When we think of Internet browsers, we think of a free means to access and enjoy everything the Internet has to offer. However, there’s money behind Internet browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, etc.

Internet analyst Gene Munster of company Piper Jaffray, a middle-market investment banking firm, says that Chrome could be worth as much as $1.5 Billion for Google. That’s quite a bit of dough for something that is only a few years old.

Munster explains his findings further:

“Google is paying Mozilla $300 million a year over the next three year to feature its search engine in Firefox, a rival browser Google is challenging with Chrome. Munster, who also feels Chrome is exerting enough pressure on Mozilla and Microsoft to make their browsers better for the Web, used the financials of this Google-Mozilla arrangement to make his case for Chrome’s valuation.”

“If you assume that Chrome could generate $300 million in annual revenue through its essentially identical market share (and growing) with a 5x revenue multiple, Chrome would be worth $1.5 billion,” Munster wrote in a research note Jan. 4.”

You see, the incredibly popular browser at over 200 Million users, isn’t just a way for you to discover everything there is to discover on the Internet. It’s a means of getting you to search, find, and discover content that happens to be monetized via, you guessed it, Google.

That’s where the real money is at and with the deal with Mozilla, it allows Google to increase it’s market share which benefits them in numerous ways.

Google Chrome Could Be Billion Dollar Business Says Internet Analyst is a post from: The Inquisitr

These three browsers walk into a bar and… I forget the punchline but Internet Explorer sucks.

Chrome and Firefox vs. IE is a post from: The Inquisitr

For those of you not familiar with RockMelt it is billed as the “social browser” that is built on top of the same core browser as Google’s Chrome web browser. It’s early days were pretty rocky even though it got a lot of good early press from the tech blogosphere but over the last few iterations it has centered more around the Facebook experience than just a general “social web browser” experience.

With the new Beta 3 version released today that Facebook integration is carried even farther with direct involvement with Facebook to create an improved Facebook experience from within RockMelt.

This design refinement has progressed to the point that when the browser detects that you are on Facebook.com the user interface of RockMelt will remove certain features from the website and display them as an integral part of the browser itself.

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb has a great breakdown of what new features have been added to the new version but here is a listing of what has been added

• Brand New Friend Edge
• Expandable View with names and favorite status
• Scrollable Friend Edge
• Swappable Friend Edge and App Edge
• Friend search in Friend Edge
• Chat status can now be changed to online / offline even easier
• Option to hide offline friends
• Improved context menu when right-clicking friends
• Unified View of Friends: Favorite Friends and Other Friends now shown together
• Drag-and-drop to remove or add friends to Favorites
• Confirm and reject Friend Requests added
• View and reply to Messages added
• See Notifications and the associated item of interest (status updates, links, or photos)
• Universal chat experience from RockMelt – no more duplicate chat windows and friend lists
• Initiating chats on Facebook.com will open chats in RockMelt
• Universal Friend Requests, Messages and Notifications right in RockMelt – no more duplicates on Facebook.com
• New Facebook App with Photo Album Viewer
• Quick access to your own Facebook Profile
• Better Chat with Previous chat history now shown when chatting with friends, improved notification when chats are received and a simplified chat window

One has to wonder though, given Facebook’s penchant for “owning” the user experience how long it will be before they take this partnership to the final step and buy RockMelt and make it an official Facebook browser.

Is RockMelt becoming the Facebook browser? is a post from: The Inquisitr

All the major browsers have some sort of “privacy” mode that is suppose to let you browse the web without leaving, or collecting, personally identifying information.

With Google Chrome its called Incognito Mode but it it seems that it is far from being incognito according to Randy Abrams at the ESET security blog. Apparently he decided to test out Chrome’s Incognito Mode only to find out that upon going to a site he had never been to before Facebook was there to greet him.

I have previously blogged here and here about Facebook’s instant personalization, but let me spell it out for you.Facebook “Instant Personalization” destroys Google Chrome’s “Incognito mode”. There is nothing incognito about opening a clean browser with no cookies and going to a website you have never visited before and being called by name with your picture on the web page. Facebook and “Instant Personalization” partner sites deliberately ignores your obvious and explicit instructions NOT to track you.

And apparently it isn’t just Chrome that is getting sidestepped this way as Abrams pointed out in the post:

It is mind-boggling that Microsoft’s Bing ran an end game around the Microsoft Internet Explorer team by also defeating IE9’s “InPrivate Browsing” and poor Mozilla was caught in the crossfire as Microsoft and Facebook sneak around Firefox’s Private browsing feature as well. Apple’s Safari browser’s privacy mode was also hunted down and shot.

Welcome to the “socialization” of the web where your privacy obviously means nothing.

image courtesy of ESET

Chrome’s Incognito Mode – not so much incognito it seems for Facebook is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google – the enemy of all productivity? Last year the search engine giant gave the world free browser-based Pac-Man. This year, it’s free Angry Birds. This is the start of the collapse, people. Next year, we’ll all be spearing each other over the last handful of clean water.

A browser-based version of Rovio’s physics-y game has appeared on Chrome Web Store. Why? Because Google wants to show what the latest Chrome browser is capable of. And destroy all productivity (see paragraph one).

Hence, Chrome users can now download and play the first level of the game for free, something that Google Chrome Senior VP Sundar Pichai has claimed would not be possible in a browser one year ago. The fact that browsers can now handle this kind of technology is thanks to quicker graphics rendering speed – the current Chrome is ten times faster than earlier versions.

You can even play the game offline (as it’s stored in the browser’s cache), and there’s a set of exclusive Chrome-themed levels on the way.

[Via Venturebeat]

Play Angry Birds online for free is a post from: The Inquisitr

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not given to calling anything killer this or killer that. In fact I have called out more than a few people when it comes to them claiming that some app, or business, is a killer app or that app A is going to kill app B. So when I call something a killer app or extension I would like to think that it is pretty damn cool and useful instead of just another bucket of hype.

Such is the case with a new extension for the Chrome browser called Cortex.

So what is Cortex?

Simple answer is that it is one of the most simplest ways to share web content with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Instapaper and Tumblr (with more to come). Now before you start going off about there being all kinds of ways to share content let me just say that none of them are as elegant and simple as Cortex.

Here’s a video from the team behind the extension to help explain it better than I can.

The only wish I would have if for Cortex to support multiple Twitter accounts but for now I loving this great extension for Chrome.

A true killer extension for Chrome – Cortex is a post from: The Inquisitr

Word was all over the tech blogosphere that the browser darling, Chrome, is going to get some sort of ability to track its orientation – you know the kind of thing found on Apple’s iPad and iPhone.

Wha????????

Why?

If this is some sort of feature that people think they are going to need, regardless of whether, like Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb, it is for gaming – think again. To be clear – this ability is so that your browser will be able to tell what is up or what is down, and I still keep coming back to wanting to know why.

Is Google under the impression that we’re suddenly going to be rotating our monitors or flipping our laptops upside down or something?

Sure I can possibly see it for something like a mobile browser especially since everyone just loves playing racing game in a mobile browser but except for reasons where this might be wanted in mobile setting chances are there’s an app for that.

Sorry but this has to be one of the dumbest ideas of a feature to add to Chrome. Surely there are a lot more important things that could be added or fixed.

No vertigo for Google Chrome, whose 20% dumb idea is this? is a post from: The Inquisitr

Google’s Chrome browser has passed Apple’s Safari out into third place for US browsers, a milestone the newer browser option achieved in the UK last October.

Chrome, which debuted in October 2008, has been steadily gaining on Mozilla’s Firefox as an Internet Explorer alternative. IE now has a 52% market share, with Firefox following at an impressive 28.5% of users. Chrome edged in ahead of Safari in recent StatCounter data, with 8.97% to Safari’s 8.88%. StatCounter pulled the data from 847 million page views in the US.

The breakdown is a bit different among UK users, with about 55% still using IE. Firefox grabs a much larger share of the (steak and kidney?) pie across the pond, with just over 38% of users favoring it. Even the admittedly underrated Opera is trouncing Safari over there, with 4.4% to Safari’s 3.9% share.

Chrome’s rapid rise is impressive in the browser arena- while Firefox has burrowed deep into the market as a place users go when they graduate from IE, it’s had over seven years to get there. Chrome hasn’t even been available for two, and some of that time is beta only, and without options for Mac or Linux.

Have you ditched Firefox to come over the the Google side? What’s your go-to browser? Is anyone still using Flock?

Chrome surpasses Safari in US popularity, now ranked third is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s hard to believe that it has almost been a year since Google Chrome first burst upon the scene but in that time the browser has seen improvements and very soon even Mac users will have their own version of the browsers.

While Chrome is still dwarfed by the other browsers there is a very good chance that it will break through the 5% marker according to internet analytics firm Clicky. As Alex Wilhelm at The Next Web notes in a post to mark this event “garnering nearly one twentieth of the browser market in just a year is no small feat”.

It will be interesting to see just what effect on the numbers a release of a Mac native version of Chrome. I’m betting considering all the talk I have seen on happening amongst Mac users I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chrome’s user numbers get close to the 8% mark.

image credit: The Next Web

Chrome numbers continues to climb is a post from: The Inquisitr

A blogger reading about Chrome noticed a bit of AdSense fail, for Google’s own product.

[Source: Intershame]

Adsense context advertising fail is a post from: The Inquisitr

I have been using Chrome since the first day that the beta made its way to the web and I haven’t regretted it at all. In fact I wouldn’t want to use any other browser so it was nice to see that a new finalized version for this great browser has been released.

Among some of the stats that Google has provided with this release

• They’ve improved the Javascript performance by more than 150% since the first beta was released (very nice)
• Since Chrome 2 they’ve increased the Javascript performance by 25% (even nicer)
• There has been over 3,000 bugfixes in this release ( thank you !)

But most importantly for some is the theme support that is finally built-in to this release of Chrome. Once you’ve updated to the new version just click on the Options menu item and then select the Personal Stuff tab. At the bottom you will see the button to click to have Chrome display the Themes page.

As you can see there are some 29 themes currently available, including the original Chrome theme. Installing one of the themes is a simple as clicking on the Apply theme button and you are done. Myself I went with the Glossy Blue theme.

One of the other changes I’ve just noticed as well is that the layout for the New Tab page has changed as well.

Google’s Chrome gets themed and changes the New Tab page is a post from: The Inquisitr

There is no denying the fact that Google is a big believer in cloud computing and web based software. In fact much of their future growth is built on the principal of getting as many people as possible using their software whether it be Google search, Gmail or their Google Docs suite of office type programs. This of course is putting them in direct competition with Microsoft which means it has had to find different ways to get their software in the hands of consumers.

One of the principal ways that they have done this is to use the same tactic that Apple and Microsoft have been using for years – hit the colleges and universities. The first prong of their attach started over two years ago with them making the education providers an offer they couldn’t really refuse in a climate of growing IT costs. Google would provide them unlimited hosted email and other applications all of which would be branded by the institution for the price of – free.

With things like their browser, a possible operating system, and the in development Google Wave being added to this package Google has a chance to become an ingrained part of the student’s lives as they move from school to the business world. Right now Google is already providing services to some 4 million students and is providing serious competition to Microsoft for access to 17 million students on the more than 4,000 campuses in the US.

The campus push is part of Google’s broader bid to breed a generation of workers comfortable with the concept of "cloud" computing, and particularly Google’s version of it, where Google provides free web-based services in exchange for advertising dollars. "We want to build relationships with these users for life," said Jeff Keltner, Google’s business development manager for the program.

Source: Business Insider – Google’s 17 Million Built-in Chrome OS Users (GOOG)

The ability to offer colleges and universities a way to save millions of dollars a year in IT costs is making Google an almost irresistible force for these institutions while at the same time creating a constantly refreshing generation of Google users.

Google’s secret to taking over the world is a post from: The Inquisitr

There were, and still are, a lot of naysayers about Microsoft’s recent reworking of its search offering and subsequent launch of Bing. Its impact on the whole search business was never expected to be earth shattering but it has surprised more than a few by gaining percentage points. One can’t be sure if it will continue to grow or not but it showed that the company can indeed shake things up.

As I was reading a post on Technologizer by Harry McCracken about the slipping of Internet Explorer’s market share it got me thinking about the same thing I had written about in the past when it came to search. In a post on my home blog back in January 2007 where I suggested that if Microsoft wanted to make headway in search it was time they started a search skunkworks project.

The idea was of putting together a very small core group of developers and keep the marketing department as far away as possible in the hopes that they could build something new and fresh. While they didn’t go that route with Bing they came pretty close and I think that they should do exactly the same thing when it comes to Internet Explorer.

End of the line

In effect I would suggest that IE8 should be the last Internet Explorer. Any browser from Microsoft that comes after should be a completely new beast with a new name, a whole new frame of mind. I say this because the Internet Explorer name has way too much negative ‘emotional’ baggage that is being carted along version to version. The only reason that IE has any placement on the desktop anymore is because it comes with the operating system.

Other than those wanting to test out each new version so they can write negative posts about it, or diehard IE users looking to upgrade. Hell I was a diehard IE user for years. Sure, I tried out Firefox (never have liked it), Opera, Safari and Chrome. It is the last one that finally got me away from IE and chances are I won’t go back; and I’m not alone. As McCracken points out in his post

But I assume that Microsoft would prefer to not only stop the bleeding but to get IE growing again. The only way that’ll happen is if users of other Windows browsers–Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari–switch to IE in measurable quantities.

What are the chances of that happening? Slim, I think. For Windows users, running anything other than IE represents a conscious decision to use a browser other than the default one their OS came with. Typical users of Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari-for-Windows users all seem to be dedicated fans of their browser of choice. And once you’ve found a browser you’re comfortable with, the incentive to stick with it is high. For all these reasons, any version of IE is going to need to be strikingly different and better to lure expatriates back.

Why a skunkworks project?

One of the biggest problems that Microsoft has created for itself is that because of the ingrained nature of Windows and IE their software has to be backward compatible to the point that it becomes a bloated mess of code. If they were to start fresh it would have to be with the internal understanding that this is a complete fresh start – no dragging any code from IE forward. If they were to do this and word got out I think you would see a lot of corporate businesses become worried because of the in-house investment they have in using IE.

This in turn could exert pressure on Microsoft to re-consider and that would kill any chance of a fresh start. Make no mistake Microsoft has to do something when it comes to a browser. Internet Explorer is becoming an albatross around their neck and will continue to lose ground in the browser world.

So any initial work on a new browser would have to be done very quietly. There are a lot of people who would question whether or not Microsoft could do something like this on the quiet but just look at Windows 7 and Bing to see that they can do it. We might have known Windows 7 was coming but unlike previous versions of the operating system next to nothing was known about it until Sinofsky said so. We might have been hearing something about Kumo, the codename for Bing, but we didn’t find out much about it until they were ready.

Time to send Trident to the bottom of the ocean

Now assuming for the sake of discussion Microsoft did decide to take the plunge and work on a completely new browser. The first thing I would suggest doing is to ditch the Trident rendering engine at least as far as the browser is concerned. They have been using Trident for as long as there has been an IE but I would strongly suggest that they switch to using WebKit as the basis for the browser.

I suggest this for a couple of reasons. As I wrote previously one of these reasons is

If you consider that by moving to the WebKit engine Microsoft would be giving an incredible boost to an open source product as well the number of developers that would begin getting involved in making the engine better is huge. Consider that in this case WebKit would now be the default rendering engine being used in IE, Safari and Chrome – that means a shitload of developers are now available to improve the common engine. It would also leave Firefox out on its own and with it’s mortal enemy IE able to claim open source and compliance rights thereby taking away the major arguing point Firefox has for getting new users.

The effects of this kind of move would be a big public relations plus for the company. Microsoft has already been making moves to be a part of the open source movement but this would be a big step forward that would get a lot of people talking.

And that is one oft he other reasons why a move to using WebKit would be a key idea. The buzz that would surround the company as they launched a totally new browser based on the same open standards as two other major browsers would be immense. McCracken asked in his post what it would take for people to move to a Microsoft browser and stem the flow of people moving to other browsers as well as bring in new users. Well I think some thing like this would definitely fit the bill as an answer to his question.

Wrapping up

Internet Explorer (any version) is a pig with a lot of bad press surrounding it and I don’t believe that IE 8 or any future version of Internet Explorer will do anything to change that perception. I realize that any chance of anything I have suggested coming to fruition is probably never going to happen. It is also obvious that the company is losing market share in the browser world and that is something it can’t afford to let happen. Unfortunately I just don’t see Internet Explorer, now and the road forward, ever being able to turn things around.

First Microsoft shook up its search – next up: Internet Explorer is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’ve been stewing over this bucketful of crap about the European Union wanting to give Microsoft the good old underhanded grab because Opera is whining about how it can’t get any market share away from Microsoft because of Internet Explorer being shipped as part of the Windows OS. Then Mozilla decides that ya that sounds like a great idea and jumps on the EU bandwagon like a bunch of whiney little brats. Now today Google decides is doesn’t want to be left out of any parties so it petitions to join in on the anti-trust case.

Sorry but the whole argument that Microsoft has a monopoly on the browser market because it ships IE with Windows is nothing short of bullshit – plain and simple. The idea behind a monopoly is that Company ‘A’ has a complete stranglehold on a segment of the market that not a single competitor has a chance to gain customers away from them.

Well excuse me all to hell but perhaps nobody is paying attention to the numbers in this lala-land but tell me the name of the one company that has been losing browser market share over the past year.

C’mon .. it’s not hard. Hell just Google for it and the numbers are there for those that aren’t frikken blind.

The only company to see its numbers go down; and no Opera you don’t count anymore, is Microsoft. Mozilla’s Firefox has continually climbed with numbers of  anywhere between 20% to 30% being commonly tossed around. Even Google’s Chrome in its short life has been taking away users from Internet Explorer so what the hell do they have to bitch about. Then we have Apple’s Safari browser which is also showing strong gains, and speaking of Safari if the big whine point everyone has against Microsoft is that they ship their own browser with their own operating system how come Apple is getting a pass?

The fact is that the browser market is one of the strongest ones out there as far as software is concerned. All the players – the serious ones anyway – hard pushing hard and producing great products. Firefox continues to grow but is facing some stiff competition from both Google and Apple. As far as I am concerned this whole EU nonsense is nothing more than them trying to return to the Microsoft ATM to see if they can grab a few more billion and Microsoft’s competitors are only to willing to tag along.

The EU, Google, Mozilla and especially Opera are a bunch of asshats is a post from: The Inquisitr

That engine — called Futhark — was designed to cut down on memory usage rather than hit the highest possible speed, engineers say. Now, they’re ready to step up to the starting line and duke it out with Firefox and Chrome for the “fastest browser on the market” title. (Sorry, IE. You really just can’t compete here, not even with IE8.)

So what’s the deal with the name? “The name Carakan, like the names of Opera’s previous ECMAScript engines, Futhark, Linear A and Linear B, is the name of a writing system, or ‘script,’” engineers say.

Carakan is currently being tested on a small-scale basis. Developers hope to have it released in a future Opera version as soon as they can.

You can read the full details of how the JavaScript engine differs from past versions in the Opera blog here.

Opera Prepping Superfast “Carakan” JavaScript Engine is a post from: The Inquisitr

New numbers released by Net Applications show IE dropping to 67.55 percent of the worldwide browser market. That’s 0.6 percent less than it had one month ago, and a full 7 percent less than it had in March of 2008.

Firefox, in the meantime, has steadily grown in the same time period. Mozilla’s browser now commands 21.53 percent of the market, up from 17.83 percent last March. And it’s not the only alternative product growing, either:

• Safari is now up to 8.29 percent, from 5.82 percent last March.

• Chrome is sitting at a modest 1.12 percent but showing monthly growth. (It didn’t have any users last March, as it hadn’t yet been released.)

• Opera has fluctuated around the 0.70 percent mark.

Microsoft, of course, is hoping IE 8 — which saw its first release candidate hit the Net last week — will help it regain some of its lost ground. While the browser is undoubtedly an improvement over its predecessor, I don’t see it offering anything that’ll convince other browser users to switch back.

Internet Explorer Loses More Ground While Other Browsers Grow is a post from: The Inquisitr

At some point there was one thing that really started to get on my nerves. Google stuff began to remind me of the pablum I feed my two girls when they were babies. It does the job but damn its boring shit. Really .. just how much of that pale pastel blue crap can one person stomach in a day. Jeez give me break already.

Here we have machine that literally dwarf the mega machines that powered the Apollo Moon program and the best we can come up with for style is some utilitarian blandness to wrap our applications or web apps in – come on already. I’ve seen mortuaries with more friggin life in them than these Google offering and why should we be settling for this utilitarian sameness? Have we lost that interest in having the things we use on a daily basis that we don’t care if they look boring as hell?

Personally I am so sick and tired of that color blue that it wants to make me puke every time I see it. I told my wife when she gets around to redecorating that picking that colour would be grounds for divorce. So without the slightest bit of reluctance I have returned to my previous selection of programs I used even thought they might be a little heavier on resources it’s worth it to have some life back in my desktop.

The other thing that really makes me laugh is that Google apps are so popular among the Mac crowd. This is the bunch with deep roots in the artistic and style community and yet this idea of blandness is so acceptable to them. Talk about a total dichotomy.

Oh and by the way labels in Gmail isn’t all the snitz that the Gmail fanbois make them out to be.

Google makes me want to gag is a post from: The Inquisitr

First, the new release: Chrome version 0.3.154.9 is expected to go out to users automatically within the “next few days,” according to a blog posted last night. It implements a substantial security fix, as well as improved Flash and Silverlight performance, touchpad scrolling support, and some changes to the interface.

Now, the counterintuitive effect: Chrome seems, at this point, to be helping the other browsers on the market. After its initial draw, recent reports show Chrome’s numbers dropping and the number of users on other browsers climbing. Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner sees it as a direct effect. In an interview with GigaOM published today, von Tetzchner said the publicity surrounded Chrome essentially gave him free exposure to an audience who didn’t know his product existed.

“The effect of Chrome so far has been 20 percent more downloads every day,” he told GigaOM. “It’s fairly logical when you think about it, because the biggest hurdle we have is all those people that don’t realize there’s an alternative in the market. Now, with the launch of Chrome there’s focus on the choice of browsers in the market.”

So what’s in the cards for Chrome’s future? Our Inquisitr poll last month asked you what you thought.

• 39 percent of you believe Chrome will stick around and carve out its share of the market.
• 29 percent said it will stick around but never see widespread success.
• 32 percent said it will eventually fade into Google Lab oblivion.

To be fair, Google’s first foray into the browser world is still in beta, so we may be jumping to early judgments on its ultimate success. Then again, Gmail’s still in beta, too, and it’s doing just fine. Chrome came into a market with several popular and relatively advanced browsers, so finding a sizable userbase willing to abandon Firefox, Safari, or Opera may prove extra challenging for Google. So far, though, the team is showing no signs of giving up yet. Let’s see if their efforts pay off, or if — as a third of you predicted — Chrome vanishes into the final resting spot of so many Google projects past.

Chrome Releases Third Beta — Competitors Excited? is a post from: The Inquisitr

The expanded extension, first revealed on the Google Operating System blog, is becoming available before Chrome’s official extension API has even hit the masses. In what’s sure not to be a coincidence, Greasemonkey’s creator — Aaron Boodman — happens to work at Google as a Gears engineer.

As of now, the Greasemonkey Chrome version functions only on the developer edition of Chrome. It also has to be launched by adding “–enable-greasemonkey” on to the end of a target. One wonders, though, whether the support will eventually become integrated into a future Chrome build, given Boodman’s Google connection.

The news may serve as a comfort to any Chrome users who are also frustrated with the recent iGoogle change. A Greasemonkey script is already floating around to let you remove the new left-of-screen sidebar implemented into the portal page. While developed for Firefox, the function will presumably now carry over into Chrome as well.

Google Gets Greasemonkey, Sort Of is a post from: The Inquisitr

The build, now scheduled for a November release, is definitely set to include the rumored private browsing mode — presumably a reaction to the same feature being touted in Google’s Chrome release last month (and already available in IE8 and Safari).

Also within the realm of privacy, Mozilla’s taking aim at its competitors with a souped-up, schedule-based data clearing service. Beta 2 will have options to let you select specific time and data ranges for deleting browsing history and the likes. Any questions of whether the move is competition-driven are put to rest by these developer notes:

“The above will clear ALL data that you selected. It would be nice if you could
define a time period of what to clear.

Google Chrome offers a ‘Clear data from this period’ dropdown where you can
select a time period of what to delete.

Default option could be ‘Everything’ with other time frame options such as
‘this session only,’ ‘last day’ etc.”

Other features discussed include an expanded address bar — now being referred to, at least internally, as the “AwesomeBar.” Some of the specifics being planned for it are (more) added privacy options and tab search options. Mozilla’s also working on adding the ability to drag-and-drop tabs in and out of windows (a la Chrome). Enhancements to the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine — which engineers have sworn will outperform Chrome’s V8 engine — are also expected in Beta 2.

Then there are some “maybes” that may or may not make the second beta. One is a “Speed Dial,” reminiscent of the option in Opera and now Chrome, that creates a custom thumbnail-driven home page based on your favorite or most frequently visited sites. Developers are looking at a couple of add-ons — one actually called Speed Dial, and another named Fast Dials — for models of what they may eventually integrate. Another interesting possibility is a “site specific functionality” menu that would give you drop-down options based on where you’re surfing — things such as forgetting passwords, showing cookies, or even zooming into the page.

So, the latest status and timeline for all things Firefox 3.1, as of now:

• Beta 1: Released next week
• Beta 2: Locked down November 4; released shortly thereafter
• Full release: Late 2008 or early 2009

In the meantime, Mozilla’s Mobile browser — codenamed Fennec — is expected to hit alpha mode within weeks. More about its development here.

New Firefox 3.1 Details Emerge is a post from: The Inquisitr