WebProNews

Tag: browsers

  • Chrome Gains Still More Ground In November

    Preparations for Turkey Day and the retail madness that followed apparently didn’t prevent a lot of folks from experimenting with new browsers.  The latest stats from Net Applications are out, and in terms of market share, Chrome scored another significant win in November.

    Indeed, Chrome was almost the only browser to make progress last month, edging upwards from 8.50 percent to 9.27 percent.  Safari’s market share increased a little, too – from 5.36 percent to 5.57 percent – but otherwise, every competitor lost ground.

    Internet Explorer’s market share fell from 59.18 percent to 58.41 percent, for example.  Firefox’s market share decreased a tiny bit from 22.83 percent to 22.81 percent.

    Opera’s market share, meanwhile, decreased a little more, dwindling from 2.29 percent to 2.21 percent.  And finally, the "Other" category also saw its market share fall, heading from 1.85 percent to 1.73 percent.

    Another few months of this sort of thing, and we’re almost sure to see Chrome break the 10.00 percent mark.  At the same time, the 55.00 percent mark is starting to look like a threat to Internet Explorer, so perhaps Microsoft will fight back by releasing Internet Explorer 9 a little ahead of schedule.

    As always, we’ll be sure to provide an update if/when anything interesting happens.

  • 71% Of Internet Users Utilize Up-To-Date Browsers

    The people who work on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and maybe even Safari and Internet Explorer can take comfort in the fact that their efforts aren’t going unappreciated.  A new report from Pingdom indicates that a significant majority of Internet users are running the most recent version of their browser of choice.

    Indeed, according to Pingdom’s analysis (which was based on StatCounter’s data), about 70.9 percent of all Internet users are up-to-date in this respect, and that’s not bad at all.  Apparently a lot of computer users manage to follow prompts or even seek out the latest software on their own.

    Of course, a couple of the data points may not deserve to be celebrated.  A post on the Royal Pingdom blog mentioned, "It’s not strange that Chrome ‘wins’ this since it’s currently the only browser with automated upgrades (they are handled in the background)."

    Also, Internet Explorer’s users only achieved a 60-40 split.

    This study still represents good news for developers and users, though.

    Let’s just hope the "freshness" data doesn’t take too much of a turn for the worse when Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 are released.

  • Chrome Tops Firefox Among Techmeme Users

    On the site that describes itself as "Tech Web, Page A1," a tipping point in the browser wars has been reached.  New stats indicate that Techmeme visitors have come to prefer Chrome over Firefox by a small but significant margin.

    Techmeme founder and owner Gabe Rivera shared some info with Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova earlier today, and it turns out that a changeup occurred in September.  About 34 percent of people visiting Techmeme pages now do so using Chrome.

    Google ChromeFirefox is four percentage points behind with a share of 30 percent.  Also, Safari has a market share of 21 percent, while Internet Explorer has a market share of 12 percent, if you’re curious.

    Then contenders like Opera, Opera Mini, SeaMonkey, and Camino all have shares that just round to zero or one percent.

    Anyway, this is less than good news for the folks at Mozilla, since one of Firefox’s key strengths has long been its popularity among techie types.  If they’re now making the switch to Chrome, and the general public’s still content with IE, Firefox could be left in a sort of no-man’s land.

    Mozilla fans should cross their fingers that Firefox 4 blows everybody away.

  • 2 Billion Add-Ons Downloaded by Firefox Users

    Mozilla has served its 2 billionth Firefox Add-on download. The download rate has been increasing each year, but Firefox also faces increasing competition in the open source browser market.

    This week Google actually took efforts to make Chrome more accessible, and introduced a new category of featured extensions.

    Mozilla’s milestone is certainly a significant one though, and there’s no question that Firefox has been revolutionary in the web browser space.

    Firefox Add-ons over the years

    "This exciting feat was made possible by the huge community of people who have made and used Firefox Add-ons since we launched in 2005," Mozilla says in its announcement. "Over the years, we remained dedicated to building features and products that make Firefox the world’s most customizable Web browser for consumers and developers."

    Mozilla has put up a "Best of 2 Billion Firefox Add-ons" list based on feedback. There are 25 add-ons in the collection, with the top one being Adblock Plus.

  • Flock Taps Google’s Chromium to Bring Speed and Social to the Browser

    Flock has announced a complete redesign of its browser, originally based on Mozilla Firefox. The new one is based on Google’s Chromium platform (the open-source project behind Google Chrome), and like Chrome, places a great deal of emphasis on speed.

    Of course Flock also places a great deal on what it’s already known for – social media activity from the browser. "Social isn’t bleeding edge any longer-it’s a game-changing, mass market phenomenon," Flock CEO Shawn Hardin tells WebProNews.

    "Over the last year Flock conducted an incredible amount of customer research from one-on-one interviews to focus groups to analyzing anonymous data from millions of users," Hardin tells us. "It is clear that all age groups are now participating in social, and users are trying to balance the enormous benefits of staying connected with their friends while also managing the overwhelming amounts information that’s coming to them everyday. While they love their social networks, they’re seeking better ways to organize and manage the people and content they care about. The new Flock is all about helping users do that and we determined that the Chromium platform was the best platform for us to use in the redesign of Flock."

    Flock Home Page

    Flock has been working with Google’s Chromium team over the last year on this redesign, which is the first major browser outside of Chrome to be released on the Chromium platform. It comes with both the ability to do social networking/media search and social network grouping within the browser. "It will also be faster than IE and Firefox," a representative for Flock tells us.

    With the Groups feature, users can "Channel Surf" the Web, as the company puts it, by switching the view of the scrolling sidebar between the conversations and information they are most interested in at any given time. There is also a "What Your Friends Are Saying" feature that shows exactly that – from multiple social networks.

    Flock Groups - Feature of New Chromium-based browser

    "Our interactions with people online have changed everything about the way we discover, shop, work and play," says Hardin. "The new Flock is designed to naturally complement the value we place in relationships and puts you at the center of your friends and their conversations while you browse the Web. Conventional browsers like Internet Explorer and Safari aren’t built to bring together the conversations and content that matter to each user. Flock is the only browser with the best of the social Web built-in."

    Google is the default search option for the browser, which is also able to tap into thousands of Chrome extensions, as it is based on the same technology as Chrome.

    Flock is already the number one desktop app on Facebook and is ranked in the top 100 most popular of all Facebook apps. It’s also ranked the sixth most popular browser operating in Europe, according to Net Applications.

    The new Flock browser is immediately available for Windows, and can be downloaded at Flock.com. The Mac version will be out later this summer.

  • Mobile Social Networking Grows 240%

    Social networking now ranks as the fastest-growing mobile content category, according to a new report from comScore.

    "With mobile media consumption on the rise, the discussion of how consumers are accessing content — whether it is via application, browser or both — continues to be an important factor for companies looking to invest further in their mobile brands," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile.

    "Although application access is clearly on the rise, with several categories more than doubling their audience via this method, content consumption via browser continues to be the most popular method for Americans to access mobile media."

    More than three-quarters (78%) of smartphone users accessed their browser in April, while 80 percent of smartphone users accessed applications. In comparison, just 19 percent of feature phone users accessed their browser, with 17 percent accessing applications.  While smartphone users are driving growth in browser (up 111 percent in the past year) and application (up 112 percent) access, feature phone users still make up nearly half of all users accessing mobile browsers and apps.

    "Although growth in application usage on smartphones continues to grab the spotlight in the mobile market, the audience using their mobile browser remains larger and is growing just as quickly," added Donovan.

    "Brands need to remember to take into consideration the user experience across both channels when building their mobile strategies."

    In April, 69.6 million mobile users accessed an application on their phone, an increase of 28 percent from the previous year. Social networking had the strongest growth in app access, increasing 240 percent to 14.5 million users. Accessing news apps followed, growing 124 percent to 9.3 million users, while sports apps jumped 113 percent to nearly 7.7 million users. Bank account apps also more than doubled their audience, growing to nearly 5 million users.

    Mobile-App-Access

    Nearly 73 million mobile users accessed their browser in April, an increase of 31 percent from the previous year. Social networking ranked as the fastest-growing category accessed via browser, growing 90 percent from the previous year to reach almost 30 million users, followed by Bank Accounts (69 percent to 13.2 million users). Online Retail sites also experienced a significant increase in audience usage via browser, increasing 47 percent to 7.3 million users.

    "Social networking is by far the fastest-growing mobile activity right now. With 20 percent of mobile users now accessing social networking sites via their phone, we expect to see both application and browser usage continuing to drive future consumption of social media,’ said Donovan.

     

     

  • IE6 Falls Below 5% Usage in US, Europe, Still Beating Chrome

    Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have taken up a good deal of the web browser headlines in recent memory. Google showcased its much-publicized speed tests for Chrome (even parodied by Opera), then launched a stable version for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mozilla recently shared an early product plan for Firefox 4, with (like Chrome) an emphasis on speed (then CEO John Lilly announced he was stepping down).

    It is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which still rules the roost, however, in terms of browser market share on the desktop in the U.S. IE8 and IE7 have significant leads over all the competition, but IE6, while still having an edge over the rising Chrome, dropped to below 5% for the first time, according to StatCounter.

    The analytics firm says usage of IE6 in the US and Europe has fell to that point – 4.7% (a year ago, it was at 11.5%).

     

    Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Version Market Share

     

    Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Version Market Share

    "At these levels web developers now have valid justification not to support IE6 in the future," says StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen, with the firm adding that a number of sites including YouTube are already understood to have withdrawn support for IE6.

    "IE6 has been a bit of a pain for many web developers and designers who have often had to recode their site to get it to work. There are also security implications in its continued usage," addsCullen.

    In other parts of the world, IE6 is still a more significant part of the picture. Cullen says that if your target market is Asia, you’re "not out of the woods." According to the firm, it still has 20.8% usage there. In that part of the world, IE8 has only just overtaken it. It’s also still pretty big in Africa.

  • Mozilla Readies App to Sync Firefox to iPhone

    Mozilla is working on a new iPhone app for Firefox users, called Firefox Home. It’s based on Firefox Sync (formerly Weave Sync), and allows users to access their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks, and tabs from the most recent browser session on the desktop.

    "Firefox Home for iPhone is part of a broader Mozilla effort to provide a more personal Web experience with more user control," says Mozilla says. "For devices or platforms where we’re unable to provide the "full" Firefox browser (either technically or due to policy), we aim to provide users with “on the go” instant access to their personal Firefox history, bookmarks and open tabs on their iPhones, giving them another reason to keep loving Firefox on their desktops."

    Mozilla has offered this "sneak peek" at the app, which is still under development:

    Firefox has been losing some ground in the web browser market share space, to Google Chrome, which just released a new stable version for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Creating a useful mobile experience across multiple platforms could go along way to help the Firefox cause. Firefox home would be a step in the right direction. A solid Android offering would also be helpful.

    Mozilla says Firefox Home will be ready to submit to Apple’s App Store soon.

  • The New Chrome is Now Available for Windows, Mac, Linux

    Google has launched new stable versions of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

    "Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," says Chrome product manager Brian Rakowski.

    Google says the new releases are the fastest yet. For reference, check out Google’s recent speed tests for Chrome:

    "We’ve improved by 213 percent and 305 percent in Javascript performance by the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks since our very first beta, back in Chrome’s Cretaceous period (September 2008)," says Rakowski.

    New Chrome features (other than speed improvement) include the ability to sync browser preferences (bookmarks, themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages, and page zoom settings) across multiple computers, new HTML5 capabilities (Geolocation APIs, App Cache, web sockets, and file drag-and-drop), and a new bookmark manager.

    "For a taste of HTML5’s powerful features, try browsing through websites developed in HTML5 such as scribd.com, dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail, or by enabling the geolocation functionality in Google Maps," says Rakowski.

    Google has also fixed numerous minor issues, such as non-exploitable crashes, hangs, and other annoyances, according to Anthony Laforge of the Chrome team.

    The new stable release does not include Adobe Flash Player integration, but Google has been beta testing this and plans to enable it soon.

    Later this year, Google will open the Chrome Web Store, which will feature a gallery of web apps that will actually work not only with Chrome, but other web browsers. However, Chrome users will be able to create convenient shortcuts for easily accessing the apps they download.

  • Mozilla CEO to Go Back to Roots as Chrome Gains Market Share

    Mozilla CEO John Lilly dropped a bomb late yesterday in announcing that he would be stepping down from his position. The news came just after Mozilla revealed its early product plan for Firefox 4, in which it placed great emphasis on speed and HTML5 support – two of the big selling points for competing browser Google Chrome.

    In fact, the news also comes as Chrome continues to steadily gain market share in the browser space. Lilly wrote a note about his pending resignation, however, that expresses his continued dedication to Mozilla and Firefox, even as he gives up the lead position. He wrote:

    I’m in no rush, and the most important thing to me is to build the strongest Mozilla we can, with the best leadership possible. So my plan is to stay through that transition — we’re starting a CEO search now, and plan to do it in as transparent a way as possible — which means I’ll continue in my CEO role as normal for several more months, at least.

    I’ll have more to say on the transition as we figure things out more clearly, but for now, business as usual. We’ve got Firefox 4 to ship, and Firefox on multiple mobile platforms. We’ve got our web services like Weave to stand up and make available to millions of users.

    Lilly’s heart is in funding startups, and this is the main reason he has chosen to step down from his post, according to his letter. He says he’s "always been a startup guy at heart" and that the Mozilla gig was originally supposed to be a "quick volunteer effort". He intends to join Greylock Partners as a Venture Partner, and will work on investing in startups from there.

    Lilly plans to remain on Mozilla’s Board of Directors.

  • Chrome’s Market Share Tops 6 Percent In March

    March was yet another good month for Google’s browser in terms of market share.  According to Net Applications, Chrome converted more than a few additional people, shrinking the gaps between it and the field’s two leaders, Internet Explorer and Firefox.

    Net Applications put Chrome’s March market share at 6.13 percent, up 0.52 percent from its February standing of 5.61 percent.  That’s a pretty impressive gain to pull off in so short a time, especially given the smallish size of Chrome’s user base.

    That gain makes the forecasting math simple, too, since it’s easy to judge that Chrome will gain about 1.0 percent of market share every couple of months if it can keep up the pace.

    As for how Internet Explorer did, ground was lost.  This browser’s share decreased from 61.58 percent to 60.65 percent between February and March, making for a reduction of 0.93 percent.  Which must be worrisome to folks in Redmond, since that’s a dramatic dip.

    Firefox’s makers, meanwhile, can remain relatively pleased.  Firefox’s share increased by 0.29 percent heading from February into March, landing it at 24.52 percent.  So it’s still accumulating gains, bit by bit.

  • Chrome Wins Tom’s Hardware Browser Test

    Chrome Wins Tom’s Hardware Browser Test

    Not too many years ago, threads on online forums would often have titles like "New Ferrari Pics (56K users, make coffee)" as a way of warning people with slow connections that they’d be stuck for a while.  Now, Tom’s Hardware has established which modern Web browsers will slow folks down – and which won’t.

    Google ChromeChrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari were pitted against each other in a test focused purely on speed and performance.  Startup times, memory usage, page load times, JavaScript tests, and a number of other factors were weighed.

    Here’s the upshot (if you somehow missed this article’s title): Chrome won.  It did best in several categories and placed second in a number of others, defeating many of its rivals by a clear margin.

    This led Adam Overa to write, "Any way you want to analyze the data, Google’s Chrome comes out on top.  That’s why we’re not only calling Chrome the winner of our Web Browser Grand Prix, but we’re also awarding it the Best of Tom’s Hardware Award – the first time we’ve given such an honor to a software product.  If you haven’t yet downloaded Google Chrome, you just don’t know what you’re missing."

    Opera, Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer ranked second, third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, in the browser speed test.

  • European Windows Users Get Browser Choice

    Microsoft Windows users in Europe who have Internet Explorer as their default browser are now being offered a variety of choices.

    Windows users in Europe will now see a browser "Choice Screen," designed to give them an effective and unbiased choice between their default and competing web browsers.

    The European Commission said it welcomes Microsoft’s roll-out of web browser choice. The Commission says the move will ensure competition and allow consumers to benefit from technical developments and innovation both on the web browser market and other related markets, such as web-based applications.

    Browser-Choice-Screen

    "Web browsers are the gateway to the internet. Giving consumers the possibility to switch or try a browser other than that included in Windows will bring more competition and innovation in this important area to the benefit of European internet users," said Joaquin Almunia, Competition Commissioner.

    "More competition between web browsers should also boost the use of open web standards which is critical for the further development of an open internet."

    Starting today users will be able to choose between eleven additional browsers, including Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera which will be prominently displayed alongside Internet Exloper. If usrs scroll sideways they will be able to see Avant Browser, Flock, Green Browser, K-Meleon, Maxthon, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.

    The European Commission says the browser "Choice Screen" will be displayed on over 100 million PCs between now and mid-May.

     

     

  • Chrome Gains More Market Share

    Chrome Gains More Market Share

    Most major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, didn’t fare well in February, losing market share.  Net Applications found that Chrome managed to attract more than a few new users, however, increasing its market share by 0.39 percent on a month-over-month basis.

    The fact that Chrome beat all of its competitors (at least at least with respect to short-term changes) is quite impressive.  The small surge in popularity it experienced wouldn’t exactly qualify as embarrassing under other circumstances, either, even if 0.39 percent isn’t an overwhelming amount.

    This may be only the start of a trend, too, since Microsoft is due to introduce its browser ballot box in Europe soon.  Given an obvious choice, lots more people may decide to try Chrome instead of one of the more established options.

    Anyway, Net Applications indicated that all of this left Chrome with a market share of 5.61 percent.  Internet Explorer, meanwhile, wound up lording over 61.58 percent of the market after suffering a month-over-month loss of 0.54 percent.  Firefox lost 0.20 percent, Safari lost 0.08 percent, and Opera lost 0.03 percent, as well, if you’re curious.

    We’ll be sure to see if Chrome can maintain this momentum in March.

  • Microsoft Presents European Web Browser Choice Screen

    Starting sometime around the first of March, Microsoft is going to give Europeans an obvious chance to pick something other than Internet Explorer as their Web browser.  And starting today, Microsoft’s given the whole world a chance to see what its "Web browser choice screen" looks like.

    This ballot screen has been in the works for a long time.  The process began when European regulators objected to Windows and Internet Explorer being bundled together.  Then, a proposal that would have put all of the different browser choices in alphabetical order was vetoed.

    Eventually, all of the parties agreed upon displaying the browser’s names in a random order.

    Now tests are set to begin next week in Belgium, France, and the U.K., with a full-scale rollout planned for early March.  The browser choice screen software will reach people via Windows Update, and should (except for the order of the browsers) resemble the picture below.

    Microsoft seemed rather pleased to announce that all of this is taking place ahead of the European Commission’s schedule.  We’re just very curious to see what Internet Explorer’s market share will look like come April.

  • Quantcast Finds Chrome, Firefox Have Trouble At Home

    Here are a couple odd facts for you: compared to people everywhere else, folks in North America dislike Chrome.  And individuals who live in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada are unusually big fans of Internet Explorer.  That’s what new Quantcast data implies, anyway.

    Quantcast, which measures and profiles audiences all over the world for advertisers, recently released some statistics concerning browsers’ market shares.  The stats addressed usage in seven different geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, and South America.

    It turns out that Chrome is least successful in North America.  Firefox has also failed to catch on here the way it has everywhere else, and somehow, North America remains Internet Explorer’s best stronghold.

    Now for the flip side of things.  According to Quantcast, Chrome actually does best in South America.  Also, Europe is where Firefox has won the largest market share, and where Internet Explorer has cornered the smallest.

    Confused?  Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote, "At the very least it means that we North Americans should remember where we stand in terms of online sophistication by our mainstream population, relative to some other places in the world."

  • Opera: Mini Will Save iPhone Users Money and Time

    Opera is set to unveil its Opera Mini browser at a press event during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We contacted Opera to get some details.

    Opera Mini on the iPhoneWhen asked what Opera Mini will be able to offer iPhone users that they haven’t been able to get elsewhere, Opera’s Katrin Jackson tells WebProNews that Opera Mini will provide speed, cost-savings, and usability features like tabs, speed dial, and password manager.

    "Opera Mini on iPhone is several times faster than the native Safari browser," Jackson says. "Our internal tests conclude up to 6 times faster."

    "For many users on pay per MB or while roaming, Opera Mini will reduce browsing cost up to 90%," Jackson adds.

    Currently, Opera is only providing a sneak peek of Opera Mini on iPhone only (not iPod Touch). "We are thrilled to offer journalists and partners an exclusive preview of Opera Mini for iPhone during the year’s biggest mobile event," says Opera Co-founder Jon von Tetzchner. "This is a unique opportunity to introduce the fast, feature-rich Opera Mini experience for the iPhone, and to showcase our latest beta releases of Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on other platforms and devices. Opera’s mission is to bring the Web to the world, and by making Opera Mini available on yet another platform, we are one step closer."

    Opera has not provided a date for a public release of Opera Mini for the iPhone. The company tells us that it has not yet submitted it to the Apple App store.
     

    Related Articles:

    > Opera Scoops Up Mobile Advertising Firm AdMarvel

    > Opera Releases New SDKs and New Browser

    > Opera CEO Steps Down, Immediately Replaced

  • Chrome Wins Browser Speed Test

    Two years ago, Google’s Chrome browser didn’t exist.  Now, it might be the best browser available.  New test results claim that it beats all competitors by a significant amount, at least in terms of speed.

    Google ChromeLifehacker’s Kevin Purdy recently put Firefox 3.5.4, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 4.0.249.78 (which is considered stable), Google Chrome 4.0.302.3 (which is a developer version), Opera 10.01, Opera 10.5 (which is a pre-alpha version), and Safari 4.0.4 through their paces.  Experiments related to load times, JavaScript, DOM/CSS, and memory use were performed.

    Chrome came out on top in a couple of categories, and according to Purdy’s scoring system ("we took the numeric score placement of each browser in each category and ranked them from 7, as best in category, to 1, as worst.  We totaled those numbers up, and present them here as a total out of 35") won the comparison, with the developer version placing first and the stable version securing second.

    Then Opera 10.5, Firefox 3.5.4, Firefox 3.6, Safari 4.0.4, and Opera 10.01 followed, in that order.

    Purdy’s article has been viewed about 92,000 times, and it’s a good bet that his findings have driven a lot of people to try Chrome for themselves.  Assuming those individuals don’t find the browser wanting in some area other than speed, Chrome may get quite a bump thanks to this experiment.

    Related Articles:

    > Internet Explorer Losing Its Luster In Europe?

    > Google Launches New Chrome Version

    > Chrome Cruises By Safari

  • Internet Explorer Losing its Luster in Europe?

    According to data released by the AT Internet Institute, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has fallen to under 60% of visits in Europe. The firm suggests that with widely publicized news of a major security flaw and moves being made by competing browsers, IE’s fall may not be reversed in the very near future.

    "Out of the 23 countries that were studied, Internet Explorer experienced the largest decline in visit shares for websites in Ireland, United Kingdom, Greece and Czech Republic," the firm notes.

    Web Browsers in Europe

    Web Browsers in Europe

    Additional findings from the AT Internet Institute include: 

    – Google Chrome exceeded 4% of visit shares with a gain of 2 points in 6 months

    – attained 29.4% of traffic to a website in a European country in December 2009

    – gained almost 1 point and exceeded 5% of visit shares

    – On average 2.3% of visits to a European website through Opera in December 2009 compared to 2.2% in June 2009.

    "It is interesting to note that the growth of Safari coincided with the growth of Google Chrome," says the firm. "Based on the same engine Webkit, would Google Chrome indirectly encourage the use of Safari?"

    Last week, Mozilla launched the latest version of Firefox, and Google has just released the latest version of Chrome for Windows, complete with extensions and Bookmark Sync.

    Related Articles:

    > Chrome Cruises By Safari

    > Chrome Ad Campaign Nets Positive Results

    > Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

  • Google Launches New Chrome Version

    Google is launching the latest stable release of its Chrome Browser for Windows. This version comes with the heavily requested extensions and bookmark sync features.

    "Bookmark sync is a handy feature for those of you who use several computers — say, a laptop at work and a desktop at home," explains product manager Nick Baum. "You can enable bookmark sync to synchronize your bookmarks on all of your computers so that when you create a bookmark on one computer, it’s automatically added across all your computers. This means that you won’t need to manually recreate the bookmark each time you switch computers." There’s a step-by-step guide here for using bookmark sync.

    Google recently launched its extensions gallery in beta, and it now has over 1,500 extensions.

    Chrome Extensions

    Baum appears in the following video explaining how to use extensions on Chrome: 

    For developers, Google has integrated some new HTML5 APIs like LocalStorage, Database API, WebSockets, etc. in the new stable release. These are elaborated on here. In addition, Google has improved the performance by 42% from its last stable release (400% from the first one), the company says.

    Google says that for Linux users, extensions are enabled in the beta channel, and for Mac users, they’re working on bringing extensions, bookmark sync and other features to the beta version soon. Users of the current stable version of Chrome for Windows will be automatically upgraded over the next week.

    Related Articles:

    > Chrome Cruises By Safari

    > Chrome Ad Campaign Nets Positive Results

    > Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

  • Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

    Digg has launched new extensions for the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers.

    "A month ago, we announced new capabilities that let developers create writable applications with the Digg API," says Dig’s Chris Howard. "We decided to put this to work ourselves and update our original Firefox Extension and also create a new Google Chrome extension at the same time. In both cases, you can now Digg stories as you browse the web, without having to come back to the Digg site each time."

    The Chrome extension includes the Digg count for any URL. It’s displayed to the right of the browser’s address bar, and users can click it to see the title and comment count for that URL, as well as the button to Digg it. It also comes with ways to share any URL (like through Twitter, Facebook, and email).

    Digg Toolbar for Firefox

    There is a little more to the Firefox extension. It improves upon the existing FireFox extension. Digg has moved the Digg count and Digg button to the navigation bar, so the toolbar doesn’t have to be open for users to Digg stories. The toolbar itself is shorter and has added keyboard shortcut functionality to make it easier to hide and show it.

    "This makes it really simple to check out the Digg story details for a URL and then close it when you’re done," says Howard.

    Digg has also added controls in the toolbar settings, such as notification thresholds and a smaller notification box. These features were designed to make notifications less intrusive to the user.
     

    Related Articles:

    > Important Product Director Moving From Google To Digg

    > More Stories Get a Shot at the Digg Home Page

    > Digg to Get All Twitter This Year?