Jul 28

Microsoft giving Europeans with Windows XP and Vista choice of browser, too

Posted in: europe, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Today's Chili, web browser, WebBrowser, Windows, windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows7
As it turns out, it won’t just be Windows 7 that’ll be giving Europeans a choice of what web browser to use. In fact, the lengths that Microsoft is going to appease the European Commission is quite extreme. Ars Technica did some digging and here’s the fine print of the proposal. Within three to six months of the EC’s approval, an update will be sent out to Europeans with Windows XP and Vista, labeled “high priority” or “important.” User who install the update and have Internet Explorer as the default browser will see the ballot screen on next log in, which will show up to ten different browsers with at least a 0.5 percent share of the market in the European Economic Area (EEA). Users can then choose to download something new, ignore the screen, or defer until an indefinite time in the future. Windows 7 users will get the ballot update within two weeks of the Commission’s decision or by its October 22nd launch, whichever comes second. Extreme? You betcha — but we can’t argue over having more choice.

[Thanks, Adrian]

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Microsoft giving Europeans with Windows XP and Vista choice of browser, too originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 24

Microsoft relents to European Commission, will give users browser freedom in Windows 7

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Today's Chili, windows 7, Windows7

It looks like Redmond is backing slowly away from its previous IE-or-else stance on Windows 7 for European markets. According to an article just published, the OS giant has apparently caved to pressure from the European Commission over “monopoly abuse” (practices which essentially force users into Internet Explorer as their main browser). The last we’d heard on this story, the company was considering shipping the new operating system without a browser altogether, but it looks like those plans have changed. Microsoft has relented and will now offer consumers a “ballot screen” on first boot, allowing purchasers to make their own (we’re hoping informed) decision about which window into the web they’ll be looking through. Additionally, while Windows 7 will still include an install of IE, users will have the option to disable it, and computer-makers will also be allowed to pre-load any browser they see fit for their systems. We’re glad that Microsoft is taking the inclusive approach here, though there are lots of good arguments against the EC’s actions. We don’t see Apple getting the same heat for Safari, though Apple doesn’t currently hold the lion’s share of the market. At the end of the day, we’re personally just happy to not be using IE — no matter how you slice it.

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Microsoft relents to European Commission, will give users browser freedom in Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 24

Mozilla Rallies the Troops for Firefox 3

Posted in: Firefox 3, Freeware, Mozilla, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on May 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

firefox download day.pngSince the release of Firefox 3 is right around the corner it comes as no surprise that Mozilla is trying to rally the troops community. Back in 2006 they celebrated World Firefox Day by getting people to invite their friends to try Firefox, and right about the time Firefox 2 launched Mozilla gave the much deserved acknowledgements. This is just one of the several campaigns Mozilla has come up with to help spread the Firefox browser, and it’s obvious that they know how to harness the power of the people.

This year they are doing things a little differently, and they are hoping to set a Guinness World Record for the number of downloads in 24 hours. As I sit here writing this they have over 125,000 people who have pledged to download Firefox 3 in the first 24 hours, which Mozilla says will happen sometime in June 2008. It shouldn’t be hard for them to crush the record… mostly because the record is currently non-existent. They are shooting for 5 million downloads, which is possible since Firefox 2 received 1.6 million downloads on the first day back in 2006. But they will essentially be making it in the record books no matter what.

If you are participating there is one thing you should know if you want your download to count. You actually have to download the full installation, and the download must complete. Updating the browser will not count towards the record, but then again they probably won’t release the automatic update on the first day. They’ll be using a cookie system to try and weed out any duplicate downloads.

You can help spread the word about the Download Day by placing any of these banners on your own site, or in the signature section of your emails. Oh, and there will be a certificate the you can print on Download Day to commemorate the event. ;)

Firefox World Record Homepage
 Thanks to Natmaster and Max for the tips!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Jul 13

Opera 9.5 is Almost Done

Posted in: Freeware, Opera, Pre-Release, Screenshots, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

opera 95 mac.jpg
(Click to Enlarge)

arrow Windows Win; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
Hot on the heels of Firefox 3, the Opera team announced today that they are preparing for the launch of Opera 9.5, and they are doing so by shooting out the first (and possibly last) Release Candidate to the public. This comes just about one week after they added a new default theme to the browser. The Mac version of the theme is depicted in the screenshot above, and the Windows version can be seen here.

Here’s what the Opera team had to say about the big news today:

You might have noticed we’ve focused on stabilizing the Opera 9.5 snapshots lately, waxing the new look and feel of Opera, improving performance, security and most of all fixing a lot of bugs. Almost two years after the release of Opera 9.0, Opera 9.5 is now (almost) ready to be released.

This will be a pretty big release for Opera since this is the first version of their desktop browser to include the new Opera Link technology. With it users can synchronize their bookmarks between both Opera 9.5 desktop and Opera Mini, which is a killer combo.

There’s no mention of a release date for Opera 9.5, but they make it sound like it’s coming very soon. Maybe we can expect to see it out in June?

P.S. If you decide to install the Release Candidate in Windows it’s important to know that it will overwrite your existing (stable) Opera installation.

Get Opera 9.5 RC
Thanks for the tip Cody!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Jul 10

Microsoft’s “Gazelle” browser detailed — it’s more of a research project

Posted in: Internet Explorer, Today's Chili

If you’re particularly attuned to tech gossip, you’ll know that Google’s Chrome OS announcement has prompted a lot of whispers about something called “Gazelle” being cooked up in Microsoft’s labs. Part browser, part OS, the word on the street is that Gazelle will be announced soon, and ultimately compete in some way with either Chrome (the browser) or Chrome (the OS). As usual, most of this is just based on hopes and fairytales, but the scholarly folks at Ars Technica have done some digging and come up with a white paper from Microsoft Research that details some of what Gazelle is all about — and surprise surprise, although it shares some similarities with Chrome, it’s actually quite different.

At the most general level, Gazelle is an experiment in building an ultrasecure browser. Like Chrome, it breaks tasks up into different processes, but instead of separating at the page level, Gazelle breaks individual page elements into different processes, allowing content from different servers to be isolated and ultimately providing fine-grained security controls. To manage all these different processes, there’s a central “kernel,” which is where all the OS talk stems from — it’s all still running on Windows, and the rendering engine is still IE’s Trident engine, but Gazelle manages all those separate processes independently, kind of like a virtualized OS. It’s certainly interesting stuff, but it’s still all just a research project for now — Chrome OS is still vapor, but it’s clear that Google intends to ship something, while Gazelle seems more suited to inspire future versions of IE. Still, it’s interesting reading if you’re into it, so hit the read link for more.

Read – Ars Technica analysis
Read – Microsoft Gazelle white paper [Warning: PDF]

[Image courtesy of Robert Scoble]

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Microsoft’s “Gazelle” browser detailed — it’s more of a research project originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 09

Silverlight 3 out of beta, joins forces with your GPU for HD streaming

Posted in: sdk, streaming, Today's Chili, web browser, WebBrowser

A day earlier than expected, Microsoft has launched its third edition of Silverlight and its SDK. As Ars Technica notes, some of the bigger improvements on the user side are GPU hardware acceleration and new codec support including H.264, AAC, and MPEG-4. If you’re looking to give it a spin, there’s a Smooth Streaming demo available that, as the name suggests, does a pretty good job of streaming HD video with little stutter, even when skipping around. If you’ve got Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6, Safari 3 or anything fresher, hit up the read link to get the update.

[Via Ars Technica]

Read – Download Page
Read – Smooth Streaming demo

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Silverlight 3 out of beta, joins forces with your GPU for HD streaming originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 03

Mobile Firefox in the Works (No Release Date)

Posted in: Firefox Extensions, Freeware, mobile, Mozilla, Release Date, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

Firefox Mobile

Mozilla made an announcement today regarding their future plans to deliver a Mobile Firefox. This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard of something like this from Mozilla, but this time they sound extremely serious.

There are already mobile Mozilla browsers available today, one of which is pictured above and is only available to Nokia N800 and N770 users. It offers full AJAX support, RSS feed previews, add-ons, and more.

There is also the Minimo browser for Pocket PC’s, and the recently released Joey service. Mozilla plans on continuing to develop Joey further, but Minimo is unfortunately getting kicked to the curb. I actually use Minimo as my main browser on my Pocket PC because it is one of the few free tabbed alternatives for Windows Mobile. Mozilla has said that Minimo was a valuable experiment that has given them information on how Gecko (Mozilla’s rendering engine) operates in mobile environments, but it will no longer be developed.

The best news they posted is the idea of Mobile Firefox having support for extensions. This could make it easy to integrate the browser into services like Flickr, Twitter, email accounts, and more without needing to install additional applications. This can be pretty amazing depending on how well Mozilla is able to implement it, and what kind of control they are able to give to developers.

Mozilla is expanding the team of contributors for the mobile project, but when is the Mobile Firefox release date? That’s a good question, and Mozilla has said that it will certainly not be before 2008. The mobile project will use new technology that won’t be available until after Firefox 3 ships, but they can probably pump out some barebones test versions by the middle of next year.

The inevitable question that comes to my mind now is how will this affect Opera Mini usage? Opera has almost been alone in this market for quite some time, but will Mozilla be able to capture the large market that Opera Mini already has? For last month Opera Mini had a 0.39% market share, which isn’t bad when that’s putting it up against desktop browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Source: Mozilla Blog & Download Squad
Thanks for the tip “s”!

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Jul 01

Hulu still silent on PS3, Windows Mobile blocking – but there’s a free solution

Posted in: flash, hulu, Mozilla, playstation 3, Playstation3, ps3, streaming, Today's Chili

A few days after blocking PlayStation 3 users, Hulu has yet to respond to questions concerning the change which has only helped to fuel rumors it is related to the Microsoft ad campaign currently featured on the site, but that seems less likely now that we’ve confirmed it also began blocking the Flash-enabled Skyfire browser on Windows Mobile devices at the same time. Whatever the cause is, if you prefer a homegrown hack over something like PlayOn or TVersity, Eric over at ypass.net has put together a simple enough walkthrough for creating an “unblockable” workaround by setting up a locally connected PC running Linux or Windows with the freely available Squid proxy server software that will make your PS3 look like appear as a PC running a Firefox (or whatever you prefer) browser to any website that asks. Of course, just like the other solutions your computer will need to stay running to keep you connected, but we figure it’s a small price to pay for enjoying relatively low res Flash video running on an HDTV.

Read – Got a PS3? Want Hulu Back? Easy enough…
Read – Squid-setup for Windows NT /2k /X

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Hulu still silent on PS3, Windows Mobile blocking – but there’s a free solution originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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May 27

Big Oops: Mozilla Releases Compromised Vietnamese Language Pack

Posted in: Freeware, Mozilla, Software, Today's Chili


This article was written on May 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

firefox bomb-1.pngI think it’s safe to say that a lot of Firefox users associate the browser with security. It may normally keep you out of harms way, but that’s not the case if you downloaded the Vietnamese language pack after February 18, 2008. It turns out that Mozilla released a copy of that particular language pack which was modified by a virus on their system. Since November 2007 there have been over 16,000 downloads of the add-on, but they aren’t sure how many of those downloads came after February 18th.

The actual language pack itself does not contain the virus, but it was modified by a virus to load remote content. They believe that it was mostly used for showing the user ads, but they don’t deny that it could be used for more malicious purposes.

The script that was injected into the language pack will be detected as HTML.Xorer by most antivirus applications. It was first recognized as a virus on April 14th, but it wasn’t found sooner by Mozilla because they only perform scans when the add-ons are uploaded. There are no subsequent scans, but they assure us that this will be changing in the future.

This makes me a little leery of installing any add-ons now. Just because it is coming from a trusted developer doesn’t mean that the extension hasn’t unintentionally been compromised. We just saw it happen right here, and it affects all operating systems since it is merely a script that has to run. I guess this is even more of a reason not to install an abundance of extensions.

The Vietnamese language pack has since been removed from the add-ons site.

Mozilla Security Blog [via Heise]

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May 27

Every Mobile Browser Should Give Up and Just Go WebKit

Posted in: Android, Apple, BlackBerry, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, RIM, smartphone, Smartphones, Software, Today's Chili, top, zune, zune hd

The ZuneHD looks like a lovely catchup to the original iPod touch—you know, before apps allowed it to be so much more—except for one thing. That damn browser. It’s not just they’re basing it off hellacious and reviled IE—it’s that it’s not WebKit-based.

There simply isn’t a better mobile browser than WebKit right now. It powers the internet in the iPhone, Android, Symbian S60 and Palm Pre, and destroyed all comers in our Battlemodo. It’s fast, it’s competent and most importantly from a development perspective, it’s open source. Meaning Microsoft could adopt it for its mobile devices with (relatively) little shame (okay, maybe a lot of shame) and it’s ready to go right now, meaning there’s no wasting time building a new engine just to attempt to play catchup to a browser that handily delivers the best mobile internet experience right now across multiple platforms.

Mozilla’s Fennec could become a contender to the throne, true, but it’s still far from final. Opera and Skyfire are interesting and good, but they’re both proprietary, meaning there’s no chance in hell they’d ever be adopted by Microsoft or RIM, much less the entire industry, as the basis for their mobile browsers. Update: BTW, Ballmer himself mentioned they might look at WebKit.

You could rail against the idea of WebKit becoming a “monopoly,” but you’d be foolish to do so: Web standards are important, and WebKit, which is again, open source, is dedicated to standards compliance and performance. A performance and compliance standard that web developers could count on in every single mobile device wouldn’t be a bad thing—far from it. It would mean even more amazing web apps, since developers would know they’d run on any mobile device, no matter what “OS” they were running underneath—the web would be the real OS.

That day is coming. I just hoped I’d see it a little sooner.

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