GOOGLE CHROME PASSES INTERNET EXPLORER TO BECOME TOP BROWSER IN WORLD

When Google Chrome launched a couple years ago, people knew that Google’s massive web presence and cross-promotional powers would help it gain market share quickly. But in just over 26 months Chrome 15 has surpassed Internet Explorer 8 to become the most popular browser in the world.

Yes, it’s a single browser version — and with Chrome’s silent auto-update mechanism, that’s the entire Google Chrome army against just one version of Internet Explorer. When you look at all versions, IE is still top dog at about 39% worldwide, with Chrome near 27%. That doesn’t make the feat any more impressive. In just two years, Google has managed to build, test, release, and promote Chrome well enough that it’s now a force to be reckoned with in the web browser market.

CHROME BROWSER SURPASSES FIREFOX IN USAGE

Google’s Chrome web browser surpassed Mozilla’s Firefox in global browser market share for the first time ever in November. Research firm StatCounter found that Chrome’s market share during the month was 25.69%, up 4.66% from last November, and that Firefox’s share was a hair lower at 25.33% during the month. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer maintained its lead with 40.63%. ”Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also,” StatCounter CEO Aodjan Cullen said. Internet Explorer remains the top browser in the United States with a 50.66% share. Firefox is the second most popular browser in the U.S. with a 20.09% share, down from 26.75% in November last year, and Chrome is the third most popular browser with a 17.3% share, up from 10.89% last year. Net Applications, another research firm, published similar results on Thursday.

RUMOR: SILVERLIGHT 5 MAY BE LAST AND ONLY WORK ON INTERNET EXPLORER

Could Microsoft's Silverlight soon be following in the footsteps of Adobe's Flash Player for mobile devices? That's still unconfirmed by Microsoft, but ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley is reporting that she's heard from several sources who say that Silverlight 5 will be the last version of the rich media platform, and that it's not clear how long it will be supported after it's released later this month. What's more, another source tells Foley that the final version of Silverlight 5 itself might only work with Internet Explorer on Windows, as opposed to earlier versions that have also supported Chrome and Safari on both OS X and Windows. As ZDNet notes, however, the end of Silverlight wouldn't necessarily mean an end to all of the work Microsoft has done on Silverlight -- we've already heard about a Silverlight-like app framework that's coming in a future Xbox update, and many of the same principles can also be found in the Metro-style apps for Windows 8.

GOOGLE CHROME OVERTAKES FIREFOX AS UK'S #2 BROWSER

Google's Chrome is Britain's second most popular browser, a sign of the internet giant's increasing grip on the UK search market.

Three years after launch, Chrome last month captured 22% of UK users and marginally overtook Mozilla's Firefox browser, according to the web metrics firm Statcounter. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is losing market share to Chrome but remains the most popular browser for UK users with 45% – although it has a head start by being pre-installed on almost all computers sold in Britain. Apple's Safari is UK number four, with a 9% share.

ARE INTERNET EXPLORER USERS LESS INTELLIGENT?

A research firm posted an IQ test on its Web site and then compiled the results from more than 100,000 users. It found that there was no substantial difference between users of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. But Internet Explorer users had IQs below average.

That's a switch from five years ago, when IQs were more or less the same across all browsers.
The company, Aptiquant, bills itself as a "psychometric consultant." Its main business is creating tests to help businesses hire well. Now before all you Opera users get too satisfied with yourselves, there are lots of possible reasons why IE users scored so low:

• IE has about twice the installed base of any other browser, so IQs are more likely to tend toward the mean
• IE is the default browser of 95% of people who don't know how to download and install a new browser, which drags down the average. (Mac users in this boat stick with Safari.)
• People who use other browsers include a disproportionate number of computer geeks, which brings their averages up
• Online IQ tests -- or IQ tests in general -- are silly
• IE users really are kind of dumb
  

GOOGLE CHROME 12 AVAILABLE

Google's Chrome browser has been updated to version 12. This stable version brings expanded malware protection. In addition to Chrome’s existing phishing defenses and Google’s Safe Browsing integration, Chrome can now warn users before malicious files are downloaded. Another handy security-related update in Chrome 12 is that its built-in file clean-up tools can now delete Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects) in addition to standard browser cookies.

And since updates are always about adding functionality, it’s worth noting that Google Chrome 12 has finally done away with the Google Gears plug-in.

Chrome 12 has hardware accelerated 3D CSS enabled by default. To check out the capabilities head on over to the Chrome Experiments site and play around with some of the fun demos.

If your using Google Chrome you can wait for it to update automatically or click the wrench and then About Chrome. If you need to download Chrome, click here.

MOZILLA LAUNCHING FIREFOX 5 JUNE 21

According to an update at the Mozilla releases page, Firefox 5 looks like it’s headed for a release on June 21, less than two months away. We haven’t heard anything about what new features the next version of Firefox will have, but when Mozilla said that Firefox 4 would be the last time they waited months between major releases, they meant it.

Mozilla is taking the same approach that Google is taking with Chrome; faster updates, more releases, and no waiting to bundle major features together into a bigger update that takes longer to assemble. It’s no surprised that they want to make sure the next version of Firefox is right on the heels of the release of Firefox 4.

To contrast, Google steadily and regularly releases updates for Chrome, silently downloading them and installing them in the background when a user closes and then re-opens the app. To date, each major revision of Firefox has been lauded with a laundry list of features and highlighted release dates. Mozilla developers are hoping to keep up with its browser competitors by slipstreaming bug fixes and minor updates more regularly, and introduce major updates as they’re available instead of waiting.

To help with the testing process, Mozilla devs have introduced dev and pre-release channels of Firefox in addition to the stable release build that most people have running. The dev channel will be the most unstable, with new changes and features added and removed on almost a daily basis, much like the current nightly builds. The pre-release channel, called Aurora, will include features and bug fixes that developers plan to include in the stable build, but want to test with a broad audience.

All of that aside, we still don’t know what Firefox 5′s features will be. Mozilla has said they want at least four major releases of Firefox in 2011, but the product roadmap doesn’t list major features aside from things like “anything that improves responsiveness and is ready” and “anything that improves stability and is ready,” among others.

INTERNET EXPLORER 10 WILL NOT RUN ON VISTA

Microsoft has taken the decision to not add backwards compatibility into the next version of its browser from day one. That means if you are running any version of Windows other than Windows 7 (and Windows 8 on release) then Internet Explorer 10 won’t work–not even the developer preview is compatible.

While Chrome, Opera, and Firefox continue to be compatible with Windows Vista and the much older Windows XP, Microsoft has decided to cut off those users in the name of progress. The reason? Microsoft is unwilling to cater for the “lowest common denominator” when developing its latest web browser.

The decision may look like a push to get people to upgrade their operating system when IE10 finally gets released, but Microsoft is stating this is about utilizing modern hardware and the latest operating system features. To do that it needs to only support Windows 7 and future Windows versions.

FIREFOX 4 DOWNLOADED OVER 6 MILLION TIMES IN 24 HOURS

Mozilla announced on Tuesday that the final release version of its Firefox 4 Web browser was available for download. Within its first 24 hours of availability, the browser was downloaded over 6 million times. Microsoft’s latest browser release, Internet Explorer 9, was downloaded 2.35 million times in its first 24 hours of availability.

Version 4 of the popular Firefox Web browser features a variety of enhancements including a redesigned UI, improved tab management and faster performance. Mozilla’s Firefox browser is the second most popular browser in the world according to market share tracker Net Applications. Firefox held a 21.74% global browser share in February, behind Internet Explorer’s 56.77% and ahead of No. 3 browser Chrome, which has grown to 10.93% in a very short period of time. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox have seen their shares decrease over the past year, while Google’s Chrome browser and Apple’s Safari browser have gained popularity.

MOZILLA'S FIREFOX 4 TO RELEASE ON MARCH 22ND

Mozilla has confirmed that the newest version of their Firefox browser, 4.0, will launch on March 22nd. Firefox 4 has had one of the longest development cycles out of all the Firefox versions, having gone through 12 betas before reaching the release candidate version last week and now readying for the stable release next week.

“Firefox 4 RC1 has received a very warm welcome; it’s time to make a decision to ship,” said Mozilla’s Damon Sicore. “As of now, there are no known issues that would stop us from shipping RC1 as final.

Mozilla has stated earlier that version 4 would be the last long evolution update and they would be going to smaller updates that take shorter development and testing times moving forward. This is being done to help shore up the encroachment on Firefox's market share by Google's Chrome browser which previously had a much shorter update cycle.

INTERNET EXPLORER OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED LAST NIGHT

Microsoft officially brought Internet Explorer out of beta and RC last night. You can download the browser at Microsoft's website. IE9 will only run on any flavor of Vista or Win7, so you XP'ers are out of luck and stuck with IE8.

Microsoft has put a lot of work into their latest browser. Gone is the cluttered toolbars of IE8 and replaced with a simple layout. Some of the nicest features include Pinned Sites, which allows users to drag the tab out of IE9 and pin it directly to the Windows taskbar. When pinned it pulls the favicon so it looks like it's actually a separate program. Some sites will also support jump lists, which is the list of shortcuts that appears when you right click the icons (pictured above). For instance, when Twitter is pinned, you can could jump straight to Direct Mentions, Mentions, etc.

The address bar has also been improved and is more like the Google address bar. Now called the One Box, it doubles as a search engine, but you can actually view results in line. The default search engine is still Bing, but you can install Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook and lots of others through the Add-On page.

Beyond those cool tricks and nice UI tweaks, the big change with IE9 is speed. The browser feels faster than IE8 and is very close to Chrome.

GOOGLE OUT OF CR-48 LAPTOPS; CHROME OS TO DEBUT THIS SUMMER

Google has sent out all 60,000 of the CR-48 netbooks it ordered to testers. The CR-48 is a test netbook Google had manufactured to test their cloud Chrome OS. With 60,000 potential testers the OS should be solid when it arrives this summer.

It is rumored that Google will be releasing the master to its manufacturing partners mid-summer for an early fall release on devices. This comes just in time for some publicity for the important holiday shopping season.

GOOGLE SAYS GOODBYE TO GEARS IN CHROME 12

Gears is a browser plugin released by Google back in 2007, The initial goal was to add support for offline web apps, but the plugin added many other HTML5 features at a time when HTML5 wasn't a priority for most browsers. Google discontinued Gears last year to focus on "bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5" and to implement them in Google Chrome. Features like geolocation, notifications, web workers, application caches are already available in Google Chrome, so it's probably the right time to stop bundling the Gears plugin.

JOLI OS 1.2 NOW AVAILABLE

Joli OS, formerly Jolicloud, 1.2 has just been released. You can download the OS or test out the web app in Chrome right this second. the OS has dropped the "cloud" part of its name, but ironically, it's more cloud based than ever. The entire OS has always been centered around web apps, and now the focus is on making those easier to share, discover, and create.

The UI has been polished a bit and Dropbox has been integrated so you can easily access files from any of your Joli OS devices. And that's where the new HTML 5 Chrome app comes in -- you don't have to install Joli OS on all your computers, you can now simply log in on any system that has a Chrome browser, although local apps, like OpenOffice won't work.

If you are interested, you can download the OS here.

APPLE'S SAFARI BROWSER HACKED IN 5 SECONDS; IE8 NOT FAR BEHIND

At this year’s Pwn2Own conference, security firms and enthusiasts are doing there very best to discover and deploy exploits to some of the world’s most popular browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).

Safari fared the worst of any of the browsers. A French security research firm named Vulpen managed to break into Safari running on a MacBook Air in a cool five seconds. The company noted that the Safari update issued by Apple yesterday — version 5.0.4 — fixes some of the vulnerabilities, but not all. The takedown of Safari 5.0.3 used exploits that are still available in the updated code base.

IE8 didn't fare much better. It was taken down by Stephen Fewer, who used three separate vulnerabilities to get out of Protected Mode and crack that browser's best locks.

Google's Chrome and Firefox are still standing and Google has stated they will pay $20,000 to any team or individual who could successfully hack Chrome. To fair we do have to mention that only two teams signed up for the Chrome challenge and one team didn't show and while the other chose to work on Blackberry exploits instead.

GOOGLE CHROME 10 NOW AVAILABLE WITH SPEED BOOST

It was just a month ago that Google released version 9 of its hot browser Chrome. They have now released version 10. The new version has speed increases as well as a new Options layout and sandboxing of integrated Flash, which provides better security from malware. Chrome 10 scored a 66% increase in Javascript performance. Users can now sync passwords across multiple computers as well. Google has some handy videos showing the improvements which you can view here.

GOOGLE CONSIDERING REMOVING ADDRESS BAR IN CHROME BROWSER

When Google first unveiled the Chrome browser back in 2008, they ushered in one of the greatest innovations in consolidation ever: they merged the location bar with the search bar.

It might seem like a subtle tweak, but in actuality, with one fell swoop, Chrome had changed the way advanced users looked at the location bar. We used to view it as distinct from search, but that’s not the way 99% of all users think of it. Instead, for most users, search is the same as the address bar: the vast majority of users who access Facebook, for example, do so by searching for Facebook, not typing Facebook.com into their browser’s address bar. Google was the first company to realize that the delineation of address from search was not only unnecessary, but completely antithetical to the way the vast majority of people use their browser.

To be honest, Google’s merged address and search bar (coupled with user-definable search terms) is such a brilliant feature that I find any browser that doesn’t embrace it to be completely backwards. But I digress. Google’s now announced that they are toying with the idea of redefining the browser address bar in Chrome yet again, which — given Google’s history radically changing the address bar — is enough to catch my interest.

What Google intends on doing, though, is not change the functionality of the address bar. Instead, Google’s thinking about eliminating it entirely, either by replacing it with something less intrusive or by simply hiding it when it’s not being hovered over. [Geek]

GOOGLE CHROME 9 NOW AVAILABLE

Google has released its latest update to the Chrome browser, bringing the version up to 9. Google has made some speed improvements to the browser. Other enhancements include 3D WebGL graphics, Chrome Instant Search and Chrome Web Store.

Your current Chrome browser should automatically update, but if it doesn't, click the wrench and About Google Chrome. The browser will check for updates and begin the process.

MOZILLA OFFERS DO-NOT-TRACK TOOL

According to CNet, Mozilla, acting on a U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposal, has offered a detailed mechanism by which Firefox and other Web browsers could prevent Web pages from tracking people's online behavior for advertising purposes.
With Mozilla's do-not-track technology, network data packets from the browser would signal to a Web site that a person doesn't wished to be tracked. Then comes the tricky part: getting Web site operators to cooperate.
Alex Fowler, Mozilla's global privacy and public policy leader, said that with the mechanism, the browser would alert a Web site during basic communications that use the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). He also acknowledged that getting Web sites to cooperate is a crucial difficulty in getting the system to work:

As the first of many steps, we are proposing a feature that allows users to set a browser preference that will broadcast their desire to opt-out of third party, advertising-based tracking by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox. When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, Web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA [online behavioral advertising]. We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the Web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists...
The advantages to the header technique are that it is less complex and simple to locate and use, it is more persistent than cookie-based solutions, and it doesn't rely on user's finding and loading lists of ad networks and advertisers to work...
The challenge with adding this to the header is that it requires both browsers and sites to implement it to be fully effective. Mozilla recognizes the chicken and egg problem and we are taking the step of proposing that this feature be considered for upcoming releases of Firefox.

Mozilla doesn't appear to be acting alone. Today, "Google is expected to announced a privacy tool called 'Keep My Opt-Outs' that enables users to permanently opt out of ad -targeting from dozens of companies," The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing an unnamed source.

GOOGLE SAYS WEBM PLUG-INS COMING FOR SAFARI AND IE9

Google recently announced it was dropping support for the H.264 video codec from its Chrome HTML5 browser and supporting its own WebM open source codec. Google explained at the time that H.264 was not open source. They have released a further statement on the Chromium blog basically saying H.264 licenses cost money; Firefox and Opera don't support H.264 either; and big companies like Google are helping the little guy by championing this open alternative.

In the place of H.264, Google will be pushing its own video version named WebM, based on the VP8 codec. Google's version will be open source and free. They are currently working on a plug-in for Apple's Safari and Microsoft's IE9 browsers, neither of which include it out of the box.