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EU settles affairs with Microsoft, no fines this time
Momentous moment alert -- the EU has just closed the book on its lengthy investigation into potential Microsoft antitrust violations. Lasting through nearly the entire noughties, The European Commission's dissatisfaction with what it perceived as monopolistic practices from Redmond has resulted in some hefty fines over the years, but the conclusion to hostilities has been pleasingly amicable. In exchange for Microsoft's legally binding promise to offer up to 12 other browsers alongside its own, the European executive will give the company a clean bill of competition-friendly health. All this means is that the ballot screen will be around on Windows operating systems for at least the next five years (starting in mid-March 2010), which should give the EU plenty of time to think up the next batch of allegations to throw Microsoft's way.
Internet Explorer 9 to sport GPU acceleration and HTML5 support
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.
Firefox headed to the PS3? Can life get any better?
Playstation Insider's got a tipster (one that's reportedly "very close" to the company) telling them that Sony is in heavy talks with Mozilla to port Firefox to the PS3. The tipster didn't know if any actual deal had been struck, but it's not terribly surprising considering the PS3's current built-in browser is less than awesome. That said, Firefox has actually crashed twice on us in the last 15 minutes, and no, we're not making that up.
RIM posts job listing for 'WebKit Developer,' gets one step closer to a real browser
Needed some more evidence that future BlackBerrys may be getting a much needed improvement in the browser department? You got it. Following up on the news that Research In Motion has acquired Torch Mobile (developers of the WebKit-based Iris browser), the Candian phonemaker is now looking to fill the position of "WebKit Developer," according to a job listing. The posting calls for a number of skills which would come in handy whilst creating a next-gen browser for the BlackBerry OS, clearly calling for someone with hands-on experience coding... WebKit style. Look, if you love Canada and hate the BlackBerry browser, here's your chance to make the world a better place. What are you waiting for? [Thanks, Daniel M]
Google Chrome released for Mac
Google has released an official developer preview of Google Chrome for the Mac. Rather than digging through nightly development builds, you can download the developer preview of the WebKit-based browser at Google's official webpage. Chrome sports several features similar to Safari 4 in Snow Leopard, such as sandboxing - each tab runs as its own process, so if one crashes, it doesn't bring down the whole browser. It also sports the "tabs on top" interface present in some builds of the Safari 4 beta released earlier this year. Some people hated tabs on top in Safari, but others eventually got used to it and even missed the feature when it was omitted from the final release of Safari 4; if tabs on top is your thing, then Chrome has you covered. Chrome supports importing bookmarks, settings, and history from whatever browser you're currently using, so if you're curious to see how it runs on a Mac, go ahead and give it a try. Let us know in the comments if you run into any issues. [Via Download Squad]
CNN: Our iPhone app is "not a hobby"
CNN chatted with our good friends at DLS about the news network's iPhone app (scheduled to hit an App Store near you very soon), and it actually sounds pretty premium: in-app video, breaking news live video streaming, a Coverflow-style way to browse news information, the ability to store news to read later, and social sharing through Facebook, Twitter, and the usual suspects. CNN even says they want to add more to the app in the future, including some iReport-style news delivery functions, so people with iPhones out in the world can send news in as quickly as possible. Ok, CNN, we get it -- you care about this one. It does sound like they're making a major push in terms of making their content interactive on the iPhone, but on the other hand, maybe they're just trying to sell you on the "premium" price: $1.99, with (we're told) non-intrusive advertising included. Obviously, $2 is cheap, but on the other hand, especially with advertising both from the network itself and outside clients, the crankiest of App Store browsers will probably flinch at it a little bit. If you are interested, however, CNN would love to take your money: their app should be available in the App Store as soon as Apple lets it through.
Sony adopts Chrome as default browser for VAIO line
Google's Chrome was already the default browser on the VAIO NW we handled a month ago, and now the Financial Times delivers confirmation of a wider distribution deal between the search giant and Sony. According to the report, new VAIO laptops and desktops will come with Chrome preinstalled -- an "experimental" arrangement -- and, most importantly, will default to Google for both their homepage and search queries. Pair this with the agreement to bring over a million Google Books to Sony's e-readers, and you start to see some clear lines being drawn in the sand. Intriguingly, Google is said to be pursuing similar distribution pacts with other manufacturers, which would place Internet Explorer's stranglehold on the uninitiated user under threat. Your move, Microsoft. [Thanks, Matt]
Microsoft relents to European Commission, will give users browser freedom in Windows 7
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.
Choosy helps those with Browser Commitment Phobia
Are you the type of person who just can't settle down? Do you find your needs just can't be met by any one of the multiple options available to you? Can you even remember how many different browsers you've been with? If that sounds like you, you should be glad to hear that Choosy has left beta. We've mentioned Choosy before but in case you missed it during the beta cycle, here's what Choosy does for you: Choosy is a preference pane which lets you keep your browser options open. Do you love Safari, but sometimes find that you need to use Firefox for a particular website? Are you a fan of Fluid (which lets you create site-specific browsers), or you want all your RSS links to open in your personalized Google Reader browser?When you select a link, instead of your default browser, a Choosy window will appear; you can configure it to show all of your available browsers, or just the ones which are currently running. Or you can set a default to use except if you hold down the shift key, for example.That latter functionality is what led me to give Choosy another look. I tried it during the beta period and found that most of the time I wanted links to open in Safari, but there were some I wanted to open in Firefox or Fluid. While having to choose a browser for every link proved to be too distracting, the 1.0 version allows you to create very precise rules.For example, I can setup Safari to be my default browser, but if I click a link while holding down the shift/command/alt key, then that link will automatically be opened in Firefox.My favorite rule? If Web address contains constantcontact.com then use Firefox. Constant Contact is a great service, but they are very aggressive about which web browsers they support. Now I can stop thinking about this, and if I come across a Constant Contact link, it will automatically open it in Firefox.Do you have a Fluid SSB for Facebook or Twitter? If so, you can make sure that all of those links open in your site-specific browser.Choosy is shareware. You can try it free and without any limitation for 45 days. In my experience that will be plenty of time to decide if Choosy is the right choice for you. If it is, you can register it for $12 and continue to enjoy surfing the web with multiple partners... err, browsers.
Net Applications numbers show growth for Mac browsers
If you're looking for a bright spot in the Mac market share numbers after the recent dips, Net Applications has your back. The May survey indicates an uptick in Safari's share of browser usage -- up to 8.43% from 8.21% in April, and 2% higher than a year earlier. Firefox continues to be the big 2nd banana to leading browser choice IE, with a 22.5% share. It's not yet clear how the IE8 release will drive browser adoption.Operating system numbers (which aren't definitive, but provide a reasonable indicator of usage) also show a slight rise for Mac OS X (9.81% from 9.73%), also more than 2% over the year-ago allocation.On the mobile side, the survey company notes that Android browsing usage started out with the same adoption curve as the iPhone/iPod touch, but has since fallen off that pace. Coverage of the Palm Pre starts soon.[via Ars Technica]
Google Chrome for Mac: Don't hold your breath
Gather around, Apple fans. I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that there is a preliminary version of Google Chrome up and running. Sort of. Google's Mike Pinkerton has posted a couple of screenshots of Chrome for Mac on his blog, including the very first time he used it to load a webpage. It's coming, folks.Now the bad news from Mike himself, "We've got a very very long way to go." He says that the WebKit that ships with Mac OS X doesn't do what they developers need right out of the box, and it took a lot of cajoling to get it to comply. If it's anything like the acrobatics I must perform each weekday morning to get my kids out the door in time to catch the school bus, Google's Mac devs will be busy indeed.
Chrome features are coming to WebKit
Although Google's Chrome browser is currently only available to Windows users (unless you are running an Intel-based Mac and VMWare Fusion or Parallels), its WebKit underpinnings mean that Safari, and other WebKit-based browsers, can benefit from Google's code. One of the larger innovations of Google Chrome, the V8 JavaScript engine, is incredibly fast. The WebKit project has its own new JavaScript engine, SquirrelFish, used in Mobile Safari and the WebKit nightlies. Still, the code base for V8 along with the Skia graphics library are making their way into the main WebKit repository. The Skia graphics library may already be in some of the newest nightly builds.What does this mean for Mac and Safari users? Superficially, it might mean very little for right now, however, the Safari team can choose to implement any of the Chrome features that have been added back to the repository. That's the beauty of open source.
Forum menus tweaked, cleaner and easier to browse
If you've visited the main page of the official forums lately, you'll notice that things are a little different -- they've replaced the simple links to class, realm, and battlegroup forums with a dynamic interface. All the forums that were there are still there, but the navigation to them is a little faster and less cluttered. It's not Flash or anything fancy, so it should work just fine across any number of widely used browsers.Something like this was probably inevitable, considering how much Blizzard's WoW forums have been multiplying -- there's one for every release, event, and topic Blizzard can think of. And considering they have only so many people running them, it means the threads further off the beaten path, especially realm threads, can run rampant with forum violations.Not that that's a problem -- what's in those threads can be pretty entertaining. But Blizzard moderates the forums for a reason, and the more threads they have, the harder time they'll have moderating them.
Camino 1.6
The best browser for the Mac, Camino, has gotten even better with the release of Camino 1.6. I know what some of you are thinking, 'How can you say that Camino is the best browser for the Mac? It doesn't support extensions, it isn't made by Apple, and it won't buy me a pony!'All of those things are true (though I'm still hopeful that I'll get a Camino pony in the mail any day now), but for my money no other browser on the Mac feels more like an OS X app than Camino does (your opinion may vary, and I'm sure you'll let me know why I'm wrong in the comments). New in Camino 1.6 are a host of UI changes that make the browser much nicer to look at, as well as improvements in navigating tabs, and a search interface more like Safari's (though Safari's highlighting of search terms within webpages still bests Camino's).Camino 1.6 is available now, and is free and open source.
Safari 3.0.2 beta released
The Surfin' Safari blog dedicated to the open source WebKit project (which powers Safari on Mac OS X, Windows and even the iPhone) has announced the availability of Safari 3.0.2 beta. This isn't a major release by any means, but it does contain a healthy list of squashed bugs, as well as fixes for mysteriously disappearing text in a variety of situations. The announcement post contains links to specific information for Mac and Windows users, as well as a link to more security issues fixed in this new beta.To snag the new version for either platform you're using, simply head to Apple's Safari beta download page and pick your poison. Of course, we must remind you this is a beta, so it is still not all that uncommon for Safari 3 to crash, hiccup and potentially eat your cat. Besides, one could question whether your cat should be getting very close to your computer to begin with.
TabExpos: Safari gets Expos for its tabs
Move over Shiira, cuz there's another browser in town that can bring the power of Exposé to its tabs. Cocoamug Software's TabExposé enables Safari (even the new v3 beta) with a configurable shortcut key to display the current window's tabs in an Exposé-style layout. To be sure, however, it only works on the current window and the tabs that window contains; if you have more than one window open with tabs in Safari, the others will sit in the background.TabExposé works well in Safari 3 beta on my MacBook Pro, and with extra options like applying a color bar to the top of the tabs when TabExposé is invoked, $4.90 is a very, very tiny price to pay for such a handy Safari tab management tool.
TUAW Podcast #22: 1Passwd
This week's podcast covers 1Passwd, the password manager and autofill tool that brings some really unique features and multi-browser support for the Keychain to the table. For just under 8 minutes I demonstrate some of the killer features of this app that go above and beyond the norm, and the whole thing weighs in at a mere 28MB. Snag it from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. Enjoy!
Opera browser boxed, demonstrated
Siliconera got a chance to check out the American release of the Opera browser at SXSW, and they handily took some video of the demonstration, so we can see ... what Japanese and European DS users have been seeing for quite some time. We've been waiting so long for this application. Could it really be on the way?They also got some pictures of the US boxart, which says that the DS browser puts "The Internet at your fingertips". That's somewhat of a strange choice of slogan; as far as we can tell, the Internet is always at your fingertips, except when you use a stylus-based input method.
Is Safari a system resource hog?
A browser doesn't seem like it should have that adverse of an effect on one's system performance. Aside from the power users who surf for hours at a time and leave their browser running for days on end, one's browser shouldn't be dragging the rest of the class down.Macenstein, on the other hand, has used a few pseudo-scientific tests to determine otherwise. While the debate still rages as to which browser is the 'best,' or the fastest, or the least detrimental memory hog, Dr. Macenstein has apparently outed Safari as a fairly selfish system resource gobbler, able to slow at least some operations by 76 percent. The tests performed by the monster of all things Mac included a fairly tricked out G5 PowerMac, as well as Quad Core Mac Pro just for good measure. Just to round the tests out, Macenstein eventually added Camino and OmniWeb to the original test sequence of Safari and Firefox. These browsers were all tested separately against opening/saving a fairly hefty PSD in Photoshop, as well as rendering a project out of After Effects (remember: those two apps still have to run emulated in Rosetta on the Mac Pro).The cliff notes results? In nearly every test, Safari (running in the background) was found to deal a significant blow to performance and efficiency, causing the three aforementioned operations to take noticeably longer. To make things even more bizarre, Safari was actually found to not affect performance when exporting a video for the iPod with QuickTime.At the end of the day, no one is really sure why Apple's browser is making so many waves in the performance pool, but a healthy comment thread on the post is already hard at work. For anyone serious about Safari, here's hoping Apple is already aware of the issue and has brought their browser in line for Leopard.
Safari's market share rises to 4.03 percent
In a post cleverly titled The same thing we do every night, Pinky (an Animaniacs/Pinky and the Brain reference), the WebKit blog Surfing Safari links a Switch to a Mac article which notes that Safari's market share has risen once again. Continuing its upward stride from October's 3.53 percent, Market Share now finds Safari at 4.03 percent, though data suggests that Safari's growth, while still on the up and up, has actually slowed in the past month.Since the overall Mac OS market share is still progressing quite nicely - up to 5.39 percent now - this slow in Safari's growth could be attributed to any number of factors, one of which I'm willing to bet could be all those switchers coming over and bringing Firefox with them (note: that's just my theory; I can't find numbers right now to back it up). Still, this is good news for the spread of Apple either way, as it can probably be safe to bet that the company won't be stopping the development of Safari anytime soon.
