Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 09, 2008 by CyberNet.

In under a year Apple has been able to fill a void in the mobile browser market that apparently few other devices can live up to. The iPhone is often criticized for having the slow Edge network wireless chipset in it, but regardless there are new reports that it has become the most used mobile browser for Internet access in the United States. Second place goes to Nokia’s Symbian OS, who also holds the number one spot on a global basis (iPhone is number 2 globally).

This really leaves you wondering how the iPhone will come out globally as it expands its reach. Not only that but there has also been a lot of buzz about the 3G iPhone being released in the next few months. Just today more news was found in regards to the 3G chipset being used in the next iPhone, and faster Internet access would likely mean even more mobile browsing.

Being an iPhone owner myself I can say that it’s one of the only mobile devices that make browsing the Internet easy. Most of the time I’m within reach of a Wi-Fi network so it’s not often that I’m plagued with using the painfully slow Edge network. I used to be a faithful Pocket PC user, but I can easily say that the iPhone’s Safari browser is way better than Pocket Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile!

[images via Compuserve and Mobilewhack]
Thanks to Omar for the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on September 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

Google kicked off Labor Day yesterday with a huge announcement. They gave everyone a heads up that sometime today the Google Chrome web browser would be launched for the first time. Needless to say there’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the pending release, but will it be able to live up to the hype?

The browser will include Google Gears and will be based on Webkit, which is the same rendering engine that powers the Safari web browser. That’s basically saying that if a website doesn’t work right in Safari there’s a good chance that it won’t work in Google Chrome either.

One of the most acclaimed features for Google Chrome is that it treats each individual tab as its own process on your computer. That way you’ll be able to see which tabs are eating up your memory, and when one of them crashes it won’t bring the entire browser down with it. That is definitely a welcomed feature.

Google’s browser has also taken a few cues from Opera. The more obvious example of this would be the “new tab” page that displays nine of your most visited sites (see screenshot above). It’s pretty clear that they took the idea of Opera’s Speed Dial, and then put their own little twist on it by displaying the user’s most visited sites instead of user-defined entries. They’ve also decided to place the tabs above the address bar, which is something very few browsers do besides Opera.

The question that’s burning in everyone’s mind is whether Google Chrome will be the browser that takes the world by storm. Personally, I don’t think so. I believe existing Firefox users will give it a shot, but probably won’t like not being able to customize it through the use of extensions. After all, Opera’s always criticized for not being extensible despite the fact that it ships with a robust amount of customization options. Google will probably have to target Internet Explorer users, and they’ll likely do that using a massive Adsense advertising campaign.

Google Chrome will be released for only Windows at first, but Google says Mac and Linux versions are on the way. Just hold on a little longer… today’s the day we get to see how Google envisions a browser.

Google Chrome Announcment
Screenshot Source
Thanks to everyone who sent in the tip!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

When it comes to optimizing web browsers, most of the firms behind popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome are always out to optimize the browsers for the best possible performance. … Continue reading

This article was written on April 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

One thing that I’m always careful about backing up is my browser’s profile. There is a lot of information stored in there, and it would be a real shame if I lost it all. If you’re running Opera then you’re in for a real treat with this backup utility. OperaFly is a nifty little free program that runs on Windows. You can get a version that does or doesn’t require installation, and the beauty is that it takes what could be a daunting task and turns it into something that is very user friendly.

When you startup the program it will automatically find the files and folders that it needs to access. Then you can select what parts of your profile you would like to back as seen in the screenshot above, and this is where the true customization comes into play. If you were wanting to start with a clean profile this would be a quite handy tool to have. You can selectively backup the areas of your profile that would be difficult to replace (bookmarks, mail, etc…), wipe out the Opera profile (which OperaFly can also do), and then restore only the portions of the profile that you just backed up. It pretty much does it all from a single interface.

Yeah yeah, I know… the problem is remembering to backup your profile. OperaFly has got you covered there as well. It includes a tool called OperaFly Watch that will sit in your System Tray. From there you can create a backup on-demand, or you can have it automatically create a backup each time you close the browser. Just tell it the location on your PC where you want the backups stored, and it will make sure it gets done. This is automation at its finest!

Get OperaFly
Thanks for the tip Mark!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on August 22, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Like many of you, I use bookmarklets on a daily basis to complete tasks a bit faster. Many of them offer features that normally require Firefox extensions to do, and I am one of those people that try to minimize the number of extensions I use. Not only that but if you use other browsers, such as Opera or Internet Explorer, then you’re forced to look for an alternate method of doing some things.

What is a bookmarklet? Here is Wikipedia’s definition:

A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or within hyperlinks on a web page. Because Internet Explorer uses the term favorites instead of bookmarks, bookmarklets are also less commonly called favelets by users.

This article is the second installment in our “Best Bookmarklets” series. In the first edition we covered over 20 great bookmarklets that let you do everything from delete a site’s cookies all the way to searching a page for text. This time around we have about another 20, and we have personally tested each one in Firefox 2 , Internet Explorer 7 , and Opera 9 .

Note: To use any of the following bookmarklets just hold down the left mouse button and drag the hyperlink to the bookmark toolbar in your browser.

–Hyperlinks and Navigation–

• Open All
  Loads any URL’s found in the text you highlight.
• Target Alert
  Adds an icon next to URL’s that open in a new window, point to a different site, link to a movie clip, link to an audio clip, or the source is a PDF.
• 
  Makes internal links red, external links blue, and same-page links orange.

–Cache–

• Rewrite All – Google
  This will rewrite every link on the current page to point to the Google Cache version.
• Rewrite All – Coral
  This will rewrite every link on the current page to point to the Coral Cache
  version.
• Archive
  Pulls up a listing of archives for the current page on Archive.org.

–Websites–

• Digg All
  Diggs all of the articles submitted by your friends. All you have to do is go to your Friend’s submission page and run the bookmarklet. Be careful because you could probably get banned if you’re Digging too many articles too fast.
• MultiSubmit
  Submit an article to over a dozen social network sites at one time. The link for the bookmarklet points to a page where you can customize which services are used. Note: You will have to be logged into each service for it to work.
• In IE
  Opens the current site in Internet Explorer.
• In Firefox
  Opens the current site in Firefox.

–Web Development–

• Show Comments
  Shows and highlights any HTML comments that would otherwise not be seen.
• Show DIVs
  Outlines all of the DIV elements on the page.
• View Selection Source
  Lets you highlight some text/images on the page and view the source code for that section. Firefox has this built-in to the right-click menu, but this does kind of work for it if you need it.
• Get Site Size
  Returns the dimensions of the website.
• Show/Hide Grid
  Puts a grid on the current page divided out into boxes that are 50-pixels on each side. This makes measuring a bit easier.

–Other–

• Edit Site
  This lets you edit the content of a site. You can add/remove images, text, and just about anything. A great tool for taking screenshots and removing personal information from the page first.
• 
  Click on elements throughout the page to remove them, and then print the page. Great for removing ink-eating ads and sidebars before you send a page to the printer.
• Anonymous Form Filler
  Fills in forms and email address fields with anonymous information. Great for commenting on sites where you don’t want to enter in your information.
• Word Count
  Counts the number of words from the text you’ve selected.

We would love to hear about any bookmarklets you might be using. Let us know in the comments below if you have found any great ones, and we’ll add them to the list!

Sources for the above bookmarklets: Opera Watch, Jesse Ruderman, Bookmarklets, Masatomo Kobayashi, Opera Wiki, and Andy Budd

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com