Articles about Browser

Opera Software has announced the release of Opera 17.0 FINAL, an interesting build which includes several small but worthwhile new features. Top of the list is a new "pinned" tab option.

If you have a few tabs which you need to stay open, just right-click them and select "Pin tab". The tabs will be reduced to the size of the page icon (handy if you are running short on space), and you will not be able to close them accidentally.

Continue reading →

Adblock Plus is in its seventh year of clearing out advertisements from web pages, and is now for the first time sharing details about how its whitelisting system works. Known as Acceptable Ads, Adblock Plus recognizes the fact that advertising exists for a reason and is a cornerstone that keeps the internet running.

For this reason, advertisements that meet certain criteria are whitelisted, and Adblock Plus' Ben Williams reveals details of how the process works.

Continue reading →

Google has released Chrome for Android 30 FINAL, a major new update to its mobile web browser. The main highlight in version 30 is updated swiping gestures, but other new features include the ability to search by image, faster searching through the Google Search app and improved password sync.

The chief changes are three updated swiping gestures. Users can now swipe horizontally across the top toolbar to quickly switch back and forth between tabs, or drag vertically down from the toolbar to enter Tab Switcher view.

Continue reading →

Today Google releases Chrome 30 FINAL for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame and the latest build includes a new search option -- right-click an image, select "Search Google for this image", and you'll get a list of web pages containing matching graphics.

The Chrome Releases blog reports that version 30 also includes "a number of new apps/extension API's" and "lots of under the hood changes for stability and performance". The technical details are available in the SVN Log, if you happen to be interested.

Continue reading →

It's extremely irritating. You change your Facebook status and immediately notice that you've made a stupid spelling mistake. This could come as a result of a slip of the finger, or your phone's autocorrect might be to blame. You could, of course, simply delete the status update and recreate it without errors. But what about if you've already managed to amass dozens of comments that you don’t want to lose?

Now there's no need to fret because Facebook has made it possible to make edits to statuses. At least this is the case if you're using the Android app or the website -- iOS app users will have to wait a little longer for an update. This is great news! No more stupid typos! No more statuses that sound like they were written by someone with their eyes closed after an evening of heavy drinking! Or is it such great news?

Continue reading →

There are only three weeks to go until the release of Windows 8.1 and Microsoft is laying the groundwork by highlighting some of the new features and apps that are to be found in the update. The latest app to be picked out is Reading List -- Microsoft's answer to the list of Pocket and ReadItLater. The app has been designed to make it easier to save online articles to read at a later time without the need to bookmark it.

Reading List differs from RSS readers such as Feedly in that articles are stored on an individual basis. And while it is well suited to "bookmarking" articles you find on websites that you would like to return to, it can also be used to bookmark content from other apps. Just like other "read it later" tools, the real advantage comes from the fact that content is synchronized between devices.

Continue reading →

These days most browsers offer some form of basic protection against clicking a fake link and visiting phishing websites (facsimiles of genuine sites that attempt to trick users into giving up sensitive personal information like passwords and credit-card details). But they don’t offer much else protection against other dangerous sites.

This is where Web of Trust (WOT) comes in: it maintains a database of websites, rating them for safety, privacy and security and giving you a second opinion about whether or not a particular site is safe to shop at, share personal details with or even simply visit.

Continue reading →

Microsoft is going on the offensive trying to demonstrate that Office 365 is better than Google Apps. A series of tweets sent out via the Why Microsoft Twitter account link to articles on the Why Microsoft website in which Office is compared to Google's offering in various scenarios. This latest campaign appears to be not just an exercise in advertising Office 365, but in actively putting down Google Apps.

A series of infographics draw comparisons between using the two tools in different professions. Things kicked off with a look at the life of a sales rep but there are other scenarios including the daily activities of a teacher and Microsoft is also keen to point out how different a company it is to IBM.

Continue reading →

Back in the 90s, while everyone was watching Melrose Place and listening to Pearl Jam, internet usage was exploding. At the time, the Netscape Navigator browser was all the rage -- it was the most popular way to access the web. One of the most innovative features of Netscape was the introduction of plugins. You see, this ushered in the era of web-based multimedia. For example, while it is almost extinct now, the Realplayer plugin was mind blowing -- you could stream video in a web browser; amazing at the time. This was all thanks to the Netscape Plug-in API (NPAPI).

Of course, all things must end, and Netscape Navigator is just a memory; a no longer developed piece of software. However, despite that particular web browser's demise, the NPAPI lives on. Unfortunately for NPAPI, Google Chrome and the Chromium project have just put it on death row -- lethal injection in 2014.

Continue reading →

Mozilla has rolled out Firefox Aurora 26.0a2 and Firefox Beta 25.0b1. While the Beta has few noteworthy features to talk about, the Aurora alpha release has a number of major new talking points.

Chief among these is support for running Firefox in the Modern UI. This marks the first appearance of Mozilla’s Windows 8 touch-optimized app in an alpha build, it having previously only been available as a standalone pre-alpha release.

Continue reading →

Apple stole the limelight from just about everyone else this week. The big news was, of course, the release of the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s. Just about as soon as online orders opened up, delays in shipping started to lengthen; Joe was somewhat skeptical about the limited supplies.

Before the new hardware hit the stores, iOS 7 was released to mixed reviews -- I hated it, Wayne loved it. A couple of security holes were found in the operating system including one that allowed for Siri to be used to post messages and access phone details even on locked handsets. There was also a new iOS 7 inspired look for iCloud and the addition of a bookmark syncing option.

Continue reading →

Not content with its new logo, Yahoo is now pushing the personal homepage with the relaunch of My Yahoo. It's a blast from the past in many ways. The personalized portal is something that had virtually died off, but Yahoo is keen to dust it off, give it a polish and entice people back into using it.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to be able to access everything in one place, the resurrected My Yahoo just may well appeal. "Resurrected" might not be the right word. My Yahoo never really went away, it just faded into obscurity and everyone forgot about it. But now it's back with knobs on -- and quite a lot of purple.

Continue reading →

Just in time for iOS 7, Google has announced the release of Chrome 30 for iOS. Or for iOS 6-7, anyway -- the search giant has shifted its minimum requirements, so anyone still on iOS 5.x is now out of luck.

If you missed the release of Chrome 29 -- hardly surprising, as it only appeared last week -- then that extended searching with what Google called "intelligent pronoun understanding". And basically this gives your searches some context, so if you ask "Who directed Star Wars?", then "Where was he born?", you’ll get sensible answers in each case.

Continue reading →

Yesterday, Apple refreshed the iCloud web interface with a new look and feel, bringing it close to the new iOS 7 in terms of overall design. The company however hasn't stopped there as it also released an update for the iCloud Control Panel for Windows, that introduces support for Chrome and Firefox bookmarks sync.

Chrome and Firefox join Internet Explorer as the supported browsers in iCloud Control Panel for Windows. The new feature allows users of the cloud-based service to sync bookmarks from the Windows versions of the two aforementioned browsers with Safari, on iOS and OS X.

Continue reading →

Internet Explorer 11 is a big improvement over previous versions of Microsoft’s browser, but it’s only available on Windows 8.1. Or rather that was the case. Following on from the early Developer Preview put out in late July, Microsoft has announced a Release Preview of its new browser for Windows 7.

Building on IE10, Internet Explorer 11 is speedier -- Microsoft says the performance improvements make it 30 percent faster than other browsers -- and introduces support for the latest web standards, such as WebGL.

Continue reading →