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Google releases opt-out extension for Chrome
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Software
Google has released a new browser extension for their Chrome browser called Keep My Opt-Outs, which is a simple way to opt out of Google-based advertising tracking, along with ad tracking from other major advertising companies. The company points out that this is in part an answer to governments and groups asking for "no track" options online. It's worth noting that this is an extension that needs to be downloaded, so this won't change much for advertisers. Everything this extension does could be done manually before, and people who go out to get it may well have been blocking tracking cookies in the past. Still, this is a good step which will hopefully lead to similar tools on other browser platforms.
Read More 
| Google Blog
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Google Chrome now has over 8,500 extensions
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Google, Internet, Software
Last week, Google put up a blog post with some statistics on their Chrome browser. Of note, the browser now has over 8,500 extensions and 1,500 themes, which have been installed over 70 million times. They also describe some of the latest updates the browser has had such as the sync feature, better HTML5 support and new APIs for developers. Google also promises that they will not be slowing down the amount of new features. On the roadmap they say new APIs will be added for things like the omnibox and pinned tabs, as well as download management and network interception. With the release of the Chrome Web Store this week, Google is clearly positioning themselves as one of the top players in the browser market.
Read More | Google Chrome Blog
Facebook wants to be your browser home page
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Social Networks
This week, you may have noticed something different the first time you went back to Facebook. The social networking site has started displaying a bar encouraging users to set the site as their default home page. By saying "See what's happening with your friends the moment you open your browser" it hopes that users will accept to put Facebook as the very first page that their browser opens. While it may not seem like a big deal going from a bookmark to your home page, sites like Yahoo! and MSN are some of the most frequented pages on the web, in large part because so many people simply left them as their default home page. This is yet another step for the biggest social network of the day to get more center stage.
Safari 5.0.1 released, brings Extensions Gallery with it
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Internet, Software
Apple has released an update to Safari to finally enable the Extension Gallery that they’ve made mention of a few times since Safari 5 was released. Safari 5.0.1 lets you peruse through a bunch of extensions that add to your Safari experience, including stuff from big names like Bing, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and more. There are bug fixes and secutiry updates as well in this release:
- More accurate Top Hit results in the Address Field
- More accurate timing for CSS animations
- Better stability when using the Safari Reader keyboard shortcut
- Better stability when scrolling through MobileMe Mail
- Fixes display of multipage articles from www.rollingstone.com in Safari Reader
- Fixes an issue that prevented Google Wave and other websites using JavaScript encryption libraries from working correctly on 32-bit systems
- Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from launching on Leopard systems with network home directories
- Fixes an issue that could cause borders on YouTube thumbnails to disappear when hovering over the thumbnail image
- Fixes an issue that could cause Flash content to overlap with other content on www.facebook.com, www.crateandbarrel.com, and other sites when using Flash 10.1
- Fixes an issue that prevented boarding passes from www.aa.com from printing correctly
- Fixes an issue that could cause DNS prefetching requests to overburden certain routers
- Fixes an issue that could cause VoiceOver to misidentify elements of webpages
You can download Safari 5.0.1 now.
Firefox 4 Beta 1 available
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Internet, Software
Mozilla has finally released the first Firefox 4 beta, and you can download it now. Firefox 4 is a major step up from the previous version, with a redesign of the user interface, greatly improved HTML5 support, hardware-accelerated HD video playback, better add-on support, and a bunch of other new features. Luckily, the Mozilla team has pulled everything together in a blog post to fill you in on all the fun. With Google Chrome gaining on Firefox marketshare, you can bet Mozilla is gonna be pushing the new hotness found in 4.0 hard. You can download Firefox 4 beta 1 now.
Safari 5: Extensions, Reader, HTML5, Bing. Oh, and it’s fast.
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Internet, Software
Apparently, the release of Safari 5 wasn’t big enough to be mentioned in the WWDC 2010 keynote this morning, but nevertheless, the company has launched a fully-updated version of its browser. So, what’s new? Quite a bit, actually. First, Safari 5 is much faster—it runs Javascript 25% faster than Safari 4, is twice as fast as Firefox on the Mac, and is even 3% faster than Chrome. So yeah, it’s fast. There’s also a new feature called Safari Reader. If you hit a web page that has an article on it, you can hit the Reader icon, and the article will be overlaid over the site in a very readable fashion. Another biggie is the addition of a bunch of extra HTML5 features. As we know, Apple is all about supporting HTML5 as a platform, and they are putting their money where their mouth is by having Safari 5 be the browser with the most HTML5 support at the moment. Oh, and for those of you who want more choice in your search bar, Safari 5 offers Bing as a search option, built-in, alongside Google and Yahoo! Search.
You can download Safari 5 now.
Read More | Safari 5
Feedback About IE8
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Internet, Microsoft
There is already lots of feedback on Microsoft comments pages after the launch of IE8, with some it negative, from disappearing images, printing on Web sites and searching issues. One user complained about dragging Facebook applications and photos while others complained about the install. On a positive note, one user said it “felt like Firefox, but hey, it’s functional.” We also found that IE8’s release really hasn’t affected Firefox as their users are eagerly awaiting 3.0.
Read More | Gadgetell
Internet Explorer 8 now available
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Internet, Microsoft, Software
We ask that you try and contain your excitement on this one. You ready? Microsoft has just released the final version of Internet Explorer 8, the company’s home-grown web browser. According to Microsoft, IE8 is “one of the fastest browsers on the market today.” Of course, that really can’t mean much, as there are really only a handful. Being “one of” the fastest doesn’t sound like too confident a statement. A few things you can expect out of IE8 are Web Slices, Accelerators, and Instant Search.
IE8 has been in beta for over a year, so let’s hope this final release is as good as it should be, at least as it pertains to security, and, you know, displaying websites correctly.
Read More | Internet Explorer 8
Firefox Download World Record Confirmed
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Internet
The word is out that Mozilla has officially set a record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period. The official number is 8,002,530 copies of Firefox 3 downloads.
“As the arbiter and recorder of the world’s amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla’s achievement to our archives,” Gareth Deaves, Guinness’ records manager, said.
Microsoft has about 74% of the world market share for browsers while Firefox accounts for about 18%. We realize that this was conceived as a publicity stunt, but now that XP is retired, we expect that number will go up.
Read More | c/net
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