Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 26, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft will be addressing a lot of privacy issues in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, which will be released to the public soon. The new version of the browser will include a private browsing mode called InPrivate, and when it’s enabled cookies aren’t stored, history isn’t recorded, and a lot of your other data is never saved. For people who work on public computers this kind of feature can offer a little piece of mind.

One other handy feature that will be included is the ability to clear out all of your history, passwords, cookies, and more for all websites except those located in your favorites. That means clearing out all of your cookies won’t cause you to have to login again to the sites that reside in your bookmarks.

The last thing that I wanted to point out is a feature they’re calling InPrivate Subscriptions. Here’s how the IE8 team describes this feature:

Under the covers, InPrivate Subscriptions are simply RSS feeds of Regular Expressions that specify sub-downloads to block or allow. Anyone can publish an InPrivate Subscription on their website, just as they can offer an Accelerator or Web Slice on their website.

Essentially with InPrivate Subscriptions users will be able to subscribe to lists of sites that should be blocked. Anyone can create their own list, and then publish it on their own site to share with the world. Content including images, scripts, and CSS files can all be blocked using InPrivate Subscriptions. While it may not be the intended use I’m sure there will be plenty of these subscriptions created to block advertisements from around the web.

So what do you think? Is Internet Explorer 8 shaping up to be a great browser? Here’s a rather lengthy interview (38 minutes) with some of the managers from the Internet Explorer team outlining how some of the new features will work.

[via IE8 Blog] Thanks Claus!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

Click to Enlarge

Alex Faaborg has done several Firefox mockups in the past that we have covered (bookmarking, notifications, and history). He often highlights features that would make the browser more usable, and I occasionally feel myself longing for what he posts. This time around he posted some ideas of what it might look like to bring the keyboard to life.

The ideas that he came up with combine the power of the keyboard with the pleasure of a user interface. For starters there is the tab-switching mechanism (Ctrl+Tab) which currently has no sort of interface whatsoever. A mockup of what could be implemented is posted above, with a filter box to quickly find the page that you’re looking for. A similar interface would also be used for flipping through your browser’s website history.

The other thing that he designed is awesome…a quick way to search sites as well as your bookmarks. The mockup is pictured to the right, and as Alex pointed out there are currently a lot of inefficiencies in searching through your bookmarks. This design hopes to conquer those problems.

So are we going to be seeing this in Firefox 3? Nope, these mockups were made just to demonstrate the power of a command line interface when it is tied with an user interface. Here’s what Alex says about the future of this idea:

Please note that these are all only conceptual mockups, and we currently have no official plans to implement these features for Firefox 3 (although, we may at some point release a prototype extension through Mozilla Labs).
…
Just because the command line predated the graphical user interface doesn’t mean interfaces based on windows, icons, menus and pointers are always superior to interfaces based around using the keyboard for input.

It’s both fun and exciting to see such mockups come out of the Mozilla labs, although many of them seem to be more for show and tell. What really matters is how well they are able to implement these cool features if they ever get to that point.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on February 07, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Now that Windows Vista has been released it is time for software developers to start making their applications look a little cleaner with the Aero Glass interface. Right now most applications look alright, but many of them don’t take advantages of Vista’s new graphical capabilities…specifically browsers. Well, maybe not all browsers because Internet Explorer 7 sure looks sweet with its excess transparency (even the search bar has a little transparency):

Unfortunately the other browsers aren’t quite to the point where they can take advantage of those features because the operating system is still so new, but I’m sure it will come in due time. Seeing that I’m a Firefox/Opera user myself I began searching Google for some alternative skins for both of the browsers and managed to scrounge up some that will definitely look better for Vista users.

If you’ve seen Opera in Vista it really doesn’t look that bad so I don’t mind sticking with the default theme, but Firefox’s toolbars have a purplish glow that I just can’t cope with:

When comparing the appearance of that Firefox to Internet Explorer 7 in Vista, I would undoubtedly say that IE 7 wins. When I was searching Google for "Firefox Vista" I came across this skin made by a DeviantArt user. It still doesn’t offer the slick transparency that IE 7 has but I definitely like the look:

Using that skin makes Firefox blend in a lot more with the rest of the operating system. I’m hoping that at some point a skin will be made to utilize the "pixel shading" in Vista, which is what ads a blurry transparent effect so that text is still easy to read.

Now onto Opera! I think Opera’s default skin feels just right in Windows Vista without needing any change, but there is also a skin that makes the browser look a little more like what IE 7 offers. Of course, you’ll only be able to switch skins if you can pull yourself away from the PlayBoy skin, which is one of Opera’s most popular (safe for work screenshot, and borderline safe for work screenshot). Here’s what the LikeIE Opera skin looks like:

So those are the skins that I managed to find on my journey to making my browsers fit in a little better with Windows Vista. I’ve been contemplating how long it will be before developers actually jump on the Vista bandwagon and really go all out to make the applications look nice on the operating system, but I’m guessing it won’t be for more than a year. A lot of people are still using XP and I think that developers will hold off on spending more money on visual appearance until Vista starts to pick up more of the market share.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on March 05, 2008 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

The other day, the Web Standards Project released the Acid3 test that will push browsers to a new level. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the Acid2 test which has become famous because of the often discombobulated block-like smiley face most browsers produce.

Browsers such as Safari, Konqueror, and Opera already pass the Acid2 test, and when Firefox 3 is released later this year it will as well. Microsoft has also put some work into Internet Explorer 8 so that it will pass the Acid2 test when it is eventually made available. All of the main browsers will be passing the Acid2 test about 3 years after it was initially released.

Now it is time to move on to bigger and better things… Acid3! The test is not nearly as cool as the smiley face in my opinion, but it does extensively test different aspects of the browser’s rendering engine. It runs a hundred different tests on the browser, and the result should look just like this:

This new test targets DOM scripting which is frequently used by Web 2.0 services for advanced interaction. Here’s what the Web Standards Project said about it in their press release:

The Acid3 Test is designed to test specifications for Web 2.0, and exposes potential flaws in implementations of the public ECMAScript 262 and W3C Document Object Model 2 standards. Collectively known as DOM Scripting, it is these technologies that enable advanced page interactivity and power many advanced web applications such as web-based email and online office applications.

We thought it would be fun to test out the browsers that are currently available to see how they stack up to each other on the Acid3 test.

–The Browser Test–

Here are some things to note about our tests:

• All of these browsers were tested on Windows Vista.
• The browsers started with a clean profile and no extensions or add-ons were installed.
• The results below are sorted from the best to the worst.
• Click on any of the screenshots for a full-size version.

Safari 3.1 (Nightly r30626): 86/100

Firefox 3 (Nightly 03/04/2008): 67/100

Opera 9.5 (Beta 9815): 65/100

Firefox 2.0.0.12: 50/100

Opera 9.26: 46/100

Safari 3.04 (Beta 523.15): 39/100

Internet Explorer 7: 12/100

–Overview–

So it looks like the nightly builds of Safari really take the crown for this test. It was the closest browser to perfectly complete the test by quite a large margin, with Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5 coming in second and third place. It’s obvious from the results posted above that the current stable builds of all the browsers are definitely not close to passing the Acid3 test.

If you’re on a Mac or Linux machine I would love to hear what you’re results are in some of the other browsers that are available.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on December 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

There has been more talk about web browsers in the last few weeks than any time I can remember in the past. Google Chrome came out of the Beta phase, Opera unveiled the first Alpha release of version 10, Internet Explorer 8 is suspected to have a 3rd Beta coming in the next month, and Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 was just unveiled. This is becoming a hugely competitive market, and it’s made me wonder whether Mozilla will be able to hold their ground.

Taking a look at Firefox 3.1 I’ve noticed that some great features have been added to the browser, but will it be enough to retain and attract new users? A lot of my friends have already jumped ship to Google Chrome because it has just the right features without overdoing it. Once Chrome supports extensions like Firefox does, which is supposed to be soon, I’m sure Mozilla will be in for a rude awakening as they lose more of their users.

Is Mozilla at risk more than others? I believe so. Firefox users show that they’ve been willing to switch browsers once in order to find something that better fits their needs. For that reason I feel that initially Google Chrome’s marketshare will be eating away at Firefox’s, but it could be another story if Google follows through on their plan to have their browser ship on some new computers like they already do for some of their other software. Doing that would surely lay down the gauntlet for the competition… especially for those browsers who have been relying heavily on word-of-mouth.

Is Firefox 3.1 going to be enough to keep you a faithful Mozilla user? Remember the Ctrl+Tab switcher that Mozilla had in earlier releases? After receiving some negative feedback Mozilla decided to yank that feature out of the browser, and I think that might be the right call. I thought it was kinda nice to have, but I heard more complaints than praises about it. That’s a good sign that they are definitely listening to their users, but what about the other features they are including:

• Private browsing mode
• Enhanced session recovery – after the browser crashes you can select which tabs you want to restore
• Some support for operating system sounds
• Selective results in the address bar using symbols [read more]
• Tab detaching
• Improved performance
• Better support for the Acid 3 test

I feel that Mozilla is trying to keep up with some of the other browsers as well now. For example, the private browsing mode was originally said to be pushed back again, but once Google Chrome came out Mozilla seemed to think it was a higher priority. They also added a tab detaching feature similar to that of Chrome, and it’s one thing I truly wish I could disable. I find myself detaching tabs by accident all of the time, and it’s a pain since they will then open in a new window when that happens.

Personally I’ve been a huge fan of Firefox since before version 1.0, but I’m happy to see all of the competition they are getting. Firefox has been pushing Internet Explorer to rethink their browser for years now, and Microsoft now pays more attention to how they can make their browser better for their users. I think Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera are doing the same thing as Firefox by making it more important than ever to come out with useful and innovative features.

So where do you think the browser market is headed? Are we looking at one browser that will take the crown, or will we never see one dominate like Internet Explorer once did?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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