Tag: web browser
Firefox 3.6.4 Released: Flash No Longer Crashes Your Browser
by Ranju Chaudhary on Jun.23, 2010, under Latest Web Technologies, What's Happening?
After some delays, Mozilla has released Firefox 3.6.4, the newest version of the popular web browser. It comes with one big addition: protection against crashing due to third-party plugins, most notably Adobe Flash.
The updated browser, which you can download here, comes with dozens of bug fixes and stability upgrades. What the average user will care about most though is Firefox
crash protection, something that is a prominent feature of Google Chrome
.
Crash protection utilizes out-of-process plugins technology to run third-party plugins (specifically Flash, Quicktime, and Silverlight) in a separate process. In the past, a plugin crash would take down your entire Firefox browser. With crash protection however, “the browser will stay running while the portions of websites controlled by the plugin will be disabled.” It only takes a refresh to restart the plugin.
There is a catch, though: only Windows and Linux users have access to crash protection. According to Mozilla, making crash protection available to Mac OS X users would require major changes to Firefox’s infrastructure. However, the non-profit promises that it will become available for Mac users in Firefox 4, which should ship by the end of the year.
Opera Mini Browser, Coming to an iPhone Near You
by neetika on Mar.24, 2010, under Gadgets, Trends
Opera Software on Tuesday announced that it is submitting its Opera Mini Web browser to Apple for use on the iPhone.
The Norwegian company boasts that Opera is the most-used browser on mobile devices; it offers a version of the software for Windows Mobile phones, Google Android and the Nintendo DS game system.
The Opera team said they are confident their new browser will be approved for the iPhone, but the final say is still up to the gatekeepers at Apple who are known to block applications in the iTunes store for any number of random reasons.
Last week I had a chance to sit down with Opera’s co-founder, Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, to see an early version of the new iPhone software. The new browser loaded pages extremely quickly, as you can see in the video below, and manages to integrate some unique features that are currently available in its desktop browser. Some of the highlights include unlimited tabbed browsing and the ability to search the content of a Web page — an important feature that is currently unavailable on the Safari mobile browser made by Apple.
The software was missing an important feature on the iPhone: the ability to resize a page by pinching a page with both fingers. Mr. Tetzchner said this could be added to the software with a later update.
The Opera browser loads Web pages rapidly by using a technology called server-side rendering, which compresses most aspects of a Web site on a server, sometimes reducing the load time of 90 percent of a Web page, before sending the data along to a phone’s browser.
Mr. Tetzchner pitched the new Opera browser as a way to reduce roaming charges when traveling.
Opera Software says its mission is to make a browser for any computer and mobile phone.
