Firefox

Google’s Chrome: Not your average Web browser?

Microsoft’s IE is facing some serious competition. With Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Opera Software ASA’s Opera and recently Google’s Chrome, it seems Microsoft is falling back a bit. Computerworld reported Microsoft lost almost a full percentage point in the market share during the month of August. Recently launched Chrome, has already picked up one percent of the market in 24 hours.

Chrome has a privacy mode and a combination address-and-search bar. It also runs each tab as a separate process to prevent a single site to crash the browser. But what makes it special? Firefox and Safari have privacy modes (IE 8 Beta 2 also boasts a privacy setting dubbed “porn mode” by bloggers) and the address-and-search bar is nothing new… so what’s the appeal?

Chrome could turn into far more than a Web browser.

Designed to improve upon the way browsers handle JavaScript (used by Google’s spreadsheet and word processing programs), Chrome may turn into a much stronger platform – incorporating word processing, e-mail and photo editing. An all-in-one browser!

But being chock-full of all these added goodies is making Chrome look a little gluttonous. According to Craig Barth, chief technology officer at Devil Mountain Software Inc., Chrome is a pig. A memory hog, to be exact.

Researchers say Chrome uses more memory than IE 8. Pair that with an older PC and you can expect some slow performance. But can you blame a snail for being slow if he’s carrying his house on his back? Chrome is carrying quite a load (segregated-tab capabilities? JavaScript equipped?) so memory consumption is no surprise. But at this point, what’s more important for the user seeking a solid Web browser?

With so many companies using IE, will they be ready and willing to switch to Chrome? Chrome is raw and pure—built from scratch by Google (and not the descendent of an ancient Microsoft design… what was it, again? Mosaic?). But IE is well-known, understood and pretty much everyone knows how to use it. Because so few ready to retrain their staff and test their application compatibility, IE may remain on top of the business browser world.

But who knows? The shiny newbie may win out. After all, Chrome was just launched! Let’s see where they stand after a month – at least.

IE 8 brings Web-surfing privacy and peace of mind (for users, anyway)

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) will have a new privacy setting. The new setting, dubbed “porn mode” by bloggers because it effectively erases all evidence of sites you’ve visited, was officially confirmed earlier in the week by Microsofts’s program manager, Andy Zeigler.

Zeigler sums up the change as one that gives users the choice to disclose private information, as opposed to being forced to through browser settings that save cookies, browsing history and the like. He mentions a few specific cases for needing the added privacy, such as purchasing a gift for a loved one online without ruining the surprise or feeling comfortable enough at a public Internet kiosk to do your personal banking.

Zeigler states in his blog that when developing IE 8, Microsoft took a look at the concerns users had with IE 7. Privacy stood out as a main concern – “the so-called, ‘over-the-shoulder privacy,’ or the ability to control what their spouses, friends, kids and co-workers might see” as well as the “so-called ‘3^rd-party’ content on websites, some of which can gather data about how you browse the web.” People just didn’t want others seeing which sites they visited.

When enabled, Microsoft’s “InPrivate Browsing” tool will switch off cookies, browsing and search history and will automatically clear the cache at the end of the browser session. It also eliminates auto-complete and the storing of other form data.

How different is this really from Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla Firefox’s security features? Microsoft may be just stepping up its game a bit, considering Mozilla now holds 19% market share. But there are some differences worth mentioning. When activated, the “InPrivate” icon is more obvious than similar privacy tabs and icons in Mozilla and Safari and IE 8 brings better support for W3 Web standards.

For those of us who are looking for more privacy, it sounds like a great thing. No longer tracked by cookies! But what about the companies who use these tracking devices to improve ad-targeting? Well, click-throughs may see a drop. And the specifically-tailored ads directed towards you and based on your Web-searching habits will also be diminished — possibly hurting sales. This may not sound too pertinent as of now, but it makes me curious. How will marketers be able to target Web surfers? I can’t help but wonder what they’ll be forced to come out with next. Will it be more invasive than what we’re faced with now?

And what does this mean for you and your employees? If you don’t employ web filtering so employees are free to visit sites all over the web, are you going to be more concerned over what the guy in the corner desk is really looking at when you’re assuming he’s getting his work done?

Will it have an effect on office culture? Even if employees are free to browse the Web, will their YouTube downloads or (or whatever it is they may download!) hog noticeable amounts of bandwidth and get the bandwidth police after them? One more thing to constantly be looking out for?

As if that’s the biggest worry…

Mozilla Firefox 3 hits. My grandma uses it.

I am so posting this in Mozilla Firefox 3 right now. And I’m pretty happy about that.

Sure, Opera rolled along a few years ago and made the point that a decent product could put a slight dent in Microsoft Internet Explorer’s market share.

But things lit up a bit yesterday with news that Firefox now has a whopping 19% market share.

A lot of people I know have used Firefox for a while. But that’s just demographics. Everybody I know is voting for Obama, too – I’m 20-something in Massachusetts here, after all.

Nineteen percent, though? Is my grandma using Firefox?

I’ve just downloaded this (note to my IT guys: That’s cool, right?). So there hasn’t been much time to get a feel for performance and new features. The Mozilla folks have put together this handy little guide, though.

From a consumer perspective, this thing still won’t run Netflix instant watch movies. Maybe that’s Netflix’s call? You might want to check if it works with any SaaS applications before conducting a large-scale deployment.

Then again, facing a 19% market share, maybe the people selling SaaS applications should be checking in with Firefox.

New Firefox browser nearing release

Mozilla has announced that Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is scheduled for the end of May. A code freeze was implemented late last week, forcing programmers to scramble to make last-minute changes and stomp out any bugs that still exist.

Release candidates are typically the final stages of development before the new software is pushed out to users.

The latest beta version – Firefox Beta 3.5 – was released in early April and, in my experience, the results of that version weren’t exactly stellar.

Techworld notes that Mark Schroepfer, vice president of engineering, posted to Mozilla’s development blog this weekend, “The release candidates will move a little slower than beta.” The reason, according to Techworld, is because of “the need to account for more public feedback than with earlier builds.”

Or, as one friend posted succinctly to his Twitter stream: “Firefox 3 beta 5 = fail.”

I wonder if Schroepfer saw a lot of that and decided to urge his company into a more cautious route.

Personally, I’m still a Beta or two behind 5. But even the Firefox 3 beta that I use to surf the Interwebs daily is a little buggy. From time to time it freezes or just decides to shut down on its own. That said, I’m a lot happier with my latest version instead of Firefox 2, which routinely froze and forced me to reset my user preferences: Losing my bookmarks and history several times a day got old quickly.