Avencius

Opera Software has released the latest version of their web browser, Opera 10.60. Unlike previous 10.x releases there is no limitation on platforms, Windows, Linux and Mac releases are simultaneous once again.

Besides being the first stable Linux release there are some other goodies inside this package. Carakan, the newly written JavaScript engine found in Opera 10.50 has been tweaked and enhanced to bring up to 50% more speed, staying on the heels of Google Chrome. Other changes include support for more HTML5 standards and WebM, the open video codec from Google used for instance on YouTube. Lastly there is now geo-location support as well as search suggestions, helping you to make the right search queries.

Existing Opera users may find their web browser prompting for the update, but it's also triggered from the Help menu. The full download is available from Opera's site, and includes all the changes inside described in the changelog.

Mozilla Links has a nice short post on the recent theme changes that landed on the trunk, where main development for Firefox 4 occurs.

Similar to Opera, or Opera was similar to Firefox' concept art, who cares anyway, there is now a "Firefox" button (labeled Minefield due to being a nightly) that offers the basic menu functionality which is now hidden by default. The menu button itself has a layout of menu items which is based on a hotspot (thermal) image of user activity and should host the most important functionality. The loss of the menu bar (which can be re-enabled by the way) is traded for more vertical space, which is important since we mostly have more horizontal space these days due to widescreen displays.

Other well deserved changes include support for Aero glass, which is finally coming while since Vista this has been a pain in the butt for those who like esthetically pleasing Windows apps. The tab bar is now on-top, similar to Opera and Chrome, in which Alex Faaborg goes in-depth to explain the choice (once more, yes you can change this back).

As you can see some important puzzle pieces are in place for the first beta of Firefox 4 which should appear somewhere in the coming weeks. It looks like Firefox is finally making a serious effort to be "there" in the usability area once again.

Probably the longest test run ever for a Firefox maintenance release, but then again, it's unusually interesting this time.

• Firefox 3.6.4 provides uninterrupted browsing for Windows and Linux users when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.
• If a plugin crashes or freezes, it will not affect the rest of Firefox. You will be able to reload the page to restart the plugin and try again.
• Fixed several security issues.
• Fixed several stability issues.

For a complete list of changes, see Bugzilla. You can download the binary and upgrade your existing installation, the auto-update system should be triggered automatically (or from the Help menu).

Update: Skipping 3.6.5 all together, Firefox 3.6.6 has been released, which increases the time-out counter to determine crashed plug-ins. Previously this was set too low, which was causing problems for older machines running Firefox.

Opera Software released a new version of their web browser, Opera 10.54. This release includes several important fixes, and is therefore a recommended update to all existing users.

• Prevented Opera from being used as a vector for a font issue in the underlying operating system, as reported by Microsoft's security team; see our advisory.
• Fixed an extremely severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a highly severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a moderately severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.
• Fixed a less severe issue; details will be disclosed at a later date.

You can update Opera by selecting a check from the Help menu, if it didn't appear automatically. It's also possible to download and update your current release with the installer.

Opera Software released the first beta of Opera 10.60. As the version number increase suggests, it's a minor update. As an Opera release suggests, minor in Norwegian terms means more than the average release.

The focus on this release has been performance and core updates. First is Carakan, which was already impressive to start with. Opera Software seems reluctant to let Google Chrome win the race, so Carakan performs even better in this release, with up to 75% improvement. HTML5 support has been increased to allow features like WebM codec support for video (from Google I/O), geolocation, web workers, offline web applications, cross-document messaging and more. Other noticeable features are search suggestions (for selected search engines), polished visual effects (such as tab thumbnails and Speed Dial), Opera "Menu" button (instead of just the "O"), iconic representations of features (history, downloads), and much more.

You can download the release from Opera's official site and includes the English language version for Windows, Linux and Mac. As always, you can leave your feedback behind on the Opera Desktop Team's blog. Enjoy your ride!

Yesterday at the yearly WWDC, Apple released the fifth major version of Safari, the popular default browser in Mac OS X. With the recent demonstrations of HTML5 as well as hard words in the direction of Adobe, Safari 5 shows Apple's truthfulness in supporting the upcoming standard.

Safari 5 comes with five major features: Safari Reader, greater HTML5 support, better performance, and Bing search. Safari Reader is an interesting new feature, it detects if you're reading articles and offers GUI tools that trigger isolation of the content, which pops-up and grays out the rest for easy reading. HTML5 support has been extended and supports full screen video (tag) with captions, location services and more. Better performance means a leaner and faster Nitro-engine that on the Mac platform at least fights off Chrome 5's V8 in SunSpider by 3%. Bing search support (is this a feature?) has been added and is, well what you expect of it (where's the management of search engines by users?). Of course there's a lot more in this release, including the return of the favored progress bar from previous Safari releases that uses the entire address bar to be blue.

However, there is just one more thing I want to get back to, Safari 5 now has a Safari Developer Program. Later this summer the Safari Extensions gallery will open up, which allows users to download Safari 5 extensions to extend the basic functionality that Apple offers. Extensions can be created with HTML5 in combination with CSS3 and JavaScript and are signed with an Apple provided signature. Safari 5 uses the sandbox principle for extensions, which should protect the user's privacy and security.

Safari 5 is available both for Windows and Mac. If you already have a Windows version installed, the Apple's Software Update application should pick it up (the shortcut is in your start menu). Mac users can get the Safari 5 update through the OS' software update (Apple logo -> Software Update...). If you don't have Safari or want the binary for your downloads folder, you can get it from Apple Safari's web site.

The what, what? Yes, I know. The UX team behind Firefox have updated their plans for the in-content UI visual unification for Firefox 4 (and beyond). And if you're like me, you know that anything Stephen Horlander posts, looks gorgeous to begin with (and often makes sense).

One of the Firefox UX team’s priorities for Firefox 4 (and beyond) has been working towards moving stuff to the in-content UI. With stuff I mean dialogs like the Add-ons Manager, which is now a separate window, that appears once you select it from the menu. The in-content UI is much like the basic idea in Opera and Chrome, where for instance the bookmarks manager lives in a tab of the current browser window and not separately.

However the UX team is moving beyond just the Add-ons manager and even includes preferences, about:config, phishing detection, session restore and TabCandy. TabCandy is especially interesting, as it shows the concept of grouping tabs in a cell (area).

You can go to Stephen Horlander's blog for a multitude of concept images. Seeing this I can hardly wait for the first beta of Firefox to appear this month. Not only does it finally looks like it feels at home in Windows 7's Aero, but it also shows improvement UI concept beyond just mimicking the competition and certainly stands firm on its own.

Through the means of the Opera Desktop Team's blog, a first alpha build of Opera 10.6 has been made available. Although minor its version increase, it does offer some interesting tidbits.

I guess the most important promise coming from Opera Software is that Opera 10.6 is the very first synchronous release of Opera in a while, meaning it will be simultaneously be released for Windows, Linux and Mac. But there is more! Carakan in Opera 10.5 was a big first step, a direct confrontation with V8, leaving behind Nitro (Safari) and TraceMonkey (Firefox). In this release Carakan has been improved even further, causing a noticeable increase that possibly beats Chrome 5's V8 update.

Other changes include UI tweaks, such as "menu" text next to the "O" button on Windows in the top left. This button, as the label suggests, holds the replacement menu for Opera (although you can swap back to the traditional menu bar as well). Other tweaks include widescreen thumbnails for Speed Dial, nicer animations when hovering tabs and their thumbnails. For the Mac more Carbon was removed (and dynamically loaded) leading to better performance overall.

You can test this early build by downloading it from the Opera Desktop Team's blog, be sure to leave some feedback for them to find!

Finally, after a long journey of waiting, releases and looking jealously at all those Windows users, it's here. Google released Chrome 5 for all three major platforms, delivering their promise to support both Mac and Linux as well.

Not only is this the first cross-platform release for Google, but it's also a new major release by itself. One of the new features is actually an extension of the bookmarks sync functionality. In Chrome 5 it's now possible to sync settings. It's also possible to configure extensions to work in Incognito-mode (by default everything is off). Suffice to say that extensions work cross-platform as they are build using the latest web technologies on top of Chrome's public API. Talking about the web, Chrome 5 includes several HTML5 additions, such as: Geolocation APIs, App Cache, Web Sockets, and file drag-and-drop (as demoed at the Google I/O with Gmail). Other features include a revamped bookmark manager (feels more like Opera now, as it works in a tab) as well as a currently disabled integrated Flash Player. Yes, Flash, disabled. In the near future when Flash Player 10.1 is done it will be enabled. The integrated Flash has a big advantage, as it is automatically updated by Chrome itself, instead of manual labour.

You can download this cutting edge web browser from Google from the official Chrome site. It also contains some videos to convince you of its unique features (such as its multi-process architecture and superb rendering speed).