Explore our newest features
• Quick Find. Have you ever forgotten the page where you found that great article or that perfect gift? When using Opera the browser remembers not only the titles and addresses, but the actual content of the Web pages you visit. • Opera Link. Access your favorite Web sites everywhere! Opera Link syncs your bookmarks and Speed Dial between your computers and mobile phone.
• New browser engine. We’ve made the fastest browser in the world even faster with superior support for Web standards. Opera 9.5 is quicker to start, faster at loading Web pages and better at running your favorite Web applications.
* More than 2x faster than Opera 9.2 in rendering javascript and HTML
* Faster handling of third party plug-ins
* Much faster start up time
* Superior support for Web standards

Simplify your life online
• Speed Dial. Typing addresses for sites you visit frequently is ineffective. Get your favorite Web page with just one click. Speed Dial is a set of visual bookmarks you see when you open a new tab, like a dashboard for your online life. To add a new page, simply click on an empty Speed Dial and Opera will make suggestions based on browsing history and bookmarks.
• Mouse Gestures. With Opera you can navigate the Web with your mouse. A mouse gesture is performed while clicking and holding the right mouse button and moving the mouse in an easy pattern. Perform movements with the mouse to access well-known features like «Back», «Forward» and «Open new tab». Like Opera’s keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures are fully customizable, so you can tailor them any way you want.
• Download Manager with BitTorrent. Download files quicker with Opera. Opera starts downloading as soon as you’ve saved the file, so there’s no wasted time. Pause and resume downloads with the push of a button, and choose multiple files to download simultaneously without any fuss. Opera also features built-in support for the social file distribution protocol, BitTorrent, which makes it easy to download Torrent files without the need for a separate application.

Master your information
• Tabs and Sessions. Opera is very light on your computer, so it’s possible to have many tabs open at once. Drag and drop tabs around to change their order, or get a preview pausing over them with your mouse. You can even save a session of tabs for later, making it easy to pick up where you left off.
• Content blocking. Block images, pop-ups, and plug-ins you don’t want . Right-click and choose “Block content” to selectively disable annoying elements. To make Web pages load faster, or to avoid offensive content, temporarily turn off images by pressing the image button. In Opera, smart pop-up blocking is turned on by default.
• Zoom and Fit to width. Is it difficult to read the content on a page? Use Opera’s Zoom button in the lower right corner to resize Web pages. If the page is too wide for your screen, simply hit “Fit to Width” and Opera will resize the Web page so you avoid horizontal scrolling.
• Built-in e-mail and newsfeeds. Opera’s built-in e-mail client features improved responsiveness. It also retrieves and searches your mail and news feeds even faster than before. In Opera, newsfeeds are stored on your computer so you can read them later, even when you’re offline. Easily tag articles so you know which ones you want to read, which ones are important, which ones are funny, etc.

Personalize your browsing experience
• Customize your browser. Opera is easily customizable. Choose among hundreds of skins and setups, add or remove buttons, toolbars, or change the entire layout of the browser. It’s easy to do… or undo.
• Add a Widget to your life. Widgets are small Web applications (multimedia, newsfeeds, games and more) that make your desktop experience more fun and useful. Use the Widgets menu to discover new widgets and access your favorites. Visit widgets.opera.com to learn more.
• Quick and customizable Web search. Get quick access to Google, eBay, Amazon and more with the search field in the upper right corner. Or even quicker, search directly in the address bar using built-in and customizable keywords. For example, type “g Opera” in the address bar to search for “Opera” with Google. You can also create your own Web search from any search field on the Internet, simply by right clicking on a search field and choosing “Create Search”.

Make the Web a better place
• Stay safe with new Fraud Protection and EV. Not all Web pages are what they say they are. In Opera 9.5, Fraud Protection is enabled by default, automatically detecting and warning you about fraudulent Web sites. Fraud Protection is powered with phishing information from Netcraft and PhishTank, and Malware protection from Haute Secure. Malware is malicious software hidden throughout the Web. In addition Opera 9.5 support Extended Validation certificates (EV). This provides added assurance and trust for secure Web sites. Read more about Opera Security on: www.opera.com/security/
• Web developers: Meet Opera Dragonfly. Opera 9.5 includes a preview version of Opera Dragonfly, our upcoming developer tools. Opera Dragonfly makes web development using Opera easier than ever, both on your computer and mobile phone.

What’s new in Opera 10.0:
* Presto 2.2 Engine
* Performance boost
* 100/100 and pixel-perfect on the Acid3 test
* Auto-update
* Inline spelling checker
* Opera Mail improvements, including rich text composition and delete after X days
* Widget Improvements on Linux

Home – http://www.opera.com/

Download  Opera v10.01 Build 1844 Portable HERE    MIRROR

Security
• Sandboxing
Every tab in Chrome is sandboxed, so that a tab can display contents of a web page and accept user input, but it will not be able to read the user’s desktop or personal files. Google say they have “taken the existing process boundary- and made it into a jail”. There is an exception to this rule; browser plugins such as Adobe Flash Player do not run within the boundaries of the tab jail, and so users will still be vulnerable to cross-browser exploits based on plugins, until plugins have been updated to work with the new Chrome security. Google has also developed a new phishing blacklist, which will be built into Chrome, as well as made available via a separate public API.
• Privacy
Google announces a so-called incognito mode claiming that it “lets you browse the web in complete privacy because it doesn’t record any of your activity”. No features of this, and no implications of the default mode with respect to Google’s database are given.
• Speed
Speed improvements are a primary design goal.

Stability
• Multiprocessing
The Gears team were considering a multithreaded browser (noting that a problem with existing web browser implementations was that they are inherently single-threaded) and Chrome implemented this concept with a multiprocessing architecture. A separate process is allocated to each task (eg tabs, plugins), as is the case with modern operating systems. This prevents tasks from interfering with each other which is good for both security and stability; an attacker successfully gaining access to one application does not give them access to all and failure in one application results in a “Sad Tab” screen of death. This strategy exacts a fixed per-process cost up front but results in less memory bloat overall as fragmentation is confined to each process and no longer results in further memory allocations. To complement this, Chrome will also feature a process manager which will allow the user to see how much memory and CPU each tab is using, as well as kill unresponsive tabs.

User interface
• Features
Chrome has added some commonly used plugin-specific features of other browsers into the default package, such as an Incognito tab mode, where no logs of the user activity are stored, and all cookies from the session are discarded. As a part of Chrome’s V8 JavaScript virtual machine, pop-up JavaScript windows will not be shown by default, and will instead appear as a small bar at the bottom of the interface until the user wishes to display or hide the window. Chrome will include support for web applications running alongside other local applications on the computer. Tabs can be put in a web-app mode, where the omnibar and controls will be hidden with the goal of allowing the user to use the web-app without the browser “in the way”.
• Rendering Engine
Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine on advice from the Gears team because it is simple, memory efficient, useful on embedded devices and easy to learn for new developers.
• Tabs
While all of the major tabbed web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox) have been designed with the window as the primary container, Chrome will put tabs first (similar to Opera). The most immediate way this will show is in the user interface: tabs will be at the top of the window, instead of below the controls, as in the other major tabbed browsers. In Chrome, each tab will be an individual process, and each will have its own browser controls and address bar (dubbed omnibox), a design that adds stability to the browser. If one tab fails only one process dies; the browser can still be used as normal with the exception of the dead tab. Chrome will also implement a New Tab Page which shows the nine most visited pages in thumbnails, along with the most searched on sites, most recently bookmarked sites, and most recently closed tabs, upon opening a new tab, similar to Opera’s “Speed Dial” page.

Download Google Chrome 2.0.180.0 Beta MultiLangual+Plugins Gears(Portable) here

Internet Explorer

• Mozilla Firefox – a fast, open source, secure, and extendable browser from Mozilla. Offers a number of features over Internet Explorer, including Smart Location Bar, Places Manager, and a rich database of extensions.
• Opera – Feature-rich browser. Includes email client, BitTorrent downloads, Speed Dial (page with quick access to favorite websites), and mouse gestures.
• Safari – Ported from Mac OSX, Apple brings Safari to Windows. Features private browsing and other enhancements.

Wordpad

• OpenOffice – a Java based office suite with features that rival the commercial Microsoft Office, and is compatible with Microsoft’s own formats.
• AbiWord – Word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. While it does not include all the applications of OpenOffice, it can serve as a replacement for Wordpad.

Notepad

• Notepad++ – a feature-rich text editor. Features syntax highlighting, function completion, tabs, and a plethora of other capabilities.
• Notepad2 – While not as feature-rich as Notepad++, it offers a simple replacement for Notepad with syntax highlighting.

Calculator

• Power Calculator (XP only) – Microsoft offers a free more powerful alternative to the built in Calculator.

Command Prompt

• CygWin – CygWin emulates the Linux shell for Windows, allowing you to work with a more powerful command line.

Built In Unzipping Utility

• 7-Zip – Supports a number of formats, including RAR, ZIP, TAR, and 7z; can also generate a self extracting archive.
• TUGZip – Supports a wide range of formats and can create a self extracting archive.

Windows Media Player

• foobar2000 – While only audio, supports a wide range of formats without plugins, and has low memory usage and is extremely customizable.
• iTunes – Media player from Apple. Provides access to the iTunes Music Store (although not recommended as it bundles DRM with songs).
• Songbird – In alpha stage, integrates well with music websites. Supports syncing to other devices.
• VLC Media Player – Does not have a library feature, but plays almost any media format.
• Miro – Video only, features RSS downloading, BitTorrent, and support for video websites such as YouTube.

Windows Media Center

• XBMC for Windows – Supports a large number of formats and is skinnable.
• Elisa – Provides support for a large number of media formats, external devices, auto detection of media on the network, and basic Internet integration.

Paint

• GIMP – Advanced image editor with functionality similar to Adobe Photoshop.
• Paint.NET – While not as advanced as GIMP, Paint.NET provides a large feature set, including support for layers and unlimited undo.

Windows Search

• Google Desktop Search – Allows you to search the computer and Internet history in an interface similar to Google Web Search. Also provides a sidebar and quick launch utility.
• Copernic Desktop Search – Provides an intuitive UI for searching and claims to be light on resources.

Add/Remove Programs

• Revo Uninstaller – Powerful uninstaller that attempts to remove all traces of a program when uninstalling.

Disk Cleanup

• CCleaner – Searches system for unneeded files and cleans them. Also has a registry cleaner, start up manager, and minimalistic Add/Remove Programs interface.

Remote Desktop

• TightVNC – TightVNC sets up a server on the computer you want to control, and client software on the controlling computer. Offers a number of features over Remote Desktop.
• UltraVNC – Like TightVNC, with support for a Java viewer, text chat, and encryption.
• TeamViewer – Quick setup, with support for both Windows and Mac. Has file transfer; no firewall setting changes needed.

Windows Photo Gallery / Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

• Windows Live Photo Gallery – Microsoft provides an enhanced version of Windows Photo Gallery free, as part of the Windows Live suite. Provides photo library tools.
• IrfanView – Light image viewer with a wide range of features, including image manipulation and conversion.
• XnView – Another light image viewer with a wide range of features. Image manipulation, conversion, and meta data editing are a few features.

Windows Movie Maker

• Jahshaka – Offers much more functionality than Windows Movie Maker. Open source.
• LiVES – Not available for Windows natively, but can boot from a Live CD. Has a greater feature set than Windows Movie Maker.

Windows Messenger

• Windows Live Messenger – Offers more functionality (and bloat) than Windows Messenger. Supports only the MSN protocol, with some integration with Yahoo.
• Pidgin – Supports a wide range of protocols, including Yahoo!, MSN, IRC, AIM, Google Talk, Jabber, and others. Extendable with plugins.
• Digsby – Supports a wide range of protocols as Pidgin does, and also features integration with social media such as Facebook.
• Miranda IM – Light messenger with support for a wide range of protocols. Highly extendable.
• Yahoo! Messenger – Offers some integration with the MSN protocol. Mainly supports the Yahoo! protocol.

Windows Explorer

• xplorer2 – Offers a wide range of features over Windows Explorer, including dual pane and tabbed browsing.
• Free Commander – Offers tabbed browsing, dual pane, file wiping, and MD5 checksum abilities.

Windows Update

• AutoPatcher – Allows you to download necessary update files and apply them when offline.
• Project Dakota – Lets you download a CD ISO file with all the updates
• MakeUseOf provides a couple other ways to get your Windows updates.

Windows Shell

• Blackbox for Windows – An alternative light shell replacement for Windows, based off of the Blackbox Window Manager. Highly customizable.

Disk Defragmenter

• JkDefragGUI – Is able to defrag when your screensaver comes on. Has other powerful features.

Outlook Express / Windows Mail

• Mozilla Thunderbird – Email client from Mozilla. Extendable with plugins and themes.
• Windows Live Mail – An improved version of Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail is part of the Windows Live suite.
• Evolution – Originally for Linux, Evolution is now available for Windows, offering an Outlook-like GUI.
• Mail functionality is also provided by SeaMonkey (formerly Mozilla) and Opera

Windows Firewall

• Comodo Firewall Pro – Protects outbound connections as well as inbound connections, unlike Windows Firewall. Has database of “safe” software to prevent unnecessary warnings.
• ZoneAlarm Free Firewall – Protects outbound/inbound connections, “stealths” your computer.

Sound Recorder

• Audacity – Record, mix, and apply effects to sounds in this fully featured audio editor.

CD/DVD Burning Functionality

• ImgBurn – Works with all types of media, able to create, build, and burn CD images.

Windows Sidebar

• Google Desktop Sidebar – Google Desktop features a sidebar feature as part of the Google Desktop package.
• Yahoo! Widgets – While not a sidebar, Yahoo! Widgets allows you to place widgets onto your desktop. Also features a widget dock where you can view your widgets at a quick glance.
• Klipfolio – Place “Klips” around your desktop, with information from the web. Takes up less space than traditional widgets/gadgets.

Start Menu

• Vista Start Menu – Larger start menu which allows you to find your applications more easily and quickly perform tasks.
• Launchy – While technically not a menu, Launchy allows you to launch programs by typing a portion of the application name.
• ViStart – For XP users, this replaces the current Start Menu with Vista’s start menu, even containing search functionality.

Run

• Launchy – Launch programs by typing a portion of the application name – as opposed to typing the full application name or executable name.

Padahal, pada awalnya, situs jejaring web ini keanggotaannya dibatasi untuk siswa dari Harvard College saja. Selanjutnya, diperluas ke perguruan tinggi lainnya di wilayah Boston, Amerika Serikat, hingga ke negara bagian lain dan seluruh dunia.

Begitu pun pengelolaannya. Jika sebelumnya Anda hanya bisa mengakses situs jejaring dengan mengunjungi situs Web-nya melalui browser Internet, maka kini sejumlah aplikasi—baik dalam bentuk software mandiri, maupun plug-in—bisa dimanfaatkan untuk memantau perkembangan akun Anda di situs web bernuansa biru tersebut.

Tak Hanya via Browser
Kebanyakan software pendukung untuk Facebook berfungsi memberikan notifikasi bahwa ada perkembangan baru di akun Anda, semisal adanya pesan pribadi & wall-to-wall yang baru, sampai poke dan friend request. Juga ada aplikasi yang memungkinkan Anda bisa langsung menyetujui friend request dan merespons setiap pesan tanpa harus membuat akun di browser.

Seperti disebut di atas, aplikasi pendukung Facebook ini secara umum terbagi dua, yaitu aplikasi tunggal dan aplikasi tambahan (plug-in atau add-on). Aplikasi tunggal pendukung pengelolaan Facebook antara lain adalah Facebook Desktop 1 (www.ericzhang.com), Facebook Gadget 1 (www.turhanaydin.eu/gadgets), 8hands 0.9.135 (www.8hands.com), FizzBoost for Facebook 2.0 (www.gamaroff.org), Fosimo (www.x2line.com), Sociagami 1.0.17 (www.sociagami.com), sampai aplikasi pengelola chat dalam Facebook—Digsby Build 45 (www.digsby.com).Jika Anda suka menggunakan Yahoo! Widgets —aplikasi untuk mendayagunakan desktop sehingga bisa ditambahi aneka widgets atau aplikasi mini—cobalah mencari sejumlah widget untuk mengelola Facebook.

Dua widget yang kami temukan di sumber unduh resminya (http://widgets.yahoo.com) adalah Facebook Notifier dan Update Facebook Status. Jika tetap ingin mengontrol akun tetap lewat browser, coba tambahkan sejumlah add-on pendukung jika Anda menggunakan Firefox sebagai alat browsing.

Banyak add-on berkaitan dengan Facebook di https://addons.mozilla.org. Ada fasilitas untuk mengolah foto, seperti Facebook Photo Album Downloader dan FacePAD: Facebook Photo Album Downloader. Ada pula yang khusus untuk mengatur video, yaitu Facebook Video.

Lainnya, sebut saja HugBack for Facebook, Facebook Toolbar, Pink Facebook, Notre Dame Facebook Style, Boost for Facebook, Facebar, dan Who Is This Person? Yang terakhir ini berguna untuk mencari informasi orang di internet, termasuk dengan menelusuri Facebook.

Tak rugi untuk meng-install itu semua, meski harus menambah tenaga untuk meng-install-nya. Sebab, pengelolaan Facebook akan lebih praktis. Ini bisa berarti Anda tidak perlu bolak-balik dari dokumen kerja ke browser, hanya untuk melongok akun. Cukup melihat notifikasi atau perkembangan baru dari aplikasi yang ter-install di desktop.

Kelola dengan Fosimo
1. Unduh installer file Fosimo dari situs www.download.com atau situs resminya. Klik-dobel file tersebut sampai muncul bar proses instalasi. Tunggu sampai tuntas, lalu jalankan. Pertama kali akan muncul boks facebook Login. Isikan username Anda dan password-nya, lalu klik [Login].

2. Pada boks yang muncul berikutnya, klik [Allow]. Kini aplikasi sudah aktif, ditandai dengan munculnya ikon kotak jingga berisi huruf F di system tray (sudut kanan bawah layar). Klik-kanan ikon tersebut, dan pilih opsi yang tersedia. Untuk memantau status teman, klik [Check Friend Status].

3. Selanjutnya, akan muncul panel besar berisi status beberapa teman Anda di layar. Anda juga bisa melihat profil Anda sendiri dengan mengeklik opsi [My Profile]. Jendela berisi data ini bisa Anda manfaatkan untuk mengubah status Facebook Anda dengan mengetikkan sesuatu di kotak teks. Klik [OK].

4. Munculkan daftar teman Anda dengan mengeklik opsi [My Friend]. Dalam boks Profil List ini, Anda bisa melihat semua nama teman. Jika Anda mengeklik salah satu nama, lalu mengeklik [View], profil teman Anda akan muncul.

5. Hendak mengunggah foto ke akun? Gampang saja. Klik opsi [Upload Photos]. Pada boks dialog yang tampil, klik [Choose File to Upload] dan pilih foto yang hendak ditayangkan, dan klik [Open]. Pilih album foto yang hendak ditambahkan dari menu drop-down, “Photo Album”. Jika hendak membuat album baru, isi menu “Create New Album”.

CATATAN
Fosimo menuntut minimal Windows XP/Vista, RAM 256MB, harddisk 1GB, Net Framework 2.0 3.0, koneksi internet. File installer-nya berukuran 628KB, dan bisa diunduh di www.x2line.com atau www.download.com.

Opera Turbo uses “Opera Web Optimization Proxy”, such that though the web sites layout and text look same, image resolution is much lower due to compression. Dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax (XmlHttpRequests) and Flash are supported, but some plugin content will load only after clicking on the empty element.

If privacy concerns are important to you, they point out that encrypted traffic does not go through compression servers, which means that on SSL sites, they let you communicate with the SSL site directly. Opera does not store any users’ private information

Download Opera 10 preview with Opera Turbo, a time-limited release which can help you test the new technology which might be a boon to developing countries affected by slow internet connections,  and poor wi-fi connectivity. If you are troubled by slow internet speeds, check out Opera Turbo, or try the world’s fastest browser.

Update: @ceetee warns that “it does not utilize your bandwidth and makes it slower if you have a faster connection”.

According to the w3school, Internet Explorer 6 is still used up to 17.4%, which is significant for business, as we wouldn’t want to alienate some of our customers. We must therefore continue to serve this browser for the majority of commercial sites and for the general public.

I recently purchased a laptop that had a pre-installed version of Vista, only to realize that I could not install IE6 or Multiple IE, the tool I usually use at work. So I took a few hours to search the web for other possible options.

Here is a list of tools to help you test your browsers:

Option # 1 – Standalone Browser and Multiple IE
The “Standalone Browser” is a browser you don’t need to install but that uses resources from your system. It is not entirely reliable, nor legal, and it will not work on all operating systems (Vista, among others). It is very useful to test things quickly, but not practical for more extensive tests.

I have already had some bugs with this tool that was unavailable when I checked on real browsers. Also, some of the features seem to be missing, such as the print preview in Internet Explorer 6. It is therefore not 100% reliable.

You can find several on the site evolt.org, including several versions of IE.
If you want to try several “Standalone Browser” Internet Explorer and you are on XP, I recommend Multiple IE. It will install IE3, IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE 6 and this could save you some time.

Option # 2 – Buy more computers
The ultimate solution for acquiring real browser versions and not wasting time on browsers that may potentially be different is to buy multiple testing computers with different browsers on each. If you want to test your browser on a Mac, this is one of the best options available to you. Of course, this option is expensive and will take up a lot of your time. Moreover, this solution does not allow you to test locally quickly, can be very greedy in terms of space and may be poorly suited for a large production team.

Option # 3 – SuperPreview for Microsoft Internet Explorer
Microsoft SuperPreview is a new (beta) product from Microsoft that allows you to test multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same software. The most interesting feature is probably the “onion skin”, which allows you to view the HTML one above the other to see the differences easily.

However, this product only seems to work to test the graphics. You will probably not be able to test the JavaScript/Ajax on your site.

Option # 4 – Services Screenshots
Some sites like browsershots.org allow you to make screenshots of your site and send them to yourself. These Internet services are especially practical for testing a large number of browsers on multiple operating systems (i.e., 90 + and for BrowserShots.org).

However, the majority of these services come with a fee and/or can take long to get results. Moreover, the fact you only get images, you only see the design and you cannot test each page nor the JavaScript. You cannot test in local / SVN either.

Option # 5 – Remote Access
Other sites like browsercam.com also offer the possibility to connect to other computers from your computer remotely. I have not tested these systems, but they seem very interesting. Unfortunately I do not know of any free versions of these systems and it will not be possible to test in local / SVN. If you happen to be a big company, I think it would be possible to create your own remote access.

Option # 6 – The Virtual Machines
The virtual machines are certainly one of the options I find most interesting. The virtual machines are like computers inside your computer. For example, you can drive Linux on Windows Vista or Windows XP on MacOS.

You can create as many virtual machines as you want and install browsers on each. Vmware, one of the biggest players in this field, offers products for Mac and PC allowing you to emulate several operating systems.

Microsoft also has its own emulator, Virtual PC. Microsoft was kind enough to create images for Virtual PC to test the various versions of Internet Explorer (IE6, IE7, IE8). The one little glitch is that images are only valid for 6 months, after which you must return to the site to download the new images.

The virtual machines are much less expensive than physical computers, which take up a lot of space. However, you still have to install the operating system(s) which again will take some time.

Option # 7 – Virtual Applications
Here is another of my favorite options. Instead of having a virtual machine, you have an application that is virtual and won’t conflict with the existing operating system. VMware ThinApp and Xenocode are two programs to create this type of application. But what is most amazing is that Xenocode offers ready-made versions of most browsers. The only downside is that this solution only works for Windows, therefore you may forget to test it on MacOs or Linux.

Conclusion
If the trend continues, I think we will have more tools to properly test our sites. If you know any tools that I do not know, I encourage you to give feedback by leaving a comment!

As of last Friday, web reports stated that IE8 only accounted for about one and a half per cent of all internet traffic. Here’s are some of the gripes users have with the new Microsoft browser.

1. Compatibility issues.

The Acid 3 test for compatibility ensures that the browser works well with technologies such as CSS, HTML4 and XHTML. However, the test reveals that IE8 falls far short of scores delivered by other new browser software from Google and Mozilla.

This failure could especially be a huge stumbling block for developers as they rely on these standards to make sure their work can run across many different browsers and on different OSes.

Microsoft had earlier warned that IE8′s default support for some new Internet standards may cause problems with their sites. Explorer 8 includes a tool called Compatibility View that lets users view sites built for previous editions of the browser.

2. Still slow.

Microsoft Corp is boasting about the performance speed of the IE8, but the new browser remains the slowest of the top five on the market.

According to JavaScript rendering tests run by Computerworld, the final version of IE8 is only slightly faster than the browser’s Release Candidate 1, which Microsoft released in January.

According to the test findings (which appeared in Computerworld) Google Inc’s Chrome led all browsers in the SunSpider tests, making it more than four times faster than IE8. Second was Mozilla Corp’s Firefox 3.0.7, followed by Apple Inc’s Safari 3.2.2 for Windows and Opera Software’s Opera 9.63.

Firefox proved to be 59 per cent faster than IE8, while Safari was 47 per cent faster. Opera, the slowest non-Microsoft production browser, was still 38 per cent faster than IE8.

Walt Mossberg, the personal-technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, criticised IE 8′s performance in an All Things Digital post, “Microsoft claims IE 8 is very fast, but in my tests, speed and performance were its worst attributes. Using two computers, one running Windows XP and one running Windows Vista, I timed the loading of a half-dozen popular Web sites, plus two folders containing numerous news and sports sites. I repeated the test in IE 8, and in Firefox, Safari 4, and Chrome. In every case, IE 8 loaded the pages and folders more slowly than most of the other browsers, and in most cases, it came in dead last.”

Incidentally, Microsoft said that its own speed tests prove Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) to be faster than both Firefox and Chrome.
3. Hacked!.

IE8 beefs up protection against malware and known phishing scam sites. However, the new browser suffered its first hack just days after its official launch (along with Safari and Firefox browsers).

At a security conference last week in Canada, a hacker exploited a security hole in Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 8 in under two hours, taking control of a Sony laptop running an internal build of Windows 7.

The 25-year-old German researcher won $5,000 and a Sony laptop in the annual contest PWN2OWN that invites hackers to worm their way into popular browsers and operating systems for prize money.

Later, Microsoft confirmed for TippingPoint’s Digital Vaccine Laboratories that the IE8 vulnerability was genuine. It is still unknown whether the vulnerability exists only on Windows 7.
4. No final support for Windows 7.

Microsoft is currently not offering the final version of Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7. For those using Windows 7 Beta will have to stick with IE8 Release Candidate 1 for now.

Microsoft has not confirmed when the final version of IE8 will be available for Windows 7, but it is expected in the next public release for Windows 7.

Also, IE8 can only be downloaded from

www.microsoft.com/ie8

or Microsoft’s Download Center. Microsoft has not specified when it will push IE8 through the Windows Update service.

5.

According to Microsoft, IE 8 helps web designers prevent “clickjacking,” where a Web surfer might think they’re clicking on a legitimate button when in fact they’re activating an invisible, malicious action.

However, many experts believe that Microsoft’s latest technology to protect Internet Explorer users from clickjacking will not fix the problem. According to them, it won’t be a panacea cure-all, but it may help. Researches believe that the problem is so vast that Microsoft’s approach, which works only when developers add special tags to their pages that prevent their own Web buttons from being misused, may end up giving IE users a false sense of security.

Microsoft released the technology as part of an early test version of its Internet Explorer 8 browser, saying that the company had developed “consumer-ready” protection for an attack.

Clickjacking enables an attacker to force a user click on an invisible link, obviously without his knowledge or consent. Once a user clicks the link unknowingly, the hacker takes over the control.

? Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 RC1
? Mozilla Firefox 3.0.6
? Opera 9.6
? Google Chrome 1.0.154.48
? Safari 4 Beta

For the most part, I use Firefox, but I also spend a lot of time with Microsoft Internet Explorer and some of the newer browsers like Chrome and Safari. It’s a lot like dating. I start using a new browser or browser version and discover all of its wondrous new features. I fall in love. We have a passionate affair. I’m faithfully monogamous, and then, as it does with so many relationships, things change. Small, almost petty annoyances begin to pop up. In the case of the browser, they’re often related to speed issues, the inability to properly display certain pages, and resource hogging. Love turns to bitterness and then, sometimes, outright hate. In a fit of disgust, I discard the browser and move on to my new flame. This relationship, too, eventually goes south. By then, I’ve likely forgotten why I came to hate the first browser and rush back into its arms. This cycle of Web browser love/hate goes on and on.

Right now, I’m using the Safari 4 Beta. It’s certainly a nice-looking browser, with its molded, 3D-esque tabs and glowing buttons. I noticed how many reports, including PCMag’s, touted the speed. Yes, it’s fast—at least initially. However, this is real beta software, not a “Google Beta.” Google products are usually beta in name only and typically function with the stability of shrink-wrapped products. Safari 4 Beta, though, has some weird, truly beta-esque quirks. For one thing, it doesn’t populate the address bar with the URL you’re visiting until a moment or two after you’ve arrived at the page. That same bar almost fights you when you try to copy and paste URLs into it. I can’t tell you how many times it reverted to the previous URL. At one point, I opened Safari’s “Show all Bookmarks” pane, and then I couldn’t get rid of it. The new tab features are slick, with a 3D view of previously visited pages, but that visual flourish did not always appear. This version also adds Cover Flow (apparently, every Apple product must include it—programmers probably have it written into their contracts), but finding the feature is a challenge. So, while I loved Safari for a few hours, I grew increasingly frustrated.

I’ve been using Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 since Beta 1, and as I pointed out last year (“Internet Explorer 8 Goes a Different Way”), Microsoft is clearly heading in the right direction with this update. IE8 RC1 is much more stable than that first beta and, in general, it’s a good browser. It’s fast, though not as fast as Safari or Chrome. Tabs open with reasonable alacrity and are among the cleanest I’ve seen, but they don’t show you your most frequently visited sites. I still wish Microsoft had moved the Home button back up to the main address bar. Microsoft officials told me that you now have the ability to move it yourself, but I can’t find that control. My issues with IE8, though, usually deal with compatibility and resource consumption. With the former, I noticed that IE8 (running on Windows XP) works only “okay” with Google Desktop. Coincidence? When I perform a search via Google Desktop’s Floating Deskbar (the floating search bar) and hit Enter, the IE8 search results page comes up empty. The browser compatibility button, which tells you if you’re viewing a site with IE8 compatibility issues, is not visible. I can access my results only by refreshing the browser window.

On the resource front, I use a lot of IE8 tabs. Eventually, my system gets bogged down, and I see that IE8 has opened a different process for each tab. This, folks, is a feature, not a bug. Microsoft did this so that the crash of one Web page does not bring down the whole browser and all of your tabs at once. That’s a good thing, but it also can make it difficult to see how many processes IE8 is eating up. I usually sort by image name to group all the IE windows, and then add up. Overall, it’s still using pretty much the same amount of resources as IE7, which, in my book, is too much.

In IE8′s defense, all browsers eventually eat a ton of resources. Tabbed browsing is a great innovation, but it’s not one browser kernel with some thin, resource-conserving windows on top of it. Most of the time, you take just as big a hit if you open eight browsers or eight tabs. And for the record, Safari 4 Beta eats up nearly as many resources as IE8. On balance, Opera and Firefox use the fewest resources (but Firefox does gang them all up into one process). Chrome, for all its speed, is using almost as many resources as IE.

Please don’t tell me my usage patterns are outside the norm. Every time I sit down at my wife’s computer, I notice that she has five or six separate browsers open at once. We all open lots of browser windows these days.

Anytime I write about browsers, someone recommends that I use Opera. I have. It’s a good, fast browser, but I never stick with it. I can’t quite put my finger on what I don’t like about Opera, but there’s something off about it. Judging by Opera’s minuscule market share (and the length of time it’s been around), I’m not alone.

Time and time again, I return to Firefox because it’s still, for me, the fastest and most consistent of all the browsers. And the Awesome Bar (a smart address bar) remains unmatched. In IE8, when I type in “news,” the browser shows me a list of news sites—including News of the Weird—that I never visit. Firefox, on the other hand, immediately shows Google News—the site I use constantly. The act of Web browsing is simply faster with Firefox.

I should point out that for some time, Google Chrome was my main browser squeeze. Why? Well, Chrome does the one thing that I wish all browsers would do: get the heck out of my way. If you think about it, one of the major issues with today’s browser market is how Microsoft, Firefox, Apple, Opera, and the like have made the story about the browsers. Setting aside speed (which is undoubtedly a good thing), all these crazy features that vendors keep adding are nothing but annoying. IE8′s Web slices and accelerators have lain fallow on my desktop. I almost never use bookmarks or favorites on any of my browsers. And why shouldn’t in-private browsing be the default? If there are only a handful of sites that we all visit on a regular basis, perhaps we could collect those during browsing, and everything else would be automatically discarded. Yes, I know, this is probably a bit too extreme.

Even Chrome, though, usually ends up disappointing me. I stop using it when its resource demands and sometimes spectacular crashes become too much to bear. To be fair, I have not spent as much time with version 1. In fact, when I think about Chrome now, it’s looking kind of attractive. Maybe I’ll take her for a spin.

So Google has introduced Google Toolbar 6 Beta for Internet Explorer, touted as “a year in the making” and offering, well, a few new features, although Google’s toolbar team describes it as a major upgrade, launching simultaneously in 40 languages.

The most significant new feature seems to be the Quick Search Box, which lets you click on an icon in your Windows task bar to open a small dialog box from which you can search and even launch apps. Google’s updated IE toolbar also gets some features the Firefox version has had for while, notably a new tab page, which restores bookmarks and recently viewed sites. Google is also promoting its “enhanced search suggestions” — if you like that sort of thing; for me, it has always rather resembled some eager companion who finishes your sentences. Still, Google’s programming team is eager for you to try it out and give them some comments and suggestions.

Google likes to tout the advantages of self-regulation and the free market when its dominance in search and advertising is called into question, but the Web giant doesn’t seem to mind letting the government intervene in the browser market. In an announcement posted today at Google’s official public policy blog, Google VP of product management Sundar Pichai says that the company will be participating as a third-party in the European Commission’s (EC) ongoing investigation of Internet Explorer.

Opera filed a complaint with the European Commission in 2007 alleging that Microsoft has undermined competition in the browser market by providing its own Internet Explorer Web browser in the dominant Windows operating system. Opera says that its browser never gained mainstream traction because of Microsoft’s bundling tactics. The EC concurred with Opera in a statement that it issued in January which accused Microsoft of damaging browser innovation. In a follow-up statement that was issued this week, the EC says that Microsoft will face hefty fines and could be forced to provide other browser options in Windows that the user can select when installing Windows or ordering computers.

Mozilla announced earlier this month that it would be participating in the investigation and offering its assistance to the EC. Mozilla chairperson Mitchell Baker argued that the success of Firefox does not constitute productive competition and that the lack of successful commercial browser offerings reflects an unhealthy market ecosystem.

Google is now applying with the EC to participate in the proceeding in the same capacity as Mozilla. Pichai argues that the browser market today is still highly uncompetitive and that the advancement of emerging Web technologies could be significantly accelerated by imposing some constraints on Microsoft’s bundling. He acknowledges, however, that finding an effective remedy will be difficult and that the process comes with risks.

“Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users. This is because Internet Explorer is tied to Microsoft’s dominant computer operating system, giving it an unfair advantage over other browsers,” he wrote in the blog entry. “We learned a lot from launching our own Google Chrome browser last year and are hoping that Google’s perspective will be useful as the European Commission evaluates remedies to improve the user experience and offer consumers real choices. Of course creating a remedy that helps solve one problem without creating other unintended consequences isn’t easy—but the more voices there are in the conversation the greater the chances of success.”

Although the numerous deficiencies of Internet Explorer are well documented and Microsoft’s historical resistance to compliance with open standards has created many challenges for Web developers, the browser market today is highly competitive and richly innovative. Mozilla has achieved significant traction in Europe and already has nearly half of the browser market in several countries.

It’s also highly questionable whether bundling is still a truly relevant factor. Indeed, the fact that Google’s brand new Chrome browser has already exceeded the marketshare of Opera seems to demonstrate that Opera’s woes aren’t entirely Microsoft’s fault. In a recent interview with PC Pro, Mozilla’s Mike Conner, one of the chief Firefox engineers, argued that Opera’s claims that bundling harms competition are “provably false” and suggested that Opera’s desktop browser is unpopular because it is too complex and distracting.

The EC has a poor track record with respect to Microsoft unbundling remedies. When the government body forced Microsoft to produce a version of Windows XP without Windows Media player, it was universally shunned and OEMs largely refused to ship it on hardware. The EC appears to be heading in a different direction this time, but it’s unclear if it will have any impact on browser choice in the European market, where Firefox has already gained mainstream acceptance.