Mozilla

Is Microsoft trying to buy users?

In an attempt to get more users, Microsoft has added SearchPerks to its Live Search service.

But, unless you have Internet Explorer 6.0, you aren’t even able to access the SearchPerks registration form. Yep. In order to test out SearchPerks you need to have IE 6 or higher. That’s a deal breaker right there.

With only a 9% market share compared with Google’s 60%, Microsoft refuses to give up on the search market. And you have to admire that fact – despite the failed Yahoo acquisition (which Google sidled up and snagged), it’s full steam ahead! Microsoft will not quit – but it will pay you to use Live Search.

So what is SearchPerks? Registered users agree to download a usage tracking program and then earn one ticket per every Live Search query (up to 25 tickets per day) until the program ends in April. Users can then redeem their tickets for prizes or donate the rewards to charity.

As interesting as it sounds, the SearchPerks registration page has a bit of a late-night infomercial feel to it. Things like “the sooner you sign up, the more opportunity you have to earn tickets!” are reminiscent of the “act now to receive your second Magic Bullet completely free!” But then again, perks persuade people to buy (or in this case, be bought).

Why hasn’t Live taken off? Is it because Google is so well known as a reliable search engine that newcomers barely have time to make it out of the starting gate? Cuil didn’t get too far, either – and it had pictures included in the results lists. But maybe that’s it – we don’t want the extras, just give us our search results so we can continue on with our task at hand. We don’t have time to register and redeem prizes! I found the added prize bonus to be an incredible turnoff. I want results, not prizes. If I were aiming for the latter I’d open a box of Cracker Jack.

By offering up SearchPerks to attract users, has Microsoft inadvertently proved Google’s strength? The search engine should speak for itself, no gimmicks necessary.

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.