Browsersphere

We’re covering everything from the difference between Yahoo! Answers and Stack Overflow, to Firefox sabotage against IE8 add-ons, to Taco Bell marketing campaigns in this trip around the browsersphere.  Are you ready?

General

• This one is pretty funny, but maybe wouldn’t be as funny if it was true:  someone filed a Firefox bug claiming installing Firefox disabled his or her IE8 add-ons.
• WebKit received one of InfoWorld’s 2010 Technology of the Year awards for being a “tool for creating cross-platform smartphone development,” whatever that means.
• Yahoo! Answers, which is one of the most useless sites on the Internet, in my opinion, runs the gamut in attempting to answer the question “which language should I use to create a web browser?“
• Harry Parsonage went to great lengths to write a “forensics” paper on how privacy can be put at risk by various web browsers’ session restore feature.
• If you’re planning on attending MIX10 in March, Paul Scarpa of Spry Hive Industries is hoping to talk about the past, present and future of web browsers.  You’ll need to vote, though, to make that happen.

Chrome

• An article at Beet.TV claims that Google Chrome has reached 40 million active users worldwide since it’s initial beta release in September of 2008.
• Jim Lynch of ExtremeTech talks about why he switched from Firefox to Chrome on Mac.
• Dwight Silverman is using Chrome on Mac, too, and got pretty excited when a bookmark manager showed up in his build.
• If you’re a Chrome fan and an Ubuntu fan, you may like some of these Ubuntu themes for Google Chrome.
• Chrome’s Dev Channel was updated to version 4.0.288.1 yesterday across all platforms.  TechCrunch points out that the key features are those that showed up for the Mac platform:  bookmark syncing, the new “pin tab” feature, and most importantly, extensions.
• Unlike Yahoo! Answers, Stack Overflow provides a platform at which smart people can provide smart answers, such as this explanation of the difference between the browser process, the render processes and plug-ins in Chrome.

Fennec

• In a blog post that announces his transition from working on Fennec back to the desktop version of Firefox, Gavin Sharp also reveals how developing for Fennec was different than developing for Firefox, and introduces us to a few of the other major contributors to the new mobile browser.

Firefox

• John Lilly tweets about a theme/add-on combination that gives “glimpses of [Firefox] 4.0.”
• John Slater, Mozilla’s Creative Director, vows that Firefox marketing won’t go the Taco Bell route.
• Download Squad reports that Firefox 3.7 is showing some progress with its Windows 7 shell integration.
• Initial tests show that forthcoming multi-processor support in Firefox leads to a 3x speedup in JavaScript performance, but even that is still 50% slower than Google Chrome’s performance using the same test.

Internet Explorer

• Microsoft’s announcement that it had submitted a request to join the SVG Working Group sparked commentary from SitePoint and The Industry Standard.

Opera

• As you probably heard, Opera announced a new CEO this week.
• Opera is planning on releasing a browser beta for Windows CE and looking to find other niches after suffering losses of around $2 million during the last quarter.

The Minor Players

• “Digia @Web is a modern, fully finger touch controllable, web browser for mobile. @Web is currently available for S60 5th Edition and Maemo mobile devices free of charge.”  Techie Buzz has a review, which includes a screenshot.
• SRWare Iron Browser, which was mentioned here last month, has been reviewed, along with screenshots, over at GadgetMix.
• China is making some big investments in free software which could end up benefiting Maxthon.
• Flock 2.5.6 was released this week, fixing some integration issues with Flickr and Twitter.
• Reports from CES say that Ford has developed its own Web browser, which can be operated only while the car is parked (there’s more on the safety implications of related innovations in The New York Times today).  Left Lane reports that Ford’s browser is WebKit-based.
• This review of the Orca browser has plenty of screenshots for anyone who’s curious about the browser.
• Honza Pokorny, who you can follow on Twitter, has created his own browser, appropriately named Honza’s Browser, which you can try out on Linux or Windows.  He has also made the source code available.

Tags: Add-ons, Awards, Bookmarks, Bugs, CEO, China, Chrome, Digia @Web, Fennec, Firefox, Firefox 3.7, Firefox 4, Flickr, Flock, Ford, Gavin Sharp, Google Chrome, Harry Parsonage, Honza's Browser, IE8, Internet Explorer, JavaScript, John Lilly, John Slater, Mac, Marketing, Maxthon, Microsoft, MIX10, Multi-processor, Opera, Orca, Performance, Releases, Safety, Session Restore, SRWare Iron, Stack Overflow, Statistics, SVG Working Group, The New York Times, Themes, Twitter, Ubuntu, WebKit, Windows 7, Windows CE

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

One of the things I’ve always been fascinated by is the low-level side of web browser development.  I used to look through Mozilla’s source code, take a look at patches that were added to Bugzilla, and try to find anyone on the web who actually did web browser development to get a sense for what it entailed.  Back in the day, getting that type of information was very much so a do-it-yourself kind of venture.  The closest I really came to getting low-level yet consumable details was when I used to follow David Hyatt’s work several years ago.

Having had those experiences in the past helps me appreciate even more the fact that the Chromium community has been publicly exposing details about the “guts” of Chromium in several tech talks posted over at the Chromium Blog.  The tech talks have been archived in video form on YouTube so that anyone interested in the details of Chromium development can find out more about what’s involved.

One video features Darin Fisher, who used to work for Mozilla, talking about The Chromium WebKit API.  In another, Pam Greene covers Chromium WebKit Layout Tests.  In another, Brett Wilson discusses Painting in Chromium.  Last but not least, Eric Seidel, who has worked on both Safari and Chrome, goes in-depth about Rendering in WebKit.

That last video is probably the most interesting to me, simply because it deals with the rendering engine and also unveils a few interesting facts.  For instance, WebKit is made up of almost 2 million lines of code and is developed by about 80 active committers, of which about half work for Google.

If you’re interested in how web browsers are tested, how HTML source gets transformed into what you see on a web page, etc., you’d be doing yourself a favor by checking out the Chromium tech talks.

Tags: Brett Wilson, Bugzilla, Chromium, Darin Fisher, David Hyatt, Developers, Development, Eric Seidel, Mozilla, Pam Greene, Source Code, Tech Talks, Testing, Videos, WebKit

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

Despite almost feeling like I was there, thanks to the folks I’m following on Twitter, I was very interested in finding out more about what was discussed at the SXSW panel, Browser Wars III: The Platform Wins, which went down yesterday.  Now that I’ve read SXSW: Big Browsers Butt Heads, I think it’s pretty safe to say that no wars actually broke out (despite some people’s wishes).  There was some interesting discussion, though, ranging from Google’s choice to go with WebKit for Chrome instead of Gecko, to what web standards have in common with sausage, to how JavaScript performance became such a huge part of the browser wars of late.  Definitely give the article a read if you get a chance.

Tags: Articles, Browser Wars, Chrome, Gecko, JavaScript, Performance, SXSW, Twitter, Web Standards, WebKit

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

Over at the Official Google Blog, Google announced today that they are releasing “a fresh take on the browser” tomorrow which they have dubbed Google Chrome.  Here are the choice tidbits from the article (at least from my perspective):

• The release will be a beta version and will be released in more than 100 countries.
• Google “started from scratch” and used the “best elements out there.”
• The browser is apparently clean and fast.
• The browser supports tabs, and each tab is isolated in such a way that a crash in one shouldn’t affect the others.
• Google created a new JavaScript engine for the browser, which they call “V8.”
• Google is working on versions for Mac and Linux, but it doesn’t sound like they will be ready to download tomorrow.
• The browser is based off of both WebKit and Firefox, and will be released as open source, just like they are.

There are a few other details already available on Wikipedia:

• The address bar will have auto-completion features (apparently called “omnibox”).
• Web apps can be launched in their own web browser window with very little surrounding chrome.
• It is integrated with Google Gears.

Be sure to drop by the Official Google Blog tomorrow if you feel like giving the beta a test drive.  Not that I really needed to tell you that, since I’m sure every single browserphile running Windows will be downloading it tomorrow and seeing what it’s all about.

Tags: Beta, Features, Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, JavaScript, Open Source, V8, WebKit

Anyone who has followed the support for web standards in today’s popular web browsers knows that the WebKit rendering engine has been at the forefront of that support.  Therefore, if you’re a browserphile like me, there’s a good chance you’re interested in testing out the latest and greatest WebKit build so you can see what all the fuss is about.  The following is a step-by-step list of things I had to do to get WebKit nightly builds working on my Windows computer.

1. Download and install the Safari web browser for Windows.
2. Download the latest WebKit nightly build for Windows.
3. Unzip the contents of the download to a location like C:\Program Files\WebKit Nightlies.
4. In the contents of the extracted folder, run (either from the command line or by double-clicking on the file) run-nightly-webkit.cmd.
5. Watch as several necessary files are copied over to your Safari installation directory.
6. If Safari launches and then crashes, fear not.  First try running the run-nightly-webkit.cmd file again.  If the crashing persists, work backward through the Windows Nightly Build Archive until you find a working build.  Remember, nightly builds are almost always considered dangerous (which is why the Firefox nightlies are called “Minefield“) so it may take some tinkering around before you find a good one.  The last good one I found at the time of writing was r34388.
7. If Safari launches and renders the default start page, you’re in business.

If you want to verify that you’re indeed using the WebKit nightly build you downloaded and not the default Safari rendering engine included with the latest version (3.1.2 at the time of writing), an easy way to check is to head on over to the Acid3 test.

This is what the test looks like in Safari 3.1.2:

And here is what it looks like in WebKit nightly build r34388:

Pretty cool!

I’d be remiss not to mention Swapnonil Mukherjee’s previous post on the subject, which proved to be a pretty good guide to getting a WebKit nightly build running on my computer.

Tags: Acid3, Development, Firefox, Minefield, Nightly Builds, Rendering Engines, Safari, Screenshots, Testing, Unreleased, Web Standards, WebKit, Windows

Last time around I used Tweet Scan, this time I’m giving Summize a try:

• celeduc switched to Konqueror and then back to Firefox 2.
• Aalaap Ghag is impressed with Opera Mini 4.1’s auto-complete feature.
• noel doesn’t think Safari’s inspector even comes close to Firebug.
• Johnny Canuck realized that Safari’s Private Browsing feature works on Windows, too.
• kennym feels naughty forcing IE8 to render in IE7 mode.
• WebFreelancer thinks that IE8 should use the WebKit rendering engine.
• I’d put money on Chris Lowry being a browserphile.
• I’m pretty sure palalalapolly thinks SeaMonkey is Jesus in the form of a web browser.
  

Tags: Firebug, Firefox, IE7, IE8, Inspector, Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Opera Mini, Safari, SeaMonkey, Twitter, WebKit