In a blog post today, the company said that 24.4% of all web browsers are outdated and insecure.  Of this 15.2% includes Internet Explorer 6 and 7 (it’s odd that Microsoft are suddenly now calling IE7 insecure) and 7.5% are older versions of Mozilla Firefox.

In their breakdown by country the USA appears to be the worst offender with just under 22 million computers using insecure browsers.  Brazil is second with just over 7 million, France is third with 5 million, the UK has 4.2 million and China has just under 4 million.  I’m not completely sure where this fits with Microsoft’s IE6 Countdown site which states that more than 25% of all browser usage in China is still IE6.

Microsoft’s stats say that this 24.4% equates to around 340 million PCs worldwide.  In a statement they said…

With that in mind, we’ve partnered with the Anti-Phishing League, Identity Theft Council, and Online Trust Alliance to raise awareness of the critical role browsers play in online security and make it as easy as possible for people to protect themselves.

The new website itself does more than just give your browser a health rating.  There is useful information there on what malware is, with a useful video for the uninitiated.  There is also information on what modern browsers do to keep people safe when they’re online and also help and advice on how you can stay safer when you’re online.

Oddly, what the browser doesn’t do is bring the latest version of Internet Explorer front and centre, instead relegating it to a small download button hidden away on the website’s last page.  This is probably a very good idea given the organisations that Microsoft has formed alliances with for this project.

It is very true that you should always make sure you have the latest and most up to date version of whatever browser you are using, be that Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera and that you have installed all the latest security and other patches.

It is always good to see when companies try and give the public additional advice too.  People can become too reliant on the web browser protecting them from ‘everything’ and they can then feel they can click around random links with impunity.  In fact this is the best way to get your computer infected with malware, or have your identity stolen, and it is the responsibility of every Internet user to remain cautious and vigilant when online.

The Online Trust Alliance say of the project…

“The mission of the Online Trust Alliance is to enhance online trust and confidence.  When it comes to online security and privacy, the browser plays an important part in helping to make the internet safer for all users.  Since our inception, OTA has been a proponent of improving browser security and getting people to move to more secure platforms…   More must be done to help educate users on the need to move to more modern browsers and we applaud Microsoft’s leadership and collaboration in this important initiative.”

Martin’s take

Your Browser Matters is a new site by Microsoft and partners that aims to make Internet users aware of security in general, and the web browser they use in particular. Some users may decide to ignore the site completely considering that it is maintained by Microsoft, others might want to check it out to see what it is all about and if the points that it tries to make are valid.

When you open the homepage of the informational site in a supported web browser you get a score for that browser right away. The site unfortunately does not support beta versions of web browsers which means that I was only able to get a score for Internet Explorer 9. Neither Firefox Aurora, Google Chrome Dev nor the latest stable Opera version were compatible with the site.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 scores 4 out of 4 points, which obviously is the highest possible score. Ed Bott ran Chrome Stable and Firefox Stable through the test and noticed that the browsers scored 2.5 (Chrome) and 2 (Firefox) respectively.

It all boils down to the test criteria. When you look at all of them in the screenshot below you will notice that Microsoft analyses how the browser handles the following four attack forms: Dangerous downloads, Phishing websites, Attacks on your browser and Attacks on websites.

You will also notice that no browser scores perfectly in all tests. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 for instance fails in three of the sixteen tests, Chrome in seven and Firefox even in nine tests.

When you look at the core differences you notice that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is the only browser in the test that passes all dangerous download tests which the company attributes to its SmartScreen technology. Both Firefox and Chrome fail in the tests.

All browsers pass the phishing websites tests. The attacks on your browser group of tests is divided into securing extensions and effective sandbox. Internet Explorer is the only browser according to Microsoft with the ability to restrict extensions and plugins on a per-site basis. The browser also passes the “benefits from Windows operating system features that protect against structured exception handling overwrite attacks” test where the two others fail.

Chrome on the other hand is the only browser in the list that passes the sandbox test.

Internet Explorer passes four of five tests of the attacks on websites test. It is the only browser that can automatically block insecure content from https pages and to sanitize HTML to remove potentially problematic code.

The question at this point is obviously if the tests are biased towards Internet Explorer by leaving out tests that might not be as favorable.

I can list a few missing tests without really thinking much about it, for instance:

• Is the browser protecting the user from third party extension or plugin installations?
• Does the browser warn the user of outdated plugins?
• Can users disable security related features, like JavaScript on a per site basis.
• Does the browser support different user profiles?

What I like about the site in general is that it offers information that educate users. The prevention tab for instance lists basic but important security information on one page.

Security is obviously only one feature when users pick a favorite browser that they use most of the time. There are other features like speed, extensions support or general compatibility with web standards that can make a difference.

What’s your take on Your Browser Matters? Is Microsoft making a valid point here or is this just marketing mumbo-jumbo?

Before you answer note that that Internet Explorer 6 scores 0 of 4 points and Internet Explorer 7 1 out of 4.

The research “measuring the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser” was apparently conducted on 100,000 people who went looking for an IQ test.  As I pointed out at the time the data from this research would have been utterly meaningless, as it completely failed to take into account people using web browsers both at home and at work where they would have had no control over the browser they used.

Now it has emerged that the entire thing was a hoax with the BBC reporting that not just they, but other big media organisations including CNN and Forbes were taken in (not gHacks though I’m happy to say!).

It has emerged that the company website for AptiQuant was only set up recently and that all the staff images had come from a perfectly legitimate, and unconnected, business website for a company in Paris.

The BBC contacted the French firm, Central Test, who confirmed that they’d been made aware that AptiQuant has been using its images with the staff names changed.

It was quite an elaborate hoax with an extensive research document (containing grammar errors) and a very convincing website to back it up.  There is no clue at this stage who was behind the hoax.  In the study AptiQuant said…

The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web browser.  From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general, however more research is needed for that, which is a potential future work as an extension to this report.

gHacks readers too it seems are a savvy bunch with Jakin posting “This is a stupid study.   Intelligent people can choose to use IE or use another browser”  though Betttie said “IMHO, the study is among the most robust I’ve come across.”

It can be argued that the reason the hoax was so successful worldwide is because of the venom many people have towards Internet Explorer and the knowledge that some users of Microsoft’s browser can be less likely to know about, or know how to find, download and install other browsers.  With the exception of businesses still using Internet Explorer 6, it can be argued that it’s these people who are unlikely to even have Windows Update switched on, let alone download a new version of the browser whenever the update service tells them that one is available.

This is not proof of people having a low IQ however, far from it.  Instead this is merely proof that technology is very confusing and difficult to use for many people.  That these people should be considered “dumb” was something that gHacks users seemed particularly keen to attack, and good on you for it.

The BBC sought an alternative view to the research and asked Professor David Speigelhalter of Cambridge University’s Statistical Laboratory, he said “I believe these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users.”  When the BBC tried to contact AptiQuant on the number provided on their website nobody was available for comment.

Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos commented that “It’s obviously very easy to create a bogus site like this – as all phishers know it’s easy to rip-off someone else’s webpages and pictures.”  He went on to add that this is exactly the type of behaviour exhibited by phishers and malware writers.  Though he added that the PDF file from the website containing the research appeared to be free of any malware.

The report is “measuring the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser”, yup you read that right it’s a test of how intelligent you are compared to what web browser you use.

They found that users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser have lower IQs than people who use other browsers.  To be honest I’m an IE user myself and I did take all the entrance exams for MENSA (but decided not to join).  Also as the author of “Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out” I prefer not at install dupliware on my own computers, I’ll leave you to figure yout why.  However on this occasion I’m actually prepared to believe this study is true… to an extent!

Internet Explorer, being bundled with Windows and coming directly through Windows Update is a browser you don’t need to think about getting, if you have updates switched on then eventually it will just happen.  I’m also fully prepared to believe that people who are still using IE6 are dumb, though not necessarily that they have low IQs.

The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web browser.  From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general, however more research is needed for that, which is a potential future work as an extension to this report.

It’s also quite easy to believe that people with higher IQs might be more likely to shop around for a different browser, know where to look and how to download and install it.  What strikes me as completely stunning here is that the highest recorded IQs in the ‘study’ are people who use Opera.  This particular browser has been slammed in recent years for being full of security holes.  Thus the thought that the people with the highest IQs wouldn’t be bothered by this is just ludicrous.

The study was conducted from a sample of just over 100,000 people from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who went looking for an IQ test.  Apparently these people were not aware they were part of this browser study.

People commonly use different browsers at work than they do at home, and different browsers again on smartphones and tablet devices.  What the study also completely fails to take into account is that many people use the Internet at work where they have no choice whatsoever on the browser they use.  Because this study didn’t ask people whether they were at home or at work the results are therefore meaningless.

AptiQuant say “Our data have important implications” which, apart from being terrible English [it's "has"] simply isn’t true given what we know about the study.

It’s not all good news for IE bashers though.  The study also found that the most intelligent people were more likely to switch away from Firefox, Safari and Chrome in favour of Opera and a browser called Camino that most people have never even heard of.

I think it can safely be said that this study is “unscientific”.  If I were to offer a personal view, I would say that, yes, people with higher IQs are more likely to look for a browser alternative, but that alternative would much more likely be Chrome or IE9.  In short, they’d look for a modern, fast, HTML5 compatible and very secure browser.

So there we have it people, the 65% of computer users, still using Internet Explorer are dumb, and if you really are one of the most intelligent people around you’ll switch to either the world’s least secure web browser or one that nobody’s ever heard of.

In all though, this is a bit of fun for us and something that enables us to point and laugh at some of our friends.  Job’s a good’un.

The reason for this is tablets and the iPad’s success is significant. 1% of total web browsing may be a tiny percentage overall, with Windows still occupying 88.29% overall, but Android figures are difficult to determine as they’re mixed in with Chrome on PCs and Macs.  Also iOS’s overall share of the operating system market sits at 2.63%, which is almost 50% the total share of the Mac.

In web browsing then Apple are beating, not just Microsoft, but every competitor out there. ANdroid has 0.72%, Palm currently sits at less than 0.009% percent and Blackberry devices at just 0.17%. For the iPhone and iPad to have claimed such a significant share of the overall computing market then is a huge achievement for Apple.

So how has this happened and can it be stopped? Well there are several factors that have contributed to Apple’s success. The first of these, by some significant margin, is great design. If you take the current generation iPad, it is thinner and lighter than any of its competition. Apple are literally streets ahead of every other technology company on the planet, and in the position that Sony held ten to twenty years ago.

The next biggest factor is customer goodwill. Apple has a fantastic name and reputation, and with that comes an enormous volume of goodwill. This is the company’s Achilles heel though as the old adage goes “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”. There have been rumours of anti-trust cases for anti-competitive behaviour. Similar cases for other companies, Microsoft in particular, caused enormous resentment with loyal customers because of all the negative publicity they generate. Should an anti-trust case be brought against Apple, which is now looking like a possibility, there will be negative headlines about the company every week for, possibly a couple of years.

Even so it might be difficult to erode this much customer goodwill. Apple has ridden out the iPhone Antennagate scandal and criticisms over the profit slice they take from apps.

There is one more thing though that can potentially bring the company down, and that is the loss of Steve Jobs. It’s possible that sooner or later he may have to retire, or at least take a permanent semi-retirement on health grounds. Jobs has been hugely important, and personally influential in turning around Apple’s fortunes and bringing the company from the brink of bankruptcy to the position of the wealthiest technology company on the planet.

There can be little doubt that, no matter how important everyone may think Jobs is, from the Apple board and employees to shareholders and customers, he will always put his own health first as this is the most important thing. However a departure from Apple would certainly hurt the company considerably, and everyone knows it, which is why shareholders recently sought assurances he wouldn’t be leaving.

No matter what happens though it’s clear that there really isn’t much that can harm Apple, at least not in the short-term. The rise and rise of the iPad’s browsing figures are an example of the way the company is growing generally. This will get more significant as we move more towards mobile devices and “the computer in your pocket”. It is here that Apple will seriously begin to do harm to Microsoft and I predict that Apple could have an overall operating system market share of 35% by 2015.

These figures are good for Apple, indeed they’re positively fantastic. The rest of the world had better take note of what Apple are doing and raise their game very quickly, if they have even the remotest chance of denting them.

Webian Shell is built on Mozilla Chromeless and available Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems. Windows users can download the package, unpack it on their system, and execute it afterwards. No installation is necessary.

When they run Webian Shell, the screen switches to the application in full screen mode. Some shortcuts and keys, like the shortcut to open the Windows task manager or the start menu are still working. You do not have access to the taskbar for instance while the Webian Shell runs.

Webian Shell is released as an early prototype with limited functionality. While you can visit most of your favorite websites, it lacks features that most Internet users would not want to miss.

It is for instance not possible to bookmark pages, install extensions or do many of the other things that modern web browsers offer. Heck, there are not even controls to clear the cache or manage preferences.

This initial early release really just gives you a minimalist, full screen, tabbed web browser with a clock and a rather empty looking home screen. I hope this is enough to convey the basic idea behind the project and that with the open source community’s help we can quickly iterate this prototype to encompass lots of exciting ideas about what living on the web could really be like.

The developers have created a video that demonstrates the program’s functionality.

From the looks of it and from the developer’s description, it is not really clear where the project is heading. The developer has posted some ideas for future directions at the Mozilla Labs blog post announcing the release. This includes split screens, on-screen keyboards or hardware controls.

The idea eventually seems to be to be a replacment for the desktop operating system, or at least the desktop shell. This would hint at the same direction that Google is taking with their Chrome OS approach.

Interested users can download the Webian Shell prototype from the developer website. They find there downloads for all supported operating system, as well as development information, a blog and options to discuss the project.

More’s the point, the company is so confident that people will want to grab the browser as early as possible they’ve given a release time of 7am PST.

In a statement the company said…

Today’s triage session concluded with all systems go for a Firefox 4 launch on March 22nd. We will continue to have triage sessions on a daily basis to watch for major issues; however, at this point, we’ve concluded RC1 will become Firefox 4 final.Firefox is the most popular browser for people who enjoy modding and adding plug-ins to use online.  In this regard it’s very different from it’s main rival Chrome which focuses on stripped-down simplicity.  Indeed the new IE9 has gone Chrome’s way so this could enable Firefox to regain some of the market share it’s lost in the last couple of years.

The final version ofd the browser will be available simultaneously for Windows, Mac and Linux and it adds a few features that we’ve recently seen in other browsers including hardware-accelerated graphics rendering.

It’s an exciting time for the web browser industry as the war is well and truly back on after a few years of not very much going on at all.

Now ConceivablyTech are reporting that Google is now considering its options for future versions of its Chrome browser and they could be going even further than Microsoft.

In an interesting move, one possible option is to remove the address and search boxes altogether and instead allow people to type searches and URLs directly into a browser tab.

This is an approach that makes a large amount of sense in the web 2.0 world. As more and more people use web applications the browser ‘furniture’ is becoming an annoyance that just takes up valuable desktop space. This is especially true on the smaller screen of netbooks, tablets and the like.

Google will have to weigh up this approach though with usability. How obvious will it be / can they make it that people can /should click on the tab title to type searches and addresses? What happens when you have a lot of tabs open at one time?

Thus there are also additional options they are looking at one of which is a one box similar to that now used in Internet Explorer.

You can see their four concepts above. It can reasonably be assumed that the Sidetab concept will probably fail to gain support but the final version could go to either the Classic or Compact views.

It is interesting to note a specific touch version of the browser too with large buttons. This is something that Microsoft won’t be delivering until Windows 8 either in the summer or the autumn of 2012. Google used Chrome to get a significant head start on both Firefox and IE by revolutionizing the browser and including the features that people actually *needed*. By showing what a touch interface could look like now they could solidify this position for the foreseeable future.

During this time both Android and Windows 7 have been criticised to differing degrees for not being suitable for tablets, and now both Google and Microsoft have come out to say they’re working on specific tablet versions of their operating systems.  Google’s is set to launch in 2011 while we may have to wait until mid 2012 for one from Microsoft.

In all the entire tablet focus has been on the operating systems, and not on the other thing we really should have been focusing on but that has so far got no comment and attention at all.  Now that tablets are out of the door and gaining in popularity, is it time we turned our attention to the Internet itself?

Let me give you a few examples.  As more and more of us shift our lives into the cloud we’re using online services like Hotmail, GMail, Office Live and Facebook.  While software to run these web services exist for most, if not all, platforms, there are a great many people who like to use them in a browser.

Then there are mainstream websites such as the BBC, Amazon and so on.  The problem all of these websites face is that every single one of them was designed for the previous generation of web-enabled devices, desktop and laptop computers, and every one of them is optimised for a mouse control method.

The moment you try and use a website such as Amazon or Ebay with your fingers problems start as links are too close together, too small or otherwise just difficult to hit, buttons are too small and… I’m sure you get the picture.

So far though, nobody has talked about the tablet optimised web.  I personally find this odd given that more and more people are using smartphones to access the Internet.  These devices with their 3 to 4 inch screens put people at an even greater disadvantage in navigating websites.

It doesn’t have to be difficult either.  In many cases the simple addition of an optional touch-friendly style-sheet with larger text links and buttons will solve the problem.  I’m not saying this is a catch-all solution, but it would be an impressive start.

2011 needs to be the year in which the mainstream websites place finger-friendliness at or near the top of their lists.  It needs to be the year when they begin to trial and roll-out touch friendly websites that will work both on smartphones and tablets.  If touch interfaces using our fingers are truly the way forward, why is the web ignoring this important move and standing still with their existing interface designs?

So here at gHacks we’ll be watching the touch-web and reporting back to you on what, if anything, the main websites will do in 2011 to address the needs of mouse-less browsers.

Bit9′s CEO, Harry Sverdlove said “A variety of vulnerability types – including buffer-overflow and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities – impacted these applications.  Some exploits of vulnerabilities could allow attacks to compromise the user’s desktop entirely and perhaps pose a risk for the entire organization. A list like the annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ highlights trends and the need to make sure software is kept updated.

The biggest surprise is that Google’s Chrome browser tops the vulnerabilities list with 76.  Safari and Firefox also scored badly with 60 and 51 respectively.  Conversely, Internet Explorer had only 32.  The complete list is below.

1. Google Chrome – 76
2. Apple Safari – 60
3. Microsoft Office – 57
4. Adobe Acrobat – 54
5. Mozilla Firefox – 51
6. Sun JDK – 36
7. Adobe Shockwave Player – 35
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 32
9. RealNetworks RealPlayer – 14
10. Apple Webkit – 9
11. Adobe Flash Player – 8
12. Apple Quicktime and Opera Web browser (tied) – 6

This will obviously be inflammatory news to anyone who doesn’t like Internet Explorer (though recently versions of the browser cannot be compared to IE6) and there will people who will point to all the ‘undiscovered’ vulnerabilities in the browser.

However it pans out over time, it’s clear that Microsoft’s recent strategies are paying dividends for the company in terms of helping increase their reputation around the world.  It will be interesting to see how IE9 stacks up against the other browsers in 12 months time.

Recently though the company has taken a more pragmatic approach and has moved, slowly admittedly, towards full standards compliance.  With their next browser, Internet Explorer 9, they’ve said it will be fully compliant and recent tests from the W3C organisation certainly bear this out.

The figures, reported today by Engadget, put IE9 slightly ahead of the next best browsers for full compliance with the new web standard.  Admittedly the top three browsers are all betas and so we can expect these figures to move, sharply and quickly, but for now it’s an excellent sign.

Internet Explorer has lost significant market share in recent years after the cataclysmic calamity that was IE6 (I try and find stronger and more colourful adjectives every time I mention the god-awful thing).  Now Microsoft are desperate to grab some market share back and, by all accounts, IE9 could do it through a combination of complete standards compliance and new features that people actually want and will use.

We’ll keep you informed about how this picture changes at gHacks.  The new HTML5 browsers are all due out in 2011 and it will be a very interesting year indeed for the web that we’ve all come to know and love.

The attack was dreamt up by security expert Sam Kamkar who demonstrated at the Black Hat hackers conference a website exploiting common shortcomings in a router to reveal it’s real-world location.

He tricked the router into believing the request for it’s ID information was coming from the connected PC, not from the Internet.  He then used the revealed MAC address with a geo-location feature in Firefox to interrogate the database Google gathered when it made its Street View photographs.

The data, which was controversially gathered, linked the MAC addresses of routers to GPS co-ordinates.  “This is geo-location gone terrible,” said Mr Kamkar during his presentation. “Privacy is dead people. I’m sorry.”

Mikko Hyponnen, senior researcher at F Secure called the demonstration “very interesting” adding that such a technique could be used for “stalking or targeted attacks against an individual”.

“The fact that databases like Google Streetview’s Mac-to-Location database or the Skyhook database can be used in these attacks just underlines how much responsibility companies that collect such data have to safeguard it correctly.” said Mr Hypponen

In 2005, Mr Kamkar created a work that helped him gain more than 1 million MySpace friends in a single day.

The description of Rekonq is simple: the Konqueror browser using the WebKit engine. But it’s not quite that simple. Rekonq will be the new default browser for Kubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat). This is a new project that will, hopefully, overcome some ofthe shortcomings of the current Konqueror browser. And in this article we will take a look at this new browser so all the Ghacks readers will be prepared when it lands on the new KDE desktop.

Features

Like any good browser, Rekonq has plenty of features. You won’t, however, find this browser getting bogged down in too many features which wind up being nothing more than bloat. This should keep Rekonq fast and responsive. The current feature set includes:

• Simplified interface.
• Tabs.
• Bookmarks.
• WebKit engine (which is, ironically, a derivative of the Konqueror KHTML engine).
• Tab previews.
• Shared bookmarks.
• Proxy support.
• Anonymous browsing,
• Web page inspection.

Installation

Of course you are going to want to install this browser, so you can see for yourself how it performs. Since Rekonq is already in the standard repositories you should be able to install with the following steps:

1. Open up either the Ubuntu Software Center or Synaptic.
2. Search for “rekonq” (no quotes).
3. Mark Rekonq for installation.
4. click Apply to install.

1. Open up either the Ubuntu Software Center or Synaptic.
2. Search for “rekonq” (no quotes).
3. Mark Rekonq for installation.
4. click Apply to install.

That’s it. You will now find this browser in Start > Applications > Internet > WebKit KDE Browser. I will warn you: Rekonq is not ready for prime time. This browser is still very much in beta. So if you rely on your browser for work, avoid using this for nothing more than testing purposes (and make sure you report bugs to the developer as you find them). Although I am currently writing this article in Rekonq, I do not dare do any general browsing.

Figure 1

When you open Rekonq you will be treated to a very clean interface (see Figure 1) that includes thumbnails of your favorite sites.

There really are no tricks or features that you will have any difficulty with. The only challenge you will have (in its current state) is finding web sites that won’t crash the browser. But when you do come across web sites that work fine, the first thing you will notice is how quickly Rekonq renders pages. Rekonq is one of the faster browsers you will find on Linux. For example, loading Ghacks.net took Rekonq half the time that it took both Konqueror and Firefox. Rekonq rendered Ghacks.net in around a 1/2 a second faster than Chrome. Unfortunately the over all end result is that Rekonq is just not stable enough to compete on solid grounds.  But when it is able to compete, it is lightning fast.

Final verdict

I am excited to see where this project is going to go. Even in its infancy it shows plenty of signs it will have a lot to offer the Linux desktop. Rekonq just might make the choice to have a “fringe” browser as the default a smart choice for KDE.

The profile creation takes some time but the individual tests complete very fast so that it becomes difficulty to read the test descriptions on the pages that are automatically loaded.

The profile of the web browser is then displayed next to the top browsers that have been used to complete the test before. Browserscope displays the name of the web browser and its version, the number of tests performed with that web browser on the site and the results for the individual modules that have been tested.

Green modules indicate passed tests while red ones failed tests. The overall score is displayed next to the name of the browser. Google Chrome 5 is for instance leading the security test with 12 out of 13 tests passed. Firefox 3.6 passed nine, Internet Explorer 8 eight and Opera 10.50 seven.

Google Chrome is also leading the rich text category, Opera the selectors category, Firefox the network tests and Google Chrome and Opera the Acid 3 test with a perfect score.

Visit Browserscope to test your web browser and see how it fares against the other browsers.

In this article I am going to introduce you to some of those alternative web browsers and show you what they have to offer. I will skip over the installation of these browsers as you will most likely find them in your distributions’ repositories. These browsers will be in no certain order.

Arora

Arora

Arora is a light-weight, cross-platform web browser (so long as the platform will run Qt) that offers many of the features you have come to love on your browser (and then some). Arora uses the QTWebKit port of the WebKit layout engin. The feature list looks like:

• Fast startup
• Desktop integration
• Smart location bar
• Session management
• Privacy
• Search engine management
• Flash plugin support
• Download manager
• Tools for web developers
• Translations for thirty languages.

Elinks

Elinks

I can’t help but add a text-based web browser to this list. Elinks hearkens back to my old Lynx days where browsing the web was not interrupted by images, ads, and flash. Why would you want to use such a browser? Simple: Elinks is fast. Not Chrome fast…even faster. Elinks is so fast you will miss your pages load if you blink – that kind of fast. But remember, you only get text here. You use Elinks from within a terminal window. Open one up and enter the command elinks. Hit the <Esc> key and then enter a url. Simple. Fast. What more do you want from the web? ;-)

Epiphany

Epiphany

Epiphany is supposed to be the web browser for the GNOME desktop. It isn’t really, but it does try. Epiphany lives somewhere between Elinks and Arora. It’s not text-only, but it will handle your fancy-shmancy plugins. Epiphany lets you concentrate on the content, not the application displaying the content.

Epiphany does offer a few nice features:

• Security
• Customizable interface
• Smart bookmarks
• Extensions and plugins

I was pleasantly surprised that Epiphany handled, out of the box, Flash plugins (and handled them well.)

Final thoughts

There you go: Three browsers you most likely have never heard of nor ever tried. I have run the gamut of browsers and I can say that each of the above browsers certainly has their place in the landscape of the internet. Will any of them threaten the monsters of the ball? Absolutely not. Does that mean you shouldn’t give them a try? No, you definitely should…especially if you’ve never experienced the web in its purest, text-only form.

I would highly recommend you give one of these browsers a go. You might find your new favorite app!

Other web browsers on the other hand do usually not have the backing of a multi-billion Dollar corporation. That’s why they need to come up with other means to grab web browser market shares.

Midori’s approach is the lightweight but still comfortable web browser. The portable web browser is based on WebKit which is also used by Google Chrome and Safari. This guarantees great page rendering speeds. One of the greatest benefits of the web browser is its low resource usage. The browser uses about 10 Megabytes of computer memory with one open tab which is not much when compared to the resource usage of other web browsers that use a multiple of that.

The speed and low resource usage does not affect the functionality of the web browser. It offers many of the features that web users demand including tabbed browsing, session management, bookmark management or extension, userscript, userstyles and theme support. Not everything is yet fully support though. Userscripts for example are supported as long as they do not use advanced metadata. This means most are supported while some are not.

Midori is an interesting web browser, especially for users who prefer bare bone systems that are resource friendly and therefor faster than comparable products. The web browser is available for Linux and Windows and can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

The problem arises, however, when we’ve got more than one space online where we’re present. And that’s true for a huge, and rapidly-growing, percentage of people. How do we keep interested people, whether it’s one person or ten million, in the know about all the different places we’re active?

The best solution is also the most expensive and time-consuming: creating, maintaining, and updating a personal website.  There’s something to be said for that, but what about all the people without the money, time, or interest in creating a whole website?

If you’re in that realm, try Card.ly, a service that aggregates and shares your entire online presence. It’s a personal website for those who don’t want a personal website.

The first step is to sign up: You’ll choose a password, and an email address. At the same time, you’ll pick a username: this will be the name used to find your page at the url http://card.ly/yourusername. Choose carefully, because that name becomes your brand (using the same name as your Twitter or Facebook page is a good idea).

Once you’ve signed up, you begin by adding social network accounts to Card.ly. Currently, the site supports, among a huge number of others: Blogger, Delicious, Digg, Disqus, Facebook, Flickr, Friendfeed, Google, Last.fm, Linkedin, MySpace, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Vimeo, WordPress and YouTube. And those are just the better-known ones – there are even more supported services.

To add a network, all you have to do is enter the username. There’s no need for passwords, so no security issues – since you can’t add information through Card.ly anyway, there’s no need for a password anyway.

Next, you’ll add some personal details about yourself – a bio of sorts. Add your name, birthday, gender, location, and pick an avatar (you can pick and choose among these – don’t share what you don’t want to). Add your IM accounts, RSS feeds, and whatever other information you want. Below it, there’s a space for a longer-form bio, as well as a space to put contact info – this is where to put an email, or a phone number you want people to be able to reach you at.

The design of the Card.ly site is your choice, too – well, out of 27 templates. They’re nice-looking, though, and most people should be able to find something useful from them. The design’s the last step, and then you’ve got a page that might look something like this:

Once you’ve got your Card.ly account set up how you want it, start sharing! Card.ly lets you send a message on Twitter about it, as well as tons of embed codes for various sites; or you can just share the URL of your profile anywhere on the Web.

If you want even more features (like registering your own domain, removing ads, or tracking all the statistics on your site) you’ll want to get a Premium account – either $2.99 a month or $24.99 a year. The free version, though, will be more than enough for most people.

If you’re looking to build a brand online, there’s no better way to do it than to have a personal website. If you don’t want to pour your time, money and energy into it, though, Card.ly makes simple work out of it.

How do you manage your presence online, especially across multiple places?

Photo: NathanaelB

Short films are not for anyone but they surely will reach a small but influential audience which like these kinds of promotions and ideas. Yes, the approach is pretty unique but will it really help to gain market share from competitors like Mozilla or Internet Explorer? That is highly doubtful. What it certainly does is to spread the word about the Google browser. And yes, some of the short films are nice to watch although it comes down to taste in the end.

You can watch all 11 short films about the Google browser over at the browser’s Youtube channel. If you do let us know if you like the idea.

The question to ask is therefor the following: Why is the Mozilla Firefox web browser more popular than the other three Internet Explorer contenders? Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is in a unique position as it is distributed automatically with the Windows operating system ensuring a large chunk of the web browser market share for Microsoft automatically.

A look at a comparison of all five web browsers at Google Trends and their search and news volume over the last five years reveals some interesting information. Firefox started to become the most searched after web browser in 2004 and was able to keep the lead until today. The other web browsers spiked at specific times, e.g. during the release of Google Chrome, but failed to take advantage of those spikes.

Mozilla Firefox (light blue line) definitely gets more press coverage than the other web browsers which might be one of the reasons for its popularity. If you open a computer magazine you will most likely find Firefox articles but rarely anything about Opera, Chrome or Safari.

Speed or compatibility are most likely not a deciding factor for the popularity as all web browsers are speedy and stable enough to provide a good user experience. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still lagging behind speed wise but the latest Internet Explorer 8 made a huge jump in this regards and is closing in on the other web browsers.

The main reason for Firefox’s success is its extensibility. Firefox add-ons are increasing the possibilities of the web browser enormously and they also ensure that any new popular feature that might be introduced by another web browser company will be offered to the Firefox community as well. The main advantage of this approach is speed. When Opera introduced Speed Dial it took only a short time before the first Firefox add-ons appeared that mimicked that feature.

Ten years ago it would have taken months or even years as those features would be implemented by the developers of the web browser directly. The add-ons ensure that Firefox stays on top or close to the top in all regards. This is something that no other web browser is offering currently. Microsoft tried with the Internet Explorer Marketplace but it never gained the popularity that it needed to take off. Opera tried with their Widgets. Widgets are small extra windows that provide many of the features that add-ons do. The main problem for many users is that the widgets cannot be integrated into the web browser’s interface. Both Safari and Chrome do not offer something similar yet. The extensibility is obviously not the only reason for the success but it makes a huge difference.

Now it’s time to chime in and let me hear your opinion. What do you think about web browser popularity?

The very same page lists a few known issues of the Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 web browser. This includes a Google Mail bug (can be resolved by reloading the page), no new window creation when dragging tabs on the desktop, choppy OGG audio and video playback on old computers and SSL website loading problems after returning from private browsing mode.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 will access the user profile on the computer if another version of the Firefox web browser is installed. Several of the installed Firefox add-ons are at this time not compatible with the latest beta version of Firefox and will fail to load unless the user forces compatibility with Nightly Tester Tools.

Users who do not want to mess with their default installation of the Firefox web browser can download and use a portable version of the beta instead.

Default Browser is a small software program that has been designed for Windows XP users who prefer to have more choice when selecting the default internet browser. The software application basically allows each user of the Windows XP operating system to select a personal default internet browser

The application will displayed a list of supported web browsers after start and also display the current default internet browser of the computer system. Supported are a wide range of internet browsers including Firefox, Firefox portable, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and several additional web browsers. There is even an option to select a internet browser by browsing the computer’s hard drive and selecting an executable manually.

The portable application has to be executed by every user of the Windows XP operating system wanting to select a different internet browser than the system’s default.