Browsers
Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 build 2
Oct 22nd
Mozilla Firefox is faster, more secure, easier to use and sporting a new look. Latest Firefox release sets a new standard for web browser.
Firefox has more ways to customize your online experience specifically for the way you use the web. There are more than 6,000 Add-ons. Firefox keeps your personal info personal and your online interests away from spammers. More >
Firefox hates Microsoft for giving Safari the first spot on the ballot screen
Oct 17th
Have you had a look at Microsoft‘s Ballot screen. Yes I am talking about the screen through which users will choose which internet browser to use on their PC. You might have noticed that Apple‘s browser Safari is the first ranked choice when it comes to choosing a browser. Well that is exactly the thing which is disturbing Mozilla. Mozilla has expressed unhappiness over Safari getting the first spot. Well to be honest Mozilla has never been happy with the ballot screen from the start. So one might perceive this effort as part of continuation of their hatred for Microsoft ballot screen.

Firefox 3.6 beta now available for download
Oct 15th
Here we go, as we suspected Firefox 3.6 beta was expected to arrive and yes it has arrived. However you might want to note that this is not a complete beta release. Infact consider this as a test release for Firefox 3.6 Beta. This in no way means that you should avoid downloading the first beta of Firefox 3.6. You can go ahead and download Firefox 3.6 Beta but be prepared to encounter bugs.

Mozilla announces Fennec 1.0 Beta 4 for Maemo
Oct 8th
Mozilla has announced Beta 4 of Fennec 1.0 for Maemo platform. The Mozilla Mobile team has brought improvements to the UI as well as the user experience. As always Beta 4 also fixes certain bugs. Special effort has been made to ensure that Fennec 1.0 Beta 4 runs on Nokia N900.
Fennec 1.0 Beta 4 Features
When using Fennec 1.0 Beta 4 for Maemo, you will observe:
- Improved touch-friendly theme
- Improved panning and zooming performance and behavior
- Add search providers from the site identity panel
- Manage search providers from the Add-ons Manager
- Simplified the Download Manager (removed searching and find file on disk)
- Streamlined the bookmarking process
- Simplified the bookmark management
- Popup notification when background tabs open
- Bookmark list now displays the URL and tags associated with a bookmark
- Added a product information page (about:fennec or use the button in Preferences)
- Support for add-ons options in the Add-on Manager
- Support for updating add-ons
- Support for the HandheldFriendly meta-tag (support for the viewport meta-tag is coming)
Fennec is expected to run on Nokia N900, Nokia N810 or Nokia N800.
Download Fennec for Windows PC
Download Fennec for Nokia N900, N810,N800
Download Fennec for Mac
Download Fennec for Linux
EU gives green signal for Microsoft’s proposed ballot screen
Oct 7th
The news which I am about to share with you is surely going to make Microsoft happy. I can’t say precisely how many people will be unhappy about this news, but I can tell you this, Opera will be least pleased upon hearing this news. I think by now you might have guessed it. Yup, Microsoft has been given the green signal for implementing its proposed ballot screen by the European Union. The EU has allowed Microsoft to perform a market test of the proposed ballot screen. This means Microsoft will be shipping Windows 7 with the Ballot screen option embedded into it. European Commission said regarding this decision:
The improvements that Microsoft has made to its proposal since July would ensure that consumers could make a free and fully informed choice of web browser. The Commission’s preliminary view is that Microsoft’s commitments would address these competition concerns and is market testing Microsoft’s proposal in light of these requirements

You ask, how Microsoft received this news. Well Microsoft welcomed it with both hands. Brad Smith, general counsel said:
For Microsoft, today’s decision is a significant step toward closing a decade-long chapter of competition law concerns in Europe.
Firefox 3.6 Beta coming next week
Oct 7th
Waiting for Firefox 3.6. Well I have got news for you. You don’t have to wait much longer. We believe that Mozilla will be rolling out first beta of Firefox 3.6 on 13 October that is this coming Tuesday. This beta happens to be the first beta for Firefox 3.6.
However if you are expecting major updates with the Firefox 3.6 Beta 1, then you will be disappointed with the Beta release. If you are looking for major changes to Firefox then you would have to wait till October 2010 (minimum), as Firefox 4.0 is targeted to be released in the 4th Quarter of 2010. Firefox 4.0 is expected to mimic Chrome like features.
Mozilla will roll out Firefox 3.7 in the upcoming weeks, which would utilize Windows Vista/7 Aero Glass capability provided by the OS.
What’s coming in Firefox 3.6 Beta
Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 will become equipped with minor tweaks that includes
- Lightweight themes
- Improvements to TraceMonkey Firefox’s JavaScript engine
- An optimized session restore
- Better page-rendering speed
- A bunch of new additions for the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
Point to Remember
One point you might want to consider is the fact that 13 October is an estimated date and there is no denying that the Beta might come out late as Mozilla has exhibited this trend in the past as well.
Opera Mini 5 Beta is out with 4 new features
Sep 16th
The new beta of Opera Mini is out now, which has an interface designed for touch or keypad control, and we can now see the tabbed browsing, speed dial, and a password manager as well.
When you open a new tab and you can see the visual speed dial thumbnails, which you can also customize based on your browsing history. This new version can also be set to store login details on your phone.
In Opera’s newer version, YouTube videos are played on your phone’s native media player, and there’s no Flash support yet. This beta version won’t support Skins and Opera Link, though both should be reintroduced as development continues.

To try Opera Mini 5 beta, simply visit the address m.opera.com/next, using your phone’s default Web browser or download to your computer. And it is completely free.
Mozilla Weave 0.4 is out now..
Jun 28th
Weave Sync is a prototype that encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox experience across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together.
The Mozilla Weave development team has released version 0.4 of the Firefox add-on that allows users to synchronize data across multiple web browsers.
If you have not looked at Weave recently, now is a great time to jump in and try it out! This release includes a major rewrite of many of Weave’s key components since the last major release in June.

A few of the major changes are
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Preference syncing (including Personas)
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Identity support (automatic login, including use of OpenID logins)
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Better support for addons using Weave
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Support for Fennec 1.0 beta 2 on Maemo Linux
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Significant improvements in performance during startup and opening new win
How to get started
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Make sure you are running the latest Firefox 3.5 beta
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Download and install the latest development milestone of the Weave client.
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Open the Weave menu in the Tools menu or the bottom-right of the status-bar and select ‘Sign in’ to start syncing with Weave!
Check out the other versions of Weave
Mozilla Weave 0.3
M5 Development milestone for Weave
Mozilla Labs Weave 0.1
A work-around for Google’s “We’re Sorry” error page
Jun 2nd
When using Google, many of you just like me would have sometime come across a situation where Google’s search service behaves strangely and displays a strange “We’re sorry” page, thus restricting your access to Google’s search results page. On a few occasions Google shows a CAPTCHA that intends to confirm you as a human, but that is not the case always. Did you ever wish to discover a way to work around this issue. Well, luckily Alex Chitu has provided a way to go around this undesired problem. The error message goes something like this:
We’re sorry… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.
We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
According to Google’s Help Center, this error message appears in a situation when Google detects that a computer on your network is sending automated traffic to Google. There are various reasons as to why your computer is sending automated traffic. These are:
- It is possible that you are using an application that is responsible for monitors the ranking of a site in Google’s search result.
- A different machine that shares your IP is unfortunately a part of the botnet.
- There is a possibility that if you are using Firefox, a Mozilla extension might be sending requests to Google quite frequently.
One way to get rid of this issue might be to go for Bing. However if you still wanna use Google’s search engine, then what you can do is try going for a different Google domain. Instead of using www.google.com, you may consider going for www.google.com.pk, www.google.co.uk and so on. Do that and you can say bye bye to the We’re Sorry Error page.
Firefox 3.5 launch – Community Video and much more…
May 27th
Firefox Web Browser is the faster, more secure, and fully customizable way to surf the web.
Firefox 3.5 introduces a number of new features, as well as additional and improved support for a wide variety of web standards.
These new features includes the HTML 5 support, newly supported CSS features, new DOM features, new javascript features, new CANVAS features, new SVG features and more miscellaneous features. Now According to TG Daily blog post some of the facts are described below.
Mozilla engineer Aakashd wrote in an official blog post.
I don’t need to remind everyone of how important this phase is, so we’re going to need your awesome testing skills to make sure its as polished as possible,
Number of newly implemented features, including:
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Private browsing
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Video and audio “elements”
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The W3C Geolocation API
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JavaScript query selectors
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CSS 2.1 and 3 properties
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SVG transforms
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Offline applications
Alex Faaborg, a user experience design expert at Mozilla expained:
We are now in the process of landing a few refreshed icons for the Firefox 3.5 themes,
Across all 4 platforms roughly 25 of the icons are either being tweaked or are entirely new (there were some last minute feature additions, like geolocation). On Windows (both Vista and XP) we are replacing all of the secondary glyphs in the main window (various small arrows, new tab +, etc) with a consistent etched-in appearance. These etched in glyphs also feature a glowing hit state, which varies color by platform.
Faaborg also noted that the OS X background etch would be removed from the keyhole.
We are also considering doing this on Windows, since it lightens and simplifies the appearance of our UI. Either way, we wanted to get the change landed on OS X, since a lot of people were eager to see the etch go (including myself, as it was my misguided idea in the first place).
Awesome video by Vineel Reddy, a campus rep and member of the Firefox 3.5 community launch team. Check out the behind the scenes photo shoot here: http://tinyurl.com/oaxk3b
