Known for their benchmarks tools, Futuremark has released their first application to measure browser speed (on any platform). Futuremark hopes to provide the one true tool, while we've been toying with browser specific benchmarks, such as SunSpider.

The Peacekeeper benchmarking suite is now freely available as an online application. And, by use of a query parameter can be run in multiple browsers, without losing individual results. The tests done by Peacekeeper measure your browser's performance by testing its JavaScript functionality. The chosen functionality should be representative for popular sites, such as YouTube, GMail, Facebook, etc.

Running the benchmark on my own machine:

• 4425 .:. Safari 4.0.2
• 2595 .:. Chrome 3.0.197
• 1998 .:. Firefox 3.5.2
• 1414 .:. Opera 10 Build 6604

iMac with Mac OS X 10.5.8, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (6 MB, 1.07 GHz FSB), 4 GB 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

As you can see, Nitro (Safari 4) wins as expected (it's after all Apple's turf), and V8 (Chrome) still needs some work, but clearly beats the rest already. For Firefox and Opera there is still some work to be done, while Firefox 3.6 will bring some extra speed, it won't be too big to close in on Chrome and Safari. Opera is working diligently on their new engine, but won't be part of Opera 10, so we'll have to wait until we'll see some real numbers.

So what kind of scores did you get? And do benchmarks make you switch browsers?

Update: The new Safari 4.0.3 now clocks at 4507 points on my iMac. Woohoo!

Update 2: The new Opera 10 Beta 3 (6613) clocks at 1550 points. Nice!

The Kronos Group has announced the formation of the WebGL webgroup, which should bring 3D graphics to the web. Using JavaScript bindings with OpenGL, it should bring 3D support without the need for any browser plug-ins.

The Kronos Group is known for their work on OpenGL 3, as well as the mobile OpenGL ES standards and the recent OpenCL standard. Previously the Kronos Group announced with Mozilla a joined effort to bring a 3D standard to the web, and now they've announced their final plans. Following Mozilla's prototype they plan to make a JavaScript binding between the browser and OpenGL ES 2.0. Third parties can work on APIs on top of this, to offer richer experiences (as OpenGL is the most abstract form).

Since the announcements other browser companies joined in, including Opera Software and Google. You might think why Google, as they already work on O3D. But O3D is a plug-in (which may be bundled with Chrome), and requires a separate installation, hampering easy adoption. However O3D also offers better 3D performance, which will unlikely be matched by WebGL. Henceforth Google will support WebGL, while work continues on O3D, which may offer more and better opportunities for faster and much richer 3D content (Runescape and Quake Live in O3D?).

No word yet on support from Apple (who participates in the Kronos Group) or Microsoft (another member), hopefully we'll see some announcement soon and prevent this upcoming standard from being yet another failed 3D standard.

With Firefox 3.5 only recently out of the door, the developers are eager to show what they've been working on in the mean time. The Mozilla Developer Center announced the first alpha of Firefox 3.6 for developers, which focuses on a lot of back-end improvements.

Codenamed Namoroka, Firefox 3.6 is based on Gecko 1.9.2 and will sport some enhancements to the rendering engine, including: phase 1 support for native widgets, several new CSS3 properties (background size, gradients for background images, ...), and more.

For the average user there will be several improvements as well. TraceMonkey has received a performance boost, keeping it up with Nitro and V8, while a lot of work is going into improved UI responsiveness for a smooth experience.

As previously stated, this release is for developers only and is not intended for the general public yet. So be aware and download this release as you see fit, but don't forget to report your bugs!

Although Chrome is now even a year old (counting the public exposure), it has certainly affected the browser landscape. Not only was, and is, Chrome unique and noticable, but also simply a true technological leap.

First of all Chrome introduced V8, their own new JavaScript engine that uses a new way of compiling JavaScript files giving it an enormous performance boost. Not long after the folks from Apple working on WebKit announced SquirrelFish Extreme, which gave it another leap on their SquirrelFish effort. SquirrelFish Extreme, later renamed Nitro actually surpassed V8 in several benchmarks. Not long after this war started Mozilla joined in the fray as well, announcing TraceMonkey which showed significant improvements over the old JavaScript JIT-compiler, following (but not really beating) V8 and Nitro on an honorable level. This is just one example how a browser launch affected the environment. As we speak Opera Software is also working on their new JavaScript, which should get it back in the running of fastest browsers (as they're currently not on the JavaScript side).

Another big invented here thing from Google is the multi-process browser, Chrome (with some configuration options) starts a new process for each domain opened in a tab. Although this will cost you a bit more memory (as each processes needs some additional memory usage for non-sharable parts), it does offers really compelling features, such as increased stability and security. Security is interesting as each process is separated, they cannot access each others memory (easily), giving it much more of a sandbox feeling. The other compelling feature is stability. Now with the web turning into sites and web apps (such as Google Mail and Wave), it becomes much more interesting and important that the browser doesn't crash. With Google's option to create shortcuts of web sites, web apps will almost be seamless with your desktop. And you don't want your Google Mail or Wave to crash while you were visiting a dodgy site which triggered a bug in your browser, do you?

The folks at Mozilla didn't think so either. The problem is that Firefox is of course an existing browser, while Chrome was made from the ground up with these concepts. So in order to take on this big task they've divided it into phases. Currently Phase-I should be complete, which demonstrates content in separate processes. There's still a lot of work to be done, and it's not completely certain yet in which release it will be ready, but it's a big progress and it's really good to see Mozilla taking competition and the concept seriously.

With Microsoft using a similar approach in Internet Explorer 8, I hope that the others will follow soon as well, being Safari and Opera.

The folks at Mozilla have released the second maintenance release of the ever popular Firefox web browser. Besides the usual bug fixes it also plugs several serious security issues.

Four critical security issues were addressed concerning: a chrome privilege escalation due to incorrectly cached wrapper, crashes with evidence of memory corruption, a heap overflow in certificate regexp parsing, and a compromise of SSL-protected communication. One moderate issue was addressed concerning the location bar and SSL indicator spoofing via window.open() on invalid URL. And finally one low priority issue regarding data corruption with SOCKS5 reply containing DNS name longer than 15 characters.

The major fix in this release includes proper rendering of images with ICC profiles on all monitors. But there are a lot of other fixes as well according to Bugzilla.

As always, if Firefox hasn't asked yet, you can update Firefox implicitly by selecting the "Check for Updates..." option from the Help menu. Or if you don't have Firefox installed you can get the full download from Mozilla's site.

Congratulations to the Mozilla team on getting 1 billion downloads. It seems only like yesterday when Firefox was still known as Phoenix, using the Orbit theme. Ah, how software matures as we go...

Mozilla browser, Phoenix, Firebird, Firefox. In November 2004 Firefox 1.0 was officially released, back then it was the first time that the Mozilla Foundation worked on an end user product (Mozilla Suite was intended to be used by third parties, like Netscape). Featuring a smaller footprint, a native theme, a cutting edge rendering engine, tabbed browsing and extensions, Firefox gained a lot of interest from technology lovers and web developers alike. But with the help of the Mozilla community, shaped as Spread Firefox, did not only "techies" use it, but also those around them. In the end the rapid adoption of Firefox lead to 100 million downloads in its first year of availability.

And now it's 10x more in less then 4 years! Now that's one nice record to own. If you haven't upgraded yet, or if you're using another browser, be sure to check out Firefox 3.5 as it comes with a but-load of new features, such as private browsing, color profile support, faster JavaScript and much, much more!

The Mozilla wiki involving the next next Firefox has been updated with theme mock-ups as well, following only the recently unveiled brainstorming for Firefox 3.7.

Although Firefox 4 is still far away, the idea of this whole thing is to get people inspired and brainstorm on how the next Firefox will look like. Some details reveal an even more Chrome/Safari like look:

Highlights:

• Alternatively put tabs on top, rather than the standard below location bar (similar to Chrome and Opera).
• Combo of the stop, refresh and go button at the end of the location bar (similar to Chrome and Safari).

What do you think? Is Firefox getting more and more like a Chrome/Safari, or is this simply the best way, no matter who thought of it first? Remember, these are mock-ups to get ideas rolling and may not represent the end result whatsoever.

Reuters reports that Microsoft is trying to solve two EU cases at the same time by letting users choose their browser, rather than IE or no browser at all.

The solution is one of we've discussed before, using a dialog at the first boot of Windows to let the user choose their default installed browser. If this will be part of Windows 7 it could be seen as a big victory for Opera (and those in favor, such as Mozilla and Google).

Of course the details are still a bit sketchy: will it be included in Windows 7, which browsers will be offered as a choice, will Microsoft actually (properly) educate about what the choices mean (or let browser vendors speak for themselves)?

Stephen Horlander has updated the Mozilla wiki with initial mock-ups of Firefox 3.7's new theme for the Windows platform. Although it's nothing more yet than a mock-up it does show quite a big and exciting change.

Also do note that what is currently called Firefox 3.7 might be relabeled to something else, so see it as a future improvement somewhere after the current 3.5. At first the new look looks a but like what we've seen with Chrome and Safari, but applies a more polished look as seen below:

Highlights:

• The toolbar and tabs are using Windows Vista and 7's Aero glass like theme, meaning it's transparent and will color with your appearance settings.
• The navigation buttons are translucent and slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar on all Windows platforms, with or without Aero. The shape of the buttons looks a bit like Chrome, but better.
• A page button on the left, where Chrome and Safari place it on the right. This should expose page related functionality (needed for the omitted menu bar).
• A tools button, similar to Chrome and Safari is placed on the right, this will allow access to UI options (needed for the omitted menu bar).

As you may have seen some standard stuff is missing in the mock-up, but that's why it's a mock-up. The scroll bar, status bar and personal bookmarks bar will probably re-appear in as (default) settings.