browsers

Apple's Safari browser took a big step toward cross-platform competitiveness last year when it introduced a beta version for Windows, but there are legitimate questions as to whether it can really hold its own against Mozilla's Firefox. Safari dropped the beta from its name earlier this week, but is there anything more to it other than a developer's tool with a Mac interface?

If you're looking for features, the answer is a resounding no. Firefox's open source code and ever-growing army of extensions and themes make it the leader when it comes to customization. Also, … Read more

Apple on Tuesday announced that version 3.1 of its Safari browser is available for both Mac and Windows users.

The Web browser now supports a number of new Web standards: HTML 5's latest audio and video tags, as well as CSS Animations. Apple claims that page load times in Safari 3.1 are 1.9 times faster than Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and 1.7 times faster than Mozilla's Firefox 2, and that JavaScript runs as much as six times faster in the new Safari than in other browsers.

Apple offers Safari as a free download. … Read more

Claiming a massive number of fixes, Mozilla has released Firefox 3 beta 4 (download for Windows and Mac). This version is more stable than previous FF3 betas, but it also showcases some of the more interesting new features that we'd been promised, but until now hadn't yet arrived.

Of the more than 900 changes and fixes, four of the most useful are the add-on finder, the full-page zoom, the one-click site info, and greater cross-platform integration. Extensions are handled the same way as in FF2: users can click on an XPI and it will automatically be saved to … Read more

The big news today in the software world is a new beta version for Mozilla Firefox. The world has been sitting on Version 2 for almost a year and a half now, but the open-source foundation is making sure that Version 3 is fully baked before releasing a final version.

The latest beta release promises "more than 900 enhancements from the previous beta," but a large number of those improvements are back end and mostly invisible. Two significant features in the fourth beta that I appreciate are: an improved password manager toolbar that replaces the old semifunctional dialog; … Read more

The fourth beta of the Firefox 3.0 browser (download Firefox 3 beta 4 for Windows or Mac, (English-US) from Download.com) was released Monday and includes more than 900 enhancements over the previous beta, Mozilla announced.

The creator of the open-source browser said the new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux … Read more

Recently, Power Downloader received a instant message from his sister, Maggie Mouse. When he clicked on the blinking Pidgin icon, he found himself confronted by a distraught question: Firefox would crash on her in the middle of browsing her email. She had tried restarting the browser and restarting her computer, and she'd even reinstalled Firefox. Maggie Mouse had turned off all her extensions, and Mozilla's browser would still die on her. Although not a dastardly crime, this was definitely a job for Power Downloader.

For all situations, Power Downloader recommends keeping a second browser installed and ready to … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Mozilla Vice President Mike Schroepfer said Microsoft's decision to support a more standards-compliant mode by default should keep Web developers from having to waste so much time.

With the current set-up, he said that developers have a fairly easy time getting a site that renders properly in Opera, Safari, and Firefox, but often spend a lot of energy trying to get that same site to also render correctly in Internet Explorer.

"Web developers burn through a tremendous amount of time getting their sites to work with IE because of IE's special quirks," said Schroepfer, who … Read more

LAS VEGAS--With the acquisition of Danger and the proposed bid for Yahoo, Microsoft is looking at taking on a whole lot of non-Windows technology.

Danger's Sidekick device uses a Java operating system, while Yahoo is known for its extensive use of open-source software to power its services.

Speaking at the Mix '08 conference, Ballmer said that Microsoft would likely take on some of the open-source PHP applications that Yahoo relies on for its services, again assuming Yahoo ever starts returning Microsoft's phone calls.

"We should not have two of everything," Ballmer said. "We'll have … Read more

Web browser updates in development from Microsoft and Mozilla will include better built-in protection against phishing, viruses, and other maladies.

At its Mix conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Microsoft demonstrated IE 8 for the first time publicly.

Larry Dignan at ZDNet points out that IE 8 will include better malware protection through a new feature called the Safety Filter, which improves on IE 7's phishing filter.

A beta test version of IE 8 is available for download now. Microsoft executives told News.com's Ina Fried that a broader test release of IE 8 will come this summer.… Read more