Microsoft ships IE10 for Windows 7 preview, hints at launch this year

Long-awaited upgrade comes with 'Do Not Track' privacy feature switched on

Gregg Keizer

November 14, 2012 (Computerworld)

As expected, Microsoft on Tuesday shipped a major preview of Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) for Windows 7, using a moniker that hints at a final release as early as next month.

Called IE10 Release Preview, the sneak peek arrived early Tuesday. On Monday, a Chinese blog, citing Microsoft's head of IE marketing, said the preview would appear Nov. 13. Although Microsoft declined comment at the time, saying it did not respond to "rumors or speculation," the Redmond, Wash., developer issued the early look Tuesday.


The Release Preview is for Windows 7 only. IE10 for Windows 8 and Windows RT shipped alongside those operating systems on Oct. 26, and older OSes, including XP and Vista, cannot run the browser.


Microsoft was the first, and so far, only, browser maker to drop Vista, just as it was the first -- and again, the only -- developer to abandon Windows XP last year when it shipped IE9.
While Microsoft has not revealed a timetable for delivering final IE10 code, IE9's pace last year provides a clue.


The designation of IE10 as "Release Preview" indicates a nearly-done browser, akin to what Microsoft used to call "release candidate" builds. In 2011, IE9 hit release candidate about a month before its debut on March 14 of that year.


If IE10 on Windows 7 keeps to a similar cadence, it could launch before the end of 2012.
IE10's most touted feature -- touch support -- is unlikely to be noticed, much yet used, by most people running Windows 7, since touch-enabled hardware for that platform is almost non-existent. Other backstage changes, however, may be apparent: Microsoft claimed IE10 was twice as fast as a now-outdated edition of Google's Chrome browser in one benchmark.
IE10 replaces the existing version of IE on Windows 7 -- it does not run alongside it -- but dissatisfied users can revert to the older edition by uninstalling the IE10 update. Microsoft has posted instructions for doing so in a brief online FAQ.


Like its cousin on Windows 8, the IE10 Release Preview comes with the "Do Not Track" (DNT) privacy feature switched on. A splash screen that appears when the browser is run for the first time notes that and provides a link to the steps necessary to turn off DNT.


Online advertising representatives have already called Microsoft's unilateral decision to enable DNT on IE10 as "unacceptable," and they'll likely to be angry when the browser reaches its final milestone on Windows 7. That's because Microsoft will automatically upgrade all Windows 7 users to the newest browser shortly after it launches.


Microsoft kicked off auto-upgrade last January. Both IE8 and IE9 profited from the move, as they are the newest versions able to run on Windows XP (IE8) and Vista and Windows 7 (IE9); the policy also accelerated the decline of IE7.


Since Windows 7 accounted for nearly 45% of all personal computer OSes last month -- a number sure to be even higher when IE10 officially launches -- the auto-upgrade will quickly move a massive number of users to a browser with DNT switched on.
IE10 for Windows 7 -- a 22MB to 43MB download for the U.S. edition -- can be retrieved from Microsoft's IE-specific site.


Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer, on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.
See more by Gregg Keizer on Computerworld.com. 

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9233596/Microsoft_ships_IE10_for_Windows_7_preview_hints_at_launch_this_year

How to Easily Create Your Own Google Chrome Theme (HowtoGeek.com)

How to Easily Create Your Own Google Chrome Theme

Google’s Chrome Web Store offers a variety of themes for Chrome, which include background images for your new tab page and custom colors. Even better — you can create your own theme in just a few minutes.
This official Google app allows you to quickly and easily create a custom Google Chrome theme, complete with a custom background image and color scheme. You can even share the themes you create.

Getting Started

We’ll be using the My Chrome Theme app from Google for this – click the link and install it from the Chrome Web Store. It will appear on your new tab page, where your other installed Chrome apps do.

Choosing an Image

The first thing you’ll need to do is choose a background image for your new tab page. You can either upload an image file or capture an image from your webcam.





If you’re uploading an image, you can choose a personal photo or any other type of wallpaper image, such as one of the images from our 100+ wallpaper collections. The below image is from our grasslands collection.

Adding Colors

On the next screen, you’ll be able to choose separate colors for the frame, toolbar, and background color. Of course, this is a Google app, so there’s an “I’m feeling lucky” button that will automatically select some appropriate-looking colors for you. The automatically selected colors will attempt to match the background image you selected earlier.

Installing Your Theme

Once you’re done, your theme will be generated and you’ll see an installation button that will add it to your browser. You’ll also get a link you can use to share it with others – just send them the link via email, instant message, Facebook, or anywhere else you can copy-paste a link. Of course, since this is Google, you can also share your custom theme on Google+ with a single click.

• By Chris Hoffman on 01/20/13

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/134329/how-to-easily-create-your-own-google-chrome-theme/

Save Screen Space in Firefox by Converting Firefox Toolbars into Buttons

Most browsers are moving towards a minimalist approach and are consolidating menus, toolbars, and other program elements. If you want to maximize the website viewing area, and you use Firefox, there is an option for optimizing the space available in your browser window.
Buttonizer is a Firefox add-on allows you to quickly convert one toolbar at a time to a button on the address bar. To install Buttonizer, go to the Buttonizer page on the Mozilla Add-ons site using the link at the end of this article. Click the Add to Firefox button.

The Software Installation dialog box displays. Click Install Now.
NOTE: Depending on your settings, there may be a short countdown on the Install button before you can click it.

Once the add-on is installed, a popup window displays asking you to restart Firefox to finish the installation. Click Restart Now.

Once Firefox restarts, you’ll see the Buttonizer button on the right side of the Address bar. Right-click the button to see a list of toolbars that can be converted to a button. Select a toolbar from the list.
NOTE: Only one toolbar at a time can be converted to a button.

The selected toolbar closes. Hover the mouse over the Buttonizer button to access the toolbar you “buttonized.”

To view a convert a different toolbar as a button, simply right-click on the Buttonizer button and select another toolbar. The previously selected toolbar displays again and the newly selected toolbar closes and is available on the Buttonizer button.
To view all toolbars as toolbars again, select Reset from the menu.



Install Buttonizer from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/buttonizer/.
Buttonizer is a very simple add-on, but it can be useful if you’re short on screen space.

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/133856/save-screen-space-in-firefox-by-converting-firefox-toolbars-into-buttons/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=160113

Firefox 18 Gets Reviewed and Benchmarked Against Chrome 24, Internet Explorer 10

Keeping up with the schedule Mozilla has shipped another release of Firefox for Desktop. The latest release from Firefox has some really impressive features up its sleeves. It is noteworthy that majority of the changes pertain to under the hood improvements resulting in direct performance gains. As always, we will be comparing the top browsers based on benchmarks. This time around, we have also included the latest Chrome release, Chrome 24 which released closely following Firefox 18’s release.

How does Firefox 18 fare against Chrome 24 & Internet Explorer 10? Well, let’s have a look.



(image courtesy)

Faster JavaScript performance via IonMonkey compiler

IonMonkey Compiler succeeds Firefox’s own TraceMonkey, and JägerMonkey Javascript Compilers bringing in impressive performance gains of up to 26% which is incredible. The new IonMonkey compiler will be especially useful in heavy games and websites making extensive use of JavaScript. Speaking crudely, as Firefox is built on XUL which is again based on JavaScript, the new IonMonkey Compiler should definitely lay foundation to some solid speed improvements everywhere. On normal usage, the performance is agreeably more snappy than before, a welcome benefit especially if you browse JavaScript heavy sites. As you will see in the benchmarks below, IonMonkey does indeed benefit Firefox in performance considerably.

You can read more about IonMonkey and Firefox 18 benchmarks in detail in this official Mozilla blog post.

Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up

Firefox has been surprisingly slower on implementing Mac OSX feature support, be it trackpad gestures on Lion or Full screen mode. Nevertheless after Chrome, Firefox has finally added proper Retina-display support for Mac OS X Lion and above. This would come as a major relief as anyone who would have used a retina MBP would have encountered the sheer pain of using apps that do not support retina scaling and do their own sub-pixel rendering.

Preliminary support for WebRTC

WebRTC stands for Web Real Time Communication and is a open source initiative led by Google to enable open standards for communications like Voice Calling, Video Chat and P2P file sharing without any plugins. In simpler terms, you could think of WebRTC as open alternative to Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash.

Google Chrome (obviously) was the first web browser to support WebRTC, followed by Opera. Finally, Firefox has done the catching-up act by implementing preliminary support for WebRTC. Remember though that the WebRTC standard is still not yet complete.

Performance Improvements

Apart from the newly introduced IonMonkey JIT, Firefox 18 features various other improvements as well.

• Better Image Quality due to new HTML Scaling algorithm: A very old bug that was not marked as fixed until this release, resulting in better quality of images within websites. This fix had landed in Aurora as early as in October but obviously due to the release cycle, took quite while to land in the stable channel. You can see the difference it makes in this image. The one on the right is Firefox 18
• Improvements around Tab Switching: Firefox 18 also improves upon tab switching performance, which should be subtly noticeable to casual users.
• Lower Startup times : Firefox should now start a lot more quickly. Firefox earlier would unnecessarily check for a certificate which would end up in delay in startup due to time spent in validating. This has been done away with. The result is quite impressive and would be quite noticeable for all users.
• Performance improvements for Proxy users :Finally Firefox 18 includes significant performance improvements for users using proxies. The reason turns out (funnily) that none of them at Mozilla used proxies, but acting upon a complaints about proxy performance lead to plenty of fixes in the network stack.

Firefox 18 vs Chrome 24 vs Internet Explorer 10

Benchmarks

This time around we included the top three browsers only, excluding Opera due its slouch for a long while. We have expanded our benchmarks this time around , with two new entrants Psychedlic Browsing and Peacekeeper. We have compared Firefox 18 against the most recent stable releases of Chrome and Internet Explorer respectively. ( Chrome 24  and Internet Explorer 10.0.1)

All the tests were performed on a HP-G42 478TX laptop with Core i3 2.40 GHz (first gen) processor, 6 GB DDR3 RAM, Western Digital 5400 RPM hard disk and ATI Mobility Radeon 6370M GPU running Windows 8 Pro with all the latest updates installed

Please note that all the add-ons were disabled in Chrome and Firefox. Also hardware acceleration was enabled across all the browsers

Sunspider

Sunspider, the much acclaimed JavaScript benchmark showed no visible gains….for Firefox. Continuing it’s tradition of kicking some serious arses in this benchmark ( which started with IE 9) Explorer 10 was around 32% faster than Firefox. Finally, it is about high time to end all those meme’s targeting Internet Explorer. Tsk Tsk.

Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper by Futuremark indicates overall performance of the browser by performing all kind of test a humble geek could think of for a browser. Tests vary from rendering HTML5 videos in various codecs, rendering webGL, DOM trees, Javascript assessment, 2D game performance, string manipulation tests and what not. Peacekeeper in a nutshell is a very comprehensive browser benchmark. Speaking of the scores sadly, Chrome demolished Explorer 10 and Firefox by margin of more than 85%, which might just point Mozilla dev’s that they need to look at other aspects of the browser as well apart from churning out the numbers. Explorer surprisingly matched up to Firefox quite well in this benchmark.

Something that should be duly noted is the lack of H264 codec playback in Firefox might have cost some loss in the score

Google Octane

Octane, the successor of the famous v8 benchmark performs various types of JavaScript tests, which emphasizes on performance of a browser in modern web applications. Firefox 18’s IonMonkey surely seems to help here, coming fairly close to Chrome this time around. This is a very naive assumption though, because the underlying tests could be fairly different between Google v8 and Octane. Explorer however was a sad story, coming a (very) distant third.

Psychedelic Browsing

You can take this benchmark with a pinch of salt just because it is developed by Microsoft. (seriously though, you be sure of anything without having a look at the source code, speaking of which reminds me that none of the IE Test Drive benchmarks are open). Just as expected, Internet Explorer bests the competition easily. However, Firefox is not far behind this time around with a pretty decent score. Chrome, for a change bites the dust.

Kraken

Perhaps the only comprehensive benchmark in our tests which has witnessed a lot of changes in browser performance over the course of time. There used to be a time when Chrome and Firefox would go neck and neck over in Kraken and at times Chrome would trump Firefox quite convincingly. Finally, we witnessed the contrary this time around (thanks to IonMonkey JIT for this). Firefox 18 beat Chrome 24 by a pretty wide margin. Also, we must stress the sheer quality of work being done on both the camps, with the scores improving (or falling, technically) with every release. The touted JavaScript improvements in both Chrome 24 and Firefox 18 show up clearly. Internet Explorer 10 though, decides to have a mind of it’s own.

Real World Performance : Memory usage
While gauging CPU usage for browsers is somewhat a tough job, checking memory consumption while being the easier chore often indicates the resource usage of a browser on a abstract level. This time, we have also included memory consumption when using a single tab, which agreeably quite a lot of normal PC users do.

Memory Consumption with Single Tab Open

What would be the site most of the PC’s would have open? Facebook. Pretty straight forward. We started each of the browsers afresh, opened Facebook and waited for two minutes after all the content had been loaded to get a sharp picture of memory consumption when idle.

Yup. We were surprised too. Internet Explorer 10 was the browser consuming least amount of memory. We re-did the tests, cross verified results with different tools to obtain the same result. Internet Explorer 10 is well ridiculously memory efficient with single (or few tabs open, say 2 3). Firefox was not lagging far behind as well, luckily. Though Chrome was the resource-hog clearly taking a ludicrous 315 MB to display a single Facebook tab.

Memory Consumption with 10 Tabs open

We opened 10 sites of varied complexity and waited for 4 minutes after all tabs were done loading for the memory consumption to stabilize. Firefox, quite simply displayed it’s natural strength which has been the result of very diligent efforts going into reducing memory consumption from past year, consuming only 370 MB! Internet Explorer and Chrome were far, far behind with the former bringing Chrome to shame with a impressive memory consumption of 621 MB. Chrome had successfully managed  that it’s idea of sumptuous lunch was gobbling your RAM at will.

Now for those Chrome fans who would argue that Chrome opens each tab in a separate process the memory consumption would high well, Internet Explorer 10 does the same but still keeps the memory consumption in acceptable limits. Ultimately, it is beyond doubt that Chrome needs to trim down it’s memory consumption.

Firefox 18 vs Chrome 24 vs Internet Explorer 10 : Where does each browser stand?

Internet Explorer [10]: While some would say that Internet Explorer 9 was Redmond’s redemption, Internet Explorer 10 goes way further and undoubtedly is a very solid performer that comprehensively beats Chrome, be it in either memory management or in a host of other benchmarks. The cool thing resulting from this is, all the not-so-tech savvy PC users who mostly do not even bother to download an alternative browser when they buy a new PC will not be browsing the Internet with some-substandard-pain-the-rear browser shipped with windows thanks to Windows 8’s Internet Explorer 10.

Internet Explorer 8, if you had forgotten which shipped with Vista/7 PC’s was so terrible that it almost took a small nap before it finally loaded. Oh, don’t rejoice that it is unmaintained yet, Microsoft is just done releasing a fix-it for Internet Explorer 7/8’s vulnerability

Chrome : Chrome 24 has definitely improved its performance especially in Javascript as touted, but no longer we can proclaim it as the “king” of the browsers. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox beat Chrome comprehensively in different tests. Also, Chrome certainly needs to work on the memory consumption. That said Chrome is a solid browser with special brownie points going to it’s UI responsiveness and hassle-free Chrome Sync.


Firefox : The devs at Mozilla are working really hard to improve Mozilla performance, and it truly shows. Firefox 18, as it’s obvious from these benchmarks, is giving both IE 10 and Chrome a good run for the money. BUT, the devs don’t seem to care about Firefox’s UI responsiveness. Yes, there is Project Snappy and we can observe some noticeable improvements in this release, but that still does not help Firefox; faring badly against Chrome and Internet Explorer. Page loading times are getting quicker with every release, neat but how about improving UI snappiness? Because responsiveness, and not benchmarks, drive people’s browser choice.

For more such updates, You can follow us on Twitter - @TechSplurge.

Source: http://techsplurge.com/14018/features-review-firefox-18-vs-chrome-24-vs-internet-explorer-10/

Browser Speed Tests: Chrome 24, Firefox 18, Internet Explorer 10, and Opera 12.12

from LifeHacker.com

Whitson Gordon

Windows 8 is out with a new version of Internet Explorer, Firefox has boosted its JavaScript power and memory usage, and Chrome's been slowly improving its speed. How do the new versions stack up against each other? We found out in our latest round of browser speed tests.
We've been testing browsers for awhile, and we've refined our method pretty well. It's a good mix of both manually timed user experience measures and hardcore JavaScript benchmarks, plus some new tests aimed at features like Chrome's prerendering or Firefox's on demand tab loading can really do. All tests take place on Windows (which is why we didn't test Safari—it isn't very popular on Windows, and testing the Mac version wouldn't give it equal footing).

As always, remember that speed is not the only thing each browser has to offer. Each browser has a number of unique features and characteristics, all of which you should factor into making your choice of which to use. However, while most features can be listed on their home pages, you can't easily compare their speed just from each browser's changelog, and that's why we've put this together. It's just one more way to compare the browsers as you make your decision. Also keep in mind that everyone's computer is different, and your numbers may differ from ours, but the comparison between the numbers should be the same.

Cold Boot-Up Winner: Chrome!

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Chrome had a shockingly fast boot-up time this time around, popping up just over two seconds after we clicked its icon, ready to go. Explorer was pretty fast as well, with Firefox close behind and Opera slowing down quite a bit to take last place.

Tab Loading Winner: TIE Between Chrome and Internet Explorer!

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Our test of loading nine tabs, from Lifehacker to Facebook to Hulu and Amazon, showed some interesting results. Chrome and Internet Explorer both dropped some time in this area, tying each other for first place, while Firefox absolutely crumbled under the weight of the tabs. Firefox's UI had so much trouble loading all nine tabs at once that its UI animations would completely stop while it caught up, finally loading them all after nearly 20 seconds. Whatever the Mozilla team has done, it makes the browser feel like its old, slow self again.

URL Loading Winner: Chrome!

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As usual, Chrome took home the prize for visiting sites from the address bar, thanks to its awesome prerendering feature. However, Firefox and IE have definitely sped up a tad, too, meaning most browsers should give you a pretty quick page load as long as you've been to that page during this session—except Opera, who still took over a second to load the page.

Cold Restore Winner: Chrome!

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Even though this test was originally determined to test Firefox's new on demand tab loading, it seems this feature no longer works during a cold boot—only during a warm boot. However, whether we tested cold or warm starts, Firefox still didn't seem to benefit from this feature at all. The Chrome team has really upped their game, making Chrome boot up super fast whether it has nine tabs in tow or not. While Chrome still had to load those tabs, it became usable nearly immediately after the window showed up, while Firefox took a little longer to boot and Opera kept us waiting quite a while.

JavaScript Winner: Chrome!

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We've gone back and forth about whether to include JavaScript benchmarks in this test, because they're pretty artificial, despite most test's claim to measure "real world performance". In the interest of completeness, we've included it here, with the usual results (Chrome smoking the competition), but don't put too much stock in this over our other, more real-world tests. Due to issues with Mozilla's Dromaeo test suite, we used the popular Peacekeeper test from Futuremark this time around.

Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs Open) Winner: Firefox!

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As usual, Firefox's memory management has improved greatly in the recent past, while Chrome's continues to shoot up to astronomical levels.

Memory Usage (with Nine Tabs and Five Extensions) Winner: Firefox!

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Everyone's memory usage went up when we piled on five extensions, though Firefox's increased significantly less than Chrome and Opera's. As usual, Firefox took first place once again.

The Winner?

This time around, there was actually a very clear winner, but we've decided to stop tallying up the results and raking browsers in these tests. Why? Because we think you should decide for yourself! Everyone has different priorities, so we've decided to stop including a "winner" since the scores were impossible to weight fairly against one another. If you don't ever shut down your computer, for example, you can just ignore the cold boot scores. Don't like benchmarks? Throw out the JavaScript test. Have 12GB of RAM? Then memory management isn't really an issue. Check out the above results and see how the browsers stack up when it comes to your most important tests—and of course, weigh each browser's features—before you determine a winner.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5976082/browser-speed-tests-chrome-24-firefox-18-internet-explorer-10-and-opera-1212

Firefox 18 Released

Download Firefox 18 Final

By Vygantas | January 9, 2013 | 5 Comments

Up to 25% faster JavaScript with IonMonkey.
Good news for all your performance enthusiasts out there as Mozilla has just released the final build of the Firefox 18 web browser, which promises up to 25% faster JavaScript, thanks to IonMonkey.
What else is new? In addition to the eliminated animations for themes, Firefox 18 also includes tab switchin performance improvements, a support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7, initial support for WebRTC and a new HTML scaling algorithm, which is set to improve the overall image quality.

Firefox 18 Final Changelog

New:
- Faster JavaScript performance via IonMonkey compiler
- Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up
- Preliminary support for WebRTC
Changed:
- Experience better image quality with our new HTML scaling algorithm
- Performance improvements around tab switching
Developers:
- Support for new DOM property window.devicePixelRatio
- Improvement in startup time through smart handling of signed extension certificates
HTML5:
- Support for W3C touch events implemented, taking the place of MozTouch events
Fixes:
- Disable insecure content loading on HTTPS pages
- Improved responsiveness for users on proxies

Download
Firefox 18 Final

Source: http://www.favbrowser.com/download-firefox-18-final/ 

Firefox 18 joins Safari, Chrome with support for retina Macs

New release also offers JavaScript improvements and WebRTC support.

by Jacqui Cheng - Jan 8 2013, 6:10pm EST

• Mac Apps

20

Retina MacBook Pro users who like lots of browser options have reason to rejoice with Tuesday's official release of Firefox 18. Those who own a 13-inch or 15-inch version of Apple's newest MacBook Pros will be able to view images, videos, and webpages in "retina" resolution (as long as you're running 10.7 or above), among the other new features that come with Firefox 18.


Firefox is now the third major browser to support retina resolutions on the Mac. It's no surprise that the first was Safari in the summer of 2012 (when Apple first introduced the 15-inch MacBook Pro) and Google released a version of Chrome with retina support last August. Though it has taken the Firefox team some time to join its browser brethren with this feature, it's certainly better late than never—especially for those who are die-hard Firefox users.
To support Retina displays, Firefox has also added JavaScript features to allow pages to detect the display resolution of the screen they're being rendered on and respond appropriately.


The new Firefox version also has a few features for Windows and Mac users who don't have Retina machines.


Firefox 18 has a new JavaScript compiler called IonMonkey. IonMonkey's predecessors, TraceMonkey and JagerMonkey, both had a fairly direct translation from JavaScript to executable code, limiting the number of optimizations that they could perform. IonMonkey creates a new intermediate representation of JavaScript programs that is optimized prior to generating executable code. Mozilla brags that IonMonkey is 26 percent faster than Firefox 17 in the Kraken benchmark, and 7 percent faster than Firefox 17 in the V8 benchmark.


The browser has also gained "preliminary" support for its standards-based video chat, Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC). Not all features are enabled by default, and in a brief experimentation we struggled to make it actually work, with many demo sites assuming that the only browser with WebRTC support is Google Chrome. No doubt this will improve in coming versions.


Mozilla has also updated mobile Firefox for Android. The big new feature for the Android version is the inclusion of the same anti-malware and anti-phishing support that the desktop browser has. Like the desktop version, the malware/phishing detection uses a Google-provided service to blacklist URLs known to be hosting bad content. This has been a standard feature of desktop browsers for some years. However, the desktop malware checking was a poor fit on mobile devices due to the large malware database it uses. Mozilla had to reengineer the malware detection system to make it a better fit for mobile browsing. This makes Firefox the third mobile browser to include malware protection, joining Internet Explorer 10 on Windows Phone 8 and Opera 12.1 on Android.

Mobile Firefox's malware warning.

 

 

Source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/firefox-18-joins-safari-chrome-with-support-for-retina-macs/