HitChrome

You’d think with the outbreak of the latest Internet browser war, companies like Microsoft and Mozilla would be doing everything possible to make their products competitive.

Microsoft announced that a flaw in Internet Explorer (IE) allowed hackers to redirected users to websites that would download malicious software designed to steal personal information such as user names and passwords onto users’ home computers.

Not surprisingly, the error was listed as critical, which resulted in some security companies calling for a boycott of IE until Microsoft released a patch to fix the flaw. I’ve never been a big fan of IE. In fact, I’ll only use it when I’m forced to, so I smugly sat there and gloated, confident that as a Firefox user I didn’t have to put up with the spreading panic.

Then karma turned around and bit me in the rear. Turns out earlier in the week Mozilla, the company that makes Firefox, issued a patch that fixed six critical flaws. Then Bit9, a US-based company that monitors security flaws, released a report of what it considers the top ten most vulnerable programmes.

Sitting at the top of the list was Firefox. IE didn’t even appear on the list. I was initially sceptical about Bit9’s results, but they make a good point. They based their report on a number of factors, including the number of critical bugs in the software, its overall popularity, and - here are the kickers - how easily updatable and supported the software was. Bottom line, IE is supported and patched by Micro-soft. Read the rest of this entry »

A representative from Sohu.com (SOHU) has confirmed that the Chinese Internet company plans to launch its own Internet browser product, but the detailed schedule for making it available to users has not been released.

According to news posted on Sina.com that quoted the unnamed representative from Sohu.com, Wang Xiaochuan, senior vice president of Sohu.com, revealed during his recent lecture in Tsinghua University that Sohu.com plans to launch a browser software to compete with Opera, Google’s Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Maxthon. The most distinctive feature of this browser is that users on education networks will be able to visit international networks directly via this browser, which means the browser will have an embedded proxy function.

At present, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dominates the browser market with other browser products, including Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome, dividing the minor part of the market. Having launched many software products like Sogou’s Pinyin input method, Web applications and desktop applications, Sohu.com’s browser product is expected to further integrate its product line.

Earlier in 2008, Mozilla announced plans to cooperate with Sohu.com to launch a new Olympics-related special version of the Firefox browser. This was the second time for Firefox to launch a customized product in China. Its first special version was NKU Firefox 1.0, which was developed by the Firefox user group at Nankai University.

When it comes to browsers, I’ve tried them all and was really disappointed when Google released their Chrome for Windows only. I regularly switch between Firefox and the latest nightly build from Webkit (essentially Safari) right now. Firefox has the extensibility I rely on. I had hoped that Chrome would magically become my new go-to browser. Unfortunately, Chrome is not yet nearly as extensible as Firefox, and isn’t available for Mac (yet).

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest experimental Firefox build from Mozilla, called Minefield. This Minefield should not be confused with the unofficial optimized builds of Firefox, which are also referred to as Minefield. Minefield is Mozilla’s code-name for this generation of Firefox, and the code name is used for unofficial builds to avoid infringing upon the Firefox name.

Now, what’s so special about the Mozilla Minefield build? It’s fast… smokin’ fast. This is essentially a version of Firefox with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine under the hood, and as Ars Technica reports, it tests even faster than Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.

As most Mac users have noted, Firefox is kind of pokey on the Mac platform, particularly compared with WebKit or even Safari, and even when compared with Firefox on a similarly spec’d Windows machine. Version 3 of Firefox was supposed to fix the performance problem, and while it’s somewhat better, it’s still not great. Read the rest of this entry »

Mozilla has released the first public preview of its mobile browser and has offered it for download in different versions tailored for PC and Mac users.

Currently it has been pitched as an “early developer release” and the company aims to receive feedback from its users.

The new browser which has been code named as “Fennec” includes touch screen support along with tabbed browsing interface.

Incidentally the name “Fennec” traces its origin to the small Fennec fox which thrives in the Sahara desert and is characterised by its huge ears.

Some of its other notable features include an advanced pop up blocker, a password manager and it plans to include geolocation in its later versions.

Fennec retails many elements of the Firefox 3 such as its characteristic address bar; however a major improvement includes the address bar doubling up as search bar similar to what has been noticed in Google Chrome. Read the rest of this entry »