The gold bits of Firefox 3.0 went live on June 17, 2008, over half a year past the initially planned launch which was targeted for the end of 2007. At just a few days short of the first two months on the market for the successor of Firefox 2.0, users of Mozilla’s open source browser now have access not only to the download version of Firefox 3.0, but also to the CD. Via Mozilla’s store, Firefox 3.0 CDs go for $4.20 a pop in the U.S. and £3.00 per item for additional international markets.
“With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before,” reads a fragment from the description of the browser. “Dozens of new features including the “awesome” bar, one-click bookmarking, full zoom, advanced tabbed browsing and blindingly fast performance. Instant Web Site ID and other security features keep you safe from scammers and spammers. Over 5000 add-ons let you customize your web experience to your personal needs.” Read the rest of this entry »
Can’t find the right image to use for your Live Messenger character? Help is at hand from the new minimise me website. This has an online designer for creating a new avatar for Live Messenger software. Once installed they will appear as the character picture in conversations and also as four different emoticons to use in conversations.
It is simple to use although it is sometimes a little slow to respond when clicking on some of the icons, but this is common complaint with web based editors and it is a limitation with the technology as a whole. Read the rest of this entry »
There are few things more depressing than searching for something on one of the major Search Engines only to get back tens of thousands or even millions of hits. You know the answer is in there somewhere, but where? Refining your search terms can help, but here’s something else to try. Install SurfCanyon on your Firefox browser and the next time you search for something, click the little SurfCanyon bull’s-eye icon next to the top hit and check out its recommendations. Obviously it can’t work miracles but after trying it for a couple of weeks I have to say it’s quite impressive and more often than not its suggested results get you to where you want to go a lot quicker then trudging through pages of hits.
Most of the Firefox users I know have a lot of addons, no matter if they’re running Firefox 2 or Firefox 3. Now, the problem appears when some of those addons start crashing, or when Firefox ends up eating huge amounts of memory. Yesterday, I read an older article on CybernetNews about having 200 addons installed in Firefox, and this made me think about taking things to a whole new level… Since all that was happening back in 2006, when Firefox 3 was not ready yet, and to have 200 addons installed and notice how the browser behaved with one or two sites opened is already a bit outdated, I decided to try and go for a new Firefox 3 world record as of 2008!
Obviously, things are not that easy as it seems, because I have a really rough ride in mind for Mozilla’s pet, my computer, and myself as a user. Here’s what I want to do: Read the rest of this entry »
On its official website, Opera describes the latest version of its browser as “beautifully engineered”. However, it looks like Opera 9.50 was made available to end users before the cooking process was ready. After the release of the gold version of Opera 9.50 on June 12, 2008, the feedback starting pouring in, and it was not a pretty sight. As a direct consequence of the user input, Opera is now scrambling to make available version 9.51, designed to resolve all the issues introduced with Opera 9.50.
“Discover the new standard in Web browsing. Download Opera today to get the fastest and most powerful Web browser available and make the most of your time online,” is a message on the official Opera welcoming page. And while the evolution of version 9.5 over its predecessor is indisputable, the fact is that so are the many problems plaguing the browser. June 25, 2008 saw the offering of Opera 9.51 Build 10074 Release Candidate 1, and as of June 30 users can also grab Opera 9.51 RC2 Build 10080. Read the rest of this entry »