February 2008 Browser Stats: IE Plunging

This article was written on March 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

February was a good month for almost all of the browsers out there except for Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications. From December 2006 to August 2007 Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser was able to maintain a substantial 79% marketshare. In the last 6 or 7 months, however, they’ve been dropping just under 1% each month. Yep, they’ve lost nearly 5% of their marketshare in the last half of a year.

Of course if IE is losing there has to be other browsers gaining, right? Firefox is the one swooping up most of IE’s marketshare loss having increased over 3% in the last year. Last month it hit its all-time high at 17.27%, which is the same time IE hit its all-time low.

Safari took a small dip in February, but Opera has been steadily increasing rolling in a marketshare of 0.69% last month. Opera just announced that last year was a big year for them having increased their number of monthly users to 20 million, which is 55% more than the previous year.

Browser Marketshare for February 2008
browser marketshare feb08

And then there’s the comparison of the operating systems. Naturally Microsoft is going to lead the way with their sheer market domination, but you might be surprised to hear that Windows usage has dropped about 4% in the last 2 years. Apple is the primary cause of the drop in marketshare having gained over 3% themselves in the last two years. And as you can see from this chart the iPhone is even on the board:

Operating System Marketshare for February 2008
os marketshare feb08

In January 2007 the Linux marketshare sat at just 0.35%, and so there has been some significant growth there as well.

It’s becoming apparent from both the browser and operating system stats that users don’t mind turning to other alternatives to get the job done. The vast amounts of content available on the Internet definitely helps ease the transition for users from one browser to another, or from one operating system to another. Microsoft still controls a majority of the market, but given another several more years the tides could really start turning.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


Skyfire boss on possible iPhone port: ‘stay tuned for news’

So Opera Mini for iPhone has proved to be kind of a big deal, and that HTML-laden beacon of hope is putting a twinkle in some other developers’ eyes. Take Skyfire, for instance. CEO Jeff Glueck posted this week a congratulations to the Opera team for its inclusion in the iTunes app store — a surprise to many, us included. He also explained that “this will certainly accelerate our strategy on iDevices,” and seeing as its only product is a mobile browser with Flash and Silverlight, Jeff certainly has our attention here. That said, we’re not exactly getting our hopes up, especially since the App Store’s rules have always forbidden any app from running a code interpreter and we don’t see how SkyFire can bypass that aspect of Flash and Silverlight entirely, even though it uses a server-side rendering model similar to Opera Mini’s. We’ll see what happens.

Skyfire boss on possible iPhone port: ‘stay tuned for news’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 21:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Download Squad  |  sourceSkyfire blog  | Email this | Comments

Opera Mini now the number one free download in all 22 App Stores

Seems like users actually do want a choice, Steve.

Update: 1 Million downloads in 1 day, ta da!

[Thanks, Atesh]

Opera Mini now the number one free download in all 22 App Stores originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Approved! Plucky Underdog Opera Now on iPhone

Exactly three weeks after a very public submission to the App Store, Opera’s Mini web browser has been approved by Apple and is available for download. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, go download Opera Mini now (iTunes app link). It is free. I’ll wait.

Back? You will notice how fast this Gadget Lab page loads up. That’s because Opera Mini isn’t loading the page. Instead, it is pulling down an optimized, compressed version from Opera’s servers, one which looks and feels just like the real thing, with clickable links and selectable text and zoomable images (but without video or Flash), but is encoded in a special markup language and compressed to as little as 10 percent of the original data footprint.

Apple’s decision to admit Opera Mini to the App Store caught many people by surprise, because it’s a browser. Apple has tended to reject apps that replicate (or improve upon) the features of built-in apps, and Opera Mini is clearly a replacement for the version of Safari that comes with the iPhone. However, Apple softened its stance in early 2009 and started allowing browser apps, as long as they were based on WebKit, the HTML rendering engine used by the iPhone. Opera Mini’s not the only third-party browser in the App Store: You can also download iCab Mobile, a $2 browser that’s been available since April 2009, as well as a handful of specialized iPhone browsers.

Other features of Opera Mini you may appreciate during your test drive: You might notice the “speed dial” page, like the tab-showcase page of Google’s Chrome or Safari for the Mac and PC. This is very handy for visiting oft-used pages quickly. You are also no doubt enjoying the fast back-and-forward navigation. Unlike Mobile Safari, Opera Mini caches pages and tabs in-session and even when you quit and relaunch the app. This means you don’t have to wait for pages to reload.

It’s not all great, though. If you’re trying out Opera while you read this, you will likely be getting frustrated right about now because of the screwy zoom controls: You can double-tap to zero in on a column of text, just like Safari, but pinch to zoom is all over the place. It feels like Android. And while text is re-flowed, pictures are not re-sized to match. No, go ahead and copy this sentence to the clipboard. Weird, right?

Still, you want to have this on your iPhone, especially if you are on EDGE, are roaming or just want to save on bandwidth while speeding up your browsing. You can’t make it your iPhone’s default browser, so clicking on links in e-mail messages, for instance, will still open pages in Safari.

Opera Mini won’t work with every site — and it doesn’t support Adobe Flash — but for quick bursts of browsing, the kind often done on cellphones, it is ideal.

Opera Mini [iTunes]

See Also:


Opera Mini for iPhone approved, will be available for free (update: hands-on)

Our man Thomas Ricker was just wondering how long it would take before Apple determined the fate of Opera Mini for iPhone, and we’ve got some good news — it’s been approved and will be available for free on the App Store within 24 hours! Can’t say we were expecting that, since non-Safari-based browsers have typically been verboten from Apple’s little kingdom, but we’re certainly happy to be surprised. We’ll do up a full hands-on when we see it in the store, but for now check the demo video after the break.

Update: We’re getting reports that UK and Australian readers are already able to download and enjoy this surprising little addition to the app store — be sure to give this iTunes link a shot and see if it works in your region, mmkay?

Update 2: We just got our hands on Opera Mini for the iPhone, and the first thing we noticed is, in fact, how fast it renders pages. When we open the app, we are quickly introduced to the default Opera Screen, with links to Facebook, Twitter and the like. Opening a new tab is a single touch and loading virtually any homepage is quick. While scrolling through the loaded page, some images don’t fully render until you stop over them. Multitouch is enabled to some extent — you can pinch to zoom, and double tapping only fully zooms in and out, with really no inbetween. Something else we noticed that we’d been looking for in OS 4, is the ability to Find in Page. It works really well, and the words being searched are highlighted for an easy find. This browser totally kicks safari out of the water, and we’re definitely looking forward to updates for Opera Mini.

Update 3: It looks to be live in the US now! Hit up that iTunes link and go wild!

Continue reading Opera Mini for iPhone approved, will be available for free (update: hands-on)

Opera Mini for iPhone approved, will be available for free (update: hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Widgets on the Wii with Opera

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

Opera Wii 

Nintendo and Opera just launched a new version of Internet Channel for the Wii. It is a free upgrade for all existing users, which is especially nice if you managed to get it for free before June 30. Unfortunately I didn’t buy my Wii until after that deadline, and have yet to plop down 500 Wii points (equivalent to $5) for it.

The new version has several improvements and features that are sure to get applauded by Wii users, including USB keyboard support and widget integration!

  • USB Keyboard support
    Hardware support for any USB keyboard makes typing both easier and faster. You just simply plug any standard USB keyboard into one of the two USB ports on your Nintendo Wii and you are ready to write email, compose blog posts, comment in forums and much more.
  • “Send to a Friend”
    This feature enables you to send links to your favorite Web sites – or the one you are currently browsing – to your Wii friends whom you have added in your Wii. You can also add a message to send along with the link. When your Wii friend opens the message, they can immediately visit the page.
  • Copy & Paste
    Users can now copy information from a Web page and paste it directly into the search field. Users may also store nine more favorites, bringing the total to 56.
  • Widget Support
    Widgets available now include calendars, news readers, Internet radios and other fun applications. For more information on creating widgets, please visit widgets.opera.com with your Wii.

This sounds like a pretty big upgrade for the Wii web browser, and the USB keyboard support will make it a lot more useful. Kudos to Nintendo for making it work with any keyboard and not forcing you go out and buy some specially made gadget to do the typing!

Source: Choose Opera & Opera Press Release

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:


Opera Mini Submitted to App Store

Opera submitted its Mini browser for the iPhone to Apple for approval early Tuesday. The superfast browser doesn’t technically break any of Apple’s rules, but Opera is laying on the hype to make any refusal as high-profile as possible.

This sets the stage for a showdown, because Apple has refused Opera before. In 2008, the Cupertino company rejected the upstart Norwegian browser maker because Opera competes with Apple’s own browser, Safari.

Opera Mini, which we got some hands-on time with at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this February, is merely an application for displaying web content that has been pre-rendered and compressed by Opera’s servers. To the user, it behaves like a regular browser — the text is selectable, for example — with one exception: speed. Opera Mini is so fast it makes Mobile Safari look like wheezing old man.

Having been rejected at least once before, Opera’s not pulling any punches this time. The company says that its new app is “100% compliant” with Apple’s App Store rules. And to make the approval or rejection process that much more public, Opera has put a timer on its website that ticks off the seconds since the app was submitted to Apple. You can even sign up to guess when it is approved and win an iPhone.

In theory, Opera Mini should be admitted through Apple’s velvet rope, but it’s hard to see a rival browser being admitted to the store, especially one that makes Safari look so bad. If Apple is willing to say no to Google Voice, then it’ll have no problem turning down Opera.

I hope Opera does make it in. For the kind of text and picture-heavy browsing I do on my iPod Touch, Opera would be ideal. Depending on how it turns out, the video above will be either a teaser, or something to taunt you with an app you’ll never use. And yes, I’m going to say it: Opera Mini on the iPhone could finally make Opera relevant again.

Opera Mini submitted to Apple’s App Store [Opera]

Opera Mini [Opera]

See Also:


Opera Mini for iPhone submitted to Apple for approval (video)

Can you feel the tension? Opera is now in the throes of the App Store approval process. The wait is on to see if Apple will loosen its grip and approve the fast (very fast) Opera Mini browser for iPhone app that we checked out at MWC. Remember, Opera Mini relies on Opera’s servers to render and compress pages before sending them back to the iPhone for display. As such, there’s no code interpretation being done by the software — a definite no no for approval. So the only thing that could cause Apple to reject the app would be a perceived duplication of core iPhone functionality even though it already approved several WebKit-based browsers. Whatever happens, this is going to be good.

Update: Opera just threw up a counter tracking how long the approval process has taken. You know, ’cause everyone likes to be backed into a corner. Makes you wonder if Opera is serious about this or just doing it for the publicity — one of several angles we mulled earlier.

Continue reading Opera Mini for iPhone submitted to Apple for approval (video)

Opera Mini for iPhone submitted to Apple for approval (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Motorola makes i1 official, melds Android and push-to-talk this summer on Sprint

Right on cue, just after the aptly-timed teaser poster, Motorola signs on just the right dotted lines to make its i1 push-to-talk Android handset official. Let’s run through the specs quickly, shall we? A 3.1-inch HVGA (320 x 480) touchscren, 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and 4x zoom, WiFi, and microSD expansion — no mention of the processor, so we’ll have to find out on our own later. The OS version is 1.5 and, while there’s oddly not a single mention in either the press release of fact sheet, given the official images and unofficial leaks, it’s definitely got Motoblur. The browser of choice is Opera Mini 5 with support for Flash 8, and if you’re worried about Mother Nature’s wrath, the i1 meets Military 810F standards for handling averse weather conditions. iDEN lovers can pick up the call sometime this summer on Sprint, with price yet to be named.

Update: Motorola’s just sent word that the i1 does not have Motoblur, despite the presence of the traditional green call / blue contacts buttons. That begs the question, then, of what exactly defines Motoblur here (is just the Happenings widget missing?), and what Android skin is on the i1 — the press images here are definitely not showing vanilla 1.5. We’re still awaiting a response to that, stay tuned.


Motorola makes i1 official, melds Android and push-to-talk this summer on Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSprint, Motorola PR  | Email this | Comments

Opera 9.22 Available with Improved BitTorrent Support

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

Opera Torrent

The Opera team has been working intensely on version 9.5, and we’ll hopefully be seeing weekly builds of those coming shortly. In the meantime they have whipped up Opera 9.22 which has significant improvements to the BitTorrent downloader.

I wasn’t expecting the results to be all that great because in the past the built-in BitTorrent was kind of slow (at least compared to a standalone program). I’ve been pleasantly surprised though, and having used the "improved" build for about a week I’ve noticed download speeds comparable to what I get with uTorrent. For example, when downloading the Ubuntu operating system I was able to max out my Internet connection. Previously Opera had a tough time using more than half of what my connection had to offer.

Aside from that the new version also adds support for the Microsoft Silverlight plug-in. Microsoft had said that Opera support for Silverlight would be coming soon, and they surprisingly didn’t lie. :)

I’m still anxiously waiting to see what the Opera team is throwing into version 9.5 though. We know that it will do a great job with CSS3, and then there is some sort of feature that they’ve "censored" from a screenshot. Argh…the pain of having to wait can be enough to kill ya!

Download Opera 9.22 Build 8801
Source: Neowin

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts: