Internet Explorer may remain the world’s most popular browser by most measures, but StatCounter is reporting some numbers that put Firefox on top. One particular version of Firefox, that is: 3.5, which StatCounter says is now the single most popular browser version in the world.

Doing the math by version number rather than for all versions of a particular browser radically shifts the result, since IE users as a lot are clearly the browser users least likely to promptly upgrade to a new version: IE 8, IE 7, and IE 6 are all still in wide use, presumably because IE remains the default browser in the Windows world, and plenty of folks who find themselves with a default never bother to change it. Which is why Microsoft must still go out of its way to urge people to upgrade from IE 6--an eight-year-old browser that dates from an era before there was a Firefox, a Safari, or a Chrome.

So how does browser usage by version break down among Technologizer visitors? Glad you asked. Here are the top ten browser versions–Firefox 3.5 has a humongous lead, Safari 4.0 is in second place, and IE doesn’t show up until third place. The numbers below are percentage of visits to the site over the past month…

Now that the first beta of Google’s Chrome browser for OS X is out, Google is telling Mac users about it. At the moment, it’s doing so via a promotional dialog box which I’m seeing near the upper right-hand corner of the Google home page in both Safari and Firefox. One that’s about as splashy and pushy as anything Google ever puts there.

Faster than what? The logical assumption is that Google’s saying it’s faster than the browser you’re using now. I haven’t seen any browser benchmarks from the company–comprehensive or otherwise–but when I ran the SunSpider JavaScript test on all the major OS X browsers, Safari performed best. As I said in that story, it was essentially a wash with Chrome (Firefox 3.5 was considerably slower). The test only tells you so much about browser performance.  And maybe Google, like Microsoft, is saying that “fast” is about more than traditional speed tests.

But I remain curious: Is Google specifically saying that Chrome for OS X is a faster browser than Safari? (Apple still touts Safari as “the world’s fastest browser,” although as far as I know, it hasn’t compared Safari to the Chrome beta.)

Author: Bill Detwiler

According to a report from CNET’s Lance Whitney, the European Union has resolved its Internet Explorer antitrust case against Microsoft and it appears Microsoft will be giving Windows users (at least European ones) an Internet browser buffet. Whitney wrote,

“As part of the settlement, Windows PCs sold in the European Economic Area will now present users with a Choice Screen, allowing them to install alternative browsers beyond Internet Explorer.

The Choice Screen will offer users the ability to install up to 12 of the most widely used Web browsers that run under Windows, including Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera. Users can download as many of the browsers as they wish or stick with Internet Explorer. Additionally, computer makers and users in Europe will be able to turn off IE totally and set up other browsers as the default. As part of the settlement, Microsoft is also prohibited from preventing the choice of different browsers through any contractual or technical means.”

While not the best solution for Microsoft, which undoubtedly wants to promote its own Web browser above its competitors, this is a real win for users. I’m not against Microsoft or IE in any way, but I am for choice. I don’t want my operating system to restrict me from installing (or uninstalling) an application or to “push” me in a specific direction. (Of course nearly every company does this with their products. Promoting your competitors isn’t usually a smart business decision.)

Users not in European Economic Area left out

In a statement about the EU decision, Microsoft wrote:

“It [the browser choice screen] will be provided both to users of new computers and to the installed base of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 computers in Europe where Internet Explorer is set as the default browser.”

So my question is this –  If the browser Choice Screen is good enough for European users, what about the rest of us? I want the ability to choose which browser I want during the Windows install. I want the ability to totally turn off IE. Sure, I can already install another browser and set it as the default, but wouldn’t the Choice Screen be an easier option?

How to sign the petition

If you’re like me and you would like Microsoft to give every Windows user the Choice Screen, you can sign the petition virtually by responding to the discussion thread of this article. Click “Post a Reply” with “Yes” as the title and your name as the body of the message.

More news about monopolies and governmental action against them: The European Union has ended its antitrust case against Microsoft over Internet Explorer after Microsoft agreed to give European Windows users a ballot screen which will let them choose between IE and eleven (!) other browsers.

A hundred million Europeans will get this feature next year, and at least a few of them are reading this post. But even if you’ve never set foot in an EU country, how about taking this quick poll? The browsers listed are the ones that Microsoft will offer when the ballot screen rolls out.

(Credit: Mozilla Org.)

In an effort to provide the most stable and secure Web browser around, Mozilla recently upgraded its popular Web browser Firefox to Version 3.5.6.

What’s new in this version?

• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.

Mozilla is encouraging Firefox users to upgrade to this latest stability and security patch as soon as possible.  Due to its growing popularity, Firefox is being targeted by malicious people for the sole purpose of doing harm.  Go ahead and protect yourself if Firefox is your default browser.

Firefox raises the bar for security. The new malware and phishing protection helps protect from viruses, worms, trojans and spyware to keep people safe on the Web.  Good Day.

Download Firefox 3.5.6

Google’s browser has passed Safari in terms of worldwide browser usage–at least by one measurement.

NetApplications’ measurements of browser usage share, which track which browsers individuals use based on visits to the company’s network of Web sites, gave Chrome the third-place spot after No. 1 Internet Explorer and No. 2 Firefox for the week of December 6 through 12, according to a Computerworld story Tuesday. Chrome had 4.4 percent share to Safari’s 4.37 percent.

Google released beta versions of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux on December 8. Earlier, only developer channel versions had been available. Google plans to release the “stable” versions January 12, according to the Chromium development calendar.

Take these usage share numbers with a grain of salt. Even though 0.03 percentage points still is a lot of people in the real world, it is a small fraction, and a change in Net Applications’ assumptions in August led to share changes two orders of magnitude more dramatic. Weekly statistics also vary: Although Firefox cleared 25 percent share in one week of November, it averaged only 24.72 percent for the overall month.

I’ve asked various browser makers about how trustworthy they view NetApplications’ statistics to be. The answers generally are favorable but not ringing endorsements.

Regardless of the precise details, though, the Chrome trajectory is upward: its November usage share was 3.93 percent to Safari’s 4.36 percent.

And although Google relied on word of mouth for promoting its original online search product, it’s taking a more active role with Chrome. The latest example: a “Chrome for Christmas” site that lets people send invitations to download Chrome.

Firefox proved that a browser not bundled with an operating system can be successful, and Chrome could show the idea isn’t a fluke if its growth continues.

From CNET.com

Over at Computerworld, Gregg Keizer is reporting on new browser stats from Net Applications that show Chrome overtaking Safari as the #3 browser last week, presumably as a result of the launch of the first beta of Chrome for OS X. For last week, 4.4 percent of people in Net Application’s pool used Chrome, a leap of .4 percent. That puts it above Safari’s 4.37 percent, but it’s a squeaker.

To satisfy my own curiosity, I checked out the same numbers for Technologizer visitors.

November 1st-November 30th
Firefox: 42.09%
Internet Explorer: 30.95%
Safari: 14.65%
Chrome: 9.69%
Opera: 1.36%

December 8th-December 15th
Firefox: 40.49%
Internet Explorer: 22.86%
Safari: 20.71%
Chrome: 11.57%
Opera: 1.35%

The main thing that Technologizer’s numbers show is that a week of data isn’t enough to draw firm conclusions from: The most striking change from November isn’t Chrome’s growth of about two percentage points, but the fact that IE cratered and Safari jumping by six points. I’m sure that just indicates that we had a story or two of particular interest to Mac users, and so OS X visits made up a larger slice of the pie than usual. Net Applications’ pool involves a vastly larger number of users, so a week of data means more.

My gut tells me that Chrome faces more daunting odds on the Mac than it does on Windows, since the average Mac owner seems to be a happy Safari user with no particular desire to switch browsers. (Among Technologizer users, the ratio of Safari-to-Firefox use is 2:1; for Windows, the ratio of IE-to-Firefox is about 1:1, with Firefox having a small edge.)

I also think, though, that Google hasn’t really yet brought out the big guns when it comes to promoting Chrome. Wonder what would happen to its usage if it was showcased continuously on the Google.com home page, touted more prominently to Gmail and Google Toolbar users, etc., etc., etc.?

November has come and gone faster than you can wink an eye.  December is following the same trend.  Soon we will be watching the descending apple at Times Square in New York City.

I have just reviewed Net Application’s statistics for November 2009 which are very interesting if you like monitoring the performance of web browsers.  I’m passionate about this subject.

These are November 2009 statistics expressed in percentages:

1. Internet Explorer:  63.62
2. Firefox:  24.72
3. Safari:  4.36
4. Chrome:  3.93
5. Opera:  2.31
6. Opera Mini:  0.46
7. Other:  0.60

Comments:

It’s no surprise that Mozilla Firefox continues to snap at Microsoft’s heels.  Firefox is ready to break the 25 percent landmark, maybe next month.  This is an outstanding performance, considering Mozilla is fighting a  formidable behemoth in the industry, famous for blowing its contenders dead in the water.  Internet Explorer has lost its traditional mojo.  Its glory days are gone, if you ask me.

Safari slipped a bit in November, but I’m sure it’ll keep gaining ground.  The “halo effect” of the iPhone will keep the momentum going.  Reading the tea leaves, I foresee clear blue skies for Apple in the near future.

The 800-pound gorilla of the 21st Century is doing fine with Chrome. It gained 9.8 percent in November keeping a solid fourth place in global market share.  Somewhere inside the Mountain View Chocolate Factory, Google’s elves are busy working on the next version of Chrome.  They plan to use it as an operating system to replace Microsoft Windows.

Opera is the clear winner in November.  Finally, mainstream users are taking notice of this persistent Norwegian Web browser.  It grew at the rate of  6.5 percent in November.  An excellent performance pushed by its influence in the mobile phone industry.  Take notice that Opera Mini has captured a walloping 0.46 percent global market share equivalent to a jump of 31.4 percent from previous month.  I was shocked to see that.

Without doubt, a major force in the browser wars is the move to mobile.  The iPhone has proven that people will browse from their mobile device if the browser and device can provide a similar user experience to a computer.  Mobile browsing is projected to grow substantially in the years to come, so this may be the next big battle ground for browser providers.  Opera is aiming its guns at this emerging market and so is Google.

I recently extracted this piece of news regarding the browsers’ race which gives a pretty good picture of what’s going on in this cut-throat scenario.

Anyone who may have thought the death of Netscape would signal the end of the browser wars, boy were they mistaken. In fact, it could be argued that it was at that point it all began. It didn’t take long for Mozilla’s Firefox to emerge from Netscape Navigator’s ashes, and over time, Firefox would win over enthusiasts with a potent combination of speed, security, and an unprecedented level of customization.

“But what started as a two-man battle is quickly growing into all-out warfare. Prepare to be overwhelmed by an onslaught of new browser releases in the coming months as Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, Opera Software, and Google all vie to provide your vehicle for navigating the web. Each one brings something new to the table, whether it be blazing fast performance or a unique feature-set. Don’t worry if you haven’t been paying attention—we jump in the trenches with whole lot of them and get to know each one on a personal basis.

Netscape may have died an untimely death at the hands of Microsoft, but its soul lives on. We’re talking about the open-source Gecko rendering engine, which started life at Netscape in 1997 and has been used with every version of Firefox. Gecko’s main advantage is that it was built specifically to support open internet standards, but is also adept at rendering most web pages built for IE. The cross-platform engine also boasts support for a wide range of operating systems.

Also starting life at Netscape is Firefox’s SpiderMonkey Javascript engine written in C. It’s the same engine Yahoo uses for its Widgets, and can also be found in various other applications.

Simply put, no other browser boasts the same level of versatility and customization options as Firefox. To date there are over 6,000 add-ons available and more than 600 themes to choose from.”

I can’t wait for December figures to find out if Firefox broke the 25 percent landmark.  That would be a great present for my Xmas. tree.  Good Day.

Source:  Net Applications

In our time of contemporary software development, programmers don’t have to worry much about “disk space” or “processor time.” Those are archaic terms, especially as terabyte hard drives can be had for less than $100, and a personal computer’s processor may have as few as two or as many as eight cores. I think that as a result of this, the size or programs and operating systems has proportionately ballooned. Look at any edition of Microsoft Office. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has to ship on DVD, as it’s so big. When Windows 95 came out, it shipped on at least thirteen and as many as twenty-six floppy disks, depending on the version.

Thus it pleases me to say that the new beta version of the Google Chrome web browser for Mac OS X weighs in at fifty megabytes, which is half of the previous version’s file size of one hundred megabytes. Its increased performance and decreased file size are something for all software developers to strive for. Well done, Google!

After what seems like a lifetime of waiting–but was really a little over fifteen months–Mac users can finally get their hands on a beta version of Google’s Chrome browser. Many of us have been running various rough drafts of OS X Chrome and its open-source cousin, Chromium, for months. But this is the first one that Google deems to be finished enough for wide use. And it’s part of a big Chrome news day that also includes betas of a Linux version and Firefox-like extensions.

But Chrome for OS X is missing some of the key features that make Chrome’s Windows version such a distinctive browser, including App Mode and built-in Gears offline technology. It also doesn’t yet support Chrome’s new extensions feature. And the user-interface doesn’t match the delightful minimalism of Chrome for Windows. It’s partially OS X’s fault, since Mac apps are required to have a traditional menu bar with several obligatory menus. But I still pine for the way Chrome for Windows brings the tabs up to the very top of the screen, and tucks all options into a grand total of two menus.

Here’s a peek at the Chrome for OS interface (top) versus its Windows counterpart.

Google says that the long-term goal is to bring the Mac version of Chrome to feature parity with Windows, so I’m officially laying off griping about the stuff it doesn’t have yet.

With so much missing from this first beta of Chrome for OS X, the browser has even more riding on its signature feature: speed. It certainly feels satisfyingly snappy. But to satisfy my own curiosity, I ran the widely-used SunSpider JavaScript benchmark on the OS X versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

I hesitate to even publish these, since they don’t prove which browser is fastest–all they do is indicate how well they ran the SunSpider benchmark on one particular computer. (Which, in this case, is a current-generation 15-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.54-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, NVidia GeForce 9400M graphics, and 4GB of RAM). Here they are, for what they’re worth–the numbers are milliseconds, smaller is better, and the results are the averages of three passes per browser.

Chrome and Safari completed the tests in such a neck-and-neck fashion that it was essentially a wash. (Safari finished first by a wee bit, and I’m guessing that Apple won’t stop calling it the world’s fastest browser anytime soon.) Firefox took a bit over twice as long. And Opera was a very, very distant fourth place–although Opera sure doesn’t feel ten times slower than Chrome, which leads me to say once again: This benchmark only tells you so much. But I think it’s still fragmentary, incomplete evidence that Chrome for OS X is indeed zippy.

If you’re using Chrome–on any platform, let us know your take. Come to think of it, tell us why you use the browser you use, no matter what it is–there are few tech topics that are more fun to debate than the browser wars…

I just got home from a frustrating day at college, and was SUPER EXCITED to find a nice little message in my inbox:

Hi there,

Thanks for signing up to hear from us regarding Google Chrome for Mac! We’re excited to let you know that Google Chrome is now available in beta for Mac OS X.

Here are a few fun facts from us on the Google Chrome for Mac team:

• 73,804 lines of Mac-specific code written
• 29 developer builds
• 1,177 Mac-specific bugs fixed
• 12 external committers and bug editors to the Google Chrome for Mac code base, 48 external code contributors
• 64 Mac Minis doing continuous builds and tests
• 8,760 cups of soft drinks and coffee consumed
• 4,380 frosted mini-wheats eaten

Thanks for waiting and we hope you’ll give Google Chrome for Mac a whirl.

Google Chrome Team
www.google.com/chrome

YAY!!!! I have been waiting for this. Windows Explorer is awful. Firefox crashes on me all the time. Safari is ok….. But Google Chrome is great!

Cheers to all the other Mac-users out there~ you can get it for yourself at www.google.com/chrome

Recently we talked about Yoono, a wonderful way to effectively remain in touch and simultaneously update and get updated. Although it has got a lot of integrated features including a lot of useful social networking sites we already talked a length about, but this time it had got “LinkedIn” integration making it a complete portal for all the major social networking sites. A lot of requests were being made for quite some time to integrate Linkedin as well and finally the much awaited “thing” just took place. You can download Yonoo from the latest add ons for Mozilla Firefox. And in case you don’t have the Mozilla Firefox, get it downloaded now for free. (Couresty : LinkedIn Blog)

I’d known about Google’s Chrome release a long time ago and figured I’d throw my name onto the ‘notify me when development arrives for the Mac platform’ list …and almost a year went by without hearing anything at all.  Oh well, I guess having a browser for Mac is a low priority.  However, Chrome was in the news recently and I decided to check things out to see when and if something for my computer might come about.  To my pleasant surprise, Google had a ‘beta’ version of Chrome waiting patiently for me to play with …and I decided to give it a little test run.

So far it’s passed with kinda-flying colors.  The ’status’ bar at the bottom of the window only appears when it has something to say, and when it does it doesn’t require its own space in the window – this is great for small screens and works well for unobtrusively presenting those clues you happen to place your cursor over.  It also imported everything from Firefox rather painlessly …including my preferences as well.  Either that or it read my mind.  The theme change option is neat, simple and doesn’t require you to restart.  The only ugly thing so far is the ‘folder icons’ in the toolbar ….if they could get rid of this and provide a simple arrow then things would look a lot neater …less 1980’s Netscape like.  Multi-touch gestures don’t work either, as well as having a bookmark manager.

*breaking news …formatting isn’t saved when copy&pasting bewtween textedit and wordpress, therefore mr. chrome, you’ll currently be placed with safari on the sidelines until you figure out how to play nice with my blog*

While I’m on the topic of Google, it seems the ‘street view‘ option of Google maps has finally come to my city.  I knew they were driving around a year or so ago (some people complaining on the lack of privacy) and it appears they’ve successfully mapped out my neighborhood in case I ever happen to get lost again.  You know, when in those drunken stupors that I occasionally find myself in

Look Mom ...it's Springtime over here!

]]> http://technologizer.com/2009/11/30/goodbye-gears-sniff/ Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:30:04 +0000 Harry McCracken http://technologizer.com/2009/11/30/goodbye-gears-sniff/

Earlier today, I wrote about the almost-here beta of Google’s Chrome browser for OS X, and mentioned that it doesn’t support Google’s Gears technology for making Web services such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Remember the Milk work without the Web. Turns out the bad news may have less to do with Chrome and more to do with Gears.

The L.A. Times’ Mark Milian has blogged about the lack of Gears in Mac Chrome, and the fact that the upcoming, still-unfinished HTML5 standard will feature Gears-like offline features. Milian got a quote from an unnamed Google spokesman:

We are excited that much of the technology in Gears, including offline support and geolocation APIs, are being incorporated into the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers, and see that as the logical next step for developers looking to include these features in their websites.

Um, that doesn’t sound good. It falls short of a formal abandonment of Gears–which is an open standard, so it might theoretically live on even if Google lost interest. But it does appear to say that developers who are excited by Gears’ features should look to HTML5, not to Gears. HTML5 isn’t complete, though, and isn’t fully supported by any existing browser. It’s a little like a landlord greeting a prospective tenant by pointing at an empty lot across the street and talking up the skyscraper planned for that space.

Of course, Google has been dropping loud hints that Gears was a goner for awhile now. Apple’s Snow Leopard OS has been out for three months now, but as Milian notes, the standalone version of Gears for use with Firefox and Safari still doesn’t work in it. When I go to the Gears site on my Snow Leopard MacBook Pro, I don’t even get an acknowledgement that there’s a compatibility issue–the “Install Now” button just isn’t there.

Then there was week before last’s unveiling of Google’s Chrome OS. During the Q&A session at the end, I asked about the OS’s offline capabilities, and specifically asked about Gears support. I got a polite answer that didn’t address the Gears portion of my query.

In retrospect, Gears has been a dead technology walking for most of its existence. Back in 2007, when it debuted at the Wall Street Journal’s D conference, I was captivated by its potential. I helped choose it as PC World’s #1 innovation of the year and wrote a piece for Slate hailing it as a landmark. (Disclaimer: The bit in the headline about it possibly killing Microsoft was my editor’s work.)

By April of 2008, though, I was worried about the small number of services–from Google or anyone else–that used Gears, and beginning to conclude that it was less magical than I’d hoped. I was still dejected in July of this year, since very little had happened in the interim except for the addition of Gears support to Gmail.

The funny thing is, the world needs Gears–or something like Gears–more than ever. Many of us are doing a high percentage of our work in Web-based services, and their single greatest limitation is their unavailability when the Web isn’t present. With Chrome OS, Google itself is contending that the time is right for computing devices that are almost completely dependent on the Web. If Gears had matured more over the past two and a half years, and gained more support within and outside of Google, it coulda been a principal part of making all this make sense.

But apparently it won’t be. So I’m giving up rooting for it. Like Google recommends, I’m pinning my hope on HTML5. Maybe its offline support will be everything Gears could have been, but never was.

i am part of the 1.5% of people who use opera.

that kind of makes me feel nerdy.

If you use a Mac and have been looking forward to an OS X version of Google’s Chrome browser, your patience is about to be rewarded. As TechCrunch’s MG Siegler reports, the Chrome team is stomping out the final handful of bugs it’s planning to eradicate before it ships its first OS X beta. I’ve been waiting for the beta for fifteen months, since the arrival of Chrome for Windows and the first word that a Mac version was in the works.

But MG’s story left me feeling kind of glum about Chrome for OS X. He details some of the features that the first beta will lack, at least in complete form:

• The bookmark manager
• App Mode, which lets you launch Web apps such as Gmail in streamlined browser frames from a desktop icon
• Gears, the Google technology that lets Gmail, Remember the Milk, and other Web services work even when you’re disconnected from the Web
• Full-screen mode
• Bookmark syncing
• Extension  support

And I’ve already grumbled about the fact that Chrome for OS X inexplicably needs nine menus to accomplish what Chrome for Windows does in two of ‘em. Basically, it looks like multiple things that I thought made Chrome Chrome will be missing from its Mac incarnation.

I don’t mean to be too churlish–especially since some of the missing stuff may get added back in before Mac Chrome leaves beta status and becomes an officially shipping project. I’d love to see Chrome reach feature parity on both platforms soon, in the way that Firefox is just Firefox, whether you’re in Windows, OS X, or Linux. Or at least to get the word that parity is the long-term goal.

For now, Chrome is my main browser when I’m in Windows (which I am the majority of the time at the moment) and I’ll still reach for Safari when I’m on a Mac. I’m okay with that, since I tend to be a promiscuous browser user anyhow. (I’ve also gone through Firefox and Flock periods recently, and dabble in Opera from time to time.)

But if you’d told me fifteen months ago that it would still be unclear in late 2009 when Mac users would get all of Chrome’s goodness, I would never have believed you…

Just the other day, news of a pretty major hole in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 was made public (no word on whether or not the vulnerability applies to version 8, which is the latest one at this time).

Why did the “hacker” in question make this information public? Some people might assume he or she wants to cause widespread chaos, but I actually think it’s good to publicly post things like this. This forces Microsoft to come up with a patch for the problem as soon as possible.

However, I recently decided I’m sort of done with always waiting for Microsoft to patch browser software that has more holes than a hunk of Swiss, and made the switch to Mozilla Firefox.

I can’t really give you the tech-head reasons why I feel Firefox is the better, safer browser (mostly because I’m not much of a tech-head), but a large portion of the Internet-savvy population agrees that it’s the way to go.

For one thing, Firefox is “open source” software. A whole community of programmers is constantly making improvements to it. Should the rare security vulnerability come to light, it’s fixed in record time.

Microsoft is at a disadvantage here. Being a huge corporation with shareholders’ interests as their primary concern, they have multiple levels of bureaucracy to work through before they can release anything. I’m sure even a simple security patch is met with resistance—”This will mean publicly admitting a weakness, which could hurt share prices!”

I’m not saying Microsoft couldn’t release a great browser right out of the box, I just think that with their deadlines and the need to think about profitability above all else, they tend to rush releases before everything is ready.

The cool thing about Firefox is that there are all kinds of plug-ins (or “add-ons”) available. Right now, I run the latest version of Firefox with a plug-in called “NoScript.” This nifty little program starts you off by blocking ALL Flash, Java and JavaScript programs. As you visit websites, you get to choose whether or not to allow it to run all, some, or none of the scripts embedded in the site.

For example, if you visit Facebook, it will start by blocking every script. Then you can select “Allow facebook.com” to run scripts. There will usually be several different websites per page running scripts, so you can select whether or not you trust them. If you don’t like the look of one of the URLs, simply don’t allow that site to run code, or search for it on Google to find out what it is (for example, I don’t let Fastclick.net run scripts. Ever).

There are some other good plug-ins, most of which I haven’t looked at. Some block pop-ups, some probably don’t work too great at all. The Firefox site has a big list of available add-ons.

There are a million better articles than this one about “Internet Explorer vs. Firefox” (just do a Google search), but if you’re ready to switch now, go download Firefox here and get the NoScript plug-in here.

Mozilla reported its 2008 audited financials and the organization behind the Firefox Browser delivered consolidated revenue of $78.6 million, up 5 percent from 2007. And the revenue picture looks even better if you exclude the $7.8 million loss in Mozilla’s investment portfolio. The worry: Google, now a competitor, is still bankrolling Mozilla.

Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, outlined the financial picture on her blog. There’s a lot of good stuff in there.

To wit:

• Mozilla funds 200 people working full or part-time on Mozilla.
• The company has outposts across the globe and Firefox comes in 70 languages.
• Mozilla is launching messaging software.
• And Firefox has 110 million daily users as of November.

The worry for me as a Mozilla fan: The foundation’s financial stability depends on Google. Baker noted that Mozilla is diversifying its revenue base somewhat, but not enough in my view. She notes on her blog the majority of Mozilla’s revenue “is generated from the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox from organizations such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, and others.”

A trip to the actual audited PDF of Mozilla’s financial results and a note on “concentrations of risk” reveals:

Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties which expires in November 2011. The contract was recently amended and extended to November 2011. Approximately 91% and 94% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2008 and 2007, respectively, was derived from this contract. The receivable from this search engine provider represented 80% and 86% of the December 31, 2008 and 207 outstanding receivables, respectively.

Obviously that search provider is Google. Simply put, Mozilla needs to diversify that revenue base from Google, which funds the foundation, but is increasingly a competitor. Having a rival fund your operations isn’t comfortable for any organization. Mozilla’s current situation is like Oracle accounting for the bulk SAP’s revenue. Or Microsoft providing most of Red Hat’s revenue. Or MySpace accounting for the majority of Facebook revenue. You get the idea.

Baker notes in her blog:

The past few years have seen an explosion of innovation and competition in web browsers, demonstrating their critical importance to the Internet experience and marking the success of our mission. In 2008 not only did Microsoft and Apple continue developing their web browsing products, but Google announced and released a web browser of its own. Competition, while uncomfortable, has benefited Mozilla, pushing us to work harder. Mozilla and Firefox continue to prosper, and to reflect our core values. We expect these competitive trends to continue, benefiting the entire Web.

Can Mozilla realistically diversify its revenue base away from Google? That’s unclear on many fronts. Google has the dominant market share in search. Yahoo is a non-factor. And Microsoft has the Bing search engine, but isn’t likely to support Firefox, a browser that competes (and often wins) against the software giant’s Internet Explorer.

Given that landscape Mozilla needs to get creative about that lucrative search box. Of Mozilla’s revenue generating partners only Amazon and eBay have the heft to really help diversify the foundation away from Google. Instead of a search box, perhaps Firefox needs a commerce box that would allow eBay and Amazon to pick up some of the revenue slack.

How do you think Mozilla can diversify away from Google?

Source:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=27670&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zdnet%2FBTL+%28ZDNet+Between+the+Lines%29

Chicago Web Design Firms

The company unveils the technical details of its operating system.

Google gave the first demonstration of its Chrome operating system today, at the same time opening the source code to the public. The company highlighted features that have grown out of what vice president of product management Sundar Pichai called “a fundamentally different model of computing.” Unlike other operating systems, which merely incorporate the Internet, Chrome is completely focused on it.

Credit: Technology Review

The Chrome OS is based so aggressively on the Internet that devices running it will not even have hard drives, Pichai said, emphasizing that “every app is a Web app.” All data will be stored in the cloud, and every application will be accessed through the Chrome browser. Because of this, he added, users will never have to install software or manage updates on the device.

The user interface closely resembles the Chrome browser. When the user opens applications, they appear as tabbed windows across the top of the screen. Users can stick their favorite applications to the desktop with one click, creating permanent tabs for them.

Pichai coyly demonstrated the way the Chrome OS can deal with competitors’ file formats. He inserted a USB drive into a laptop running Chrome OS, launching a window that showed that the device contained several Microsoft Excel files. When he clicked on one of the files, the system automatically pulled up the Windows Live Web-based version of Excel, opening the file inside.

“It turns out that Microsoft launched a killer app for Chrome OS,” Pichai said, adding that anyone who writes a Web application is writing an application for Chrome by default.  Read more:  http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23987/?nlid=2542