Articles about Browser

Wow. You don’t mess with the EU antitrust regulators. This is something Microsoft has discovered to its cost after being landed with a 561 million euros ($731 million) fine for failing to promote a range of other browsers to Windows users in the European Union (EU).

As part of a settlement that followed an EU antitrust investigation back in 2009, Microsoft agreed to offer a Browser Choice Screen pop-up to European customers which would allow them to choose which browser they wanted to use -- rather than simply just forcing Internet Explorer on them. This followed an investigation triggered when Norwegian browser maker Opera complained that by bundling IE with Windows Microsoft was effectively killing the competition.

Continue reading →

Three weeks ago, Norwegian browser maker Opera Software announced a major change in the company's philosophy, moving from the in-house Presto rendering engine to the open-source WebKit for all future Opera releases. The transition will be gradual but on Tuesday Opera took the first steps towards a Presto-free era.

The developer demoed a preview version at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in late-February, and days after the convention finished Opera browser beta (not a very catchy name) made its way onto Google Play rocking that shiny WebKit engine. Judging by initial user feedback, the company appears to have hit a home run, as the app now has more than 190 five-star ratings out of a total of 275 and an average mark of 4.5. Not bad for an early-development build.

Continue reading →

Yesterday Microsoft, at long last, rolled out Internet Explorer version 10 for Windows 7 -- a browser that had been available to Windows 8 users since launch back on October 26, 2012. Today the software giant followed up with language packs for that new software release.

Each language pack comes as a separate download and is, of course, completely free. There are countless ones available from Afrikaans to Marathi and all the way through to isiZulu.

Continue reading →

Google has created a new sports game for Chrome, which lets you challenge up to four friends at running, swimming and cycling.

What makes Chrome Super Sync Sports so special is while the game is displayed on your computer screen, the characters are controlled using smartphones or tablets.

To play it you need to have Chrome installed on your computer, and on any Android or iOS devices you want to use as controllers.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has released the first stable version of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (32-bit) and Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 (64-bit). The latest version of the browser -- which comes pre-installed in Windows 8 -- promises improved performance, better privacy and supports the latest web standards, plus adds integrated spell-checking and auto-correct tools.

Internet Explorer 10 in itself isn’t new -- it was bundled with Windows 8 on its release on October 26. However, it’s only now that Windows 7 users have been able to install a stable version of the software, although a Release Preview has been available since mid-November. Just as Internet Explorer 9 dropped support for Windows XP, so IE10 drops support for Windows Vista.

Continue reading →

Although it's Tuesday, it's not "Patch Tuesday", which means we shouldn't expect any updates from Microsoft, but the software giant is rolling out patches none-the-less. The updates are across a broad spectrum of platforms too -- Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server, and even Windows RT are included in this update.

Curiously, many of the Windows updates are listed as "non-security". The company generally only pushes out-of-cycle updates when there is a major security flaw that cannot wait for the next month. In the case of today's patches, many are listed as a fix for "issues in Windows".

Continue reading →

If your browser has been taken over by an aggressive addon then you can try the standard routes to remove it (the "Manage Addons" dialog in IE, for instance). These can be confusing for beginners, though, and may not always work, so avast! has developed a custom Browser Cleanup tool as a simpler alternative.

The program is portable, a compact 1.75 MB download which runs on Windows XP, 7 and 8, so it’s generally convenient to use. It supports IE, Firefox and Chrome, and on launch checks each of these to evaluate your browser addons.

Continue reading →

Smartphones running Firefox OS are slated to start shipping by mid-year. Twitter will be there with them. In a brief announcement, Manuel Deschamps of Twitter stated that "When those devices begin to ship, Twitter for Firefox OS will be available in the Firefox Marketplace".

He also assures us that the app will rival that produced for other mobile operating systems. It will contain Home, Connect, Discover and Me tabs, as well as be able to search and compose tweets -- that last one is rather important to the whole concept of Twitter.

Continue reading →

Moonchild Productions has launched Pale Moon 19.0 and Pale Moon x64 19.0 for Windows. Pale Moon is a customised build of popular web browser Firefox, with the developer making no attempt to keep pace with Mozilla’s six-weekly development cycle in favour of applying security updates and concentrating on delivering improved performance.

This release marks the first major update since Pale Moon 15.0 -- based on Firefox 15 -- was released last August, but while Pale Moon 19 utilizes the brand new Gecko 19 engine found in the latest version of Firefox, don’t expect to see all the functionality in Firefox 19 making an appearance here.

Continue reading →

Seventeenth in a series. The Windows 8 app store is picking up pace again. New apps this week almost doubled in comparison to last week. A total of 1,049 new apps found their way into Windows Store -- of which 826 were listed as free to install and use and 224 as paid apps. It will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of an uptick in terms of new apps in the store or if things will dry off again in the coming weeks.

Microsoft did update a couple of first-party applications this week. Just in is the Skype update, which enables Windows 8 users to transfer files using the client, a feature that has been an integral part of the desktop app for a very long time.

Continue reading →

Google has announced the release of Chrome 25 to the Stable Channel for Windows, Linux and Mac, and as revealed in the beta, this release features a major change in the way extensions are handled.

In particular, the previous support for the automatic and silent installation of extensions will now be disabled by default, as apparently Google has noticed that this feature "has been widely abused by third parties to silently install extensions into Chrome without proper acknowledgment from users". We could argue Google really should have predicted that in the first place, but at least it's seen the light now.

Continue reading →

Mozilla has released Firefox Beta 20.0b1, the first public beta of a landmark release. Like its predecessor, Firefox 19 FINAL, which debuted the new inline PDF viewer, version 20 looks set to unveil another major new feature to the Firefox armoury: a redesigned, panel-based download manager.

Version 20 also includes a major refresh of the Developer toolbar, providing tweaked and redesigned access to all of the major components, plus an option to view the tools in a separate window. A new Javascript benchmarking tool has also been added.

Continue reading →

Parental controls software is normally bulky, complex, and the kind of application which can take some considerable time to configure. There may be lots of files to install, resident components which must always be running in the background, user profiles to create, content filters to customize, and the list goes on.

If your child protection needs are simple, though, you may not have to worry about any of this, as DNS Angel can provide a reasonable amount of protection with a single click.

Continue reading →

Mozilla has released Firefox 19.0 FINAL for desktop. There are only two notable new features in this new build, but after months stuck in beta, Mozilla has finally enabled its built-in PDF viewer, which allows users to view PDFs directly in the web browser without having to use a third-party viewing utility.

The other major new feature is a security one, with the Firefox Awesomebar now set up to alert users if the default search provider has been changed. In the meantime, Firefox 19.0 for Android -- due for release imminently -- will introduce support for themes, plus lower its system requirements to extend its reach to as many as 15 million more smartphones.

Continue reading →

No, I did not say that Internet Explorer is the walking dead. However, Microsoft's web browser is partnered with the show's creator, Robert Kirkman, to bring the original comic book series, "Thief of Thieves", to life on your computer. In other words geek nirvana -- a comic book and a computer. This ranks up there with the Lego Android from last week.

Microsoft's Steve lake says this will be "an interactive online game based on the comic book series from Robert Kirkman and Skybound, his imprint at Image Comics. The site is a showcase of the new features in Internet Explorer 10, including full multi-touch capabilities and HTML5 support".

Continue reading →