Looks like 2013 is going to be the year tablets really start taking off. There has been a lot of tablet news this week which is likely because of The Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) this week in Las Vegas. All links are to Tom’s Hardware unless otherwise noted. Tablet Announcements: Archos Shows New Titanium, Platinum Android Tablets – French company – tablets will feature white finish instead of the typical black/aluminum finish and some will support a 2048 x 1536 resolution (for about half the price of the iPad). Panasonic Announces Android, Windows 8 Tablets – Panasonic might be taking a bit of risk here doing both Android and Windows 8…
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I think we have come to the point that our smartphones and tablets are more powerful than our traditional desktop/laptop computer. At their keynote address on Thursday, January 10th at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Samsung’s Stephen Woo announced the world’s first eight-core processor for smartphones and tablets, the Exynos5 Octa. However, it is not a true 8-core (or octa-core) as it is really 2 quad-core processors. My HTC Sensation phone only as a dual-core processor and the new (for 2012) Samsung Galaxy Note II phone/tablet as a quad-processor. The Asus Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface tablets also have a quad-core processor….
Changes are coming to way Firefox handles Private Browsing with Firefox 20 due out in early April 2013. In private browsing mode your browsing history is not saved and your existing cookies do not carry over into session, nor will any cookies from the private browsing session carry back to your main session. Currently in Firefox when you enable Private Browsing, your current session is saved and Firefox ‘restarts’ in private browsing mode. When you are done and select the Stop Private Browsing option, Firefox ends the sessions and ‘restarts’ back to where you left off prior, reloading your tabs…
Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg had started a discussion on Google Groups about ceasing development of Windows 64-Bit builds last Friday (November 23rd). This had been purposed as well back in March of this year. Shortly before Mozilla’s Thanksgiving recess on Wednesday, Smedberg announced: Thank you to everyone who participated in this thread. Given the existing information, I have decided to proceed with disabling windows 64-bit nightly and hourly builds. Please let us consider this discussion closed unless there is critical new information which needs to be presented. The reasons for ending the development of the Windows 64-Bit builds were many but…
I have come to the realization now, that I should except any software I download and install to try and sneak bloatware or Malware on to my system. This can be in the form of a browser toolbar or some type of ‘security software’ or Windows optimizer. Avast! has their WebRep extension that is installed into all the browsers on your system. This is suppose to tell you how reputable a site is when you are doing a Google search. Java is partnering now with McCrappy McAfee. Waterfox now serves up a bunch of stuff from AVG unless you go hunting around the custom install…
Mozilla is set to land the new HomeTab UI for Firefox 13 due out on June 5th, 2012. This feature was originally planned for Firefox 5. but has undergone major changes (and name changes). Unlike the similar feature in Google Chrome there will only be one page (Chrome allows you to scroll between two ‘pages’). This feature is NOT currently in Firefox 13 Beta, but should be landing in the an upcoming weekly Beta update. Below is what the current mock-up looks like and might change slightly before this is released to the wild in Firefox 13: Source: Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware presented a very detailed article as to why they think Mozilla can reclaim the title as ‘Top Browser’ with Firefox in 2012. Firefox did not fair well in 2011 and as we mentioned the other day, a lot of the decline has to do with Firefox 4. I am not so sure if Mozilla can really pull this off. I realize we just started the 2nd quarter of 2012, but Mozilla has a lot of work to do with Firefox still including improving the mobile side (Boot 2 Gecko should help this) as well as adapting Firefox for…
Back in July 2011 Mozilla moved to the Rapid Release schedule/process for both Firefox and Thunderbird with a scheduled (does not include re-spins and security releases) new release set for every six-weeks or about 42-days. This may change in the future by a couple days in either direction. The updates will be released when they are ready whether it is 40, 42 or 44-days out. Rapid Release was introduced for two reasons, one was to match the release cycle of Google Chrome (more on this shortly) and to ensure the massive delay in getting Firefox 4 release never happen again….
Mozilla has released as originally planned, Firefox 11 on Tuesday, March 13th for Desktop and Firefox 10.0.3 for Android users. New stuff in Firefox 11.0 include: Ability to import bookmarks from Google Chrome (makes coming back from Chrome that much easier) New Style Editor allows users to see the CSS working for the current page, disable and re-enable it, editing and see the effect immediately, and save changes for accelerated web development. Firefox Sync now supports add-ons (extensions and themes) as synchronized items joining forms, passwords, tabs, history, bookmarks and preferences. See the Release Notes for more information and other…
Below is a sample of what Firefox may look like by the end of the year with Firefox 17 (November 20th, 2012). Some things I have noticed is more streamline look, emphasis on app tabs, the removal of the forward button when you can not go forward. A couple big things is looks like they are dropping the separate search box which I am not too happy about (one thing I dislike about Google Chrome is everything is done from the url bar). Also MIA is the ‘Firefox Button’ introduced back in Firefox 4. I am not sure if Favicons…