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.

Tags: Add-ons, Apple, Bugs, Comparisons, Digg, Digg Watch, Download Day, Extensions, Features, Firefox, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.1, Fonts, Forbes, History, Hybrids, IE8, Internet Explorer, Linux, Lists, Market Share, Microsoft, Opera, Performance, Previews, Rendering, Reviews, Safari, Screenshots, Security, Shiretoko, Walt Mossberg

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.

Tags: Beta, Favorites, Features, Firefox, Firefox 3, Flock, Flock 2, Linux, Mac, Performance, Security, Twitter, User Interface, Windows

It’s been a while, and there’s a lot to catch up on in the browsersphere.  This time around, let’s focus on all things Konqueror:

• Rozengain.com points us to KHTML on Windows part III, which shows how you can test your web designs in the KHTML rendering engine (used by Konqueror) on Windows using VMWare and a SUSE 10 image.
• According to this post on Digg and its first comment, a patch has been created for Konqueror that would allow for “plasmoids,” which apparently are somewhat equivalent to widgets in Opera.
• Blue GNU discusses the possibility of a KHTML/WebKit merge.
• Roderick Greening beckons the KHTML and WebKit folks to make a decision that will benefit the web and web users.
• Zack Rusin responds to Harri Porten as part of a debate that I won’t pretend to understand.
• A post at The Gay Bar (?) titled “Browsers Suck” says that Konqueror “is just ridiculously hideous, lacks the features Opera has.”  Not that the post has anything nice to say about Opera either.
• SensoryMetrics released the browser stats from its visitors and revealed that Konqueror was dead last in terms of usage.  A post the next day then lamented the omission of the browser in a speed test (via Web 3.0).

Tags: KHTML, Konqueror, Links, Market Share, Opera, Performance, Safari, WebKit, Widgets