On que, Opera have released Opera 10.50 pre-alpha to the public.

So far, the browser is showing a lot of promise, with the new Carakan JavaScrpt engine being over 7 times faster than Opera 10.

Also new in this release is the Presto 2.5 rendering engine, with greater support for HTML5 and CSS3 elements.

New graphics accelerated rendering support is also added with an updated Vega graphics engine, which will safely fall back to the CPU if need be.

Opera 10.50 also adds Windows 7 integration for PC users, and a new unified toolbar for Mac users.

Private Tab and Private Window are also new, allowing users to open a private tab or window where all history and cookies are forgotten on close.

Currently only available Mac and Windows, download links can be found in the Opera Labs.

Mozilla contributor Stephen Horlander is still hard at work, sharing his ideas for a revamped Windows 7 theme for Firefox 4.0.

According to Horlander, the expected Firefox facelift is now solely expected in Firefox 4, and not gradually through Firefox 3.7 and Firefox 4.0.

In this revision, the Application button (marked #1 on the mockup above) has been reworked to incorporate the new Windows 7 single button menus, already present in Paint and Wordpad on Windows 7.

Work has also been done on the toolbar and location bar.

More mockups and information can be found on Horlanders blog post.

Current Firefox users can download the Strata40 Firefox Theme, which gives the browser a similar appearance.

An early pre-alpha version of Opera 10.50 has leaked online, just a day before an official alpha release from Opera.

The leaked version includes new features, such as Windows 7 integration, Presto 2.5 rendering engine, improved find, and a new user interface.

Noticeably absent from this leak, is the new Carakan JavaScript engine, which from early Opera benchmarks indicates is 2.5 times faster than Opera 10.

Early adopters will find this release online, and we will update you when the Opera approved 10.50 hits the web.

And just when we were hoping to see Firefox 3.6 before Christmas, Mozilla has pushed out another beta release for the browser.

This update fixes over 100 bugs from the last beta, and is an automatic update for current Firefox 3.6 Beta users.

Firefox 3.6 final is now not expected before early 2010.

A full list of changes can be found in the release notes, while the Firefox 3.6 Beta can be found below:

– Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 for Windows
– Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 for Mac
– Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 for Linux

With Chrome extensions having been available for one week now, we thought it would be good to take a look at the 10 most popular extensions for the week.

Collectively, these top 10 extensions have almost had just under 500,000 million downloads.

Google Mail Checker

With over 108,000 users, this extension displays the number of unread messages in your Google Mail inbox. Clicking on the icon will open your inbox. Currently only gmail and googlemail domains work, so anyone using a personal domain with Google Apps is out. There is also a reported memory leak at this stage with some users suggesting the less popular (but just as good, if not better) Google Mail Checker Plus.

AdThwart

AdThwart has almost 70,000 users, with the extension blocking ads from websites, thus saving you bandwidth and valuable screen space. The ad filter list is constantly updated by the EasyList community.

Google Translate

With 63,000 users, Google Translate does exactly that – translates. Web pages can be translated into your chosen language with a single click. This extensions users Google Translate.

IE Tab

IE Tab has over 53,000 users and is of great use for web pages that do not load or open correctly in Google Chrome. As the name suggests, this extensions lets you open an Internet Explorer tab right in Google Chrome, without the need for changing browser.

Google Wave Notifier

This extension has almost 50,000 users, and is similar to the Google Mail Checker. With Google Wave Notifier you can see all your unread Waves, as well as accessing specific Waves with a single click. It’s also compatible with Waves setup on a Google Apps domain.

RSS Subscription Extension

RSS Subscription Extension has over 46,000 users, and allows users to subscribe to RSS feeds with a single click. 4 feed readers are defined by default (Google Reader, iGoogle, Bloglines and My Yahoo), but others can be added manually.

Xmark Bookmark Sync

With just under 40,000 users, this extension allows you to backup and sync bookmarks across computers and browsers. The extension is also available for Firefox, Safari, and IE.

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer

This extension has over 37,000 users and allows users to automatically preview both PDF and PowerPoint documents in Google Docs Viewer. This can save you lots of time, especially if the document is rather large.

AdBlock

Famous among Firefox users, AdBlock does what it says – it blocks ads from websites. The extension has over 36,000 users and the block list is automatically updated. This is the second ad blocker in the top ten.

Google Quick Scroll

Rounding out the top 10 is Google Quick Scroll, with almost 33,000 users. Google Quick Scroll lets users jump directly to the important bits when performing Google searches. After clicking on a search result, and when deemed to be useful, a small pop-up window appears showing one or more bits of the page that are relevant to your search. An obvious time saver!

That’s the top 10 extensions one week on, with extensions being available for Chrome Beta on Windows and Linux. Mac users unfortunately miss out at this point. Many, many more extensions can also be found on the Google Chrome Extensions website.

The European Union (EU) has accepted Microsoft’s proposal for a browser ballot screen, allowing Windows users to choose their browser on first run.

The ballot screen will be pushed out to users of Windows XP, Vista, and 7 via Windows Update for users in the EU and neighbouring countries.

The ballot screen is required to be in place for at least the next 5 years, or Microsoft face fines of up to 10% of it’s world wide turnover.

On release, the ballot screen is set to include the 5 major browser – Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera – all in a random order. Users will also be able to scroll down the screen to choose less popular browsers. These include AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.

The list of browsers is set to be reviewed every 6 months.

“We hope this closes a long chapter in a sometimes uneasy relationship with the Commission, and we hope it opens a new one,” said Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.

The ballot screen is expected to be pushed out to users in the first part of 2010.

Mozilla have pushed out updates to users of Firefox 3 and 3.5. The updates include several security and stability fixes.

Firefox 3.5.6 fixes 3 critical, 1 high, 2 moderate, and 1 low level security vulnerabilities.

Firefox 3.0.16 fixes 1 critical, 1 high, 2 moderate, and 1 low level security vulnerabilities.

A full list of changes can be found in the Firefox 3.5.6 and Firefox 3.0.16 release notes.

The update will be pushed out to existing users, or can be downloaded from the Firefox website.

The Google Chrome team have pushed out a new update to Windows Google Chrome users.

The update is only minor, and corrects two bugs that caused the browser to crash. Full details can be found on the Google Chrome Releases blog.

As usual, the browser will automatically be pushed out to current Chrome users, or can be downloaded from the Google Chrome website.

Microsoft has pushed out the IE Cumulative Security Update for December 2009 via Windows Update and Microsoft Update.

The update is rated as critical for Internet Explorer 5.01, 6, 6 SP1, 7, and 8 for all versions of Windows except Windows Server 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2 where the update is only rated as moderate.

The update fixes five reported vulnerabilities in the browsers.

Being a cumulative update, it contains all previously released updated for Internet Explorer and is recommended for all users.

More information on the update can be found below:

• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS09-072
• Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 976325

Google Chrome Gmail Checker Extension

With the latest Beta releases of Google Chrome today, Google have also released Extensions Beta.

Available to Beta Chrome users on Windows and Linux (with Mac still in progress), over 300 extensions can be downloaded at today’s launch.

Extensions can let users check their Gmail, translate web pages into different languages, and watch eBay items all without the need to visit actual websites.

Extensions have flourished in Mozilla Firefox, otherwise known as add-ons, and have helped grow the browsers fan base.

The extensions are all free and can be downloaded from the Google Chrome Extensions website.