Hasta La Gadget!

Even if you don’t have a favored fighter in the browser wars, you have to admit Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been looking mighty unfit over the last few years. Younger and fitter contenders like Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have arguably overtaken the old stalwart, and now Microsoft is making some much-needed noise about fighting back. The software giant has been giving developers and curious journalists a very early peek into its IE 9 progress at PDC, with its stated ambitions including faster Javascript (see table above), HTML5 support, and hardware acceleration for web content. By harnessing DirectX and your graphics processor, the new browser will offer improvements in text readability and video performance, as well as taking some of the load off the CPU. Development has only just got under way, mind you, so there’s still plenty of time to screw it all up. Or make it awesome.

Internet Explorer 9 to sport GPU acceleration and HTML5 support originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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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This article was written on March 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

It didn’t take long for two different developers to start replicating some of the best new features in Internet Explorer 8: WebSlices and Activities. Come on, you knew extension developers would jump on the chance to give users very few reasons to switch to Internet Explorer.

–WebSlices in Firefox–

WebSlices are a way for you to stay up-to-date with the latest news and information without actually having to visit a website. When a WebSlice is added to the toolbar you’re able to click on it to see a specially designed small-scale version of the website. For example, in the eBay example below you’ll see a brief overview of an auction that you’re trying to keep track of.

If you want to install WebSlices in Firefox here’s what you need to do:

1. Install the extension
2. Go to a page that has WebSlices available, such as http://ie8.ebay.com. Do a search for a product on that eBay site.
3. When you see the little WebSlice icon appear towards the left side of the items right-click somewhere (don’t try to right-click on the icon) and click Subscribe to a webchunk:
   
4. That item will be placed in your WebSlices toolbar where you can click on it to get an instant preview of the status:
   

There are three things that I don’t like about this extension:

1. It takes up an entire toolbar which I find to be a waste of space.
2. I naturally want to click on the little icon that pops up to add the WebSlice, but I have to right-click for some odd reason? Just let me click on the icon to add it to the toolbar.
3. This isn’t the fault of the extension, but there are currently very few WebSlices available.

–Activities in Firefox–

The Activities extension that has been developed is also a bit rough around the edges right now. If you use it in Firefox 3 you’re supposed to be able to see a preview of the site when you hover your mouse over one of the entries just like in Internet Explorer 8. I tried it out in Firefox 3 Beta 3, Firefox 3 Beta 4, and the Firefox 3 nightly builds none of which showed a preview (I even did it on a clean profile with no other extensions installed).

What I did find impressive is that installing the Activities is no different than Internet Explorer 8. The XML files are automatically downloaded into an “activities” folder in your Firefox profile. As of right now navigating to that folder and deleting the XML file is the only way to remove one of the Activities that you add.

Once you’ve added some of the Activities they will only show up in the list when you have text highlighted on a website, and then right-click. Here’s what it looks like:

If the previews worked for me it would be a lot more useful, but right now it’s really just another way to perform a search on a site.

[via Mozilla Links]

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[Thanks, Adrian]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software

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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This article was written on December 20, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has been receiving a heap of criticism lately for their Internet Explorer web browser, and the Opera antitrust suit just added more fuel to the flames. People want to see Internet Explorer follow the standards that other web browsers have already complied with, and that will hopefully increase the number of sites that are compatible outside of the IE realm.

Despite being overly “hush hush” about the next version of Internet Explorer, the development team has decided to help put our weary hearts at ease by telling us that the current internal version of Internet Explorer 8 already passes the Acid 2 test. There are not many *released* browsers out there that can boast such an accomplishment: Safari, Konqueror, and Opera. Firefox 3, which is expected for release in the first half of 2008, also passes the test.

If you’re thinking that Microsoft did this purely because of the pressure put on by Opera I think you’re wrong. It would have been pretty difficult for them to slap together Acid 2 compliance in such a short period of time, and I would therefore have to believe they’ve been working on it for awhile. Although I do have a strong inkling that they only posted this information because of the antitrust suit.

Now the only problem is browser adoption. Even though Internet Explorer 8 is going to be mounds better when it comes to standards, it won’t mean a thing if users don’t download it. I’ve been rather disappointed at the rate at which IE 7’s market share is increasing, and it looks as though many users are content with IE 6. Hopefully we’ll see more people adopting the standards compliant browsers in the future.

Internet Explorer 8 is not expected to be shipped until 2009, but Microsoft has said that the first Beta should be rolling out in the first half of 2008. If you’re anxious to give the new browser a whirl keep an eye out because an early look could be just a few months away.

Copyright © 2009 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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