Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

Interesting column about a switcher who switched because Chrome was faster for him.
Years ago, Firefox won me over chiefly with plug-ins, tabbed browsing, and some security advantages. But using Chrome removed a bit of friction from Web I hadn’t realized was there. It felt like discovering I’d been driving with the parking brake on just [...]

There’s a new beta release out.
Google just released a new beta version of Chrome, Google’s first web browser, which addresses a number of issues we had noticed in earlier releases. Besides improving the performance and stability of a number of plugins, including Flash, Sliverlight, and Quicktime, as well as fixing some security issues, Google also [...]

Latest release of Camino is available.

In the 0.8.3 release, we have fixed the following:
* Location bar shows secure status of page so it’s more obvious.
* Added support for HTML tag in select widget drop-down menu.
* Passwords are now filled in framesets.
[...]

Interesting tidbits about IE and safety.

According to Brussels-based ScanIT, users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) were “unsafe” 98 percent of the time during 2004, while Mozilla users — which would include those using Mozilla and Firefox — were “unsafe” only 15 percent of last year.
ScanIT determined the unsafe periods by examining the life spans of [...]

I wish I could say I was excited about this but I’m not.
Last month, Microsoft decided that Internet Explorer could use a bit of a touch-up prior to the release of Longhorn next year. As a result, Windows XP SP2 users will be able to test drive a public beta of Internet Explorer 7.0 [...]

Good for them, makes sense.
Yahoo has confirmed plans to allow Firefox users to access all the portal giant’s products and services, many of which are currently only available through Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.
In February, Yahoo launched a search toolbar for Firefox, but users of the open-source browser were forced to revert back to IE to [...]

Mossberg doesn’t seem to be too impressed by it.
Finally, I found the browser to be slow, and somewhat prone to crashes. This is probably due to its beta status, and it’s something AOL pledges to fix, along with some other problems, such as the fact that only eight tabs for Web pages can be [...]

It’s out.

America Online’s Netscape team has opened its doors to the public, releasing the first beta of the revived Netscape Web browser. Based upon Firefox, Netscape version 8 focuses on security and user privacy, and supports rendering with both Mozilla’s Gecko and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser engines.
Does anybody care though? I’m not rushing [...]

Great, I’m happy to see this continuing.
While Mozilla Firefox has slowed its growth pace, the open-source browser still is making enough inroads to knock Microsoft’s Internet Explorer below 90 percent user share for the first time in three years.
Web browser user-share data released Monday show that Firefox’s rate of growth has dropped slightly since its [...]

The update is out. I’ve downloaded it but haven’t installed it yet.

The first update to open-source browser Firefox is out. Released late yesterday, Firefox 1.0.1 aims to fix a slew of vulnerabilities. Foremost among those are domain-spoofing and cross-site scripting bugs. According to the Mozilla Foundation, 1.0.1’s release was pushed forward in order to [...]