Tag: Firefox

Mozilla has spent a great deal of time talking the talk about the wonders of Firefox 4, now it's time for walkies...

The non-profit software developer has quietly released the first public beta of Firefox 4 and first impressions are a) it is indeed much faster (if not Chrome fast), b) it looks like the spitting image of Opera 10 and c) at this stage a lot of basics are missing.

Earlier today, Mozilla released Firefox 3.6, the latest version of its popular browser.
While it's not as big of an update as the more ambitious Firefox 3.5, it includes a number of under-the-hood improvements, and a handful of changes that you might discover as you use it.

Firefox has finally achieved one of its main goals, surpassing Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser.

This latest shift is illustrated by a new batch of browser share stats from analytics firm StatCounter, which is making the rounds on tech news blogs Tuesday.

There is, however, one big catch to StatCounters numbers to arrive at the conclusion that Firefox is bigger than IE, you have to break down both Firefox and Internet Explorers share into separate version numbers.

In the current browser wars, just as in rounds past, Internet Explorer is the agreed-upon common target. Googles Chrome, Mozillas Firefox and, though its less vocal about it, Apples Safari, are all after IEs vast market share much more so than each others.

But Google has recently been touting a new capability in Chrome that was once wholly owned by Firefox browser add-ons. Earlier this week, the company launched official support for add-ons in Chrome which means Firefox fans accustomed to tricking out their browser with dozens of extensions can now do the same with Googles faster upstart. It also puts these two key players, who would otherwise be considered allies against Microsoft, even more at odds than they were before.

The browser wars may still excite the techie more than the average web user (everything excites a techie more than the average web user *cough*), but within a few years they'll be just as intriguing as the latest specs on new smartphones. So listen up...

Three major new browser betas have hit the world today and they provide significant insight into how the masses will be surfing in the next few months: Firefox 3.6, Chrome 4.0 and Opera Mini 10.

Thanks to online video, Web apps, social networking, and so on, the humble Web browser is being pushed to do more and to do it faster.


With a few simple tweaks and tools, you can improve your browsing experience and save yourself some time in the process.