Avencius

Another week, another Firefox 3.6 beta release. The folks behind the Firefox movement are working hard to get this release as solid as possible before the end of the year, using a faster beta release cycle than before.

But that doesn't mean that the amount of changes is reduced. In fact this fourth beta includes 140 changes compared to the last beta. Of course stability has been addressed to be rock hard, but also minor changes have made it into this release. Mac fans will be pleased to know that the unified toolbar now matches Snow Leopard, page load up improvements (with asynchronous scripts), support for the HTML 5 File API, and much more.

Add-on developers are encouraged to test this release with their software, especially since the recent changes with regards to stability. Add-ons in Firefox 3.6 have a little less ability to extend the browser to offer greater stability overall, which sounds like a fair trade off. In the future, say Firefox 4 or later, when the multi-process project takes off this might even change the add-ons space even more in many directions (good and bad).

Overall this release looks really solid, and it's definitely a recommended update and download for all Firefox web developers, add-on developers, and users who want to help out make this release unbeatable.

The little Norwegian browser, praised for it's crossplatformness, standards support, high security standards and speed has been updated to a new version. Opera 10.10 includes the long awaited Opera Unite feature, bringing new features to you, the web surfer.

First think that must be said is that Opera Software made the right call to not include Opera Unite in the 10.0 release. This didn't only made it possible to release Opera 10 ahead of Unite, but it also gave a more relaxed time frame to stabilize a new feature like Unite. The folks at Opera Software have been a big example these last release of taking the time to (sufficiently) stabilize a release before it's deemed production ready.

So what is this Opera Unite you wonder? Well, as Opera Software puts it, it gives you the power to connect with others directly and to collaborate and share information from your computer without storing any data on external servers. When you choose to share something on your computer using Opera Unite, it is available for anyone you trust. To communicate with you or access your shared data, others can use any modern Web browser they like. Some example applications that use Opera Unite are: File Sharing, Fridge (leave notes), Media Player, Messenger, Photo Sharing and a Web Server.

Besides this major new feature Opera 10.10 polishes the release even further with minor changes to the UI, increased stability and security fixes. Therefore any Opera user should upgrade to this release, which is optionally available in the Help menu (for Opera 10 users) or by downloading the installer.

Mozilla has put Firefox on a speed train as only a week after the previous release there is already a beta 3. Not a problem in my opinion, as it shows steady progress to a really solid release.

With 80+ bugs fixed in this release stability is again the main focus. Not surprisingly as Firefox 3.6 is more or less feature complete. Of course these betas aren't as exciting this way, but they'll surely pay off once the final release is here. However there are two changes, of which one is important for add-on developers: changes to how we allow third party software to integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes, and the ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.

Existing beta users will receive the update automatically, or can trigger it manually though the Help menu. The full download is available from the web page. The final Firefox 3.6 release is planned for the end of this year.

Apple is shrouded with mystery so the new maintenance release of Safari comes out of the nothingness. Suffice to say that it is a recommended update for all Safari users, either on Mac or Windows.

The most important changes are the security fixes within this release affecting both Mac and Windows platforms (some are shared, some are unique). According to Apple's change log this release comes with three major improvements: improved JavaScript performance (always welcome!), improved full history search performance (when having a big history) and stability improvements for search plug-ins.

The release will appear for Mac and Windows users in the Software Update (but can also be manually triggered in the Apple menu, or by launching it manually from the Windows start menu). The full download is also available from Apple's web site.

That Firefox 3.6 isn't polished yet is a given. That we're seeing a new beta release so soon is something else. Destined to be released this year Mozilla cranked up a new beta to fix the most important bugs on the road to release candidates.

In this release alone 190 bugs were squashed, while the feature set remained the same compared with the last beta. Of course a new beta does not need new features if your goal is to stabilize it. For Mac users the most prominent fix is the lost of focus bug that plagues Firefox 3.5 in combination with Growl 1.2 (the only release that works on Snow Leopard). However for the rest of the world a lot of top crashers has been fixed, and well it's so much that you'll just have to dig through the bug list yourself.

Firefox 3.6 Beta users will get the update automatically (or through Help > Check for Updates...). If you want you can get the full download from Mozilla's web site.

Sooner than planned, Mozilla released the next maintenance release of Firefox, bringing the version up to 3.5.5. As with all releases, this is a recommend update for all existing Firefox 3.5.x users.

While relatively not an exciting release, some users will welcome it warm heartedly. Firefox 3.5.5 purely exists of stability fixes that were accidentally introduced in the previous update.

Existing Firefox users can update by selecting Help > Check for Updates... if a dialog did not appear automatically. Alternatively you can download the full installer from Mozilla's web site.

Google has released Chrome 4.0 to the beta channel of their popular web browser. Unfortunately, like before, the release is only for Windows. Both the Mac and Linux versions are highly anticipated, but have still not reached enough maturity to be exposed for real to the end users.

So what's truly new in this release, especially since it's only a short while since 3.0. The biggest improvement is the addition of bookmarks sync. This allows you to use your Google account (everyone has one, right?) to synchronize your bookmarks across Chrome's over the internet. In fact it seems to use Google Docs to store it. Previously such a feature would only be available in Opera through Opera Link (which is still multi-platform, including Opera Mini on mobiles).

For the time being Extensions support has been disabled until the final API arrives, hopefully this will be joined with a multi-platform release to make it all the more exciting.

If you're running Windows, be sure to give Google some feedback on your adventurous endeavor!

With Mozilla increasing the pace of new Firefox releases (3.5 took far too long, and Chrome is racing release out of the door), the first beta of the successor of one of the most popular browsers is here.

As the first number indicates this is a minor upgrade of the current stable release, but nonetheless sports some interesting improvements.

First apparent addition is that of Personas, allowing you to change Firefox with lightweight themes, which do not require a restart of the browser. Personas has been out for a while now as a separate add-on for Firefox 3.x. Unlike normal themes, Personas consist mostly of a new background (image, style) and menus. For different buttons, or more complete changes you're still stuck.

Other changes include a plug-in checker, first seen in the latest Firefox 3.5 builds, full screen support for the native video tag, support for the WOFF font format, support for new web technologies and best of all increased JS performance, start-up time and responsiveness.

Be sure to read the complete release notes before downloading this beta release.

The first maintenance release of Opera 10 has been put on the web. Besides three security fixes it comes with more than just your average amount of bug fixes, polishing up the release even further.

To start off with the security issues, the three consist of one that is marked as extremely severe and is related to an issue where certain domain names could allow execution of arbitrary code. Other minor security issues that were solved involved an issue where scripts can run on the feed subscription page, and an issue where Web fonts could be used to spoof the page address.

Following a seemingly Norwegian tradition, Opera Software also polished up the release with several tweaks and fixes for Windows, Linux, and Mac.

You can update your Opera 10 release (if it didn't appear automatically) from the Help menu, or by downloading the full installer.