Archive for: browser
Opera 10 Beta 2 was released earlier today by the Opera development team.The changelog lists many changes for this release especially for the Opera user interface, mail, chat and news, display and scripting, security and network. The Windows changelog alone lists more than 100 items that have been added, changed or fixed in Opera 10 Beta 2.
Many users in the Opera forum are reporting problems with the new beta release. The developers are actually warning users stating that it “may have severe known issues, including crashes and data loss situations”. That’s not very encouraging and it is therefor suggested to try the web browser in a test environment and not in a productive environment to ensure that it is working without problems.
Opera 10 Beta 2 can be downloaded directly from the Opera homepage for all supported operating systems. The changelogs are available for Windows, Linux and Mac.
I have been looking to find the offical release of Google Chrome for Mac and Linux, but was having some trouble. I thought some other people out there might also have some trouble finding this release so thought I would let everyone know about it.
If you are looking to install Chrome on a USB stick, check out Portable Google Chrome.
The Google Browser port, known as Crossover Chromium, is also available for download on Mac OS X as a native Mac .dmg file or on Ubuntu, RedHat, Suse, etc. as standard Linux packages.
Called Peacekeeper, the new app makes a lot of sense for Futuremark. As one of the key brands in computer benchmarking, it’s only logical that they would want in on comparative browser testing. In Internet Explorer, you’ll be asked to install an ActiveX control – other browsers will run the test without any add-ins. Tests were patterned after real-world browsing using sites like YouTube, Facebook, GMail, and Meebo.
To see how your default browser scores, just point it to http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/. Once the test completes, your score will be displayed. To test another browser, just click the button and you’ll be given a link to copy and paste.
Microsoft has released the latest version of their web browser for Windows, and you can download Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) now. Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 claims to block upto four times more malware attacks than other browsers and reduces time to complete common tasks on the Web such as searching, mapping and sharing.
Some new features worth looking out for are
- Accelerators - make it faster to perform common tasks online by making Web-based services such as ESPN.com, Live Search and Sina available for use directly from the page people are viewing. Simply right-click a word or phrase and instantly map, e-mail, or share it.
- Web Slices – makes favorite information from sites such as Digg, Yahoo! Mail, OneRiot, and eBay instantly available when you go online.
- Instant search – The Instant Search Box enables real-time search from sites such as The New York Times, Amazon.com and Wikipedia, as well as sites from people’s own Favorites and History, complete with visuals and detailed information.
Download Internet Explorer 8 now in 25 languages.
Google has just release Chrome (its internet browser) to the world in beta stage. If you are interested in testing out this new browser then head here to download.
So, what does a Google Chrome beta bring? Speed, and lots of it. According to Google, it’s 25 percent faster than the stable build of Chrome, which is nothing short of amazing given that Chrome is already blazing fast.
Other new features are form autofill, full page zooming and autoscroll, as well as a way to get a side-by-side view by dragging out tabs to the side of the browser window, which you can see in the amazingly short video below.
Rather than filling your laptop with chunks of programs and your bookmarks with an overload of web based tools only to end up wasting time, why not have all your favorite tools and plug-ins directly in your web browser? Create your own pimped out browser! Colorful tabs, ad-blockers, pagerank, integrated music players, and other goodies. Here are the 10 best Firefox extensions to get pimped out.
Oh yes, and these extensions are of course, for Firefox. So don’t be lame and use IE6,7,8 or whatever.
1. FoxyTunes
Listen to your music directly from the web browser. Skip the hassle of running iTunes, Winamp or any other media player, that will not only take precious RAM but also force you to jump between programs only to skip a track. FoxyTunes extension is your web browser integrated media player, where you can choose audio source and even change skins to pimp out your browser.
2. Colorful tabs
Who said fashion don’t belong online. In the true words of pimping out your web browser – Colorful Tabs extension is a must. Adding color to a normally gray interface will inspire your daily web exploring.
3. Ad Block Plus
For a less ad-attacking web experience. Ad Block Plus lets you disable and hide all advertisements on the site your visiting. Without annoying banners and pop-ups trying to steal your attention, you are with ABP assured a more personal day on the WWW.
4. User Agent Switcher
See directly in your browser how a website is displayed in Explorer, Netscape and other web browsers. A useful tool when creating web sites since all web browser run on different CSS standards.
5. Search Status
Keep a tab on how websites are ranking in PageRank, Alexa and overall ranking. Get additional information concerning back links, indexed pages and much more SEO goodies.
6. FireFtp
A great extension that sets up a FTP function in your browser with which you can access your server accounts and website root directories without having to download, start or buy any FTP programs to your computer. Perfect for anybody owning a website. Good FTP clients are hard and expensive to find. FireFTP is 100 % free and optimal in usability.
7. Google Toolbar
Perhaps not the most pimped out feature but none the less a must-have extension for your web browser. A toolbar with all necessary functions summoned into one thin bar. The best is that you don’t have to return to Google.com every time you need to make a search. Which is like three hundred times every day.
8. SEO Quake
All useful and necessary SEO tools summoned into one extension. Get PageRank, Backlinks, Yahoo links and many other features displayed above the page or underneath search result in Google. Like an extended SearchStatus.
9. Google Preview
Get a preview of the web design on the website you are about to enter. Only one click away, yet we all know how humans fear the unknown. If anything, Google Preview extension will at least add some graphics to a otherwise quite dull SERP.
10. CoolIris
Activate CoolIris from a button in your web browser navigation bar and get thrown into a world where you can search Google in an image and video interface. The web becomes one big slide show.
And an eleventh because I couldn’t help it.
11. Firebug
I just thought of this as I use it a lot. Trying to figure out why something on the page has a funny font size? Especially when editing CSS for my WordPress blog and then going back and forth in my cpanel hosting manager, I can never figure out why some color or font went AWOL. Firebug is there to load at the base of the browser. Jolly goodness!
And there you have it, 10 great extensions for your web browser that will not only optimize your user experience but also allow you to create your own personalized interface. Remember, installations of multiple extension may cause your web browser to slow down. Just A bit.
Everyday I have about 30 people start following Crenk on Twitter, but today I had a very interesting company show up. Tweetreplies is a new startup which sends twitter replies to your email address. I know there has been a lot of talk about this specific type of Twitter startup in the last week or so, especially with Twply.com. Unlike Twply (which sold for $1200 a few days after launching), Tweetreplies doesn’t require your Twitter username and password to actually operate. There are a lot people out there that have been talking about giving out their Twitter passwords to third party sites, so this is a great way to have a tool and not give up your password.
When
Flock was launched last fall, it was the browser geared towards the social network savvy surfer. It was a new way to integrate all the most popular social sites and keep them at your finger tips while doing your standard day to day browsing online. No longer were you forced to open tab after tab, window after window for each network you wanted to connect with. Now, with some minor prep time by inputting accounts and passwords, Flock will keep everything on file and load all of your chosen networks as soon as you start your browser.
Flock has just released the latest version of its broswer software, and already it’s looking like the browser to beat. When Google release Chrome, it was a mad dash by early adopters to test out this mysterious new entry into the browser wars. The excitement lost steam pretty quickly as users were left wondering exactly what the purpose of Chrome was because the bells and whistles were just not there. The browser that was meant to be used not seen seemed to be the mantra. Flock flies directly in the face of such philosophy by making sure every aspect of the user interface is useful and interactive.
The new release integrates Media RSS which can now keep the most watch media on the front page of your start window for immediate viewing; pics, movies, podcasts, all accessible with a click of a button. New to the social network offerings is
MySpace, which has finally been brought into the fold, allowing users to chat with their friends directly from the sidebar without having to visit the actual site.
Since it’s founding 3 years ago, and with the first release this past fall, Flock has attracted 6 million downloads. A true testament in its efforts to get attention from users. Having been built on Firefox’s code, similarities are welcoming with a taste and flavor all its own.
As Mashable has reported this morning, Joost has now moved to a web based version. If you don’t know what Joost is, it is basically a television streaming service but without the ads. There are hundred of channels to choose from and you are able to watch programs straight in your browser.
Joost has channels in a variety of sectors, old television programs, sports, news, music videos and more. It is totally free to watch and can be viewed from any country in the world, unlike Hulu.
When you head over to the site all you need to do is register and then download the plugin that launches the application within your browser, and thats it.
Last week I gave a first 5-minute impression of Google Chrome, the new browser that is supposed to be faster and better than anything else out there. A week later and what seems to be a hundred thousand reviews in the blogsphere later, everyone seems to like it, and no one seems to be using it. Less than 1% of Crenk readers are using it, more people are using Opera belive it or not.
What’s so great about it? Well it’s new and shiny, has a minimalist look and feel to it and consumes about 75% less memory than Firefox does, at least for me on my Windows XP box. Google really seems to have done their homework with regards to chewing up your CPU cycles and there appears to never be a memory leak. Additionally, you just need to type something in what used to be known as the address bar, as it now functions as a search bar and many other things. It’s also fast, but how fast? My seat dyno says slightly faster than Firefox, but to a normal user, it might only feel faster because it’s new.
What’s not so great about it? Well first and foremost, Windows only. As a Mac user, I once again feel like someone put me out in the cold. Lack of any add-ons that I’ve come to love with Firefox is also missing, but if you were coming from Internet Explorer you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about anyway. Dedicated search box is something I miss. Why you ask, since Google answers all questions on it’s own? Because it simply doesn’t. I’ve been using a Firefox add-on called OpenSearchFox for more than a year now; it allows you to add a drop down in Firefox to search any site that has search enabled on it. That means, rather than going to say Netflix and then searching, I can select Netflix from my drop down menu in the search bar and type in my query there. My other gripe is the lack of a status bar. I understand how important screen real estate is, but I like it, I’ve been using the status bar for more than 10 years in browsers, I’m used to it. Lastly, Chrome doesn’t work with all websites yet. One site that I order digital photos from requires a Java plugin, to upload the photos. I have the plugin installed in Windows but the browser doesn’t pick it up. I’m sure small kinks like this will iron themselves out but it’s still an inconvenience.
One of the most interesting Easter eggs is kind of a joke in Chrome. In the address bar type about:internets – then sit back and chuckle, at least someone around the Google camp has a sense of humor. Chrome is interesting, but it’s not a killer app for me yet, nor do I plan on switching. For now, I will use it to beta test website design and other various things on the Internet but Firefox will continue to be my primary browser.
Yesterday Google’s new browser, Chrome was announced so today I downloaded and installed it onto my work Windows XP box to see what all the fuss is about and check for cross compatibility on sites we work on. I spent about 5 minutes poking around, if I can’t figure out how to use a browser in 5 minutes, it’s too complicated for anyone but the most 733t 1337.
Download was very small; it then opens an applet and downloads the rest of the software. Installation requires Firefox to be shut down so Chrome can import all your bookmarks, favorites, history and passwords; this goes quickly and rather painlessly. Next you get a TOS about reporting options for crashes, I denied their request and the install was complete.
Upon launching Chrome for the first time an unusual question is asked, “Do you wish to keep Google as your default search engine?” It’s unusual in that, it’s a Google product and the first thing about this new killer app is to strip out Search, the one thing Google does very, very well. I selected to keep it.
All my bookmarks and history imported, what didn’t was my homepage. I’m a long time iGoogle user and rely on the RSS feeds to get me caught up quickly at a glance to what is going on with the sites I follow. Not there. Instead six white boxes stare at me. A little note tells you that these are your most visited sites. Nice idea, but not for me. I easily look at 50+ sites in six different tabs of iGoogle. There is no apparent way to set a traditional “homepage” only what Google wants you to see.
The other thing lacking is an option to show the status bar. I rely on the status bar while at work and home to see where any link will take my, by hovering over it. There are also several add-ons for Firefox that sit in my status bar that I’ve come to love, from what I can tell in Chrome, there is no status bar option.
On the plus side, it is fast. How fast? I don’t have scientific numbers or pretty pie charts, but it really feels fast. One site that I know uses a fairly common Java plugin to run an app wouldn’t work and there was no option to install it but everything else on the dozen or so sites I quickly browsed seem to work.
Is Chrome the next killer app? Hard to say now, Firefox has such a loyal, loving fan base to it, but I think this could compliment it very well.
