Shaping up samples for browser battles (AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google on Friday released a version of chrome as revved rivals Microsoft and Mozilla strengthened their samples to the arena of competitive Internet navigation software.

In line with the arrival of the lunar year of the rabbit, Google product manager Jeff Chang and Li Chan promoted the latest trial version of Chrome "as quick as a Bunny."

The latest version of chrome came a week after Microsoft has deployed an Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) release candidate Featuring improvements in speed, security, privacy and Web site graphics functionality.

IE9 has been downloaded over two million times as of Friday, according to Ryan Gavin, senior director of the IE team.

"We are particularly happy to see the number of partners and developers embracing and exploiting the IE9 performance capabilities," Gavin said in a blog post.

Mozilla last week released a test version of its Firefox web browser with 4 improvements that included a people of "Do not track" feature may use to report Web sites that do not want their online activities.

"We have continued our work to improve the performance and stability, while also implementing a privacy feature ' Do not Track ' to provide more control over online behavioral tracking," said Mozilla.

Firefox debuted in 2004 as an open source browser, innovative individuals predisposed released as an option for Internet Explorer.

Google released last month extension of the software for its Chrome browser that allows users to opt-out of being tracked by a growing collection of companies adopting privacy industry regarding online advertising.

"Keep My Opt-out" allows users to choose not to have code snippets, called "cookies" are installed on your computer to monitor your online conduct for the purpose of targeting ads.

Microsoft "Security Tracking" was built in IE9, but users must be savvy enough to enable the feature and create lists of third-party Web sites that do not want to track their behavior.

Internet Explorer is the most popular Web browser in the United States followed by Firefox, Chrome and Apple Safari.

Browser war retro: IE6 vs Netscape in 2011

If you took the raw, patch, 10-year-old versions of Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape 6.1 and tried surfing the modern Web? What would happen?

A decade ago, Internet Explorer 6 and Netscape fought for the hearts and minds of the public Web browsing. But since then, IE6 was vilified as unsalvageable and abandoned by its creator, and Netscape has faded into history books. You may still browse the Web with these two ancient browser?

You might think of cooking up IE6 or Netscape would lead to an immediate onslaught of viruses, followed by computer grows a mutant arm to detach itself from suicide or maybe bashing on your hard disk and processor. The reality is a little different-but only a little.

Just for fun (my definition of "fun" is pretty warped), I decided to spend some time using the original version of IE6, patch and a version of Netscape released approximately at the same time. It turns out that IE6 is still able to surf the Internet very modern, but Netscape troubles show probably dead death justified.

As you may recall, Microsoft destroyed Netscape by bundling the early versions of Internet Explorer with Windows, which leads to antitrust investigations and the creation of a monopoly that would not be challenged until Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome came to start sucking away market share.

A key inflection point in the history of the Web browser has occurred a decade ago, in August 2001, when Microsoft released IE6 not long after Netscape came out with its sixth-generation browser.

Incredibly, IE6 is still in wide use today, from more than one in 10 people browsing the Web, according to Net Applications using tracker. Durable nature of IE6 is due to businesses using applications that run only on IE6 and people who never upgraded Windows XP, or laziness or because they are using pirated copies of the operating system.

Although Netscape has paved the way for Mozilla Firefox, Netscape browser, it was already on its way out in 2001 and has now all but disappeared, with official support ending in March 2008.

I began my experiment, trying to track down IE6 and Netscape 6-specifically Netscape 6.1, which was based on early code from the Mozilla project and also published in August 2001. Acquisition of both browsers had a little more difficult than I expected, although getting older versions of Netscape is quite easy. Are all available in Netscape.

But after cooking on a Windows XP virtual machine on my desktop Windows 7, I realized that I was using a version of IE6 that was completed in 2008, when it was released the Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Microsoft, of course, makes it difficult to downgrade. In order to obtain the oldest, most awesome version of IE6, I had to find an original, 2001 copy of Windows XP that lacked any patch and service pack updates.

With those minor details out of the way, I was able to run IE6 versions 2001 and Netscape 6.1 on Windows XP operating system inside a virtual machine created with VirtualBox to Oracle. Here's what I learned.

IE6 beat Netscape for a reason

It's pretty clear that IE6 was the best browser, with an interface more minimal and the ability to view websites more modern and even play some Flash and Java content, including games and YouTube videos. I couldn't install Flash on Netscape because of a series of error messages and problems uploading of download sites.

Netscape 6.1 had a terrible interface, with a huge left sidebar giving you links to stocks, news, and bookmarks. Fortunately, this can be moved to the side to open up more valuable to surf the Web. I'm guessing Netscape has worked very well in 2001, but there are some sites-NetworkWorld.com-which I couldn't upload to Netscape and others where the text and graphics were all cut up.

IE6 has wasted space too high, but most sites charge and feels much more modern than Netscape. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't improve the UI nearly enough in IE7 and IE8, the browser's leading rapid decline and the rise of Firefox and Chrome. Microsoft has had a huge step forward with Internet Explorer 6, but IE6 doesn't seem all that different from his two successors.

Virus

I expected to be hit with a virus attack when I open IE6, due to the widely known security holes in the browser that cause problems for users in this day and Microsoft. But do not run in any obvious security problems, in part, I am sure, because I spent most of my time on sites that should be safe, like Wikipedia and ESPN.com.

Any website-no matter how seemingly legitimate-yet able to host malware. Remembering that I am not getting hit by a virus, I'm not recommending that someone actually use IE6.

Netscape, meanwhile, simply stopped working after an hour or so, that gives me the error message "File for the application has encountered a problem and needs to close Netscape." Once that happened, I couldn't open the browser at all, even after you restart Windows XP.

Simply reinstall Netscape didn't work either. To continue testing your browser completely and reinstalled Windows XP moved up to Netscape 6.2.1, released in November of 2001, giving me a version that was released after Windows XP and theoretically might work better on the operating system.

Modern Web navigation

Despite being 10 years old, IE6 can load most modern websites with few problems. It is slow, it gets a lot of warnings about using an outdated browser and does not display the contents quite as crisply and clean like Chrome, Firefox or IE9. But you can play YouTube videos, read articles ESPN.com and access Facebook.

The new version of Twitter poses some problems, however, and benchmarks reveal shortcomings of IE6. I ran a benchmark testing IE6 JavaScript gave a score of 24, compared to 759 for Chrome (though I was running Chrome on Windows 7).

The JavaScript reference site did not work at all on Netscape and two other test sites also worked on IE6 but not Netscape. One of these was a demo of Doom-style cloth, loaded on IE6, but played only slowly and hesitant.

Netscape could load sites simple, text-based, like Google and Wikipedia, but content sites like ESPN and Huffington Post were all cut, with links and text overlay. On Facebook, Netscape couldn't get past the login screen and struggled mightily to view any content on Twitter.

Clearly, it should not be using Netscape and IE6 to surf on the Web today. But if you want to see what would happen if we did, check out the screenshots.

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

To learn more about the software in the Software section of the network in the world.

For more information on the corporate network, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2011 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

Mozilla Exec claims IE9 is ' Not a modern Browser '

Microsoft says that IE9 is "the fastest browser in the world." Mozilla credits IE9 does not qualify as modern.

Like Mozilla Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 to get closer to release, browser manufacturers are sparring of HTML5 features, lobbing insults and conflicting test results.

After Microsoft said that IE9 reaches 99% compliance with HTML5, compared to 50% of Firefox, Mozilla Corp technology evangelist Paul Rouget fired back with a blog post entitled "is a modern browser, IE9? NO. "

HTML5 BATTLES: Microsoft slams guy "President of the United States of Google"

The HTML5 standard will not be finished until 2014, so at this point the posture is mainly for public relations. The World Wide Web Consortium has said it is too early to draw general conclusions from tests of HTML5, but this is exactly what they're doing browser manufacturers.

Microsoft said it has submitted nearly 4,000 tests for HTML5 standards bodies, and that users can try the tests themselves-but only on an official Microsoft website.

Microsoft, which is also fighting a battle with Google standards for the codec to be used in HTML5 video, said this month that "fastest browser in the world." But Rouget begs to differ, saying that no wonder Microsoft's IE9 knock HTML5 tests show out of the Park.

"IE9 supports 99% of the HTML5 specification as suggested by Microsoft? No, I'm actually pretty far from it, "Rouget writes. "Microsoft reference tests are those that have created during the development of IE9. It's not that surprising that pass the tests much they used to design and develop the browser-we score pretty well against our unit-test as well. The primary use case for these tests, however, is to spot regressions and validate code changes. In other words: the tests to ensure that future changes don't break things just built. They actually test all of the elements of a specific standard. "

Rouget pointed to a "real-world test" on the site Caniuse.com, that shows Firefox 4 said achieving 84% compatibility with all Web standards, compared to 61% for IE9. He mentioned also HTML5test .com, which has 4 Firefox achieve a score of 255 130, IE9.

These scores are based on the development and beta versions. For stable versions of browsers (IE8 and Firefox 3.6.8), Microsoft scores just 32 and Firefox only 156.

Google Chrome, meanwhile, receives a score of HTML5 to 283 for its stable version and 293 for the beta, besting all browsers for desktops and laptops.

But yet another test puts IE9 in head. Former Linden Lab CTO Cory Ondrejka, now at Facebook, tested as HTML5 could apply to Web-based games and recorded results showing across the IE9 chrome, Firefox, Opera and Apple Safari well behind.

Rouget of Mozilla does not mention HTML5 results Chrome, but provide a list of 17 features, he says, are not supported by IE9, including HTML5 JavaScript forms, strict mode, the application cache and drag and drop from the desktop.

Rouget "the reality is that IE9 is two years late," he writes. "Microsoft is pleased to come out with the VIDEO tag, the tag (CANVAS), SVG, and some CSS3. As other vendors did years ago. Firefox 3.5 had the tag (VIDEO), tag (CANVAS), Geolocation, SVG in 2009. Canvas and SVG existed five years ago. "

Rouget identifies only two IE9 features not supported in browser rivals-text-overflow and Calc. "That's why I do not think a modern browser, IE9" concludes.

In response to the blog of Rouget, Microsoft has released a statement saying:

"We spent a lot of time looking and seeing what developers are building today and what they want to build tomorrow to define what we built in Internet Explorer 9 today. We used that research to inform our vision of HTML5 and the parts that matter most for designers and developers in creating these next set of experiences on the Web. Defined In terms of HTML5, remains a combination of what you want to make developers and definitions set by the W3C as the Supreme authority in defining standards for the Web ".

Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jbrodkin

To learn more about the software in the Software section of the network in the world.

For more information on the corporate network, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2010 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

Mozilla: "is a modern browser, IE9? OOC

Mozilla technical evangelist Paul Rouget tears at Microsoft, arguing that while Internet Explorer 9 is "definitely better than IE8 and a step in the right direction", is not yet a modern browser.

Rouget up his claims by pointing out that Microsoft uses tests created during the development of IE9 as a point of reference do not provide a balanced view of the results.

IE9 supports 99% of the HTML5 specification as suggested by Microsoft? No, I'm actually pretty far from it. Microsoft reference tests are those that have created during the development of IE9. It's not that surprising that pass the tests much they used to design and develop the browser-we score pretty well against our unit-test as well. The primary use case for these tests, however, is to spot regressions and validate code changes. In other words: the tests to ensure that future changes don't break things just built. They actually test all of the elements of a specific standard.

Rouget should therefore step IE9 against Firefox on two different tests of HTML5, and the results are interesting:

The reality is that IE9 is 2 years overdue. Microsoft is pleased to come out .

Even the guys that wrote this evidence came to the same conclusion: Niels Leenheer: ' Microsoft talks about HTML5 but shows very little about, ' caniuse.com IE9RC1: ' [IE9] being roughly on par with Firefox 3.6 '.

Still, better version of IE is not a bad thing.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology, who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.