PC World Philippines

Posts Tagged ‘ browser ’

Opera focusing on browsers for a range of phones

By Fei on December 9, 2010

By John Ribeiro
December 9, 2010

BANGALORE – Opera Software is targeting a large variety of mobile phones ranging from smartphones to less sophisticated feature phones that can connect to the Internet, as it aims at opportunities for its browser in emerging markets like India, the company’s co-founder said.

The Norwegian browser company is also using its acquisition in January this year of AdMarvel, a mobile advertising platform company, to sign deals with web sites for placing targeted third-party mobile advertisements on web pages.

“Our goal is to reach as many phones as possible,” Jon S. von Tetzchner said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

The company’s Opera Mini browser now supports over 3,000 phone models, including older-generation smartphones, because the company’s strategy is to take a phone that comes its way, check out its specifications and the size of the screen, and try and work out a way for it to run Opera Mini, he said.

Opera Mini, for example, supports the Android operating system, although mobile phones using Android account for about 3 percent of the market, and that is not likely to change dramatically, von Tetzchner said. The Opera Mini browser is also supported on Apple’s iPhone.

Some of the company’s competition are suited mainly for high-end users, which gives the Opera Mini browser an edge in the large market consisting of users of less-sophisticated phones operating on low-bandwidth connections, von Tetzchner said.

Opera said in April that it has worked with Vodafone to develop a customized version of the Opera Mini browser designed to run on low-cost handsets on 2G networks.

There is no need to have a smartphone in order to connect to the Internet, said von Tetzchner who said that he used for about three years a feature phone from Nokia to browse the web.

In Nigeria, South Africa and Indonesia, more than 90 percent of 18- to 27-year-olds use mobile phones as their primary means to access the Internet, even though smartphones are not widely used, according to results of a survey of Opera Mini users that was released in November by the company.

Key to Opera Software’s strategy for the low-end phone market is the use of compression technology that reduces the bandwidth usage by mobile phones users, von Tetzchner said. In the case of Opera Mini, the core browser engine is located on a server, which transcodes the web pages so that they can be viewed on a small client.

People primarily want to browse the web when they are on the Internet, which is the reason why Opera is focusing on improving its browser, von Tetzchner said.

Although some phone operating systems include a browser, such as iPhone and Android, Opera will stay focused on its browser rather than invest in operating systems and other software. “We want to do one thing really well,” von Tetzchner said. The company is not sure it is required to build the rest of the system, when its browser is getting shipped anyway, he added.

The opportunities for Opera are growing as the user base of mobile phones and their data usage is increasing, von Tetzchner said.

Opera touched 150 million users for all its browsers at the beginning of this month.

Besides revenue-sharing deals with operators who have seen a boost in data traffic and revenue because of the Opera browser, the company is also working on revenue sharing deals with owners of content and services that would be relevant to users, von Tetzchner said.

Following the AdMarvel acquisition, Opera is also working on deals with web site owners for placing advertisements on their sites. A web site that would like to have mobile-specific advertisements can put a tag on the page, and the tag will then be replaced by a third-party advertisement that can be targeted at specific segments of users and mobile phones in specific geographies, von Tetzchner said.

“We have the information to be able to provide targeted ads, but definitely not too targeted, because we don’t want to mess with our users’ privacy,” von Tetzchner said.

Advertisers can in turn go to the Opera system, and search the inventory after specifying the advertisement they would like to place, and the target audience.

Turn Your Web Browser Into a ‘Clicker’ with Clicker.tv

By Fei on August 3, 2010

By Rick Broida
August 3, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Remember Boxee, the media-center software that streams TV shows from Hulu, Netflix, and other online sources? Clicker.tv is kind of like Boxee, but without the software.

Rather, its interface lives entirely inside your browser. And it’s designed for 10-foot viewing, meaning you can kick back on the couch with nothing more than a keyboard.

Clicker.tv provides an attractive front end for perusing Clicker.com’s index of 10,000 TV shows, 30,000 movies, and 80,000 music videos. Not all of this content is free–in some cases your only viewing options are Amazon Video on Demand and/or iTunes–but much of it is just one click away.

Find a “Seinfeld” episode, for example, and Clicker.tv instantly transports you to TBS.com for viewing. The only downside is that you’re then subject to that site’s playback controls. While Clicker.tv itself can be operated using little more than arrow keys, many streaming sites require play/pause, volume, and other buttons usually found on a remote. At the very least, you’ll probably need a mouse.

The service lets you build playlists (though only, it seems, of selected shows, not individual episodes), and search just by starting to type. There’s even Facebook integration: Clicker.tv can update your feed so friends know what you’re watching.

I’m not saying this site can take the place of Boxee, Windows Media Center, or the like, but it’s definitely fun to play around with and an admirably polished Web app. Best of all, it’s free.

Clicker.tv is optimized for Chrome, but I found that it worked just fine in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Work Around Browser Crashes and Lock-Ups

By Fei on May 17, 2010

By Rick Broida
May 17, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Reader Charles decided to be adventurous and try Firefox. He likes it, he says, save for one problem: “It crashes almost every time I use it and sometimes several times a session. I still prefer it over other programs but it sure is annoying. If I have any serious work to do, I go back to Internet Explorer.”Good call, Charles. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to counsel users on this very problem. Usually it starts like this: “My browser keeps crashing, I think I have a virus.”

Believe it or not, viruses aren’t always to blame for browser problems. If your browser gets hijacked, meaning it goes to sites you don’t want it to go to or seems impossible to control properly, that’s indicative of some kind of malware infection.

But everyday crashes? That’s more likely the result of bad code, either on the sites you’re visiting or in one or more extensions you’ve installed (particularly in Firefox).

Stuff like this can be difficult to troubleshoot. So my first piece of advice to users in your boat is exactly what you’ve already done: try a different browser. If IE’s giving you trouble, try Firefox. If Firefox doesn’t work properly, try Google Chrome. (Heck, throw Opera and Safari into the mix. Any “different browser” will do.) The idea is to pin down the problem: is it browser-specific, or something affecting your entire system?

You’re already halfway there, Charles. If IE works properly with sites that crash in Firefox, then some plug-in or extension in the latter is almost certainly to blame. Your only real option is to uninstall Firefox (preferably with a tool like Advanced Uninstaller, which should wipe all traces of it), reboot, and then reinstall it.
Then, before adding any plug-ins or extensions, see if the crashes continue. If not, install the add-ons you want–but only one at a time, and perhaps a few days apart.

I know all this is a hassle, but unless you’re willing to abandon your buggy browser entirely, it’s your best bet.

Add Extra Rows to Firefox’s Bookmarks Toolbar

By Fei on March 1, 2010

By Rick Broida
March 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Everyone has their preferred method for keeping their favorite sites close at hand. Me, I take advantage of Firefox‘s Bookmarks Toolbar, which provides one-click, at-a-glance access to around 20 favorites.
Just one problem: Any favorites that won’t fit the width of my screen get dumped into a pull-down menu that appears at the far end of the toolbar–rendering them much less easily accessible.

Enter Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar, a head-smackingly obvious Firefox extension that lets you add extra rows to the Bookmarks Toolbar–thus putting more of your favorites close at hand.
You can add as many extra rows as you like, but I was happy enough with just a second one. (More than three and things start to look awfully cluttered.)

What’s more, you can scroll through your remaining bookmarks, instead of having to drill into that pull-down menu (which, in case you’re wondering, no longer appears when MBT is active).

Bottom line: If you rely on the Bookmarks Toolbar, Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar might just be your new favorite Firefox extension. It’s definitely one of mine.

Twitter Phishing Scam: Blame Browsers and Users

By Fei on March 1, 2010

By Jared Newman
March 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – With banks, newspapers, and politicians in Britain overrun by a blatant Twitter phishing scam, it’s time to point some fingers. Most disappointing are browsers and users, both of which failed to recognize an obvious ruse.

Specifically, I’m calling out Firefox and old browsers. After receiving a malicious “This you????” link from a follower, I tried it with all the browsers at my disposal, including Firefox 3, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 and mobile Safari for the iPhone. Firefox was the only one that didn’t throw up a warning page when I tried to visit the link.

In fairness, Firefox is usually better than this. A report by NSS Labs last year found that Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8 blocked 80 percent and 83 percent of phishing sites, respectively — far superior to the competition. But what good are those numbers if you don’t block the big one? It’s like batting with the highest average during the regular season and choking in the playoffs.

I imagine that older versions of browsers fell prey to the attacks as well, but I couldn’t test those out. After all, Internet Explorer 8 was the first version to include a phishing filter, so older versions might not have warned users.
It’s also hard to believe that so many Twitter users fell for the phishing scam. This one had all the telltale signs: A shortened URL, an actual URL hosted on a different domain (kevanshome.org) and a login page that doesn’t quite follow Twitter’s format, but has all the same graphics. And if you’re already signed in to Twitter, there’s no reason you’d need to sign in again.

As with any phishing attack on a social network, Twitter shoulders some of the blame for merely letting it go on for too long, but I understand that Web services get attacked often, and the major ones aren’t immune. In the end it comes down to having a browser that’s got your back and some computer smarts when all else fails. Apparently some high-profile people across the pond had neither.

Microsoft Promises Early Patch for IE Zero-Day

By Fei on January 21, 2010

By Tony Bradley
January 21, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft announced that it will release an out-of-band patch–meaning a patch that breaks the standard Patch Tuesday release cycle–to address the Internet Explorer flaw at the heart of the attacks in China against Google and other targets. The announcement was short on details, but Microsoft promised to provide more information on Wednesday.

George Stathakopoulos, general manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), stated “We continue to see limited and targeted attacks against Internet Explorer 6 and encourage customers to upgrade to Internet Explorer 8. We also recommend customers consider deploying the workarounds and mitigations provided in Security Advisory 979352 until the security update is ready for broad distribution.”

Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, commented on the unusual step of breaking the Patch Tuesday release cycle. “Given the never-ending lack of attention on the Microsoft IE bug, it was inevitable that [Microsoft] would release a patch on or before their regularly scheduled February release.”

It is certainly true that there has been no shortage of media attention devoted to the targeted attacks in China, and the revelation that a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer was apparently a prime attack vector. Germany and France have even added their two cents worth by recommending that everyone abandon IE–at least until a patch is available for the flaw.

The fact that the exploit code for the Internet Explorer vulnerability is now publicly available in-the-wild adds fuel to the fire. Storms points out that in the absence of the international attention on the attacks in China, this flaw probably wouldn’t be updated out-of-band. “If the public vulnerability had not been tied to the Google breach announced last week, the bug would have been worrisome, but not nearly as epically perceived by many.”

Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for IOActive, offered his own cautious insight, “We know there is an exploit in the field that is causing some amount of damage using this exploit as its entry point, but this entire situation is defined more by what we don’t know than what we do.”
Kaminsky is alluding to the veiled and sparse information trickling out about the attacks. The Internet Explorer vulnerability has been confirmed as an attack vector, but there are hints and implications that there are others as well. Google has been identified as a target, along with as many as 30 other organizations–most of which haven’t been identified.

The knee-jerk response to lay the blame at Microsoft’s feet and scapegoat the Internet Explorer Web browser misses the point and ignores the larger issue that, not only was this a sophisticated and targeted attack, but that a foreign government is accused of perpetrating the attacks and the United States State Department is backing those claims.

An attacker with dedication and resources can find a way to compromise just about any Web browser or operating system. The impact of precision spearphishing attacks such as this, which leverage zero-day vulnerabilities to infiltrate systems and allow the attackers to extract information, is a much more serious security issue than whether or not Internet Explorer gets patched before February 9 (the next regularly-scheduled Patch Tuesday).

nCircle’s Storms concurs “While the attacks were successful against many high profile companies, they are still of a limited and highly-targeted nature. For the mass majority of users, careful browsing practices coupled with up to date antivirus will provide significant risk mitigation.”

Google Sites Gets Dozens of Templates

By Fei on November 19, 2009

By David Coursey
November 19, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Google today announced the addition of templates to its Google Sites, an application used to create hosted Web sites and part of the Google Apps suite.
Available to both free and paid users, the templates include entire collaborative workspaces, employee intranets, project tracking sites, team sites, and employee profile pages.

Several dozen templates are available, with more being added.

Personal templates are also available, including family sites, weddings, neighborhood associations, clubs, charitable causes, and other interests, said Scott Johnston, Google Sites product manager.

Each template is comprised of between 15 and 20 pre-populated pages, including sample content, embedded gadget, page layouts, navigation links, and themes. The templates can be modified, up to a point, using Google Sites’ built-in editing tools.

Companies using the paid Google Apps Premium Edition are able to create template sets for use by their employees, Johnston said. In that way, standard templates can be used across individual departments or entire companies, as the customer desires.

The goal of the new site templates are to help Google Apps users get collaborative sites up-and-running quickly, especially for projects and intranets that are a good match for a templated approach.

In posts to the Google Official Blog and its Enterprise Blog, the company makes no claims about how Google Sites might compete with other vendors, but quotes customers who do so.
“Our customers really tell the story best. Ron Brister, Senior Manager of Worldwide IT Operations for Serena Software says, ‘We’re moving our project workspace collaboration to Google Sites because it requires less expertise and administration than SharePoint, and it’s easier for employees to use. Better ease-of-use directly translates into more fluid information-sharing, which helps our teams move faster and cross-pollinate good ideas.’
“Luke Leonhard, Web Services Manager for Brady Corporation adds, ‘With our old IBM Lotus Quickr solution, it took seven clicks and three page refreshes for employees to publish new information internally. Google Sites makes it just two clicks.’”
Google Sites templates will appeal to companies and users who want to get up-and-running quickly and cheaply, and who value ease-of-use more than an overload of enterprise features that often get in the way.

Microsoft will doubtless be quick to point out that Google Sites and Microsoft SharePoint meet many of the same, but also widely divergent, customer requirements. SharePoint is a Microsoft collaboration technology that has been criticized as too cumbersome for the needs of many potential customers.
Google and Microsoft both offer cloud-based applications, seen as a key battleground between the two. Microsoft recently lowered the prices of its online applications to better match Google’s pricing for its paid Google Applications Premier Editor.
The new Google Sites templates became available at 12:01 AM Eastern Time today.

Automatically Copy Selected Text with AutoCopy

By Fei on November 16, 2009

By Rick Broida
November 17, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Most users know how to copy text. Select the text with your mouse, then click Edit, Copy–or, better yet, press Ctrl-C on your keyboard. Easy right?

Well, it’s about to get a little easier. AutoCopy is a Firefox add-on that automatically copies any selected text straight to the Clipboard. (You then paste it like you normally would.)
This probably sounds like no big deal. After all, how hard is it to hit the aforementioned menu or keyboard key?

All I can say is, it’s one less step. And once you start using AutoCopy, you’ll wonder how you got along without it. Indeed, it has long ranked as one of the handful of Firefox extensions I absolutely positively cannot live without. (Others include PermaTabs and Lazarus.)
Give it a try! I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Happy birthday Firefox! Firefox turns 5

By Jon on November 9, 2009

By Brennon Slattery
November 10, 2009

On November 9, 2004, Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0 debuted and quickly became a serious contender in the ongoing browser wars. At the time, Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer dominated the market with a 99% market share. Five years later, Internet Explorer still reigns at 65%, but Firefox comes in second with an impressive 23%.

The battle is far from over, as the field is bloating with more competition. “With additional entrants, most notably Google and Apple, joining the fray there’s a massive amount of competition in the browser market that is fueling constant innovation and envelope pushing, from speed and features to the development of the mobile browser,” Mozilla wrote in a statement.

Firefox’s philosophy is that the Internet is a public resource and should be as accessible and open as possible. Mozilla spreads the word with wide-open arms to developers, who have beefed up the browser’s capabilities with more than 7000 add-ons.

Firefox currently has 330 million users worldwide, and celebrated its 1 billionth download in July.

Mozilla is making headway in releasing the latest iteration of its browser, Firefox 4.0. In preparation for 4.0′s late 2010 release, Mozilla released the Firefox beta 3.6 last week, bringing with it loads of new features that serve as a hint of what’s to come. Interface mock-ups for 4.0 are sure to set salivary glands into overdrive as it borrows crisp aesthetic cues from Microsoft’s Vista and promises massive increases in speed.

Keeping up with the world’s current obsession with Internet-ready smartphones, Mozilla is also working on Fennec, a mobile browser.

The celebration doesn’t stop with press releases and birthday candles — Mozilla is launching a worldwide campaign called”Light the World with Firefox” that will blast the Firefox logo into the skies of cities across the globe. Mozilla also released an illustrated YouTube video telling its story over the past five years. Check out the Spread Firefox site for Mozilla’s game plan for the next five years.

There’s a lot in store for the little browser that could, and I’m certain millions of people are closely watching its evolution as history unfolds before our eyes.

Opera 10 beat hits the streets

By Jon on June 13, 2009

opera10-screenshot

Opera has released the first beta of Opera 10, the newest version of the company’s industry-defining Web browser. Opera 10 beta sports a surprising array of new features, a fresh look and feel, and enhanced speed and performance. Discover a better way to enjoy the Web by trying Opera 10 beta. It is completely free for Windows, Mac and Linux users from http://www.opera.com/next/.

“Your Web browser is the most important piece of software you will ever use,” says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “We think Opera 10 will redefine how you can enjoy the Web. We have more surprises on the way, but when you try the features, enjoy the acclerated performance and get a glimpse at our shiny new wrapping, I think Opera 10 beta will excite both long-time users and those new to Opera.”

Opera Turbo cures the bandwidth blues
If you have ever waited on dial-up, slammed hard into a bandwidth cap imposed by your ISP, or gotten stuck on a crowded Wi-Fi hot spot, Opera Turbo is here to rescue you. Using state-of-the-art compression technology, Opera Turbo unclogs your connection so you can get to your content. Opera Turbo easily delivers three to four times the speed of slower connections and can offer broadband-like speeds on dial-up.

An interface-lift
World-renowned designer Jon Hicks joined Opera to spice up our user interface design. “Initially, we were just going to clean-up some elements and focus on the interface for new features,” said Jon Hicks. “But, over time, the new user interface elements became so different that we decided to update everything. Mac users in particular should enjoy this update to the default Opera skin.” The new skin is a work in progress and will continue to evolve before the final release of Opera 10.

Tabbed browsing update from the original pioneers
The tab bar is now resizeable, but with a twist. Pull down the tab bar (or double-click the handle) to reveal full thumbnails of all your open tabs.

Opera Speed Dial just became your Speed Dial
Speed Dial has been a favorite of Opera fans since its introduction, and now you can personalize it. Have a large monitor? Super-size your Speed Dial with a 5×5 grid. Want to see your family or friends in every new tab? Add their smiling faces as a background image. Our new Speed Dial is now as flexible for you as it is fast.

The application integration trifecta
Opera comes standard with an e-mail client, newsfeed readers and BitTorrent support within the browser. In Opera 10, you can now easily choose to use a variety of Web-mail providers, online feed readers or other BitTorrent clients as your default choice.

Performance and Web standards: Opera’s cornerstones
Even without Opera Turbo, Opera 10 is now much faster on resource intensive pages such as Gmail and Facebook and is more than 40% faster than Opera 9.6. Web developers can enjoy Web Fonts support, RGBA/HSLA color and new SVG improvements.

Web developers can also take advantage of the new features in Opera Dragonfly, our set of on-board Web development tools. Opera Dragonfly alpha 3 now allows you to edit the DOM and inspect HTTP headers and comes in more than 36 languages.

But wait, there’s more…
Opera 10 beta also improves upon existing features in the Opera 10 alpha. The inline spell-checker now supports 51 languages, using the popular open source Hunspell dictionary format. Opera 10 beta also updates automatically, although you can choose to allow completely automatic updates or to be notified when an update is ready to install. We always let you stay in control.

The e-mail client is also improved with rich text editing including inline images, styled text, links, and full HTML. You can also have Opera automatically delete e-mails from your POP server after a specified amount of time to keep your inbox nice and neat.