Browsersphere

I learned via Twitter last Thursday that Google Chrome 2 had shipped, though you’d never know it from visiting the Chrome website.  As noted on the Google Chrome Blog on the day of release, “we’re referring to this as Chrome 2, but that’s mainly a metric to help us keep track of changes internally. We don’t give too much weight to version numbers and will continue to roll out useful updates as often as possible.”

However, with version changes come lofty expectations, and the release of Chrome 2 left at least one reviewer underwhelmed.  The good news is, hot on the heels of the release of version 2 to the general public, it was announced earlier today (hat-tip to Ryan Parman) that Chrome 3 has been made available to Chrome users on the “Dev channel” (which I’ve covered here previously).  However, with version changes come lofty expectations, and even users who are supposed to understand that “Dev channel” releases could potentially set your CPU on fire have been complaining about the audacity of Google to unleash a build with known issues on the “masses.”

I guess the Google Chrome team can’t win.  Regardless, if you’re like me and you like getting your hands on new web browsers that inherently seem to showcase improvements both under the hood and on the surface, you should be happy to learn that versions 2 and 3, if your stomach can handle it, are now available for public consumption.

A preview of the new default skin in Opera 10 was unveiled today:

A post from the Opera Desktop Team clarifies that this is not the final version of the skin and that there will be more iterations.  A preview build with the new skin is available via links at the bottom of that same post.

I haven’t tested the preview build myself, but from the screenshot, I can say that I like the new look.  What do you think?

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.

I caught wind of this over at CSS3 . Info tonight:  at Slightly Ajar, David Storey has posted a bit of a teaser about something coming out of Opera called Opera Dragonfly:

So what exactly is Opera Dragonfly? I wont say quite yet, but I do think that, in my opinion, it is the most important project we have on going at the moment, and probably since I’ve been at the company. It wont directly affect everybody, but will hopefully become invaluable for those that it does. We’ll likely have more to say about it at SxSW in Austin Texas.

Could it be Opera’s answer to Firebug, a new rendering engine or perhaps a complete shift in an entirely new direction?  While we wait to find out, what do you think it is?

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.

Anyone who has downloaded Firefox nightly builds is likely familiar with the Minefield moniker that replaces “Firefox” wherever that application title is used in a typical Firefox build.

I have been testing the latest Minefield builds the past couple of nights, and tonight I was notified of an update and subsequently downloaded it.  In the new version, which is identified by the following user agent string:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2008012804 Minefield/3.0b3pre

…the new Firefox theme icons have started to appear.  These changes were recently alluded to in a post by Alex Faaborg.  As of the latest build, the reload, stop and home icons have been updated.  The back and forward navigation buttons have yet to change, presumably because work is still being done on the new Keyhole design and functionality.

The icons that have changed look exactly as presented at Alex’s blog.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I’m not a fan of the change.  Perhaps once the Keyhole changes are in place things will flow a little better, but the new icons have a bit of a “childish” feel to them that I just don’t like.  However, having once been a Firefox theme developer, I know all too well that everyone has their own, often very strong, opinions one way or another about the various Firefox themes.

Given that, what do you think of the change?  Furthermore, what do you think of the new Keyhole approach?  If you haven’t had a chance to see them in action, give one of the latest nightly builds a try.  Minefield is stablizing at the moment since Mozilla is getting close to releasing a third beta of Firefox 3.

In case you didn’t catch it already, the first beta release of Firefox 3 is now available to download.  Head on over to the beta releases page to get your copy, but remember that even beta builds aren’t recommended for those with weak stomachs

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.

According to the Opera Desktop Team, a new alpha build of Opera 9.5 was made available on Friday.  Among the new features and fixes:

• Fixed an ordered list bug
•  Users can now select an external View Source editor
• APNG 1.0 support added for use in web pages and skins
• Notification improvements
• Stability and rendering engine fixes
• Fixed Internet Explorer bookmark import

The new build is available to download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Firefox 3: Preview of the User Interface is almost two months old at this point, but it covers some of the upcoming UI changes in Firefox 3, otherwise known as “Gran Paradiso.”

Discontinuous selections allow you to select text from various parts on a page without respect for continuity, all at the same time. Private browsing allows you to put the browser into a state where none of the details of your browsing activities are stored locally on your computer. The bookmark overhaul will allow things like tagging, extended meta data search, synchronization and export into various formats. Furthermore, microformat detection will bring Operator-like functionality to the base browser.

For the full list along with some screenshots, be sure to head on over to Firefox 3: Preview of the User Interface.