Yesterday, Apple released the latest version of its web browser, Safari 5. In their release notes, they highlight not only new features, but also the fact that it’s faster than the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox. One competitor they didn’t mention was the most-used web browser in the world: Internet Explorer. Today, Microsoft has responded to that.
In a post on their Blogging Windows blog… → Read More
Microsoft’s oft-lamented browser, Internet Explorer 6, may finally be put to rest. This will make many a Web developer happy – but also Microsoft itself.
Web analytics company StatCounter claims its latest global data set shows IE6 usage in the US and Europe has fallen to 4.7 percent of the market from 11.5 percent a year ago. That said, IE8 usage in the US increased to 30.5 percent in May (up… → Read More
Quora is a great place to find answers about products from prominent people involved with them. It’s also a great place for those prominent people to disagree, publicly. That’s what’s happening right now in a thread about the future of Firefox.
Someone posted the following question to Quora recently: Will Firefox have double-digit market share in 3 to 5 years? Straightforward enough. Yes, says… → Read More
Did we mention that 2010 would be a big year for HTML5? Apple and Google are pushing it big time, and now so is Microsoft. When Internet Explorer 9 comes out, it will support HTML5 and help make it more common across the Web.
“The future of the web is HTML5,” writes Dean Hachamovitch, the general manager for IE at Microsoft in a blog post talking about Web video. Microsoft still supports Flash… → Read More
Ooh, this is a nasty one, isn’t it? There’s a computer virus out there called Zeus that targets users engaged in online banking. It affects users running Firefox and Internet Explorer—a fair chunk of all Internet users, then. As always, the best policy here is to keep your wits about you as you browse the Internet. → Read More
Back in June, Google launched Sputnik, a suite of tools that runs over 5,000 tests to check a web browser’s JavaScript conformance. Last week, they made the tool a lot easier for anyone to use, with a version that works in the web browser. The results are interesting.
Notably, both the Opera and Safari web browsers beat Google’s own Chrome browser in the test. As you can see in the picture above… → Read More
I think I’m getting to the point that, instead of feeling bad for people who fall victim to phishing scheme, or any other online nonsense, I’m actually like, “You know what? Serves you right.” There’s a new scam going around that exploits Internet Explorer (in Windows XP, mostly), and it works by tricking users into pressing the F1 key at a certain time. Once the key is pressed, any ol’ code a… → Read More
Simply put: Google Chrome is amazing. Ever since it was finally released for the Mac late last year, I’ve been blown away by its big things (speed) and little things (search box that is also the URL box). But the true power of Chrome may lie in what third-party developers are able to do with it. This is what helped Firefox rip market share away from Internet Explorer over the past several years. → Read More
Slowly, but surely, Internet Explorer 6, long the bane of many a web developer, is dying. And you’re invited to its funeral.
A Denver, CO-based design company, Aten Design Group, has built a site to mark the occasion. At IE6funeral.com you can RSVP as to whether you will be able to attend the funeral service or not. It’s at the company’s headquarters in Denver, but those who aren’t able to attend… → Read More
After a lengthy legal face-off, Microsoft and European antitrust officials recently agreed on the implementation of a so-called ballot screen that will give European Windows users a chance to download rivals’ browsers – including Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera – as possible alternatives to Redmond’s own Internet Explorer (see screenshot above or go here).
Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft… → Read More
Sweet merciful fates, the continued existence and use of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is getting as much publicity as the Linux-vs-Windows debate. If you’re interested in this story, and we all know you’re interested or these stories wouldn’t keep popping up, there’s an interesting examination of the reasons for MSIE6′s prolonged existence online for your perusal. The usual suspects … → Read More
The Chinese hacker saga continues, with some pretty huge news having emerged in the past few hours. U.S. authorities have identified, so they think, the sole person responsible for the underlying code used on attacks on Google and others. He’s a “freelance security consultant” in his 30s, and he was able to take down almighty Google by exploiting a previously unknown hole in Internet Explorer. → Read More
In the intricacies of high-level European diplomacy, there’s two things Paris and Berlin can agree on: Conan is better, and you’d better not be using Internet Explorer. A French government agency is now advising citizens of the French Republic not to use Internet Explorer because of security concerns. It’s 2010, and we’re still writing “IE isn’t secure!” stories. Amazing. → Read More
So Google got hacked, or something, by cyber criminals in China, and Microsoft has acknowledged that their Internet Explorer browser was part of the problem. Specifically, Interent Explorer version 6 was part of the problem, and Microsoft is quick to point out that version 8 is much better, and much more secure. Cliff Evans, Microsoft’s Head of Security and Privacy in the UK, further states that … → Read More
When Microsoft updates its software, it typically likes to do so in bulk, which it often calls “Patch Tuesday.” But amid growing controversy around the vulnerability of its Internet Explorer web browser, and particularly IE6, Microsoft has decided to go “out of band” and release the update as a stand-alone fix, which it will do ASAP, it notes today.
While not specifically stated in the post, this… → Read More
Computer and software security company McAfee last week identified a vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer as a key vector in the cyberattacks that hit Google and over 30 other companies in a high-profile, multi-staged and concentrated effort to hack into specific computer systems in order to obtain intellectual property.
Redmond has since issued a security advisory and later published its… → Read More
The EU said this morning that it is dropping antitrust charges against Microsoft after the software giant agreed to give Windows OS users a choice of up to 12 other Web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari and Opera.
Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Microsoft will need to implement a ballot screen that lets users in Europe replace Internet Explorer with… → Read More
People hate IE6; they’ve made that abundantly clear on the web. Unfortunately, plenty of people are still stuck using it for reasons such as their work not letting them upgrade. So Google is doing something about it.
Chrome Frame is a new browser plug-in developed by Google to give you a Chrome browsing experience inside of Internet Explorer. Let me restate that slightly to make it more clear… → Read More
Back in the 1990s during the original browser wars between Netscape and Internet Explorer, one of Microsoft’s chief weapons was the ability to bundle IE into Windows as the default browser. With bundling came market share, or so the government argued in its antitrust case against Redmond.
Fast forward to today’s search wars. You’d think that bundling a search engine into a browser would have … → Read More
Not sure when this started occurring exactly, but Yahoo is apparently now letting Firefox users know that they’d be better off switching to the “new, safer Internet Explorer 8″. Apart from this tweet sent out yesterday, we haven’t noticed anyone noticing, so we suspect it’s fresh and a direct result of the recent Yahoo and Microsoft love-fest.
How ironic. About a year ago, following a failed… → Read More
Mozilla’s Firefox browser is about to hit a major milestone: 1 billion total downloads. As you can see on this Twitter account set up to monitor the download numbers, it just crossed the 999,000,000 threshold earlier today. Judging by the rate at which it’s increasing, it could hit the milestone as early as tomorrow.
And Mozilla is preparing for the big day with a new site (not live yet), called… → Read More
People, especially web developers and designers, tend to have a profound dislike of Internet Explorer 6. That’s not news, but it keeps amazing me how deep this hate runs. Consider my recent article on YouTube prompting IE6 users to please switch to a modern browser, which garnered no less than 391 comments and over 2300 retweets. Needless to say, most people were applauding the Google company for… → Read More
Judging by this screenshot taken by an IE6 user who was watching some videos on YouTube, it appears the Google company will be phasing out support for the browser shortly. I don’t have Internet Explorer 6 installed on my computer, so I can’t verify this first hand, but illogical it seems not and a simple Twitter search shows multiple people confirming the news. Heck, some are even downright… → Read More
Chrome is a great browser for Google’s web apps because its JavaScript engine is optimized to run most of them as fast as possible. That alone is reason enough for heavy users of applications like Gmail and Google Reader to use Chrome (if you have a PC anyway — the Mac version is still forthcoming). But Google may also be giving another small advantage to those who surf the web on Chrome: The… → Read More
Location-based services haven’t yet caught fire, but location itself is increasingly finding its way to web services as a complimentary feature. The latest to use it is the Google Toolbar. If you have it installed, and open Google Maps, it will now auto-center on your location.
That’s a small, but useful feature, but the ramifications of this move are potentially much large. This adds location… → Read More
You’ll be able to download Microsoft’s newest web browser, Internet Explorer 8, at 12PM Eastern time today (link here). Microsoft promises that IE8 “is one of the fastest browsers on the market today” and features new goodies like Web Slices, Instant search, and Accelerators – basically right-clicking on highlighted text to bring up a list of routine tasks like mapping, e-mailing… → Read More
Microsoft has just pushed live its Release Candidate for Internet Explorer 8, the latest update to the world’s most widely used web browser. You can download it here. Unfortunately the release is only for Windows Vista, XP, and Server – if you’re trying out Windows 7 you’ll have to wait for the next OS update to try out the RC.
The new version, which comes after two public beta releases, is now… → Read More
Preliminary statistics from Net Application show that Internet Explorer is losing more ground in the internet browser battle. It’s not really surprising as Firefox, Safari and Chrome are all gaining popularity. → Read More
Even though the drama surrounding Microsoft’s Yahoo acquisition has subsided, it looks like there’s still some bad blood.
A tipster yesterday sent us a screen shot of Yahoo’s front page running on Internet Explorer with a Firefox recommendation sitting atop the page. “Yahoo recommends upgrading to the NEW safer, faster Firefox 3,” the ad says. → Read More
And there was cake. The Microsoft IE team sent the Mozilla team a beautiful, frosting-covered cake with a kind message – “Congratulations on Shipping” – along with a dessicated human heart. Just kidding: The frosting wasn’t so beautiful, as you can see here. → Read More
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