Market Share results for December 2008 show that Playstation 3 users are more web savvy than their Wii counterparts.

For December 2008, Playstation 3 web surfers made up around 0.4%, while Wii users made up for 0.1% of the browser market.

This is an interesting result, as there have been almost twice as many Wii’s sold worldwide. Estimates put Wii sales at 25 million compared to 13 million for the Playstation 3. This suggests that Playstation owners are more tech savvy and intertwined with web culture.

Password management is a part of all major web browsers, and it just may be helping thieves steal your personal data, from banking logins to Facebook accounts.

Chapin Information Services conducted 21 security tests on Opera 9.62, Firefox 3.0.4, Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3.2, and Google Chrome 1.0. The results were not good.

Opera and Firefox fared the best, both passing 7 tests, with Internet Explorer 7 passing 5 tests. Both Safari and Google Chrome only passed 2 tests each.

It looks like browsers makers have a lot of work to do. Full results and details on each test can be found on the Chapin Information Services website.

It has been a good month for the ‘underdogs’ in the browser wars this month, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all gaining ground.

Firefox has hit a fantastic milestone, now with over 20% of the web browser market, up 4% from last month. Apple’s Safari has climbed to just over 7%, up 8.5% from last month.

Even Google’s Chrome has crawled back some ground, after a steady drop off rate from the browsers first month. Chrome gained around 12% during the month, taking it’s total share to just under 1%.

The losers this month were both Opera and Internet Explorer. Opera lost 5% of it’s market, and is now 5th in the race, behind Google Chrome. November also saw Internet Explorer’s market share plummet below 70% for the first time since 1999.

You can view the full report at the Market Share website. Historical data can be sourced from Wikipedia. The browser wars are really firing up.

Browsing the internet while gaming

Rouge, a new web browser developed by GotGame for gamers has been released. Rouge allows gamers to browse the Internet while they are in-game.

The browser overlays the game, with adjustable transparency, and is best suited to use during idol time. Gamers can now check their Gmail between Counter-Strike rounds, or bid on a new mobile phone while playing World of Warcraft.

The browser currently only works on PC, with a list of supported games and download link on the Rouge website.

Sony has announced that the upcoming firmware version for PlayStation 3 will include support for Adobe’s Flash 9 player.

Firmware version 2.50 which should be released in the coming weeks will finally allow users to watch YouTube videos right from the consoles web browser.

This opens up a world of posibility, for things such as streaming HD movies through Flash on the PS3 will now be possible. It’s a great win for PS3 owners.

With all the news that Google Chrome’s market share has droped since it’s release, I thought it was only fitting to add some more statistics to the fire.

On another technology site that I run, browser stats were as follows for the month of September:

Browser Market Share for September

Through the month of September, Chrome’s usage has dropped around 30% from its release. Usage seems to have stabalised since then.

Of interesting note, is that Google Chrome has still gained a larger market share than Opera. It should also be noted that Chrome is still only available on Windows. Perhaps it’s market share will again increase when offical Mac and Linux versions are released.

Perhaps Google Chrome hasn’t shaken up the market as much as everyone predicted. Did you try Google Chrome and are you still using it?

ExitReality has today released a plugin that allows users to surf the web in 3D. This will allow surfers the chance to walk through their favourite websites as if they were playing a computer game.

The 3.5MB plugin will turn any normal website into a compelling virtual room.

The idea from ExitReality’s founder Danny Stefanic has been in development for 13 years.

Mr Stefanic says “It is the entire web in 3D – making 40 billion virtual worlds – and it will instantly transform 2D content into 3D“.

Flickr can be turned into a virtual art gallery, while YouTube can be turned into a virtual cinema. It’s second life for every day people.

Currently, the browser plugin only works on Windows and is compatible with both Internet Explorer and Firefox. The plugin can be downloaded from the ExitReality website.

With the release of Google Chrome, John Resig has performed JavaScript benchmark tests on a wide variety of browsers on both Windows Vista and XP. These browsers include:

• Chrome 0.2
• Safari 4
• Safari 3.1.2
• Opera 9.5.2
• Firefox 3.1
• Firefox 3.0.1
• IE7
• IE8 Beta 2

Testing, using three benchmarking tools; SunSpider, V8 Benchmark, and Dromaeo, has produced some interesting results. Results show that Google Chrome is ahead in all but one benchmark test – very impressive for a browser that is still in its early beta stages. It shows the performance of the new V8 JavaScript engine and the power of the WebKit rendering engine found in both Chrome and Safari.

You can read the full JavaScript Performance Rundown article to see the other (not-so)surprissing results.

Welcome to Browser Watch. I aim to keep you updated with the latest in web browser technology news. Stay tuned for more articles.