Luckily there is another extension called “RSS Live Links“.  Which exactly provides you with the ability to subscribe to feeds through the browser, just like Firefox or Internet Explorer.  This was the thing that was holding me back from switching Firefox to Chrome.  Finally, there is a tweak-around.

If you’d like to have your RSS live feeds in your toolbar, all you have to do is to create a folder name called “RSS Live Links” in bookmark manager. Further instructions are available at the extension page.

Personally I never liked how Vista looked even though I use it. You can click on the images to see them in full sizes.

In my opinion, it looks a like a combination of other major browsers, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome.

They removed the menu from the top bar and placed a menu and a setting icon next to internet search just like Google Chrome and Safari.  Apparently, this is going to affect how you get around in Firefox. They are becoming more similar to each other.

Tabs are separated unlike the current version of Firefox, which I think it looks more like Opera.

Here are the other two screen shots.

You don’t need to wait until Firefox 3.7.  BoneyardBrew developed a theme that’s just like the mock up.  You can head over to his or her Deviantart page to download the theme.

3.5 Comes after 3.0

Mozilla has released three beta versions of their next release which was named “Firefox 3.1″ until lately. They have recently proposed that Shiretoko would be renamed to Firefox 3.5. You can catch up on details at Mozilla’s Quality Blog. So as it has been approved by Mozilla, they have released a new beta version(only a prebeta) of next release named Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 (Pre-Beta) is available at Mozilla’s quality blog. It’s a different installation which means it won’t replace your current  FF stable or beta version. Another Firefox will be installed. I have Firefox 3.0.8, Firefox 3.1 Beta and Shiretoko (Firefox 3.5 Beta 4).

Firefox needs your help!

If Mozilla doesn’t face any unexpected problems on this nightly build version, they are expecting an official beta release on April 28 before they move on to release candidates for Firefox 3.5. So in total, there will be four beta versions before RC versions. Mozilla needs your help. If you are a Firefox user and have some spare time, you can start using the latest version available and start letting Mozilla know about any bugs or problems you see with the version. This way there will be less delays.

Stay Updated

• ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-1.9.1/
• http://quality.mozilla.org

If you wish to stay updated with what’s going on with Firefox, you can get your latest firefox release by clicking on the first link above to stay updated with new features and versions. All events at Mozilla regarding Firefox releases and many more are posted at this Quality blog. You will be able to find some useful links there. You can also subscribe to this blog to stay updated.

What’s new?

Safari has always been there with their own twist on browsing the web.  Safari 3 is still considered one of the fastest browser.  There are a lot of new features, they actually put up a list called “150 features“. They are not all new,  only is 29 of them can be considered new for Safari 4. Some of these features have already been introduced by other browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome.

Safari team has borrowed couple of ideas from Google Chrome, first thing you will notice is the new look. They move the tab bar to top just like Google Chrome.  Here are some features you will notice with Safari 4.

1. Windows Font Rendering:  Safari now use the standard rendering technique for its users. Which i think makes a lot of sense since they a lot of people who use windows use this software.
2. Tabs on Top: Just like Google Chrome, they have the tab bar on top with their own touch of course.  More tabs you have less the tab size will be.  That’s the only difference.
3. New Look :  Safari 4 for Windows doesn’t have that dark silver look. It is now more of a Windows application.
4. New JavaScript Engine: With this new release, they are introducing a new javascript engine called “Nitro”. According to Apple, it’s 8 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1.  It is quite noticeable.
5. Navigation: Almost all browsers have adopted this feature. When you open a new tab, it would show the thumbnails of most or recent visited websites.  I think it was introduced by Google Chrome.  Although, Safari is introducing this feature with its own unique way.  For instance, iTunes feature “Cover Flow” is now possible in Safari 4.
6. Developer Tools: Safari is now an ideal tool to debug, tweak or optimize a web site.

Eye Candy or Best Performance?

I’d agree if they hadn’t change the way program operates.  First of all,  It’s noticeably faster. Second of all, some of those features are useful.  I think that product is going to grab a lot of attention and a lot of people will consider switching from IE, Opera, Firefox to Safari. Last of all,  Safari’s windows integration and standard font rendering are a plus for loyal windows users.

Firefox 3.1 (pre)beta is available to all beta testers. Well, everyone can download and check out this new beta version but it’s good to contribute. This version is only a pre-beta version which Mozilla aims to get some feedback and help from its users to fix the bugs.

So if you wish to contribute to this beta version, please head over to the “Event post” at Mozilla Quality Site and follow instructions.  You can use Litmus for testing purposes.

Also, if everything goes as it supposed go at Mozilla, they will be releasing Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 on February 18, 2009.

Download Link for Firefox 3.1 Pre-Beta 3 (aka Shiretoko):

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-mozilla-1.9.1/

This event will stay opened until Friday, 13th.  So if you wish to contribute to this release, you can do it until Friday at 08.00.

There are users that use Firefox for plenty of reasons with the help of add-ons. Functionalites are more than ever. Every day a new add-on is being released for a different purpose.

But most of add-ons out there don’t tend to work with Firefox in harmony. Since there are too many add-ons, it isn’t really possible to keep a record of all problematic extensions.

Link: Problematic Extensions

However, the list can help you determine if an add-on is causing a problem with your Firefox. There are also some useful links at that page which you follow to investigate your problems with Firefox.

Microsoft recently released the release candidate version of  IE 8. If you were a beta tester of IE 8, you are not going to be surprised much. If you are just learning about Internet Explorer 8, you might want to check out the web site of IE to see what it’s all about.

As I have indicated in my 2009 predictions post,  Internet Explorer will not be able grab a lot of attention with this new version.

Installation is still a major pain

I do not get this at all, I can not believe that a software developer like Microsoft is doing this.  Installation nearly takes a fifteen (15) minutes. Yes, it does. First, you download the installer and run it.  First process removes the current IE version from your system and ask you to restart your system.  If you say no, program will not load. Before the restarting is completed,  IE installation will prompt you asking to run the actual installer.  At this point, nothing else is being loaded(your desktop and etc). Since nothing else is being loaded, I thought that IE will finish the installation and start loading my system without restarting it. But after nearly ten minute installation, it restarted my machine once more and I was able to run Internet Explorer for testing purposes.

Microsoft should really figure out a better way to install its software on their another software.

Features

If you are a IE 7 users, you might like what they have done with the software.  They added some of the popular browser features like “In-Private Browsing”.  They have also added  developer tools where you can edit CSS and scripts within the browser and plenty more.  Gears can be used.

Current version of Stumbleupon is compatible with this RC version as well.

Yes, Google Chrome 2 Pre-Beta is available!
Google Chrome team has announced a thing called “Release Channels”. There are three channels.  One will inform you when there is a stable release,  other one will let you know when there is a beta release, and the last one will allow you to download the developer releases, which they release every week.

1. Download and run the Google Chrome Channel Changer (http://chromium.googlecode.com/files/chromechannel-2.0.exe).
2. Click the circle next to the channel you want to get updates from.
3. Click Update to save your choice.
4. Click Close.
5. In Google Chrome, click the wrench menu and choose About Google Chrome.
6. Click Update Now to install the current channel’s release.
7. Restart Google Chrome.

I was really hoping to see RSS bookmarking in this release. But it seems like they are still working on that.  Current version has some other new features.  I think the most wanted one is scrolling with your middle button of your mouse. It’s bit different from Firefox’s.  When you are done with scrolling, you have to click mouse button once more to get out auto scrolling mode.

lso gives you the option to create profiles which increases usability.  You can view the full list of updates at “Release Notes” page for this release at chromium site.

My Opinion

Google team said that they don’t like to release major releases like Firefox version 3.  Strategy can be discussed but in my opinion this shows that Google has no intention of getting involved in a war with other major browsers like Firefox, Safari.  But this also shows that they are planing in longer terms.  People already have started complaining about Chrome becoming like other browsers.  I think that Google Chrome will try to maintain its image as its now.  Only reason why I have it installed is the response time. It’s Winamp versus Windows Media Player.

It literally takes nearly 5 minutes for me to get Firefox after  Windows is started. So Google Chrome is a good alternative.  I hope that Chrome will be able to keep this.

Less the Better?

More features mean more things to worry about in a browser.  Simple and Powerful, this is probably what they are after.  Simple may not be the right word. But the way Chrome is designed keeps browsing on stage and feauteres in backstage. But this doesn’t mean that it should lack  some common browser features.

I have been trying to improve my web site’s speed for long time and at last I changed my host which helped a lot. But do you ever wonder how sites like Yahoo or Google keep their sites so fast? Well, there are many things they do and I don’t know them all. But if you are a person who owns couple of blogs or websites, this might be useful.

There is a Firefox add-on called Firebug.  It’s a web development tool. It allows you to inspect some properties when a visitor visits your page.  You can check out the features of this add-on at their website. It’s a pretty neat tool. Firebug can tell you how long it takes to load your site’s components like images, scripts and etc. Neat tool.

Use YSlow to Get your Performance Grade

YSlow is a Firefox add-on built by Yahoo Developers. But you need to have Firebug for it to work.  Here are the features that come with this extension;

• Performance report card
• HTTP/HTML summary
• List of components in the page
• Tools including JSLint

Once you install them both, you will  have their icons in Firefox’s bottom bar.  Here is a screenshot of what you get after you click on YSlow icon.

It’s a pretty neat tool that tells what you can do to improve your site’s performance. Also gives you a grade of your site’s current performance.

If you don’t want to install this tool but still want to know how you can improve your site’s performance. You can Yahoo! developer’s site.

http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

I don’t think the picture is going to change much with this new release.  Because there is nothing new.  IE is still updating, they are not creating anything new and that’s why there is no big fuss about this version of Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer has now less then 70% of market according to Net Applications.  They haven’t done anything to IE 6 for five years and still about 20% is using IE 6. So other browser like Firefox and Opera didn’t have hard time getting IE users switch to their browsers. Firefox crashed the idea of IE being the dominant browser (technically, IE is still dominant). Firefox has now over 20% of market.

What’s next?

Opera 10. I’m really looking forward to this new generation of Opera. As I blogged about it last month, they have a new engine which is faster comparing to other versions. Opera 10 aims to get a lot of IE 6 users.

Google’s Chrome certainly deserves some attention at this point.  It has about 0.7% market share which is more than Opera. Even though they have released the first non-beta version of Google Chrome, it’s still missing a lot of common browser features (such as RSS). I’m sure they are going to gather little more attention when they improve the browser.

What’s the problem with Internet Explorer?

Well, there are many.  They are still catching up. Maybe that 5 year break was too long.  Go ahead and check out the features that will be in IE 8. Most major browsers (like Safari, Firefox) already has those features for long time.  So nothing new.  I don’t think features like compatibility view is going to grab a lot of attention.

Also, another point I want to talk about is the installation process that you have to go through.  This goes same for most of Microsoft’s products. If you install IE, you would have to restart your machine to get the program running.  They should also offer whether the user wants to replace his/her current IE installation.  Default installation will replace your current version with IE 8. It didn’t make much sense to me since the software is in beta.  It just makes it harder to test.

Stumbleupon Addon on IE 8

I was also able to use stumble upon on IE 8.  If it’s not just my installation, there is a big problem with the add-on.  But I’m certain that Stumbleupon will fix it as soon as a non beta version of IE 8 arrives.

Problem is when you click on stumble button,  it will not register for about 2, 3 seconds.  At first I thought it was just the software being laggy. But it’s not. There is something wrong.

So what’s going to happen in 2009?

I don’t think IE is going to start getting new users from other browsers at all. They are going to loose more of their users to Firefox and Opera. They will probably release IE 8 in first half of 2009 and they are going to have the same problem as they had with IE 7. They won’t be able to get majority of  users update their browsers.  Also I don’t think Firefox is going to stay quite with all this happening and I think a lot of people are expecting Firefox to show how good Firefox is to other browsers once again with a new release, especially Google Chrome as sort of a response.

One thing which is good for all internet users is that competition will result with better products. So we all win.