market.  The lone standout seems to be Opera, which apparently saw an increase from 0.87% to 0.99% from September to October of this year.