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46 Firefox Features You Might Not Know About

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:26:45 +0000

Firefox, an open source application that needs no introduction. A browser that has succesfully been eating away it it’s competitors market share since the early parts of the decade. Firefox with it’s theming and extenibility is an incredibly adaptible and customizable browser. As of version 3 a lot of work has gone into a set of new features, mainly for HTML 5 and CSS 3.

Paul Rouget over at Mozilla Hacks has decided to compile a list of 46 features that many may be unaware of. While this list is mainly aimed at web developers, it will still surely find use among the tech curious crowd. View the full list here

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France joins Germany warning against Internet Explorer

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:08:24 +0000

France has echoed calls by the German government for web users to find an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to protect security. read more…

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Another Blow To Internet Explorer’s Reputation

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 08:54:12 +0000

Another blow has been dealt to Internet Explorer’s credibility as a reliable and safe browser recently. Using an undocumented browser security flaw in all versions of the browser the Chinese government was able to hack into several Gmail accounts.

Accounts belonging specifically to foreign journalists within China were targeted. This has lead to an uproar amongst human rights activists, Google and internet security specialists. The Chinese government was able to hack into several email accounts by taking advantage of a previously undocumented security flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer. The flaw in Internet Explorer allows a website to execute malicious code which installs a trojan on the victims PC, which then harvests passwords and other critically confidential data. As a result a German Governmental department dealing with online security have released a statement urging all users to switch from Internet Explorer to another more secure browser.

Following these attacks, Google themselves have announced plans to stop censoring their search results in China in retaliation, as china is a communist state, their internet is greatly censored. “These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn” wrote David Drummond on the Official Google Blogspot.

Microsoft has stated that they are working on a fix for the their unsafe browser, however in the interim it would probably be most prudent to follow the German’s advice and steer clear of a risky insecure application, Internet Explorer. As since this exploit is now widely known, who knows how many others will try and take advantage of it, in the interim, while Microsoft fumbles for a fix.

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Browser Speed Tests

admin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:57:34 +0000

The browser war, started back in the earlier part of this decade has only intensified with newer additions such as Google Chrome and the maturing Opera. With the release of Internet Explorer 8 many envisioned a standards compliant browser that will finally match the speeds of it’s third party counterparts. However according to the recent tests conducted this seems not to be the case.

The tests conducted were only tests of the rendering speed of javascript, html, and browser standards compliance. It seems as though from these results that Internet Explorer 8 has once again failed to meet w3c standards, where as all the other three browser maintained a healthy ability to comply with established internet standards.

In terms of rendering speed, once again IE8 fails quite dismally against the other browsers. IE8 seemed to fail completely in the Dromaeo test, probably due to its outdated engine that has’nt been updated to frequently since it’s IE6 days.

Browser choice is a personal choice, however in todays ever increasingly online world a good browser does matter and does makes a big difference on how one interacts with the internet. Perhaps the familiriaty of the defualt browser would suffice to some, and the speed and security of an open source browser to others. At the end of it all compitition spurs innovation, and innovation spurs development. Without it we would probably all still be stuck with the antique they call IE6, or maybe not.

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Internet Explorer Released Today

admin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:57:36 +0000

The internet has been a buzz with the recent release of Internet Explorer 8. I find myself peculiarly excited, not that I’m quite the fan of Windows but the fact that IE8 is closer then any previous release of Internet Explorer to be Internet standards compliant. As web designers know very well, the inconvenience of implementing dirty css tricks into their code to create a website that renders properly on a Internet Explorer, a non standards compliant browser.

However sadly Internet Explorer doesn’t yet quite fully support CSS3, a new version of the common cascading stylesheets language. Although it still remains good news that Microsoft has realised the importance of internet standards and made a decision to steer their browser development towards Internet Standard compatibility.

Microsoft’s new browser offering comes equiped with a few new features, such as increased compatibility with mobile devices which is a field Microsoft is keen to target. Unfortunatly there has been no mention of HTML 5 support which will be included in the upcomming release of Firefox 3.5, HTML 5 is a new version of the familiar html language which now includes support for various open source media types, hence removing the need for sluggish flash based video.

The browser war has intensified, we all know our sides, let the best browser win!

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