L’azienda afferma, di voler rendere disponibili più di una sola RC, il che renderebbe ancora più perfetto, avendo più tempo per lavorarci, Firefox; e che la release finale dovrebbe uscire intorno al mese successivo. Saggia decisione per quanto mi riguarda.
C’è da dire inoltre, che Mozilla sta ricevendo una grossa quantità di Feedback positivi dai migliaia di testers che si stanno facendo avanti e questo va a confermare ciò di cui parlavamo nelle righe precedenti.

Released: May 16, 2008
This Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla’s next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.
Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.
Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

Nell’articolo si fa riferimento ad alcuni link che inducono ad altre pagine web le quali contengono informazioni generali sull’utilizzo e sul modo in cui “lavora” Firefox e alcune parole che specificano la fase di testing che sta avvenendo nel browser in questione.
Ecco un’immagine per darvi l’idea della nuova skin-base di Firefox 3, nonché “Strata“:

Die Entwicklung des Web-Browsers Firefox 3 nähert sich dem Ende, der Browser liegt jetzt als Release Candidate vor. Weitere Release Candidates könnten folgen, die Final-Version ist für Juni 2008 geplant.

Zudem wurden Fehler in neuen Funktionen beseitigt bzw. die Neuerungen noch einmal verändert. Gleiches gilt für die grundlegende Plattform die nun sicherer, stabiler und kompatibler mit bestehenden Webseiten sein soll.

Auch die Leistung haben die Entwickler weiter verbessert. Dazu zählt vor allem die Geschwindigkeit der JavaScript-Engine die nun im SunSpider-Benchmark von Apple besser abschneiden soll. Auch Applikationen wie Google Mail und Zoho Office sollen nun schneller laufen.

Der Release Candidate 1 von Firefox 3 steht ab sofort für die Plattformen Windows, MacOS X und Linux unter anderem in deutscher Sprache zum Download bereit. Die Vorabversion kann noch einige Fehler enthalten, so dass die Software nur zu Testzwecken genutzt und nicht im Produktiveinsatz verwendet werden sollte. (ji)

Zum Download: Firefox3 RC

Quelle: Golem.de

But itu dulu, tadi siang, iseng nyobain Safari lagi .. Udah final release cuy, download 'n install, jajal deh.  Buggy-nya ilang tuh, udah pada di fix kali yah .. langsung demen ama ni browser ... hehehe.. :D

Kesan pertama: view area-nya luas banget, mungkin karena toolbar dan statusbar-nya dibikin simple, jadi luas banget view area-nya.  Fitur font-smoothing, enak banget diliat di layar LCD, konon katanya ini si Safari kecepatan render-nya hampir sama kayak Opera, tapi wa gak ngerasa juga sih. Dari letak menubar 'n Preference, emang bener ini keturunan Gecko Engine yang di customize sama tim Apple. Here's some SS.. 

 (klik buat diperbesar)

Resource Consumption - Multi-tabs + Video streaming (YouTube)

Browser Info, Resource Consumption @Multi Tabs Idle

Hmmm.. mayan juga yach, makan CPU + Memory resourcenya, but sebanding dengan fitur-fitur yang ditawarin.  Minus point dari Safari itu, ya plugin-nya belum sebanyak kompetitornya, apa lagi buat plugin buat filter ads-nya belum ada. , I'll keep go with Safari .. :p

Download

FireTune is a tweaking tool, designed to optimize the performance of Mozilla Firefox. The tweaks are based on a collection of optimization settings, which can be time consuming and difficult for the novice user. FireTune allows you to automatically apply these tweaks based on your computer and Internet speed. It offers a backup and Undo option to restore your original settings as well. We noticed some speed improvements when loading pages after applying the tweaks. We were using a fast (3ghz) PC and DSL connection, the improvements were minor but noticeable.

Easy and fast optimization for Firefox:

Optimization with a single mouse click

Noticeable speed improvement

Freeware - just like Firefox

Download

This is still a tester phase, but the RC indicates that almost all bugs are gone...not that there were many to begin with....

Go to here to download it.

So what's the reason behind this?

WWW [short form of World Wide Web] is not really a useful thing on internet. It work like a subdomain, where all your documents, HTML and other files reside which will be publicly viewable. This is what Wikipedia says about it..

The letters "www" are commonly found at the beginning of Web addresses because of the long-standing practice of naming Internet hosts (servers) according to the services they provide. So for example, the host name for a Web server is often "www"; for an FTP server, "ftp"; and for a USENET news server, "news" or "nntp" (after the news protocol NNTP). These host names appear as DNS subdomain names, as in "www.example.com".

As a matter of fact, use of the www subdomain is redundant and time consuming to communicate. The internet, media, and society are all better off without it.

So the current web administrators are practicing the no www thing. But as people are used to use the www, so they keep the both settings in their server. Some of the admins redirect all the traffic to www.example-domain.com like Google do when some of them redirect every thing to example-domain.com. I will go with the later one, it should be the standard. Even Google crawlers like the no-www address.

So if you want to make your default address example-domain.com and want to redirect www.example-domain.com to example-domain.com, so that you can catch everyone's traffic when they hit on your site, just open .htaccess file in your root directory [assuming you are using apache httpd] and write following lines.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

There is an organisation named No-www.org working on making internet www free :) Check them.

To validate your domain if it supports no-www, please use this link : http://no-www.org/verify.php.

Starting soon, I'll be posting occasional posts entitled "Browser Hunt".  These posts will talk about browsers that aren't as well known as others.  By "others", I mean Mozilla Firefox (pictured above) and Microsoft Internet Explorer.  These two are obviously the most popular.  Aside from that, I will also post cool add-ons for Firefox that may or may not be well known - just stuff that could make your browsing life a little easier.  Stay tuned!  A lot of this could come in handy!

El primer problema que veo es que aún no está disponible la actualización vía repositorios aunque siempre se puede instalar a mano descárgandote el fichero comprimido desde la web de Mozilla y reemplazando el contenido de la carpeta /usr/lib/firefox-3.0b5 con los archivos del fichero recién descargado. Si no eres tan valiente puedes esperar a que en los próximos días salga la actualización vía Adept.

Si quieres saber más de las novedades entra en la página de las notas del lanzamiento, aunque gran parte de lo que allí se menciona es más una visión global de la versión 3 que las funcionalidades concretas.

Otro aspecto importante es leer la lista de errores conocidos antes de proceder a la instalación y que no nos pille con el tafanario al aire.

Ormai le chiamate voip si stanno sempre più diffondendo, ma fino a ieri bisognava aver installato sul proprio pc un software, Skype o Messenger che sia. Con C2Call tutto avviene via browser, tramite un'applicazione java. Così se si è in giro, o se si sta usando un computer altrui, non è più necessario installare alcun programma. Il sito è in fase beta, completamente gratuito, seguiranno poi dei servizi "premium" per chiamare anche i telefoni.

This Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla's next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.

Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.

What's New in Firefox 3

Firefox 3 is based on the Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 33 months. Building on the previous release, Gecko 1.9 has more than 14,000 updates including some major re-architecting to provide improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability. Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot more under the hood to offer website and Firefox add-on developers.

More Secure

• One-click site info: Click the site favicon in the location bar to see who owns the site and to check if your connection is protected from eavesdropping. Identity verification is prominently displayed and easier to understand. When a site uses Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificates, the site favicon button will turn green and show the name of the company you're connected to. (Try it here!)
• Malware Protection: malware protection warns users when they arrive at sites which are known to install viruses, spyware, trojans or other malware. (Try it here!)
• New Web Forgery Protection page: the content of pages suspected as web forgeries is no longer shown. (Try it here!)
• New SSL error pages: clearer and stricter error pages are used when Firefox encounters an invalid SSL certificate. (Try it here!)
• Add-ons and Plugin version check: Firefox now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and will disable older, insecure versions.
• Secure add-on updates: to improve add-on update security, add-ons that provide updates in an insecure manner will be disabled.
• Anti-virus integration: Firefox will inform anti-virus software when downloading executables.
• Vista Parental Controls: Firefox now respects the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.
• Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.
• Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.

Easier to Use

• Easier password management: an information bar replaces the old password dialog so you can now save passwords after a successful login.
• Simplified add-on installation: the add-ons whitelist has been removed making it possible to install extensions from third-party sites in fewer clicks.
• New Download Manager: the revised download manager makes it much easier to locate downloaded files, and you can see and search on the name of the website where a file came from. Your active downloads and time remaining are always shown in the status bar as your files download.
• Resumable downloading: users can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.
• Full page zoom: from the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets you zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Your settings will be remembered whenever you return to the site.
• Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools.
• Tab scrolling and quickmenu: tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu.
• Save what you were doing: Firefox will prompt users to save tabs on exit.
• Optimized Open in Tabs behavior: opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs rather than overwriting.
• Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.
• Text selection improvements: multiple text selections can be made with Ctrl/Cmd; double-click drag selects in "word-by-word" mode; triple-clicking selects a paragraph.
• Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.
• Plugin management: users can disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.
• Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.
• Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.
• Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.

More Personal

• Star button: quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets you file and tag them.
• Tags: associate keywords with your bookmarks to sort them by topic.
• Location bar & auto-complete: type in all or part of the title, tag or address of a page to see a list of matches from your history and bookmarks; a new display makes it easier to scan through the matching results and find that page you're looking for. Results are returned according to their frecency (a combination of frequency and recency of visits to that page) ensuring that you're seeing the most relevant matches. An adaptive learning algorithm further tunes the results to your patterns!
• Smart Bookmarks Folder: quickly access your recently bookmarked and tagged pages, as well as your more frequently visited pages with the new smart bookmarks folder on your bookmark toolbar.
• Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.
• Web-based protocol handlers: web applications, such as your favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).
• Download & Install Add-ons: the Add-ons Manager (Tools > Add-ons) can now be used to download and install a Firefox customization from the thousands of Add-ons available from our community add-ons website. When you first open the Add-ons Manager, a list of recommended Add-ons is shown.
• Easy to use Download Actions: a new Applications preferences pane provides a better UI for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.

Improved Platform for Developers

• New graphics and font handling: new graphics and text rendering architectures in Gecko 1.9 provides rendering improvements in CSS, SVG as well as improved display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts.
• Color management: (set gfx.color_management.enabled on in about:config and restart the browser to enable.) Firefox can now adjust images with embedded color profiles.
• Offline support: enables web applications to provide offline functionality (website authors must add support for offline browsing to their site for this feature to be available to users).
• A more complete overview of Firefox 3 for developers is available for website and add-on developers.

Improved Performance

• Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.
• Memory usage: Several new technologies work together to reduce the amount of memory used by Firefox 3 over a web browsing session. Memory cycles are broken and collected by an automated cycle collector, a new memory allocator reduces fragmentation, hundreds of leaks have been fixed, and caching strategies have been tuned.
• Reliability: A user's bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences are now stored in a transactionally secure database format which will prevent data loss even if their system crashes.

Downloading Firefox 3

Mozilla provides Firefox 3 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages.

We recommend that you read the release notes and known issues before choosing to install this release candidate.

Language		Version	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux
Afrikaans	Afrikaans	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Albanian	Shqip	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Arabic	عربي	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Basque	Euskara	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Belarusian	Беларуская	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Catalan	català-valencià	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Chinese (Simplified)	中文 (简体)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Chinese (Traditional)	正體中文 (繁體)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Czech	Čeština	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Danish	Dansk	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Dutch	Nederlands	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
English (British)	English (British)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
English (US)	English (US)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Finnish	suomi	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
French	Français	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Frisian	Frysk	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Georgian	ქართული	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
German	Deutsch	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Greek	Ελληνικά	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Gujarati	ગુજરાતી	3.0rc1	Download		Download
Hebrew	עברית	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Hungarian	Magyar	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Indonesian	Bahasa Indonesia	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Irish	Gaeilge	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Italian	Italiano	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Japanese	日本語	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Korean	한국어	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Kurdish	Kurdî	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Lithuanian	lietuvių kalba	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Macedonian	Македонски	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Mongolian	Монгол	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Norwegian (Bokmål)	Norsk bokmål	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Norwegian (Nynorsk)	Norsk nynorsk	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Polish	polski	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Portuguese (Brazilian)	Português (do Brasil)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Portuguese (Portugal)	Português (Europeu)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Punjabi	ਪੰਜਾਬੀ	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Romanian	română	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Russian	Русский	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Serbian	српски	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Slovak	slovenčina	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Spanish (Argentina)	Español (Argentina)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Spanish (Spain)	Español (de España)	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Swedish	Svenska	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Turkish	Türkçe	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download
Ukrainian	Українська	3.0rc1	Download	Download	Download

No!

Forse!

Cazzo di domanda stupida è? o.O

In effetti questa domanda di per sé non ha alcun motivo d'essere. Ci sono cose, però, che il browser di Cupertino ha che la controparte Open Source non ha. Des Traynor riporta 9 "cose" che mancano a Firefox e che invece dovrebbero esser comprese di default. Il confronto è stato svolto usando i due browser su piattaforma Windows, quindi non posso esser al 100% di esser d'accordo con l'autore in quanto non posso vedere con mano la bontà delle sue affermazioni.

Facendo la prova con OS X devo dire che sostanzialmente son d'accordo con Des. Forse l'opzione che uso più frequentemente su Safari (e che quindi non trovo su Firefox) è la "Resizable Text Areas", un'utilità indiscutibile! Per esempio la uso anche per postare su questo blog! :-p

Un'altra feature che non ho trovato su Firefox è quella che Safari chiama "Navigazione privata". In questa "le pagine web non vengono aggiunte alla cronologia, gli elementi vengono rimossi automaticamente dalla finestra dei download, le informazioni per il riempimento automatico non vengono registrate (neanche i nomi e le password), e le ricerche non vengono aggiunte al menu a comparsa della casella di ricerca Google." Strano che Des non ne menzioni affatto...

Tra gli apici è la descrizione che da' il browser stesso della funzionalità: non avrei saputo dir meglio! :-)

Qualcuno che usa entrambi i browser mi conferma/smetisce? :-D

First impression? Address bar is hell lot faster now digging through the history and favourites. It's instant compared to the slight delays you would normally get in the beta's.

Get yours here or just hit up Check for Updates in the Help menu if you've got one of the beta's.

LE: evident ca am uitat de Tab Mix Plus. Eu credeam ca undo closed tab stie Firefox de la sine.. aparent nu e asa. Site-ul tmp se gaseste la http://tmp.garyr.net, iar extensia beta aici (atentie ca dev build si nu e o versiune finala).

Aveti Release Notes aici, iar RC1 se afla aici.

Awesome bar is awesome :)

Mozilla has finally released the first release candidate for Firefox Version 3.  Version 3.0 has been in Beta for a while (the latest was Beta 5).  To see which version of Firefox you are using, click help, and then About Mozilla Firefox.  Firefox RC1 looks a lot like Firefox 3 Beta 5, but with a few changes.  These include a better user interface, security improvements, improved performance (speed, memory usage, and reliability), and they even made it more "personal", according to their website.  To get details about what's new in RC1, click here.  To download Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1, click here.

For Mozilla it means what says in the label: unless there is some major bug reported for this release, the “release candidate” part will just be dropped form the name and become Firefox 3 final.

Otherwise, additional candidates will be released until the desired level of stability is attained.

Download Mozilla FireFox 3 RC1 ini di http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html tersedia untuk platform Windows, Mac, dan Linux. Review tentang fitur baru dari Firefox3 ini ada di: 1, 2

yah, gak ada salahnya mencicipi dulu versi terbaru dari web browser terbaik ini, sambil nunggu FireFox 3 Final version yang mungkin baru keluar Juni hehe.. :D

• More secured
• More personal
• Easier to use
• Improved performance

Read the full list of features here. Download it from FTP or HTTP mirror, or directly from here.

Release notes: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0/releasenotes/

Download: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

To find out how to install extensions not compatible with this version of Firefox, read the second part of this article.

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is available in more than 45 languages as a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback.

Download

Let us take a journey that will begin long before even the intellectual conception of Internet Explorer, that will glance at its long defeated rivals, examine the current browsers available and will end with a prediction of what the future of browsing will offer us – and which browser(s) will still be around to offer it.

People often think that Internet Explorer has been the dominant web browser since the golden age of the internet began. Well for a very long time now it has indeed been the most popular browser and at times been almost totally unrivalled. This was mainly a result of it being packaged free with Microsoft Windows, in what some would later call a brutal monopolisation attempt by Microsoft. The last few years however have heralded the arrival of new, possibly superior browsers. Mozilla's Firefox has been particularly successful at chipping away at Explorers market dominance. So where did it all begin, and why were Microsoft ever allowed to have a hundred percent market dominance?

Origins

The truth is they never did have total dominance, but at times they have come very close. Microsoft actually entered the Browser Battle quite late on. Infact a man named Neil Larson is credited to be one of the originators of internet browsers, when in 1977 he created a program – The TRS-80 - that allowed browsing between “sites” via hypertext jumps. This was a DOS program and the basis of much to come. Slowly other browsers powered by DOS and inspired by the TRS 80 were developed. Unfortunately they were often constricted by the limitations of the still fairly young internet itself.

In 1988, Peter Scott and Earle Fogel created a simple, fast browser called Hytelnet, which by 1990 offered users instant logon and access to the online catalogues of over five thousand libraries around the world – an exhilarating taste of what the internet, and web browsers, would soon be able to offer.

In 1989 the original World Wide Web was born. Using a NeXTcube computer, Tim Berners-Lee created a web browser that would change how people used the internet forever. He called his browser the WorldWideWeb(http://www., which is still likely to sound familiar to internet users today. It was a windowed browser capable of displaying simple style sheet, capable of editing sites and able to download and open any file type supported by the NeXTcube.

In 1993 the first popular graphical browser was released. Its name was Mosaic and it was created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. Mosaic could be run on both Unix, and very importantly, on the highly popular Microsoft Windows operating system (incidentally it could also be used on Amiga and Apple computers). It was the first browser on Windows that could display graphics/pictures on a page where there was also textual content. It is often cited as being responsible for triggering the internet boom due to it making the internet bearable for the masses. (It should be noted that the web browser Cello was the first browser to be used on Windows – but it was non graphical and made very little impact compared to Mosaic).

The Browser Wars - Netscape Navigator versus Internet Explorer

Mosaic's decline began almost as soon as Netscape Navigator was released (1994). Netscape Navigator was a browser created by Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Netscape was unrivalled in terms of features and usability at the time. For example, one major change from previous browsers was that it allowed surfers to see parts of a website before the whole site was downloaded. This meant that people did not have to wait for minutes simply to see if the site they were loading was the actual one the were after, whilst also allowing them to read information on the site as the rest of it downloaded. By 1996 Netscape had almost 90% market dominance, as shown below.

Market Share Comparisons of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer from 1996 to 1998

....................Netscape.......IE
October 1998..........64%.........32.2%
April 1998............70%.........22.7%
October 1997..........59.67%......15.13%
April 1997............81.13%......12.13%
October 1996..........80.45%......12.18%
April 1996............89.36%.......3.76%

In these two years Netscape clearly dominated the internet browser market, but a new browser named Internet Explorer was quickly gaining ground on it.

Microsoft released their own browser (ironically based on the earlier Mosaic browser which was created by one of the men now running Netscape), clearly worried about Netscape's dominance. It was not so much the worry that it would have a 100% market share of internet browsers on their Windows operating system, but more the worry that browsers would soon be capable of running all types programs on them. That would mean foregoing the need for an actual operating system, or at the most only a very basic one would be needed. This in turn would mean Netscape would soon be able to dictate terms to Microsoft, and Microsoft were not going to let that happen easily. Thus in August 1995, Internet Explorer was released.

By 1999 Internet explorer had captured an 89.03% market share, whilst Netscape was down to 10.47%. How could Internet Explorer make this much ground in just two years? Well this was down to two things really. The first, and by far the most important was that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer in with every new copy of Windows, and as Windows was used by about 90% of the computer using population it clearly gave them a huge advantage. Internet Explorer had one other ace it held over Netscape – it was much better. Netscape Navigator was stagnant and had been for some time. The only new features it ever seemed to introduce were often perceived by the public as beneficial for Netscape's parent company rather than Netscape's user base. (i.e., features that would help it monopolise the market). Explorer, on the other hand, was given much attention by Microsoft. Regular updates and excellent usability plus a hundred million dollar investment would prove too much for Netscape Explorer.

2000 – 2005

These years were fairly quiet in the Battle of the Browsers. It seemed as if Internet Explorer had won the war and that nobody could even hope to compete with it. In 2002/2003 it had attained about 95% of the market share – about the time of IE 5/6. With over 1000 people working on it and millions of dollars being poured in, few people had the resources to compete. Then again, who wanted to compete? It was clearly a volatile market, and besides that everybody was content with Internet Explorer. Or were they? Some people saw faults with IE – security issues, incompatibility issues or simply bad programming. Not only that, it was being shoved down peoples throats. There was almost no competition to keep it in line or to turn to as an alternative. Something had to change. The only people with the ability and the power to compete with Microsoft took matters into their own hands.

Netscape was now supported by AOL. A few years prior, just after they had lost the Browser Wars to Microsoft, they had released the coding for Netscape into the public domain. This meant anybody could develop their own browser using the Netscape skeleton. And people did. Epiphany, Galeon and Camino, amongst others, were born out of Netscape's ashes. However the two most popular newcomers were called Mozilla and Firefox.

Mozilla was originally an open sourced project aimed to improve the Netscape browser. Eventually it was released as Netscape Navigator 7 and then 8. Later it was released as Mozilla 1.0.

Mozilla was almost an early version on another open source browser, Firefox. With it being an open source the public were able to contribute to it - adding in what features it needed, the programming it required and the support it deserved. The problems people saw in Internet Explorer were being fixed by members of the open sourced browser community via Firefox. For instance, the many security issues IE 6 had were almost entirely fixed in the very first release of Firefox. Microsoft had another fight on their hands.

2005 – Present

Firefox was the browser that grew and grew in these years. Every year capturing an even larger market share percentage than before. More user friendly than most of its rivals along with high security levels and arguably more intelligent programming helped its popularity. With such a large programming community behind it, updates have always been regular and add on programs/features are often released. It prides itself on being the peoples browser. It currently has a 28.38% market share.

Apple computers have had their own browser since the mid 1990's – Safari - complete with its own problems, such as (until recently) the inability to run Java scripts. However most Apple users seemed happy with it and a version capable of running on Windows has been released. It has had no major competitor on Apple Macs, and as such has largely been out of the Browser Wars. It currently holds a 2.54% market share and is slowly increasing.

Internet Explorer's market share has dropped from over 90% to around 75%, and is falling. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft will attempt to regain such a high market share.

Opera currently holds 1.07%.

Mozilla itself only has a 0.6% market share these days.

The Future of Web Browsing

Web browsers come and go. It is the nature of technology (if such a term can be used), to supplant inferior software in very short periods of time. It is almost impossible for a single company to stay ahead of the competition for long. Microsoft have the advantage of being able to release IE with any Windows using PC. That covers over 90% of the market. They also have the advantage of unprecedented resources. They can compete how they wish for as long as they wish. So there is no counting IE out of the future of web browsing.

Safari is in a similar position, being easily the most popular Mac web browser. Its long term survival is dependant upon Apple and the sale of their computers.

These are the only two browsers that are almost guaranteed another five years of life, at least. Firefox may seem like another candidate, but the public is fickle, and one bad release, or if it seriously lags behind the new Internet Explorer 8 for long, could easily see its popularity quickly descend into virtual oblivion.

However, it seems likely community driven browsers, such as Mozilla and Firefox, will be the only types of browser capable of competing with the wealthy internet arm of Microsoft in the near future.

As for web browsing itself, will it change any time soon? Well it already has for some online communities. For example, if you want to buy clothes you could try entering an online 'world' creating an online virtual You to go from 'shop to shop' with, looking at products and trying/buying what you see. Some 'worlds' allow you to recreate yourself accurately including weight and height and then try on things apparel such as jeans to give you an idea of how you would look in that particular item.

Will 'worlds' like this destroy normal web browsers such as IE ? - It seems unlikely. Traditional web browsers provide such freedom and ease of access that it is hard to see any other alternative taking over. However they are part of the new, 'thinking out of the box' wave of alternatives that some people will find attractive, and really who knows what the future will bring.

by: Nicholas C Smith

About The Author

Nicholas C Smith is the project manager at Breakfrom Limited, who specialise in affordable ecommerce solutions and general web design knowledge and advice.

For more information and advice visit http://www.breakfrom.com

Our favorite browser released the final update to the latest version of firefox. Firefox 3 beta 5 was out last April 2008.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 includes more than 750 changes from the previous beta, improving stability and web compatibility, providing platform and user interface enhancements, and resulting in the fastest Firefox ever. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.

• Integration with Windows: Firefox now has improved Windows icons, and uses native user interface widgets in the browser and in web forms.
• Integration with the Mac: the new Firefox theme makes toolbars, icons, and other user interface elements look like a native OS X application. Firefox also uses OS X widgets and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates. A combined back and forward control make it even easier to move between web pages.
• Integration with Linux: Firefox's default icons, buttons, and menu styles now use the native GTK theme.
• Places Organizer: view, organize and search through all of your bookmarks, tags, and browsing history with multiple views and smart folders to store your frequent searches. Create and restore full backups whenever you want.
• Speed: improvements to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimizations have resulted in continued improvements in performance. Compared to Firefox 2, web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office run twice as fast in Firefox 3 Beta 5, and the popular SunSpider test from Apple shows improvements over previous releases.

And just yesterday, Firefox 3's First Release Candidate was brought to public. Wondering how good this news is? Check out and have a peak of Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of
Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," Richard Baker, EVP of sales
and marketing at UK-based interactive TV software provider, ANT
(note: Baker, who joined the company earlier this year, was previously
general manager of technology products and services for the EMEA
region at RealNetworks), discusses the company's new multiplatform
application development strategy, its experimental Twitter ITV application,
its new proof-of-concept EPG application which displays up to 45 channels
on a single screen, the importance of developing hybrid solutions
(e.g. DTT and IPTV), and much more.

To listen to the show, click:

here.

Archived Broadcasts

[itvt] is making past broadcasts of the show available on the show's

homepage.

Broadcast #26: Silicon Valley pundit and author, Andrew Keen ("The
Cult of the Amateur"), discusses his skeptical take on user-generated
content and other participatory media, why he is not a fan of the
Creative Commons movement, his views on the economics of
broadband video, and more.

Broadcast #25: A panel of interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue ,
VP of interactive TV product management at Time Warner Cable ;
industry analyst, Leslie Ellis (author of the column, "Translation
Please "); Bill Niemeyer , chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow ;
David Preisman, VP of interactive television at Showtime Networks;
and Lori Schwartz , SVP and director of the Interpublic Emerging
Media Lab --and special guests, Steven Roberts , SVP of new media and
business development at DirecTV, and Amy Jacobson Kurokawa , chair
of the San Francisco Chapter of the Producers Guild of America
(PGA), discuss their picks for the most important ITV stories of April
and provide a snapshot of the current state of the industry. Topics
discussed include NBC Universal's Digital Studio initiative and
whether it can serve as a model for a new relationship between the
advertising industry and the cable and satellite industries; the latest
developments in tru2way/OCAP; and the upcoming NCTA Cable
Show.

Broadcast #24: Mark Goldenson --founder and CEO of PlayCafe.com , a
company which streams live, free-to-play game shows that allow
viewers to play along, chat with hosts and other players, form teams,
contribute questions, and win prizes (note: Ken Jennings, the holder of
the record for the longest winning streak on the US game show,
"Jeopardy!," recently appeared on PlayCafe.com as a special
guest)--discusses the company's offering, its business model, the impact
on the industry of the UK participation TV scandal, and new features
the company plans to offer, including making it possible for end-users
to produce their own shows.

Broadcast #23: Tim Wahlers, founder and CEO of Vidiom Systems, the
company's VP marketing, Mike Malcy, its VP of engineering services,
Walden Miller, and its VP of strategic initiatives, David Housman, discuss
their work with the cable industry on tru2way/OCAP, describe some of the
interactive TV projects they are currently engaged in, provide an overview
of Vidiom's OCAP testing services, and offer a preview of the upcoming
second annual tru2way Developers Conference. (Note: the conference--which
is produced by the NCTA and CableLabs, and sponsored by Vidiom--will be
held in New Orleans on Saturday, May 17th and Sunday, May 18th, just prior
to the NCTA Cable Show. Areas of discussion will include programming,
platforms, consumer electronics, application development, and retail
opportunities, and the event will also feature hands-on workshops.)

Broadcast #22: James Joyce, EVP of business development at
Netherlands-based international TV formats developer, 2waytraffic (note:
the company is in the process of being acquired by Sony), discusses the
company's participation TV formats, the challenges involved in bringing its
participation TV offerings to the US market, the impact of the recent
participation TV scandal in the UK, and more.

Broadcast #21: Marcelino Ford-Livene and David Jensen, co-governors
of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Interactive Media Peer
Group (IMPG), and Geoff Katz, chairman of the IMPG's Primetime
Emmy Awards Working Group, discuss the Academy's newly issued
call for entries for the 2007-2008 Primetime Emmy Awards for
Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media (note: the
Awards will recognize excellence in two areas of competition this year:
Fiction and Non-Fiction).

Broadcast #20: Magnus Eriksson, chief development manager, and
Christian Bjorkman, director of special projects at Mindark, the
company behind the virtual world, Entropia Universe, discuss the
interactive enhancements the company created for the Swedish
television drama, "The Truth about Marika." Viewers of the
show--which was recently awarded the Emmy for Best Interactive TV
Service by the International Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences--could participate by searching for clues within Entropia
Universe that allowed them to solve a show-related mystery. In
addition, they could interact within the virtual world with avatars of the
show's main characters. Eriksson and Bjorkman also provide an
in-depth overview of Entropia Universe: among other things, the virtual
world has a "real cash economy," whose currency is pegged to the US
dollar (at a rate of 10-1), and which allows participants to earn money.

Broadcast #19: Cathy Hetzel, president of the Advanced Media
Information division at business-intelligence company, Rentrak, and
her colleague, Dustin Encelewski, the company's director of
technological business development, discuss recent developments with
its OnDemand Essentials offering--a Web-based ASP service which
measures and reports anonymous, aggregate VOD usage data, such as
viewership volumes and trends, and which is intended to provide cable
operators, content providers and advertisers with customizable reports
designed to help them better understand viewers' VOD content
preferences. They also discuss Rentrak's relationship with the cable
industry, cast light on the company's future plans for its Essentials
product line, discuss its competitors, and provide some interesting
statistics about VOD usage that the company has gleaned over the past
few months.

Broadcast #18: Gary Sohmers, president and chairman of Interactive
Meet and Greet Entertainment (IMAGE), discusses his company's
flagship Video Queue technology, which allows TV viewers to have
face-to-face encounters with celebrities. (Note: Sohmers will probably
be familiar to [itvt] readers who are also PBS viewers: he is a regular
guest on the popular program, "Antiques Roadshow," where he
appraises toys, collectibles and memorabilia.)

Broadcast #17: AirPlay chairman and CEO, Morgan Guenther, talks
about his company's new deal with Sony Pictures Television to provide
multiplayer play-along mobile gaming for the popular game show,
"Jeopardy!"; about some of the other new projects the company will be
undertaking this year; about its business model and its plans to scale its
business; about his experiences at TiVo (where he served as president
from 2001-2003); and more.

Broadcast #16: Phil Bender, CableLabs' project director for OpenCable,
and Roger Brinkley, community leader for the Mobile & Embedded
Community at Sun Microsystems, provide an in-depth update on the
latest developments in OpenCable/OCAP/tru2way; discuss the
"OpenCable Project" that recently launched on Java.net; provide a
preview of CableLabs' CableNET showcase at the upcoming NCTA
Cable Show; and more.

Broadcast #15: Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of
peer-to-peer technology provider, BitTorrent, discusses that company's
recently announced agreement with Comcast, which calls for them to
work together to address infrastructural issues raised by the growing
popularity of video and other rich media on the Internet. In addition, a
panel of high-profile interactive TV experts--Paula Byrne, founder and
managing director of Pushbutton; Bill Niemeyer, chief of analysis and
research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman, VP of interactive
television at Showtime Networks--discuss their picks for the most
important ITV stories of March. Topics discussed include Navic's
announcement that its Admira media placement platform now supports
interactivity; UK broadcaster Five's abandonment of red-button
services; Showtime Networks' launch of a range of multiplatform
interactive services to support its high-profile new series, "The
Tudors"; the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' call for entries
for its interactive Emmy awards; and much more.

Broadcast #14: Will Kreth, director of product management for interactive
TV at Time Warner Cable , provides [itvt] readers/listeners with an exclusive
on OEDN.net, a newly launched OCAP/EBIF developer network. He
discusses, among other things, the group's resources and goals, its
efforts to reach out to the Hollywood and academic communities, the
current state of OCAP and EBIF development and deployment, the
relationship between OCAP and Blu-ray, and much more. In addition, a
panel of high-profile interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue, VP of
ITV product management at Time Warner Cable; Bill Niemeyer, chief
of analysis and research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman, VP of
interactive television at Showtime Networks -- discuss their picks for
the most important ITV stories of February. Topics discussed include
new VOD technologies from SeaChange International that allow
advertising to be inserted into interior program breaks and streamed
video games; the emerging market for VOD games services; ESPN360's
launch of HD broadband video, powered by Move Networks' technology;
Ensequence's new Blu-ray Disc partnership with Sony; and much more.

Broadcast #13: A panel of interactive TV experts--Patrick Donoghue,
VP of ITV product management at Time Warner Cable; Bill Niemeyer,
chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow; and David Preisman,
VP of interactive television at Showtime Networks--discuss their picks
for the most important ITV stories of January. Topics discussed include
CES; next-generation remote control and touchscreen technologies;
the emergence of cable MSO's as broadband TV content aggregators;
new technologies that bypass the traditional set-top box; CableLabs'
rebranding of OCAP as "tru2way"; the future of EBIF; new data on ITV
from Ensequence, Backchannelmedia and Gemstar-TV Guide; and
the persistence of two-screen ITV.

Broadcast #12: Andrew Solmssen,
EVP of multiplatform interactive
design agency, Schematic, discusses the impact of the company's recent
acquisition by advertising and marketing giant, WPP; its work on the
ABC.com Full Episode Player, Starz' Vongo service, and other
interactive and broadband TV projects; its work on video walls,
touchscreens, "Wiimotes" (Wii remotes) and other new interactive
platforms; using design to boost the efficacy of broadband video
advertising and of content navigation systems; and much more.

Broadcast #11: Steve Shannon, EVP and general manager of product
management at EPG developer, Gemstar-TV Guide, discusses, among
other things, the company's EPG products and its product roadmap;
new features that will be offered by its EPG's over the coming
year; My TV Guide, its new suite of cross-platform (TV, Internet
and mobile) guidance solutions; its work on social TV and
programming recommendation solutions; its work--via GuideWorks,
its joint-venture with Comcast--on a new, graphically rich
OCAP-based EPG; the future of EPG advertising; and much more.

Broadcast #10: Kristen Fergason is VP of marketing at Maven
Networks, a company that offers a software platform which allows
content providers and brand marketers to create interactive broadband
VOD channels (its customers include 20th Century Fox, Gemstar-TV
Guide, Univision, Virgin Records, General Motors, PepsiCo, Gannett,
Scripps Networks, and A&E Television Networks). The company
recently launched an advertising platform which it bills as introducing a
series of new, non-proprietary formats that are significantly more
engaging than pre-roll ads (the currently dominant form of broadband
video advertising), make for a better user experience, and deliver
higher-value ad units for advertisers. In the interview, Fergason
describes the new platform and the kinds of interactive advertising it
enables; outlines Maven's product-development plans; and discusses
the Internet TV Advertising Forum, an industry group that Maven and a
number of other companies recently established in order to "solve the
challenges and deficiencies associated with current online video
advertising models" and to develop new standards and formats for
interactive broadband video advertising.

Broadcast #9: Hans Fischmann is general manager of advanced media
at Charter Media, the advertising arm of cable MSO, Charter
Communications. Since he joined Charter Media in January, 2007, he
and his team have launched over 600 interactive TV and VOD
advertising campaigns. He describes the kinds of interactive TV
advertising offered by Charter Media; provides statistics on the efficacy
of the company's ITV ads; describes its efforts to market its ITV
advertising capabilities; provides some thoughts on the cable industry
ITV advertising initiative, "Project Canoe"; discusses "Did You See
It?," a new channel Charter is launching that will be devoted to
interactive TV advertising; and much more.

Broadcast #8: Peter Price, president and CEO of the New York-based
National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, one of two
organizations that are responsible for television's annual Emmy
awards (the other is the Los Angeles-based Academy of Television
Arts & Sciences), discusses, among other things, the relationship
between the two Academies, and their ongoing legal dispute over
the National Academy's awards for Advanced Media (which were
presented Monday at CES 2008).

Broadcast #7: Upstate New York resident, James Cawley, whose
background includes, among other things, a stint as an
Elvis-impersonator, is the executive producer of Star Trek New
Voyages (startreknewvoyages.com), a production company that
produces original episodes of "Star Trek," based on the characters from
that show's first season (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura,
etc.). Downloads of these hour-long, fan-generated broadband TV
episodes have been in the multiple millions, and their audience base
appears to be growing rapidly. Cawley shares his thoughts on
producing original, fan-generated "Star Trek" programming for the
Internet; describes the events that led to the formation of Star Trek New
Voyages; discusses the company's relationship with CBS (the owner of
the "Star Trek" franchise); provides a preview of new episodes and new
characters that the company has in the pipeline (including "Star Trek's"
first gay character); discusses the possibility of making the show
interactive or building a social network around it; and much more.

Broadcast #6: Three high-profile figures from the interactive TV
space--Patrick Donoghue, VP of ITV product management at Time Warner
Cable; Bill Niemeyer, chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow;
and David Preisman, VP of interactive television at Showtime
Networks--provide a retrospective of the year in interactive TV,
present their picks for the year's most important ITV stories, and
predict the important ITV trends for 2008. Topics discussed include
the rise of user-generated content; the demise of TMG; the
significance of the top-secret interactive TV advertising initiative,
"Canoe"; the emergence of big-budget broadband TV programming;
EchoStar's purchase of Sling Media; DirecTV's purchase of ReplayTV;
and much more.

Broadcast #5: Three senior executives from mobile interactive TV
specialist, SinglePoint--president and CEO, Rich Begert; VP of
industry relations, Doug Busk; and director of marketing, Philippe
Poutonnet--discuss, among other things, the company's recent deal with
NBC Universal. The deal will see SinglePoint providing mobile
interactive/participation TV services for a range of NBC Universal's
programming and channels, including NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo,
Telemundo, USA Network, NBC Sports, and NBC News.

Broadcast #4: Steve Rosenbaum is founder and CEO of
Magnify.net, a company that provides a new Web 2.0 service
which allows end-users to create video galleries/channels
complete with social networks. He discusses Magnify.net's
service and the business model behind it; provides examples
of how it is being used; outlines the company's current
strategy and future plans; and more.

Broadcast #3: Brian Seth Hurst, a well-known figure in
interactive TV circles, was recently elected as vice chairman
of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the
organization behind the Primetime Emmys. His election marks
the first time ever that a new media specialist has served in
such a senior role at the Academy. Hurst discusses what his
election says about the evolution of the Academy and of the
television establishment in general; the significance of the
ongoing writers' strike for the interactive and broadband TV
industries; and much more.

Broadcast #2: Jodie McAfee, who was formerly SVP of
corporate development and marketing at The Media Group
(TMG), a high-profile interactive TV advertising and
programming company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
earlier this year, discusses that company's demise; his new
company, BoomerangiTV; the cable industry interactive TV
advertising initiative known as "Project Canoe"; the current
state of the ITV advertising industry in general; and more.

Broadcast #1: Louis Slothouber and Dan Levinson of BIAP
discuss their company's technologies; the challenges involved
in deploying the company's interactive TV applications (which
include eBay on TV, Yellow Pages on TV, and Fantasy
Football and Baseball Trackers); the company's patent
portfolio; the current state of the cable industry; ITV
standards; artificial intelligence; emerging market
opportunities; and more.

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 ITA (per Windows)

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 ITA (per Mac OS X)

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 ITA (per Linux)