Opera users who have already been working with beta versions of the release will not find many (if any) changes to previous builds in this final versions. That’s however different for Opera users who have been waiting for the final version release before making the switch.

Opera 10.10 has Opera Unite build in. Opera Unite is probably the biggest change to previous Opera versions as it makes it possible to use the Opera web browser as a web server to use it for things like file sharing, photo hosting, media streaming, file synchronization or chatting. More than 30 applications for Opera Unite are already available and Opera is getting the community involved by running a competition for the best Opera Unite application where developers can win prices.

Opera 10.10 does make use of Opera Turbo as well, a compression based data transfer option to retrieve websites faster which works quite well for users with slow Internet connection. Opera 10.10 final can be downloaded from the main Opera website where it is available for download for all supported operating systems.

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# (NEW) Changes to how we allow third party software to integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.
# (NEW) The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.

Firefox users who are interested in upgrading to this latest beta version should read the known compatibility issues which are listed in the release notes to ensure that Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 will run properly on their system. Updates are available for all supported operating systems and languages. The easiest way to upgrade is to check for a new version from within Firefox by going to the Help > Check for Updates menu. Another option is to visit the official beta page to download the version of the web browser from there.

As usual this new beta version breaks a few add-ons which need to be forced to be compatible with the Nightly Tester Tools.

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Interested users can check out the list of changes in the release over at Bugzilla sorted by severity of the fix.

Firefox 3.6 beta 2 is available for download at the official Mozilla Firefox beta download page. It is available there for all supported operating systems and languages. Users who are already running an earlier version of Firefox 3.6 can also perform an update check in the Help menu to initiate the download and installation of the latest beta version directly from within the web browser.

The release notes are posted below:

What’s New in Firefox 3.6 Beta (revision 2)

Firefox 3.6 Beta is built on Mozilla’s Gecko 1.9.2 web rendering platform, which has been under development for several months and contains many improvements for web developers, Add-on developers and users. This version is also faster and more responsive than previous versions, and has been optimized to run on small device operating systems such as Windows CE and Maemo.

* More than 190 bug fixes from the last beta to improve performance, stability, security and features.
* This beta is available in more than 45 languages – get your local version.
* Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
* Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
* Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
* Support for the WOFF font format.
* Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
* Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

Have you been trying out Firefox 3.6 already? If so, what is your impression so far?

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If you already have Opera, you need to backup 3 files and rename them in order to get the Halloween experience:

1. Open menu “Help” » “About Opera”.
2. Find the path to the catalog with user data (”Path” » “Preferences”) and copy the address
3. Close Opera
4. Open the catalog with user data found above (for Windows: “Start” » “Run” » paste the address you copied before)
5. Remove or rename the following files:
* bookmarks.adr
* speeddial.ini
* operaprefs.ini
6. Install the customized version (without removing the previous one)

The download basically consists of the latest official version of the Opera web browser (which is Opera 10.01) and the custom Halloween theme which consists of a Halloween themed speed dial background image.

Even better than that single speed dial background that gets shipped with the Opera Halloween edition are additional speed dial backgrounds for Halloween that are available on the Opera website. If you do not like the standard one you simply can download and use another of the speed dial backgrounds. You can download the Opera Halloween edition from the Opera blog post where it was announced in.

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The first release candidate of Seamonkey 2.0 has been published on the Mozilla Seamonkey project page. Interested users can download the Internet suite for all supported operating systems (Windows, OSX and Linux) and languages. A page full of changes relative to the latest Seamonkey 1.0 stable release has been posted by the developers. The list is huge. Some of the noteworthy additions include session restore, tabbed mail, switch to the Toolkit backend used by Firefox, improved password manager and download manager, update of the Gecko rendering engine and dropped support for Windows NT 4, Windows 9x, Windows ME and Mac OSX 10.3.

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The guys at Betanews have tested the latest alpha release version of Firefox 3.6 and came to the conclusion that the new version increases performance by 22.8% compared to the latest official release version Firefox 3.5.3. This performance does not come near the performance of Webkit based browsers yet but it shows dedication to close the gap between the browsers.

It remains to be seen on the other hand if most users will notice the 22.8% performance increase in Firefox 3.6 Beta or if it is just more a figure without real values to everyday users. Performance is definitely not everything. The fastest web browser in the test, Google Chrome 3, does not pass the Acid 3 test which Opera 10 for example does.

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The jump to version 2 of the web browser backup software brings support for Opera 10 and Flock 2.5 (next to the already existing support for Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 2.9 to Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 1 to Google Chrome 4, Safari 3 and 4, Opera 9 and Flock 3). This should cover the most used web browsers in the Windows operating system.

One of the great additions in FavBackup 2 is support for portable web browsers. It is now possible to select a custom location for the user profile for Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari and Flock. It is furthermore possible to select any of the identified profiles of the supported web browsers directly.

Other changes in this release are the new ribbon interface, a progress bar, different themes for the backup program, 40% less computer memory usage and minor bug fixes. The new additions make FavBackup 2 a recommended program for web browser backups, especially if multiple different web browsers are installed and used in a computing environment.

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Google decided that it was time to educate the masses about web browsers. The first step was the production of a one minute video that explains in plain English what a web browser is and is not. Most tech savvy users would probably call the video web browsers for dummies or something like that.

The video begins with the statement that the web browser is the most important software on computer systems. That’s definitely a bold statement and in most cases not likely to be true. Take a look at the rest of the video to see how they explain web browsers.

Google has also created the website What Browser which contains textual information about web browsers. Not only about Google Chrome but also Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer. Some pages of the website contain tips that might be useful for users who came there not knowing what a web browser is while the graphs, charts and web benchmark section is probably not suited at all for a website like this. The website does offer direct links to the homepages of the five web browser developers which is probably the most useful part of it right now.

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Fake videos showcasing the new Google Chrome OS have been making their rounds on the Internet in the last months. There have not been on the other hand lots of attempts to turn an existing Linux distribution into something that resembles the Google Chrome OS.

Chrome OS is one of the first attempts. It is offered as a Live CD and virtual image currently. Chrome OS uses a GNOME 2.24 desktop environment with the Google Chrome 4.0.207 web browser integrated. Several other programs like Open Office or Flash Player have also been integrated into the distribution.

To be 100% clear here. This is a custom Linux distribution and not the official Google Chrome OS. It still resembles the operating system and can be used as a Live CD to run the Google Chrome web browser on Linux. Interested users can download the Live CD or the virtual image from the Chrome OS Linux website.

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The Firefox add-on and bookmarklet PageZipper provides a solution to Internet users who are fed up with those websites. It’s most basic function is to append the next page to the existing one once the PageZipper button has been pressed once while the tab of the website is active in the web browser. The next page will then be automatically appended from then on until the tab is closed or the user navigates away from the starting url (e.g. by clicking on a link).

PageZipper displays an icon in the upper right corner of the screen that can be used to navigate the different pages that have been loaded. A more comfortable solution is to use the Ctrl [down or up] Arrow key to navigate the pages. The same keyboard shortcut can also be used to quickly navigate between images on a website again with the added benefit that the next page is automatically added to the end of the current one. This makes it much easier to navigate in image galleries. PageZipper can also automatically resize images so that they fit the browser window.

The bookmarklet works basically the same way as the Firefox add-on. This actually means that it does not make lots of sense to use the Firefox add-on as it does not offer any kind of benefit over the bookmarklet. Missing options that would make the Firefox add-on worth the install would be keyboard shortcuts to turn on and off the Pagezipper function on a page and a whitelist to automatically turn it on when visiting specific pages.These features are currently missing and it would be nice to see them added in a future update.

The Firefox add-on is available at the Mozilla website while the bookmarklet can be dragged and dropped in a web browser toolbar from the developer’s website.

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The most obvious difference between version 1 and 2 of the design mockups is the loading bar that has been placed above each tab in the Internet browser. That’s actually a clever way of indicating the page loading status to the user. The current release version of Firefox displays a loading icon but no progress bar.

The bookmarks toolbar has also be added again to the Firefox interface. If you remember it was not included in the first design mockups that have been posted a few months ago. The menu bar has been replaced with a single page button that leads to the menus. That’s a big change for users who do not use add-ons like Tiny Menu which offer this functionality more or less in current versions of Firefox.

You can check out the new Firefox 3.7 design mockups for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP at the Mozilla Wiki.

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Google Chrome Frame is basically an Internet Explorer plugin that allows Internet Explorer users to use the Google Chrome engine instead of the Internet Explorer engine. So far so good. The major problem here is that the Google Chrome engine only kicks in if it is detected by a website that is supporting it. The other limitation is that users need to be able to install plugins to use it. Home environments usually do not impose web browser limitations to the user which leaves corporate environments as the most likely targets.

These however usually secure Internet Explorer to a point where users cannot do fancy things like installing plugins or changing core settings. There might be businesses with lower security standards but the majority is probably dead serious about security.

Which leaves two types of users who might be a target.

• Users who work exclusively with Internet Explorer and like to use Google Chrome Frame on some websites to experience better performance and technology support.
• Users who are forced to work with Internet Explorer, like Google Chrome better and are allowed to install plugins.

The plugin has a size of about 500 Kilobytes and will download Google Chrome during the installation process. Check out the plugin’s homepage for additional information and downloads. It is compatible with Internet Explorer 8, 7 and 6. If you give it a try let us know how you feel about it. Google is a bit shy about test pages not listing a single one on the project page yet. Users do have the option to force the Google Chrome Frame plugin to take over by adding cf: in front of any url.

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The Firefox add-on Cache Viewer offers a third option. It is basically a gui frontend for the browser cache viewer. Its advantage over the two original solutions to view the cache are numerous. This includes a visual preview of the cached item which is extremely helpful to identify images that have been placed in the cache.

It is possible to sort by url, size, mime type, cache location or date. Another handy option is the ability to use the search form to locate specific files or file types.

Additional information about a selected cache item are displayed next to the visual preview area including the expiration date and connection headers. A right-click on one or multiple images will open a context menu with options to save the selected items to the local hard drive, to delete them or to open them in the web browser.

Cache Viewer is available for Firefox 3 and can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

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There are various options to test a website in different versions of Internet Explorer. Some, like IETester, make it possible to install multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same computer system. Others, like Browsershots, are online tools that can test a website in various web browsers as well.

A third possibility is now offered by Microsoft directly in the form of virtual PC images. Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 are provided as virtual PC images. It is possible to download a virtual PC image for each web browser running under Windows XP or Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 images running under Windows Vista.

The Windows XP images have a size of around 600 Megabytes each while the Windows Vista images triple that size. The only limitation is an expiration date for the virtual PC images. The Windows XP images will expire in January 2010 while the Vista images will expire 120 days after their first execution. These expiration dates make the virtual PC images a less than favorable solution but its probably better than not testing the various editions of Internet Explorer at all.

Users who are interested in the virtual PC images can download them directly from the Microsoft website.

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• Sleek design — Opera Mini 5 features a new, intuitive and advanced look and feel.
• Tabbed browsing — This desktop favorite is now available for Opera Mini. Tabs allow users to browser several sites simultaneously. This helps users easily jump from one page to another with the click of a tab.
• Touchscreen or keypad browsing — Opera Mini caters to the needs of your phone, offering optimal browsing for both touchscreen and keypad-based phones.
• Password manager — Opera Mini is a virtual memory bank, securely saving all passwords for e-mail, social-networking sites, online banking and more.
• Speed Dial — This is our take on a table of contents for your Web adventure. Opera’s Speed Dial will greet you with your pre-selected Internet favorites upon loading the browser.

The Opera developers have released a video that demonstrates the functionality of Opera Mini 5.

Mobile users who are interested in testing the new Opera 5 Mini web browser can point their mobile devices to m.opera.com/next to download it directly from the device or to the download page at the Opera website to download it to their PC.

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The web browsers of the test were: Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5.2 with and without adblock add-on, Google Chrome 2, Opera 9.64, 10.0b3 and Safari 4. Three laptops were used in the test. Two entry level Gateway laptops with AMD and Intel cpus and the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA netbook.

Gateway NV52

Gateway NV58

Asus EEE PC 1005HA

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 is the web browser that drains the least amount of battery on the two entry level laptops. Most other web browsers with the exception of Safari come close to that results, especially Firefox with the adblock add-on. The benefit of the adblock add-on suggests that web advertisement does have an impact on battery usage. Safari 4 is the only web browser in the test that performed worst in all three tests.

Google Chrome 2 was first in the netbook test with all other web browsers close by except for Safari which completely drained the battery of the netbook more than two hours earlier than the other web browsers.

Even if the test needs to be replicated with a larger website sample size it seems to indicate that laptop users are better off without the Safari web browser. Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Firefox with adblock and Google Chrome were the best performing web browsers in the test.

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Today Google finally released Google Chrome 3 to the public. Users who are currently using Google Chrome 2 will see an update prompt soon to update to the new release. Everyone else can simply go to the Google Chrome website and download the latest official public release of the browser right there.

The official Google blog has published some benchmarks and other information that shall help convince users to switch to version 3 of the Google browser. The benchmarks show the performance of different releases of Google Chrome with Google Chrome 3 being the fastest and most powerful yet.

Users who have only used Google Chrome in the past will be able to access several new features besides the performance, compatibility and stability gains: This includes a new tab page which is shown when the user opens a blank new tab in the web browser. Other changes include HTML5 capabilities, additions to the Omnibox (the address bar of the browser) and theme support.

Best of all; The confusion is reduced as there are only two versions of the web browser out there currently. The stable Google Chrome 3 which is offered publicly and the developer version that has already reached version 4 and is therefor called Google Chrome 4. It is likely that the confusion will grow again once Google decides to release developer versions of Google Chrome 5.

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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.

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The Strata 40 theme for Firefox is probably the most complete theme yet as it combines not only a Firefox theme but also add-ons and userscripts that need to be installed to look like the Firefox 4 design mockup. Several versions of the theme are possible depending on the add-ons and scripts that are installed next to it. This somewhat reflects the various designs that have been posted by the Firefox designers (e.g. tabs on top or normal position for tabs).

Links to all add-ons and userscripts that are needed to make the theme look similar to Firefox 4 designs are posted on the theme’s page at the Mozilla website. Here is the list for your convenience:

• Download and install the Strata 40 theme.
• Install Strata Glass add-on for glass effects in Windows Vista and Windows 7. [optional]
• Install Personal Menu add-on for Bookmarks and Tools buttons in the toolbar. [optional]
• Install Fisson add-on for progress line features. [optional]
• Install the Stylish add-on and the Tabs on Top userstyle to move the tabs to the top of the web browser. [optional]
• Install the Omnibar add-on to add search functionality to the address bar. [optional]

The result is a elegant theme for the Firefox 3 web browser.

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There are some launch parameters that are used more often than others. The parameter to enable extensions is definitely in the top list especially with the recent increase in extensions that get released for the Google browser.

Google finally made the decision to turn on extensions by default in all Google Chrome dev releases that are released in the future (Google Chrome 4.x). Users of the latest stable release of the web browser (Google Chrome 2.x) and those of the development builds of Google Chrome 3.x are still stuck with either no extension support at all or the need to enable it by launching Google Chrome with the command line parameter.

It is also not clear if the developers will enable extension support by default when they release Google Chrome 3 final.

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