But opera remains number one with a lot of people and, “Go and get Opera 9.5 alpha!” – posts Opera desktop team manager Huib Kleinhout.

He says Opera 9.5 alpha, code-named Kestrel, offers:

• Full history search
• Improved site compatibility
• Access for everyone
• Improved platform integration
• Preview of bookmark and Speed Dial synchronization
• Magic Windows build number :jester:

Interested?
Download:

Opera 9.5 alpha for Windows
Opera 9.5 alpha for Mac
Opera 9.5 alpha for Unix

Will it be worth the effort?

Ars Technica’s Jeremy Reimer appears to think so, stating:

Opera claims that the latest version is faster than ever before, and our experience bears this out. When running various JavaScript speed tests, Opera 9.5 scored slightly higher (281ms) than the previous released version, 9.23 (546ms). And Opera 9.x, let it be known, smacks silly the likes of Firefox and Internet Explorer, which tend to have results in the 900-1500ms range on this test machine (a 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM). Opera was 50 percent faster on average than Firefox, and 100 percent faster than IE7 on Windows Vista, for instance. (In all versions, the speed of the test depends on how many tabs are open, so your results may vary. In our experience, Opera always came out on top.)

Not only but also, “Overall, the new Opera raises the bar yet again for web surfing, and it remains my browser of choice,” he says, adding:

“While many will still prefer Firefox for its plethora of third-party extensions, Opera remains a light and fast browser that still manages to cram in more features than clowns in a Volkswagen and is just as much fun to use.”

.Slashdot it!

Also See:
Ars Technica – First impressions: Opera 9.5 alpha a worthy contender, September 5, 2007

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

Conversely, “usage of Internet Explorer dropped to 66.5 percent in early July from 73 percent a year ago, the firm reported,” continues LinuxInsider.

Almost 96,000 sites in 32 European countries were surveyed, the story goes on.

“After Internet Explorer and Firefox, Opera, Safari and Netscape were next in line in terms of early July market share, with 3.5 percent, 1.7 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively, the company reported,” it says.

“In North America, Firefox accounts for a much smaller proportion of the market – just under 19 percent in early July, according to XiTi.”

But, “Europe is a fortress for Mozilla Corp.’s Firefox browser,” says PC World.

“Slovenia, Finland and Slovakia had the greatest Firefox penetration, with the open-source browser accounting for 47.9 percent, 45.4 percent and 40.4 percent, respectively, during a weeklong stretch from July 2 to July 8. Other Firefox strongholds include Germany (38 percent), Poland (39.6 percent) and Ireland (38.6 percent).”

Slashdot it!

Also See:
LinuxInsider – Firefox Sinks Its Teeth Into Explorer in Europe, July 17, 2007
PC World – Firefox Nears 30 Percent Market Share in Europe, July 16, 2007

Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.

But that’s not enough, says Google. It now wants Microsoft monitored via a federal order to extend a consent decree that settled the 2002 landmark anti-trust case against Microsoft.

“Given Microsoft’s history of aggressively minimizing the impact of court-ordered relief, it is appropriate for the Court to use its authority to extend” the consent decree, Google said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in U.S. District Court in Washington,” says the Washington Post.

Google has for some time been complaining that Microsoft’s Instant Search program impedes third-party desktop search applications, also claiming Bill and the Boyz make it hard for PC users to choose alternatives.

Google’s assertions are, “meant to show that Microsoft was not complying with the antitrust settlement, reached in 2002 after the government concluded that Microsoft used its near-ubiquitous Windows operating system to suppress competition,” says the Associated Press. “Microsoft is now bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly in Windows.

“In a report published last week, the Justice Department and Microsoft detailed a compromise response to Google’s complaints that would let Vista users set a non-Microsoft program as the default desktop search engine.”

David C. Drummond, Google senior vbp and chief legal officer, is playing the hackneyed consumer card.

Users will, “likely need further measures to ensure meaningful choice,” he says, according to the Washington Post. “Ultimately, these issues raise the need for continued judicial oversight of Microsoft’s practices, to ensure that consumers’ interests are best served.”

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Washington Post – Extended Monitoring Sought for Microsoft, June 26, 2007
Associated Press – Google Seeks Ruling on Microsoft Oversight, June 26, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

But Job’s views of the browser world are, “out of date” and “duopolistic”. So says Mozilla coo John Lilly.

“The big news, of course, is that Apple’s releasing Safari on Windows – and although it’s been a rough first few days for them (and will get rougher), more choices are generally good for users, and so I’m hopeful that they can work to produce a product of quality on Windows eventually,” blogs Lilly, featuring a graph which has IE with a 78% share, Firefox 15%, Safari 5%, and ‘other,’ 2%.

continuing:

We could quibble with the numbers, but close enough. It doesn’t give much credit to the large & growing number of other quality browsers that are on the scene today, and certainly doesn’t give any sophisticated understanding of the situation outside the United States, where things vary more. Close enough, though.

On the right is the graph Lily says betrays the way thatJobs, “and by extension Apple, so often looks at the world” >>>>>

Lilly goes on:

He said this: “Well we dream big. We would love for Safari’s marketshare to grow substantially. That’s what we’d love.” Aw, shucks.

Fantastic! Dream big! Imagine a world of ‘wait for it’ access to the web controlled by 2 companies – and why not just go with the 2 dominant operating system vendors in the world.

But make no mistake: this wasn’t a careless presentation, or an accidental omission of all the other browsers out there, or even a crummy marketing trick. Lots of words describe Steve & his Stevenotes, but “careless” and “accidental” do not. This is, essentially, the way they’re thinking about the problem, and shows the users they want to pick up.

There are a couple of problems, of course. The first is that this isn’t really how the world is. The second is that, irrespective of Firefox, this isn’t how the world should be.

First, it isn’t really how the world is. The meteoric rise of Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Linux and Firefox, among many other examples, shows that today’s connected world is no longer constrained by the monopolies and duopolies and cartels of yesterday’s distribution – of the publishers, studios, and OS vendors. Hundreds of millions of users, in every language around the world are now making new choices. That Apple doesn’t feel this, even within the familiar reality-distortion-field confines of Moscone Center, illustrates much of the problem.

Second, it isn’t how the world should be. Even if we could somehow put that movement back in the bottle – that a world of just Starbucks & Peets, just Wal-mart & Target, just Ford & GM – that a world of tight control from a few companies is good, it’s the wrong thing to do. It destroys participation, it destroys engagement, it destroys self-determination. And, ultimately, it wrecks the quality of the end-user experience, too. Remember (or heard about) when you had to get your phone from AT&T? Good times.

So here’s my point, to be clear: another browser being available to more people is good. I’m glad that Safari will be another option for users. (Watch for the Linux port Real Soon Now.) We’ve never ever at Mozilla said that we care about Firefox market share at the expense of our more important goal: to keep the web open and a public resource. The web belongs to people, not companies.

This world view that Steve gave a glimpse into betrays their thinking: it’s out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented, not-the-web thinking. And it’s not good for the web. Which is sort of moot, I think, because I don’t think this 2 party world will really come to be.

Steve asserted Monday that Safari on Windows will overturn history, attract 100M new users, and revert the world to a 2 browser state. That remains to be seen, of course.

But don’t bet on it.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
blog – A Picture’s Worth 100M Users???, June 14, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Google told the US Justice Department in April Vista’s desktop search application, “makes it too onerous for customers to switch to new products,” says The Street.

“Google’s move highlights its increasing rivalry with Microsoft as the line blurs between the desktop-centered world of the personal computer and the Internet,” says the story. “Microsoft is using its grip on the operating system that powers most personal computers to maker further inroads into the burgeoning online world.”

Google is demanding that Bill and the Boyz make it simple to turn off Vista’s built-in search function but, Microsoft says it’s no problem for people to easily install and access Google Desktop software, says The Independent.

“Google has expressed similar concerns before, but in recent weeks it has decided to push its case more forcibly in the legal arena. In April, it sent a 50-page submission to the Justice Department outlining its allegations, and the issue is set for an airing in a report by a Washington DC court later this month.”

Google is increasingly branching out into areas Microsoft had earmarked for itself and, “The company is making light versions of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software that could rival Microsoft’s high-profile Office suite,” the story states, adding:

“Microsoft has been a vocal critic of Google’s bid to acquire online ad technology firm DoubleClick. Microsoft alleges that the move would reduce customer choice. The deal is currently pending clearance from antitrust authorities.”

Microsoft hasn’t made it easy for users to disable Vista’s desktop search service, acknowledges Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman, in a PC World item. That’s, “because the company designed Vista’s desktop search specifically ‘to not affect performance and back off any other programs running’ – including any third-party desktop search software – in a way that should resolve any claims of anticompetitive behavior,” Evans states.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
six-month privacy probe – Google flunks major privacy study , June 11, 2007
The Street – Google Shines Antitrust Light on Vista, June 11, 2007
The Independent – Google takes on Microsoft in court, June 12, 2007
PC World – Burden of Proof on Google in Vista Antitrust Claim, June 11, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

It’s made posted a free Safari 3 public beta on the Safari website and, “Apple CEO Steve Jobs just announced plans to offer the company’s Safari Web browser for Windows,” the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Todd Bishop, quoting jobs at the Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Said Jobs :

… There are 500,000 downloads of Firefox a day. What are we going to do? Well, it turns out there’s over a million downloads of iTunes a day. As a matter of fact, there have been over a half a billion downloads of iTunes to Windows machines. Over half a billion. And so we know how to reach these customers, and we’re going to do exactly that. So there are three different versions of Safari 3. One that runs on Leopard, one that runs on XP and Vista.

Jobs, “also gave the greenlight to third-party development of new applications for its forthcoming iPhone mobile phone,” says the BBC.

“In a u-turn from a previously stated policy, he said developers would be able to build web applications for the device that “extend the capabilities of iPhone… but keep the iPhone secure”.

“Instead of having to test each and every new application themselves, Apple will allow developers to build web applications for the phone which run inside the device’s web browser Safari and which were built on existing web standards.”

The preview software is licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time, says Apple on its site, adding, “The final version of Safari 3 will be available as a feature in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October.”

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Apple to offer Safari for Windows, June 11, 2007
BBC – Apple announces Windows browser, June 11, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Ceo Cedric Maloux (far right, with co-founder Matthew Gertner) told us Allpeers, then a Firefox add-on, would eventually be offered online open-source, and that the company would also release its own distinct end-user application built on the AllPeers platform.

“The service is and will remain free for sharing files in a private group,” he also promised first time around. “Later, added-value services will be introduced. It’s like Skype: the VOIP service is free but SkypeOut, SkypeIn are not.”

Did that mean users can expect ads soon to be blotting the landscape? – we wondered? Definitely not, Maloux assured p2pnet, “there will be no advertising (banners or contextual text links or whatever) in the software.”

Firefox with AllPeers is now online and since the first public beta last September, “we’ve smoothed out the rough edges” says Maloux.

Firefox with AllPeers follows a deal struck with Mozilla to distribute Firefox bundled with AllPeers. “This means people who don’t yet have Firefox only have to install one product (Firefox with AllPeers) to download your files,” Maloux points out

“AllPeers has been downloaded more than 350,000 times. We sign up a new member every 2 minutes. Our community of enthusiastic users has translated the software in 15 languages (and counting) and today we are announcing AllPeers v0.60, our biggest release since we went public, and this new version has new features.”

Share by email
Users drop files and folders into AllPeers, enter the email address of the recipient(s) and they get an HTML email showing thumbnails of what’s being shared, with a link to the AllPeers site so they can install AllPeers and download files.

Import contacts
Contacts are created from existing address books in Outlook, Thunderbird, GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.

Free Always-On
The ‘Always On’ feature caches files being shared with email contacts on a server so users don’t need to be online for them to be available. “Of course, the files are encrypted before they are uploaded, just like they’re encrypted when you are sharing directly from your computer,” says Maloux.

Click here for a download. AllPeers is also running a Peer Pressure blog, as well as a developer site with information on how to extend AllPeers basic features.

Slashdot it!

Also See:
did a post – Allpeers Firefox p2p wins funding, March 7, 2006

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

“I am very proud to announce that we have released another official Microsoft plug-in,” says Hank Janssen on Port25. “It shows another level of interoperability and eagerness in working with the Community to get this released.”

‘It’ is a plug-in allows users to run the Windows Media Player inside Firefox.

The blog doesn’t explain why anyone would want to use it all, let alone in Firefox.

Anyway, “It was put together by the Windows Media Player team, and special thanks go to Eric Anderson and Thobias Jones. (And all the other people in the Windows Media Player team).”

And, “I also wanted to thank Mike Schroepfer and the Mozzilla foundation in helping us get this released.”

Slashdot it!

Also See:
Port25 – Windows Media Player Plug-in for Firefox, April 16, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

“Firefox cannot be stopped” with a use rate of close to 25%, says French monitoring service XiTi.

And in Slovenia and Finland, it’s 44.5% and 41.3% respectively, says XiTi.

Croatia, Germany and Slovakia exceed 35%.

In Oceania, Firefox achieved a use rate of 24.8% for the week of March 5 to 11, 2007, and gained ground on the other continents (North America, Africa and South America).

How are things with Firefox 2?

It’s still tight, says XiTi, stating, “Internet Explorer 7 leads in 16 European Countries versus 14 for Firefox 2.”

It goes on:

Over the week from March 5 to 11, 2007, the share of Firefox 2 visits (of all visits, all browsers combined) was higher than that of Internet Explorer 7 in 14 of the 30 European countries studied, i.e. approximately half, as set out below.

Firefox 2 was used the most in Finland, proportionally to visits with another browser in the same country: 27% of the visits generated in the country, all browsers combined. While during the same week, Slovenia ranked No. 1 in the use of Firefox, all versions combined, with 44.5% (see our “Close to 25% of Use Rate in Europe for Firefox ” study). Slovenia (26.8%), Germany (25.9%), Croatia (23.4%) and Poland (22.1%) followed Finland.

With regard to Internet Explorer 7, France had the highest use rate in Europe at 33.2%. The UK ranked second with 32.3%, then Switzerland (31.5%), Ireland (29.7%) and the Netherlands (29.5%).

Way to go Mozilla!

Slashdot it!

Also See:
XiTi – Close to 25% of Use Rate in Europe for Firefox, April 17, 2007

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.