Tag Archives: browser

Comodo Dragon

Yet another browser. Here’s an article from PC World.

Chromium is an open source spinoff of Google’s Chrome browser, which means that anyone can make their own version of Chromium, as the code is freely available. Chrome and Chromium are very similar and keep up with each other in versions; Chromium is more modifiable and Chrome is more closed. It’s all a matter of preference. Comodo Security Solutions, known for its suite of security software, has tossed its hat into the ring with Comodo Dragon. What separates Comodo Dragon from the other Chromium browsers–and Google’s proprietary Chrome–is the added level of security.

Comodo Dragon boasts what’s called “Incognito Mode,” which allows you to surf with all cookies turned off, no download tracking, and no other trace of your existence. This is handy for surfing over free public WiFi, where security is an issue, or in situations where you have to share a group or guest login. Instead of having to remember to delete your cookies afterward, as with a tracks eraser, Incognito Mode prevents cookies in the first place.

Read the rest of the article.

Whole Web is the OS of the future

This is according to Tim O’Reilly. I agree. In the future, everything will revolve around the browser and the whole web. The browser will essentially become the main interface to the operating system. From cnet news.

Open-source developers and businesses are focused on the wrong opportunity, according to industry luminary Tim O’Reilly. The future isn’t programming for Linux or MySQL. The future is programming for the “whole Web.”

And it threatens to be controlled by open-source savvy, data-rich companies like Google.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, O’Reilly closed the first day of the Open Source Business Conference by shaking up some comfortable assumptions of the open-source commercial ecosystem, which has tended to focus on commoditizing established markets with low-cost, high-value distribution, all driven by open-source licensing.

IE9 Beta

Microsoft IE9 “Platform Preview” is now available for download. It doesn’t have the all the features revealed at the moment, but we hope it will support web standards CSS3 and HTML5. From the looks of it, IE9 will not run on Windows XP. It requires at least a Vista SP2 OS. Microsoft engineers think the browser is going to be “crazy” fast. I don’t know what that means, but we will just have to wait and see.

Google Chrome Tops Safari

Google Chrome has overtaken Safari. It’s now the number three popular browser, second only to Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox:

Google Chrome hit a milestone over the weekend when it became the third-most popular browser after Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, according to metrics firm Net Applications. It controls just 4.63 percent of the browser market, but Chrome has made significant inroads against competing browsers, such as the former bronze medalist Apple Safari.

It’s not hard to see why Chrome is gaining ground. Consider its recently launched versions for Mac and Linux, and the introduction of Firefox-like add-ons called extensions. There’s also the added hype around Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS.

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Google Chrome Now Available For Mac and Linux

Well, it’s official. Google Chrome browser is now available for the Mac and Linux. Information Week has the details:

“We’ve been working hard to deliver a first-class browser for the Mac — it took longer than we expected, but we hope the wait was worth it!” declared Google product manager Brian Rakowski in a blog post. “We wanted Google Chrome to feel at home on the Mac, so we’ve focused on uniting our clean, simple design with subtle animations and effects to create a snappy and satisfying browsing experience on OS X.”Google also released a beta version of Chrome for Linux and browser extensions for users of beta and developer builds.

Google’s design goals for Chrome, which represents the foundation of the company’s forthcoming Chrome OS, remain focused on speed, stability, and security. As an example, Chrome isolates each browser tab so that buggy Web page code will only crash the tab and not the entire browser. Chrome’s multiprocess architecture is also a way to protect users from poorly coded or malicious extensions.

Install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 9.10

This post was written when Chrome was still not available for Linux. Chromium was the only option then. Now that Google Chrome is available, just go to Google’s website and download the browser directly.

Tired of Firefox? Do you want something a little bit more faster, maybe more stable? I seem to have issues with Firefox running on Ubuntu 9.10. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it has crashed several times. This article shows you how to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 9.10.

Add to your sources list.

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

You may substitute jaunty, intrepid, hoary for other distributions.

Add the GPG keys.

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com
0xfbef0d696de1c72ba5a835fe5a9bf3bb4e5e17b5

Run an update.

sudo apt-get update

Finally, install Google Chrome.

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Firefox 3.6

The latest reiteration of the Firefox browser in the upcoming version 3.6 will have an auto-orientation feature allowing devices with accelerometers such as mobile phones and laptops to show the Firefox browser either in portrait or landscape mode. The browser auto-rotates according to the orientation of the devices. This will not have much of an impact to desktop users, but certainly a release geared towards mobile devices.

10 Best Free Linux Browsers

Linuxlinks.com gives a list of free Linux browsers:

  1. Firefox – Highly popular browser delivering safe, easy web browsing
  2. Chromium – Open-source project behind Google Chrome
  3. Opera – Popular graphical web browser and Internet suite
  4. Konqueror – KDE 4′s advanced file manager, web browser and document viewer
  5. Epiphany – Simple yet powerful GNOME web browser targeted at non-tech users
  6. Dillo – Small, stable, developer-friendly, usable, very fast, and extensible
  7. Arora – Simple webkit based web browser using Qt toolkit
  8. ELinks – Feature-rich program for browsing the web in text mode
  9. Lynx – Very fast and easy to use
  10. Flock – Built on Firefox, specializing in social networking and Web 2.0 facilities

My take: the first 5 browsers are definitely worth the look. Firefox is still the default and standard for Linux distributions. Chromium is making inroads. Wait, until Chrome OS comes out. There will be a big spike in Chromium’s use. Lynx is useful for scripting. Finally, Flock is just an interesting browser.

950 Million Downloads And Going

Firefox 3.5 reached 5 million downloads in the first 24 hours according to Ars Technica:

Mozilla officially released Firefox 3.5 on Tuesday. The new version of the popular open source web browser has attracted considerable attention and is already seeing rapid adoption. It was downloaded over 5 million times during the first 24 hours. This falls short of the record-setting 8 million downloads that Firefox 3 had during its first day, but it still reflects the intense enthusiasm of the browser’s fans.

The collective number of total Firefox downloads exceeded 500 million last year and is currently estimated at roughly 950 million. It could exceed one billion by the end of August.