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Mozilla chief: Microsoft ballot screen leaves IE ‘uniquely privileged’

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:29:03 +0000

In the first comprehensive statement representing Mozilla's viewpoint on the issue of Microsoft's compliance with the European Commission's recent Statement of Objections, Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker wrote earlier this week that a "ballot screen" giving Windows 7 installers the option of setting up Firefox or another browser instead, is not enough to level the playing field. Internet Explorer, Baker fears, will continue to received favored placement elsewhere in the system, including on the desktop and the taskbar. "Choosing another browser as a 'default' does not mean that the other browser takes the place of IE," Baker writes. "For example, the IE logo ('shortcut') still remains unchanged on the desktop. The shortcut / logo of the browser the user has selected does not replace this, it is added elsewhere. As a result, the familiar location remains IE, not the user's choice." Baker's comments come in response to Microsoft's suggestions to the European Commission about how it can best comply with the lawmaking body's demands -- suggestions which await the EC's formal response upon return from summer vacation. Those suggestions, as far as we know, have not included actual software demonstrations, but rather screenshots of mockups of how such a ballot screen may be presented. Indeed, one of those screenshots as presented publicly by Microsoft itself does show an Internet Explorer logo adorning the title bar of the window where the browser screen appears. Although this screenshot does not necessarily depict how the end result of Microsoft's work might appear, if the company left a few too many of these little logos in its other screenshots presented to the EC -- for instance, in the taskbar or on the desktop -- it might have left holes for its own arguments, holes that Mitchell Baker and others are already discovering. "Even if everything in the currently proposed settlement is implemented in the most positive way," she writes, "IE will still have a unique and uniquely privileged position on Windows installations." Source : http://www.betanews.com/

Firefox 3.5 vs. Chrome 3 Showdown – Running Web apps

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:54:07 +0000

While some are still sounding the trumpets over Google's proclamation that its Chrome Web browser technology will be elevated to the role of operating system sometime next year, there are some Web applications engineers who wonder why it isn't one already. Once Chrome 3 is proclaimed fully functional on Linux, it will essentially make the same Web applications accessible from the desktop that Chrome OS plans to do. And if you don't mind the fact that the Chrome 3 Web browser is in the development stage, whether you're running Linux or Windows XP on your netbook, it does that right now. Though I've made the point before that most businesses and a majority of consumers today still prefer Microsoft Office, there will be a small, though potentially beneficial, market of consumers who appreciate the flexibility and versatility that a Web application may offer. If they can suffer through the bugs, users will have the opportunity to produce some respectable, if not altogether spectacular, documents. But what is there for users to gain by installing these Web apps on their desktops, and use them like software installed on their computers, as opposed to simply running them in their browsers? If "the Web is the platform," as Google likes to say, then Chrome 3 provides that platform with a front door. For Mozilla Firefox 3.5, it's more of a side door, but a door nonetheless: The organization offers a plug-in called Prism that enables Firefox users to convert any active Web page into a browser-less application. With the understanding that Google Apps, one of the most prominent Web application suites, might have an automatically easy time running in Chrome, and that Microsoft's Web applications are geared around Internet Explorer (and require separate downloads), we decided to test both Chrome and Prism with Web apps produced by groups other than Mozilla and Google, and other than Microsoft. Specifically, we chose: Zoho, a complete suite that uses Google Gears but was not built with Google's direct assistance; Buzzword, part of Adobe's Acrobat.com online suite; and Pixlr, an online photo editing tool that uses filters and layers.

Getting the browser out of the way

One refreshing option offered by both Prism and Chrome 3, to both manufacturers' credit, is the option to frame the Web app with nothing other than a plain window. At this most basic level, you're given no clue as to whose platform is hosting the app -- nothing on the window, no "About" box, nothing to right-click to see a trademark. The application appears to own the window without any obstruction from foreign manufacturers, and that's as it should be. For testers, though, it merely poses the minor problem of forcing them to remember which platform they launched each app in. It's worth noting here that Chrome doesn't display converted Web apps in a "Chrome window" -- in other words, it's not sensitive ...

Bing vs. Google : Who’s getting better, quicker?

admin — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:13:13 +0000

Two months ago, Microsoft unveiled its revamped Bing search service, touting it as a "decision engine." There were some genuine new advantages which we did discover, but not everything appeared ready for Bing's first outing, and we were told to expect improvements to some features "in the coming weeks." Not months, weeks. So this is August, and (do forgive me) what hath Bing brung? In our June series of Face-offs, the final score was Google (4), Bing (3) -- not necessarily a runaway, but good enough for the champion to not feel immediately threatened. With Google testing improvements to its search engine, we wondered if we'd find any evidence of tweaking on Bing's side as well. We've decided to put both services through the same paces a second time to see which service is the one that's really gunning for a rematch. Obscure literary quotes. In our very first heat last June, Bing did a good job of identifying a passage from psychologist Carl Jung, but Google took us straight to the book. This time, we wondered whether Bing or Google could pull up the identity of a translated poem that is itself excerpted, perhaps only once in modern literary history, in a semi-obscure work of fiction. The original source of the poem is an English-language translation of the Diamond Sutra, a statement of the Buddhist faith believed to be the oldest printed book in existence. It could be translated many ways, so the specific English translation we used might give away its translator.

Thus-Gone to Thus-Gone, I with a Buddha's hand
Offer the unplucked flower, the frog's soliloquy
Among the lotus leaves, the milk-smeared mouth
At my full breast and love, like the cloudless
Sky that makes possible mountains and setting moon,
This emptiness that is the womb of love,
This poetry of silence.

The translator in this case is Aldous Huxley, who cited it in one of his last works of fiction, Island. To begin, we tried the first line of the excerpt, which is so unique that it could only apply to either Island or to some discussion of the Diamond Sutra. Item #1 from Google was a page of Huxley's various poems from the same book, while #2 led to a Google Books excerpt from Island itself. No mention of the Diamond Sutra, but still a correct identification. Bing returned six results for the query as opposed to Google's two, and the #1 result was the same page of Huxley's poem excerpts from a site devoted specifically to the book, Island.org. But #5 on Bing's list was a surprise: a link not to Google Books, but to an independent researcher's page devoted to Aldous Huxley where the entire text of the book could also be found. Granted, the excerpt in question wasn't automatically highlighted like in Google Books, but it wouldn't take but ...

Opera Picks up Steam With Speedy 10.0 Beta 3

admin — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:04:02 +0000

Beta is mostly solid with a few rough edges

Over the last few years Opera, a veteran player in the browser industry, has been turning heads by delivering increasingly user-friendly products. While such praise is typically lavished on Firefox, Opera's Speed Dial and synchronization features help set it apart. In fact, the president of Futuremark, Oliver Baltuch, admits that while Opera isn't the fastest browser, he finds it the most pleasant to use for his personal use.

With Opera's first two betas of its upcoming 10.0 browser, it came a long ways to closing the speed gap between it and Chrome/Safari. In the popular SunSpider benchmark, though, the third Opera beta still lags behind Firefox 3.5. Nonetheless, the third beta does offer noticeable speed increases, as well as new customizations.

The exciting thumbnail preview feature, similar to Aero Peek in Windows 7 and a canceled feature of Firefox 3.5, is now customizable and can appear to the right or left and on the top or bottom of the screen. The browser's crash logger has been improved, as has the turbo mode, a feature which uses Opera's servers to compress data for faster browsing. The new beta also features improved language support -- 38 languages are now supported. Other popular features present in the other betas return, including inline spell checking, an integrated email client, and a web feed reader. The browser also scores a perfect 100 on the challenging Acid3 test, thanks to its strong standards support. Still, the browser does have its rough edges. Security is rather poor, though much of Microsoft's protections (such as anti-phishing, and detecting malicious URLs) typically are not needed by more web savvy users (though you can't always count on your friends, family, or a significant other being as knowledgeable). Furthermore, some pages that have been designed around the Firefox/IE 8 duopoly may have minor quirks. For example, dynamically resizing Office-like windows in blogs sometimes experience an odd glitch where they get stuck in an infinite downscroll when the typed text hits the bottom of the box (triggering a resize in Firefox). Again, this probably isn't the fault of Opera or its rendering engine (Presto), but rather is an unfortunate inevitability ...