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Mozilla likely to release ‘Firefox 4’

Mozilla is likely to release Firefox 4 on March 22, its Release Candidate was on March 9th. The browser has features like New Tab Location, Switch to Tab, Firefox button, App Tabs, Organize your tabs (feature that allows you to drag and drop tabs from tab clutter to manageable groups for naming and organizing in a different way), Manage your Add-Ons (is a small indicator on the top left which indicates you by slightly glowing when new mails/ any other notifications you recieve), Stay in Sync (which lets you to synchronize the settings, bookmarks, passwords, and other customiztion to multiple devices).

The browser also has features which are under the hood such as WebM and HD video (with HTML5 video standards), New JS values (for an efficient and better graphics viewing in the browser, it changes to C++ representation for the javascript values so that it can execute large amount of numeric code), Protecting your privacy, Multi-Touch support, 3D on the web, Retained layers (for faster scrolling for web pages with complexity), Audio API, XPCOM, Stylin’ Pages with CSS3 (for adding animations to web pages), Upgrading Forms, Fabulous Fonts, HTML5 support, Web Console, JetPack SDK (for easier developments of Add-Ons, also for installing the Add-Ons without the need to restart the browser), Full Hardware Acceleration (for a super-fast experience of graphics acceleration on Windows, Linux and etc., with Direct2D and Direct3D), Compartments, SVG as Images, Crash Protection (the browser provides an uninterrupted browsing for Microsoft SilverLight plugins, Adobe Flash and etc., even though a crash occurs and the page has to be restarted to reload the plugin), and HSTS (where the browser establishes a secure connection to the servers)

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Windows Browser Ballot System – A total waste of time

EU is pushing Microsoft to provide a browser ballot in the Windows versions shipped in European Union countries.Well it is definitely not going to help the consumer/ end user. The argument from EU and Microsoft’s rivals is that since windows comes pre-installed with Internet Explorer, the users are not given equal opportunity for using other browsers.

Browser Ballot Screenshot for Windows in EU
Browser Ballot Screenshot for Windows in EU

If the users are not tech savvy enough, how does EU expect them to make a wise or useful choice upfront ? So these decisions may be forced on them by their relatives or the people who help them set up a computer. Especially if a non techy user finds that he/she is missing their favorite Internet Explorer (or comfortable) and when they try to connect office network and get thrown out because they are using a non IE browser ?

One way or the other this ballot system will be a failure from the start just like Windows Editions launched without Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer. Well no one bothered to buy these Windows Editions specifically launched in EU, after all why not have IE or Windows Media Player if they are not going to harm your computer?

Probably EU regulators should now look at other real issues like launching Phones like Iphone locked and limiting their use to only one network etc.

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Best Web browser ? – Google Chrome Review

My first impression of Google Chrome was not so good.The first time when I downloaded and started using it, felt very uncomfortable without the Google Toolbar. I got so used to using Google toolbar and my first thought was this browser is not for me at least for time being. So after a few hours I was back to Firefox and IE 7.

Google Chrome - Best browser ?
Google Chrome - Best browser ?

Few days went on and heard somewhere Chrome works better with google’s products like GMail and Youtube. So again I went back to Chrome and started using with Gmail and to my surprise, Gmail was very fast in Chrome and I decided to try it for a few more days.The other main factor which was refreshingly good was how fast the browser itself opens and in this Google Chrome seemed to beat Firefox and IE by a quite a margin. But this could be because the current version
of Chrome doesnt allow support addons or extensions and does not have a separate toolbar like Firefox or IE. Maybe this might or might not change in future versions.

Now coming back to Missing toolbar issue, after a few hours with Chrome, I started using the address bar of Chrome to search, jus like the way we type site addresses. Type any word and enter and your search results are there for you. Still Im missing the suggest(and Autofill) feature which is present in google toolbar, which will bring related
keywords and help you in searching.

 Google chrome Browsing history view

One more notable feature is the ‘ Browsing history view ‘ when you open Chrome, It brings up to nine most visited website thumbnails, and most of the time I use these thumbnails to navigate these websites. This is definitely a very useful addition. The incognito tab option, which is basically private browsing which would allow any tracking files(cookies) to be stored in your computer or wouldnt leave any browsing history / Search history in your computer. Chrome also maintains browsing history in a calendar fashion with thumbnails and allows to search the browsing history. The browsing history can be deleted by day or completely.

Though Chrome doesnt have many new features now it has replaced Firefox in my laptop as the primary browser, I still use IE for what I used it for even before I got Google chrome. Nowadays I mostly dont use Firefox, this could be because firefox isnt faster or lighter anyomore and Chrome offers what I need. I believe Chrome will definitely eat into Firefox’s market.

On the negative side FTP downloads doesnt work in Chrome and even some other sites which use Flash also work differently in Chrome. Hopefully this will change with the newer versions of Chrome, afterall Chrome is a newbie in Browser market. If you go sheer speed of Browsing and JavaScript rendering Google Chrome seems to be the best browser in market.

Download chrome – http://www.google.com/chrome

Download Chrome Beta (New version with more features) – http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/beta/

Google Chrome Blog – http://chrome.blogspot.com/

Google Chrome’s Features – http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/features.html

[PS: I recently downloaded IE 8 and quite impressed with it, Not like Chrome but still will come out with its review soon]