Why is the EU lawsuit getting press again suddenly?

So once again we got a big media group talking about the EU lawsuit by Opera. The real question is why does this keep getting released? Or even better what standing does this have? In the past it has been ok for Microsoft to have their browser installed by default and somehow with this HORRIBLE situation Firefox is still at what 25+% of the browser market? Wow I am so worried about Windows 7 bundling IE8 I mean people might actually get a decent and secure browser with their OS unlike XP which means some might not install Firefox? Um, sorry Firefox but if people switch that easily I am doubtful you were going to keep them anyways. Of course I am sure Mozilla would love for Microsoft to bundle IE6 I mean they are ACTUALLY better then that browser but suddenly they might have competition and it seems Mozilla has joined Opera in its if you cannot beat them in the market beat them in the court room tactic. By the way if anyone thinks this can really help Opera lets think about the end result with what Opera wants. Basically Opera wants to have a screen pop up that lets you choose an alternative browser. So lets see when you get to this screen it will probably just show the top 3 right? So we get IE8, Firefox, and Chrome ouch Opera you would still lose even if you won.

Links:

• pcmag.com

Advertisement

Google releases a way to do 3d on the web

Google today announced O3D which is a api for creating 3D apps on the web. This would be a javascript extension to allow for 3D graphics on web pages. Google is hoping this will help spark more ideas about where the web could go in the 3D direction. Of course this is interesting in other ways as well. For example more javascript is only going to bring in more security holes in the already tattered fabric that makes up javascript. Also who knows whether or not others will really pic up on this. As we have seen Mozilla build canvas3d for awhile now and there really hasn’t been that much mainstream interest. Maybe O3D will finally get the 3Ding of the web the mainstream attention that it needs if it really wants to get on its feet.

Links:

• Chromium Blog

IE8 doesn’t do Acid3 cause its not final standard

OSnews had an interesting article about Microsoft’s reason for not working on passing the Acid3 test. Their reasoning is actually very good. Why should they be supporting draft standards? Microsoft did this in the past and it backfired on them and burnt them badly with earlier version of IE. Of course people will still complain as these days it seems that for some reason you force through draft standards as fine just look at draft n routers which are so prevalent now. On web pages this can be even more problematic if a browser has it implemented already it would make the standards committee less willing change the standard. I think this is a good move for Microsoft and I think they should be more vocal about this kind of moves in the future.

Links:

• OSnews

Why are people already looking at IE8 adoption?

What is with people and looking at the IE8 adoption rate? Why does this really matter? If we look at the growth rates of browsers most are crap. Also 2.1 percent of the market is already better then both Opera and Chrome (possibly combined). What does this really mean for IE8? Nothing more then we have already known. We know that most people that really care about their browser tend to use Firefox or Chrome. IE on the other hand is generally just used by people who just want a browser. Why would they update if it didn’t come though windows updates? Well we can see that about 2.1 percent of IE users are actually conscious of new versions. This is not that surprising. Wait to comment on how adoption is until after the update is pushed out via windows updates.

Links:

• pcmag.com

Chrome Experiments

So yesterday I read about this site and today finally got around to blogging about it. Chrome experiments was Google’s attempt to rain on Microsoft’s parade. So Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 today which is a huge step forward for Microsoft when it comes to being standards compliant (they actually comply to a lot of them now). So what does Google do? Well it releases a site to showcase what can be done with some of the more advanced standards. This includes some stuff that only things like WebKit can really do so far. Why would Google do this? Well it’s an attempt at saying “Sure you got a new version but look what your missing” and at the same time some of them have warnings that they will be slow if you don’t use Chrome. This is really the problem with browsers these days. Most people don’t have sites like those on Chrome Experiments and so most browsers never have to handle this intense of a site so why show of using it? This is just another way to show off like benchmarks. Though I must admit some of these are cool looking.

Links:

• Chrome Experiments

Apple falls first in PWN2OWN contest again

Last year at CanSecWest Apples MacBook Air was hacked in 2 minutes this year its even worse with a fully updated MacBook running safari getting hacked in 10 seconds. This should be a reminders for those of you out there about the dangers of thinking your safe by using a Mac. Sorry but the day that you were safe for just using a different platform are long gone. Now we are seeing Safari and Firefox getting exploited so your not as safe as you might think you are. Just thought I would post this as a reminder for Mac and Linux users that alternate platforms might be safer from some things but the browser is always going to be a weak link.

Links:

• Tom’s Hardware

Internet Exporer 8 Released today

Well the time has finally come. Internet Explorer 8 is out and there are still 3000+ sites incompatible with it. Of course that doesn’t really matter as IE8 just goes into compatibility mode. I tried IE8 out today (Final version I have used the beta and rc for awhile now) and I have to say it is a rather nice browser. The major problem with IE8 is that it lacks one of the most important features I use. This is the feature where the tabs you have open when you close get saved. It is a lifesaver for me with both Firefox and Chrome and one of the features I miss most with Internet Explorer. The good news though is IE8 is more secure then the older IE browsers it even watches for cross site scripting attacks something that I don’t believe any other browser does currently. It also adds sandboxing of tabs so that each tab is run in a separate process. This is kinda like Chrome though sadly in IE8 the plug-ins are not also split up like in Chrome. Overall a very nice browser out of Redmond. Hopefully this will get more people off of IE6 as that browser is a security hole. One thing I don’t want to forget is that IE8 is more standards compliant then Microsoft’s past browsers so hopefully we will see Microsoft supporting standards more in the near future.

Links:

• Internet Explorer 8 Homepage

Google releases Google Chrome 2.0 beta

Google Chrome 2.0 beta has been announced today. Sadly it still doesn’t have extensions. Instead this release seems to be focused more on updates to WebKit and the JavaScript engine. Could this release be more aimed at getting the Linux and Mac versions finally out more then adding lots more features? The major features I see is a split few feature which they have a YouTube video explaining and a auto fill. Auto fill comes from the WebKit update and the split mode looks like it could be handy. Overall this beta is kinda lacking since most other browsers are adding new stuff… Of course there is little Chrome really needs other then extensions. Here’s hoping that extensions come in 3.0 of Chrome.

Links:

• Google Chrome Blog

You can now use Chromium on Linux!

So its been awhile since Chrome 1 was released and now the same day the Beta of Chrome 2 is announced OSnews ran an interesting article for running Chromium (the open source project for Chrome) natively on Ubuntu! Not just running it but there is actually a ppa available for Jaunty and Hardy! This is great as it means Linux users will finally be able to use another good browser. Knowing most distros versions of Chromium will probably be very common on distros and the Google Chrome version will probably be in the minority in Linux. It will be interesting to see what will come out of all this though if nothing else at least there is more choice.

Links:

• OSnews

IE8 is fine when it comes to speed

Sure IE8 cannot win the the benchmarks but since when have benchmarks shown what is really faster? I always love looking at PC benchmarks cause of this since sure a graphics card may beat another one the benchmarks but everyone that follows hardware doesn’t believe which one is faster until there is real testing (for graphics cards this is fps’s from running games). Why have we been treating Web Browsers differently recently? I know I have never really believed the claims of more speed that Chrome and Safari always talk about. I mean Chrome has some speed over Firefox  but it was not that much. Now some of the IE team has run their own tests. These are more real world tests run by timing page loads. They tested to top 25 sites from December and found IE wins 48% of the time. Not a bad number. They also point out that in any of the loses the time difference is marginal which is true. What does this mean to users? Well don’t choose your new browser just cause it wins in the benchmarks… Oh and try out IE8 when it comes out its really actually rather good.

Links:

• Windows Experience Blog