Hasta La Gadget!

Playstation Insider‘s got a tipster (one that’s reportedly “very close” to the company) telling them that Sony is in heavy talks with Mozilla to port Firefox to the PS3. The tipster didn’t know if any actual deal had been struck, but it’s not terribly surprising considering the PS3’s current built-in browser is less than awesome. That said, Firefox has actually crashed twice on us in the last 15 minutes, and no, we’re not making that up.

Firefox headed to the PS3? Can life get any better? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google had a low-key event today to preview Chrome OS, its new operating system based on Linux and the Chrome browser. Things are still pretty early — it’s not even in beta yet, let alone on shipping products — but that’s the first official screen shot right there, and the big features are all roughed out. The entire system is web-based and runs in the Chrome browser — right down to USB drive contents, which show up in a browser tab, and the notepad, which actually creates a Google Docs document. Web apps are launched from a persistent apps panel, which includes Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and Hulu, among others, and background apps like Google Talk can be minimized to “panels” that dock to the bottom of the screen. Local storage is just used to speed up the system — everything actually lives in the cloud, so all it takes to swap or borrow machines is a login, and you’re good to go. Google also said it’s “very committed” to Flash, and that it’s looking to hardware accelerate whatever code it can — although Google didn’t have a solid answer to give when asked about Silverlight. Overall, Google was upfront in saying that Chrome OS is focused on very clear use cases for people who primarily use the web, and that it’s not trying to do everything: “If you’re a lawyer, editing contracts back and forth, this will not be the right machine for you.”

As far as going to market, Google’s not talking details until the targeted launch at the end of next year, but Chrome OS won’t run on just anything — there’ll be specific reference hardware. For example, Chrome OS won’t work with standard hard drives, just SSDs, but Google is supporting both x86 and ARM CPUs. That also means you won’t be able to just download Chrome OS and go, you’ll have to buy a Chrome OS device approved by Google. Interesting move, for sure — but since the entire OS is totally open-source as of today, we’re sure it’ll be hacked onto all kinds of hardware soon enough. (And for the record, the demo was run on an off-the-shelf Eee PC.) Check Google’s intro videos after the break!

Continue reading Google’s Chrome OS revealed — with video!

Google’s Chrome OS revealed — with video! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on August 15, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

More than a month ago I looked at 6 different browsers that were all based on the Firefox rendering engine (a.k.a. Gecko). The Gecko rendering engine is an important factor for some people when choosing a browser because most sites are tested and work well in Firefox, so it should be just the same in those other browsers.

I discovered the Windows-only K-Meleon browser when writing that article, and the low-memory performance really caught my attention. I was able to open about 10-tabs all while keeping the memory usage under a meager 40MB. That’s about what Firefox 2 uses immediately after starting it, and then when I get to work with Firefox, the usage quickly climbs upwards of 80MB or 90MB with about 5 tabs open.

So today I thought that I would point out some of the features K-Meleon has for those of you looking for a lightweight browser that is actually quite packed with features.

–General–

K-Meleon is a browser that only runs on the Windows operating system, and uses the same rendering engine as the Firefox browser. The reason why it doesn’t run on any other operating systems is because it uses a tightly integrated Windows-specific API to give you the best performance possible on your machine.

One thing that I should mention right off the bat is that K-Meleon makes it easy to drag-and-drop toolbars in whatever order you would like them (including the Menu Bar). You can also turn off the toolbars completely, however, you cannot rearrange and remove buttons from the toolbars very easily. If you wanted to do that you would need to dive into some configuration files.

–Layers (”Tabs”)–

K-Meleon doesn’t actually support a tab system, but it has what they call “layers.” Each time you create a new layer it essentially opens a new browser window, but it only shows one entry in the Taskbar which represents the layer you currently have selected. If you switch to a new layer, K-Meleon goes to work hiding the appropriate windows, and showing only the one you have selected.

It sounds crazy, I know, but I believe that is one way it is able to use respectable amounts of memory. Not only that but you won’t really notice much of a difference between the layers and a full tab system. If not having real tabs starts to get the best of you, feel free to try out the Alpha version that has a tab implementation.

–Preferences–

There are an insane number of preferences that you can configure with K-Meleon, and there are so many that I would have to post dozens of screenshots if I wanted to try and cover them all. So I’ll just go ahead and highlight a handful of them:

• Manually select the window size and position (in pixels) for K-Meleon when it starts up.
• Block Flash objects by default and/or block ads.
• Manage how pop-up windows are handled.
• It has the most extravagant search engine management that I’ve ever seen!
• Define keyboard shortcuts for up to 9 different sites. The shortcuts correspond to the Ctrl+1-9 hotkeys (much like Opera’s Speed Dial).
• And a lot more…

Click to Enlarge

–Plugins–

The screenshot above has a section dedicated to K-Meleon plugins. This isn’t like Firefox where you can download and install extensions, but it does come with some useful plugins that can be enabled. Here’s a list of what’s included that you can configure:

• Netscape/Mozilla Bookmarks – Share and use your bookmarks with Netscape-based browsers (like Firefox).
• IE Favorites – Share and use your bookmarks with Internet Explorer.
• Opera Hotlist – Share and use your bookmarks with Opera.
• Layered Windows – Customize the Layers Toolbar such as the minimum and maximum “tab” width.
• Macro Extension – Adds several smaller features to the browser, and their is a designated macros page where users can submit their own homegrown macros.
  
• Mouse Gestures – There is an extremely long list of actions that you can create mouse gestures for. Of course the most common thing you would probably use this for is going back and forward on a page.
  

–Themes–

As with most browsers you can customize the appearance of K-Meleon by using a variety of skins that they have available. The collection is no where near what Firefox and Opera has available, but it might be nice for something different.

–Overview–

Using a combination of Opera and Firefox seems to suit me quite well for my daily routines, but K-Meleon is transforming into a speedy little browser that would satisfy most casual users. It renders pages very quickly, starts up extremely fast, and doesn’t treat my system resources like they are a midnight buffet. If you haven’t been satisfied with your browser, try out K-Meleon to see if it is right for you.

Download K-Meleon (portable version available)

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This article was written on July 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

Mozilla released an important update to the Firefox web browser today. The new Firefox 2.0.0.5 fixes a critical flaw that enables a hacker to control a user’s computer. Ironically, this was done by letting the hacker launch Firefox through Internet Explorer, and then Firefox would run malicious instructions that could compromise their system.

Firefox 2.0.0.5 fixes a total of 8 security related bugs: 3 are critical, 2 are high-priority, 1 is moderate, and 2 are minor. Aside from those there are an additional 91 stability fixes with 15 of those being related to Firefox crashing. So this version offers more than just significant security fixes.

No one is quite sure whether the big security bug is Internet Explorer’s fault for passing insecure data to another application, or whether it was Firefox’s fault for not validating the input. At least Mozilla stepped up to fix it before it turned into a widespread vulnerability. And just because Firefox has patched this issue doesn’t mean that you are in the clear from the attack. It was recently discovered that Trillian is also affected when using the AIM portion, and it is expected that other applications are susceptible to the attack as well.

Note: A similar update for Thunderbird is expected shortly.

Download Firefox 2.0.0.5 – It doesn’t appear that Mozilla has enabled the automatic updates through Firefox at this time, so you will have to download it if you don’t want to wait.

Source: Mozilla Links & MozillaZine
Thanks for the tip CoryC!

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This article was written on July 11, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

We’ve written a lot about protecting your computer while browsing the Internet, and now we thought it was a good time to cover an application that quite a few of you have recommended. Sandboxie is a free (for the most part) application that can wrap itself around your browser to provide a more secure session when downloading applications or trying out new extensions.

Sandboxie serves as a middle man between an application, which for our purposes today is a Web browser, and the hard drive. When you want to protect the browser you simply run it in a “sanboxed” mode through the Sandboxie menu:

Then anything that you do from within the browser is stored in a sandbox that can be deleted at anytime. Don’t quite understand? I’ll walk you through a common scenario that explains it a little better. The first thing I did after installing Sandboxie was start Internet Explorer by using the menu option seen in the screenshot above, but you can use your default browser by choosing the respective option.

One thing that you’ll notice in the screenshot is that the window title for Internet Explorer has a “[#]” on each end. This represents that I’m running that program in a sandbox.

Now lets say I came across a program that I want to try out, but I’m not too sure whether I’ll like it or I’m not sure if it is going to try and install a virus on my system! With Sandboxie you just download and run the installation as you normally would, and if you watch the Sandboxie process explorer you’ll notice that even the installer runs in a sandbox:

Don’t worry about doing anything special…Sandboxie takes care of it all! After the program is done installing you can go ahead and run it. The program will work just like you expect it to, but underneath lies a secret that is keeping you secure! When the program installed everything it did was placed in a special location on your hard drive (registry settings, files, Start Menu links, etc…).

If you want to get to the location where the files are stored just go to Function -> Contents of Sandbox -> Explorer Contents and you will instantly be presented with the area where all the files are being stored. After installing Taskbar Shuffle into the default sandbox that I made, here is what the file structure looked like in Vista:

It replicated everything in my Vista folder structure perfectly, and as you can see, it will create a different folder for each sandbox that you make. That way you can switch between sandboxes depending on what you are doing, and if you ever want to get rid of a program you don’t have to worry about uninstalling it…just delete the corresponding sandbox!

If you’re looking for the ultimate privacy control in your Web browser then Sandboxie also has a setting for you. You can designate a sandbox to automatically be emptied after each use. If you run your browser in a sandbox, as soon as you finish everything will instantly be wiped clean…talk about covering your tracks!

Some of these features are compliments of the new Sandboxie version 3 that was just released yesterday. Features such as automatic sandboxing of a Windows Installer as well as sandboxing Windows Explorer is all new, and I have thoroughly been enjoying the work that has been put into this new version.

Sandboxie doesn’t cost a thing and you can use it as long as you would like, except for one small catch. After 30-days it will periodically pop-up asking for you to enter in a registration code. You can continue to use the program for as long as you would like, but you will have to get a valid registration code for $25 if you don’t want to get nagged.

Sandboxie supports 32-bit versions of Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista and 64-bit versions of Windows XP/2003. The installer is just 245KB, so the whole thing is a small and efficient application.

Sandboxie Homepage

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