Google Chrome on Mac
Google’s Mike Pikerton has posted the first screenshots of the Mac build of Google Chrome.
Apparently things are coming along nicely, with tabs now able to properly render web pages.
Mike comments that there is still a “very very long way to go” and a release date is still impossible to predict, although a July release date has been hinted at previously.
Opera Software is set to launch a massive advertising campaign designed to promote Opera Mobile products.
Opera’s Software SVP Rod Hamlin noted that “Over our history, we’ve spent zero [on advertising], so it’s a huge shift”.
On top of this, Opera has a billboard up near Microsoft’s Redmond campus reading “Be a Real Internet explorer? Opera.com.”
If anyone was doubting Opera’s place in the browser market, it seems like there is still hope left for the often forgotten browser.
It appears the release dates for future milestones of Opera 10 have been leaked.
An unconfirmed source leads us to believe that we can expect Opera 10 beta in April with a final release in September. The leaked dates are as follows:
Opera 10 Beta, April 2009
Opera 10 Beta 2, June 2009
Opera 10 RC 1, August 2009
Opera 10 Final, September 2009
These dates are to be taken with a grain of salt however, as they are anything but official. We will update you when we have solid release dates.
Mozilla has just released Firefox for Windows Mobile. Under the name of Fennec, which is the very first public release of the browser.
You can install Fennec on an HTC Touch Pro by navigating to the installation cab file in your exsisting browser. This will then start the installation of the browser.
Early reports vary, with some users unable to open any web pages using Fennec. Mozilla is sure to fix bugs and add new features at the browser progresses.
Happy browsing!
Mozilla has been granted permission by the European Commission to join the suit with Opera against Microsoft for bundeling Internet Explorers with Windows.
Microsoft has been accused with distorting competition in the market for web browsers. If found guilty, Microsoft could be forced to offer other browser upon Windows installation.
Mozilla’s chairperson Mitchell Baker said that Microsoft is harming “competition between web browsers,” and undermining “product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.”
Opera’s chief executive Jon von Tetzchner said “the only way to give users a genuine choice is to strip out IE from Windows and either replace it with a rival browser or offer users a list of browsers to choose from.”
The case is still only in its early stages.
Xfire has today released an update to their gaiming instant messanger. Inside the update is the abbility to browse the web in tabbed windows while you are still in game.
The browser uses an imbedded version of Internet Explorer, and is not using a new brower engine.
In game support is not available on all games, but the list of games is increasing.
Users of Xfire will have the new version pushed out to them while new users can downoad Xfire from the Xfire website.
The latest nightly build of WebKit now includes support for CSS animations. WebKit is the rendering engine used by many browsers, including Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome browser.
Dean Jacksons explains the benefits of CSS animations:
CSS Animations is one of the enhancements to CSS proposed by the WebKit project that we’ve been calling CSS Effects (eg. gradients, masks, transitions). The goal is to provide properties that allow Web developers to create graphically rich content. In many cases animations are presentational, and therefore belong in the styling system. This allows developers to write declarative rules for animations, replacing lots of hard-to-maintain animation code in JavaScript.
The new effects are already implemented in the iPhone and iPod touch browsers, and should make their way in to releases of Safari and Chrome shortly. In the mean time, you can test the new CSS animations by downloding the latest nightly release of WebKit.
Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.0.6. The new release fixes several issues found in the previous version.
Six new security flaws have been patched, including one which was rated as critical. Mozilla has also fixed several issues causing problems with the browsers stability.
A full list of changes can be found in the release notes.
The new version should be pushed out to existing users of Firefox 3 in the next few days, or alternativly can be downloded from the Firefox website.
Mozilla has delayed Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 for a second time, citing numerous bugs in the browsers new JavaScript engine.
Last Wednesday’s status meeting for 3.1 reveale there are still 18 bugs remaining. The meeting minutes show the extent of the delay. “At this time, we don’t have a good estimate for when we’ll be done”.
After the last delay, Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 was expected to be released Febrary 2nd. A new release date is not yet known.