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Mozilla Finds Some Users Won't Upgrade to Firefox 3 Because of Porn Habits

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:11:27 -0500

According to a recent study by Mozilla, the number one reason for users not upgrading from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 was the new location bar, and the fact that it went deep into people’s bookmarks to suggest sites as they typed. More than 25 percent cited this as their reason for keeping the last generation of Firefox as their browser of choice.

“When we expanded the capabilities of the location bar to search against all history and bookmarks in Firefox 3, a lot of people contacted us to say that they had certain bookmarks they didn’t really want to have displayed,” said Firefox’s principal designer, Alex Faaborg. “In some cases users had intentionally hidden these bookmarks in deep hierarchies of folders, somewhat similar to how one might hide a physical object. Having something from your previous browsing displayed to someone else who is using your computer (or even worse) to a large audience of people as you are giving a presentation, is really one of the most embarrassing things that Firefox can do to you.”

On a related note, Mozilla has introduced a private browsing mode in Firefox 3.5. So, you know, if this is the sort of thing you need to have – it’s safe to upgrade now.

Image Credit: PC-Tutorials.co.cc

Surfing Since 1991: The Evolution of Web Browsers

Paul Lilly — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:30:00 -0500

In order to surf the web, you need a web browser, and today there are several different ones to choose from. If you're looking for a lean, no-nonsense browser, Chrome is the one for you. Internet Explorer still stands as the odds on favorite when you want to make sure pages load correctly (not because of superior standards support, but because its majority market share have driven developers to code their webpages to look best on IE). Firefox has found more than a niche market by giving users near endless customization, and Apple's Safari purports to run circles around everyone else (it doesn't). And then there's the cornucopia of alternative browsers and browser shells, like Flock (Firefox-based) and Avant (IE-based).

No matter which browser you choose to surf the web with, the features you take for granted today are the result of nearly two decades of browser design. On the following pages, we'll take you through a visual tour, in chronological order, of every major PC-based (read: not Mac) web browser that ever was, starting with the very first one: WorldWideWeb. We'll tell you what made each one unique and, when applicable, what it contributed to modern browser development.

WorldWideWeb

First Released: 1991

By most accounts, WorldWideWeb is regarded as the first web browser. The groundwork that would eventually lead to WorldWideWeb began in the late 1980s, the same decade MTV was launched and the Commodore 64 was still going strong. Officially introduced in 1991, WorldWideWeb could display basic style sheets and was the only way to see the web. The navigation menu contained "back," "next," and "previous" buttons, but the browser also served as an editor. WorldWideWeb would later be renamed to Nexus "in order to save confusion between the program and the abstract information space," writes Tim Berners-Lee, the browser's developer.

Image Credit: Tim Berners-Lee (w3.org)

Erwise

First Released: 1992

Some online literature regards Mosaic as the world's first graphical point-and-click browser, but that distinction actually belongs to Erwise. Developed by four Finnish students at the Helsinki University of Technology, Erwise was designed for Unix computers running the X Windows System.

Advanced for its time, Erwise had the ability to search for words on webpages. If it didn't find the word it was looking for, it would scour the internet, up to 12 pages at a time, to try to find it. Erwise could also load multiple pages at the same time, but despite all the innovation and promise, it was never commercialized, the result of a "horrible recession" in Finland at the time.

Image Credit: xconomy.com

ViolaWWW

First Released: 1992

Before the Web entered into the mainstream, a limited audience would see the introduction of the ViolaWWW browser. One of the earliest browsers, ViolaWWW was launched in May 1992. It was written by Pei-Yuan Wei, a University of California student, and like Erwise, was built for Unix and the X Windowing System. This gave the browser a limited audience.

Image Credit: xcf.berkley.edu

Notable features include the ability to use multifont text, functioning within a single windows operation and the ability to clone a copy of a document in other windows, inclusion of a History window, "Home", "Back", and "Forward" buttons, online help buttons, and even bookmarks.

MidasWWW

First Released: 1992

Another X browser, MidasWWW was released in November of 1992. It was developed by Tony Johnson at SLAC, who named it Midas for 'Motif Interactive Data Analysis Shell.'

A popular browser among fellow physicists, Johnson had little interest in further developing MidasWWW. However, a colleague would translate it to run on VAX computers, making MidasWWW the first of only a small number of dedicated browsers for VAXes.

One of the few innovations of MidasWWW was that hyperlinks changed color after you clicked on them. It was also the first browser to make use of plug-ins.

Lynx

First Released: 1992

Although Erwise had already broken ground with a graphical interface, Lynx, also released in 1992, was a text-only browser originally developed by the University of Kansas to distribute campus information. It would later find an audience with the visually impaired because of its text-to-speech interface.

In 1993, a student named Lou Montulli added an Internet interface to the application and released it as Lynx 2.0. This became popular for character mode terminals that didn't rely on graphics, although Lynx does possess the ability to launch external applications to handle images and videos.

You can still use Lynx today - above is a screenie we grabbed while running Lynx 2.8.5rel.1 on top of Vista 64-bit (download).

Mosaic 1.0

First Released: 1993

Erwise may be credited as the first graphical point-and-click browser, but Mosaic earns its spot in history as the first popular graphical browser, which helped push the world wide web into the mainstream.

Image Credit: wired.com

Developed at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), Mosaic was yet another browser for X-Windows on Unix computers. The browser spread initially through newsgroups, which one of the developers would continually monitor and offer support where necessary.

Because the HTML 2.0 specification didn't exist at the time Mosaic 1.0 was released, the browser was lacking many capabilities that would later be part of the specification.

Image Credit: smartcomputing.com

Development began on the second major version of Mosaic in January 1994, almost two years before a final version would be released in October 1995. Mosaic 2.x became the first major browser to support HTML forms, HTML 3 tables, and several HTML 3 Character style elements. It also added support for Internet Explorer's BGSound element. But compared to other browsers, Mosaic was knocked for being "inexcusably slow."

Another version of Mosaic would later be released, but only for the Mac platform.

Arena

First Released: 1993

Dave Raggett, whose involvement in the Web began by developing experimental web browsers and servers in 1992, designed the Arena browser a year later to demonstrate the ideas in the HTML+ specification. Arena was the first browser to support background images, tables, text flow around images, and inline mathematical expressions, according to Raggett, and it was very powerful (for its time) at doing so.

Image Credit: w3.org

Arena would serve as a standards testbed by the W3C for HTML 3 and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) up until the organization later switched to Amaya.

Cello

First Released: 1994

Intended to be a multi-purpose browser, Cello brought native support for the WorldWideWeb, Gopher, FTP, CSO/ph/qi, and Usenet News retrieval, as well as a bunch of other protocols. It was developed by Thomas R. Bruce of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School, who recognized that most lawyers were running Microsoft Windows while the majority of browsers had been written for Unix or DOS. As such, Cello goes down in history as the first web browser for Windows.

Image Credit: agocg.ac.uk

IBM WebExplorer

First Released: 1994

In 1987, IBM introduced its OS/2 operating system for PCs. Seven years later, IBM would serve up its own web browser, WebExplorer, a no- charge download for users of OS/2 Warp 3. In April 1995, IBM would begin bundling WebExplorer in the OS/2 Bonus Pack, a collection of applications stuffed onto a CD and included with Warp.

Image Credit: pages.prodigy.net

In addition to support for HTML 3, WebExplorer also implemented mail and news integration, and users could view their browsing history through an option called WebMap. A "Links" menu would display all of the links on a viewed webpage and organize them in a pull-down menu, which was used in conjunction with IBM's VoiceType voice navigation.

Netscape Navigator

First Released: 1994

Everyone's heard of Netscape Navigator, the last standalone browser to ever claim a larger market share than Microsoft's Internet Explorer (Netscape Navigator seized a near 90 percent market share during its heyday). Netscape orginally said it would offer its browser for free for non-commercial use, but the free ride was over by version 1.1 for all but academic and non-profit organizations.

Image Credit: macx.dk

Version 1.x would offer up support for basic HTML 2 elements and some HTML 3 functionality, and as development continued, Netscape Navigator would later add table support to the mix. Version 1.2 also updated the user interface for Windows 95.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Visually, not a whole lot changed with version 2.x over 1.x, but underneath the hood was a different story. The second major release of Netscape Navigator injected more HTML 3 elements into the engine, and for the first time, the browser could handle JavaScript code.

Image Credit: webbasedprogramming.com

In 1996, Netscape served up its third Navigator browser version. Still visually similar to earlier versions, the third major release added a bunch of new plug-ins, support for background colors in tables, and other odds and ends. A Gold version, which would later be changed to Netscape Communicator, integrated email, a news reader, and a WYSIWYG editor.

Image Credit: 5star-shareware.com

The fourth major release would be Netscape's last stand-alone Navigator and the last release for 16-bit Windows. Netscape Communicator would take over from version 4.5 up to version 4.8, and after that, the browser would simply be called Netscape.

This would also be Netscape's first browser to take on a modern look, but it still trailed in appearance to the current version of Internet Explorer. Moreover, Netscape Communicator 4.x ran comparatively slow. However, Netscape announced in early 1998 that future versions would be given away for free, the first of which was Netscape Communicator 4.5 in October 1998.

Image Credit: pcworld.com

In November 1998, AOL acquired Netscape and almost immediately scrapped development of Netscape 5.0. Instead, AOL wanted to build a version from the ground up, which ultimately delayed the release of Netscape 6. When it was released in late 2000, Netscape 6, based on early Mozilla code, proved both slow and unstable, prone to frequent crashing.

Image Credit: codescene.com

Released in 2002, Netscape 7 addressed the stability and performance problems that plagued Netscape 6. By version 7.2, Netscape would include an address book, HTML editor, IRC client, AOL Instant Messenger, and an online radio player (Radio@Netscape).

Slipknot

First Released: 1994

While Mosaic popularized graphical web browsing, such a luxury was unattainable for anyone without a SLIP or other TCP/IP connection. Thus Slipknot was born, a browser designed for UNIX dial-up users or direct connect shell accounts.

Image Credit: tidbits.com

Slipknot allowed users to switch between the program's web browser and its UNIX terminal window so long as documents weren't being retrieved. It could save entire documents, along with embedded pictures, and could display up to 10 documents on the screen. it also offered anonymous FTP access, Gopher, and the ability to send outgoing mail with the "mailto" HTML tag.

Minuet

First Released: 1994

Short for Minnesota Internet users Essential Tool, Minuet, as you might have guessed, was developed at the University of Minnesota. It was a DOS-based browser with low system requirements that gave college students email, newsgroup, FTP, and of course web browsing functionality. To display pages with GIF or JPEG images, Minuet required the assistance of a videocard.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Internet Explorer

First Released: 1995

Currently the market share leader, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was far less popular when it first debuted in 1995. To create what would eventually become the most used browser on the planet, Microsoft licensed Mosaic source code from Spyglass and quickly began tweaking its own browser.

Image Credit: Microsoft

IE1 wasn't included with Windows 95 when the OS officially launched on August 24, 1995, and instead Microsoft bundled the browser as part of the Windows 95 Plus! Pack. It was just over 1MB in size and about as basic as a browser gets.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Later that same year, Microsoft would release Internet Explorer 2. According to Microsoft, this was the first cross-platform browser to support both Windows and Mac. IE2 also jumped on the JavaScript bandwagon, and while it was still a fairly basic browser, it did support Secure Socket Layer (SSL), cookies, and twelve languages including English.

Image Credit: globallink.net

Included with Windows 95OSR2, IE3 was one of the first major browsers to support CSS, at least partially. IE3 shed Microsoft's Spyglass source code roots and brought support for ActiveX controls, Java applets, and Internet Mail. It could display GIFS and JPEGs and play MIDI sound files. And finally, IE3 was the first browser to be identified by the now infamous blue 'E' logo.

Image Credit: sunsite.uakom.sk

Released in 1997, IE4 shipped as part of the Windows 98 operating system. New features included Active Desktop, Channels, Frontpage Express, Netshow, Web Publishing Wizard, Microsoft Chat 2.0, and other multimedia functionality. This was also the first version of IE to support DHTML.

Image Credit: donmouth.co.uk

Whereas IE4 shipped with Windows 98, IE5 came bundled with Win98SE (version 5.5 shipped with Windows ME). It offered bi-directional text support, improvements to its CSS support, and introduced Compatibility Mode. Starting with IE5, users could also save web pages with embedded components.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Microsoft released IE6 just before Windows XP and included the updated browser in the new OS. According the Microsoft, the major focus was on security and privacy, but the software maker also injected "fun stuff" like the Images Toolbar, Auto Image Resize, Print Preview, and Media Bar. When SP2 was released for XP, a pop-up blocker would also be added.

Image Credit: Microsoft

With Netscape no longer a threat and IE6 dominating the market share, Microsoft appeared to grow complacent with browser development. Other browsers -- most notably Mozilla's open-source Firefox -- had been gaining ground with innovative features, and in October 2006, Microsoft finally responded with IE7. This newest browser didn't initially come integrated with an OS (it would later be packaged with Vista), and at first it required compliance with Windows Geniunie Advantage. The interface was markedly different than previous versions of IE, and tabbed browsing finally made an appearance.

The most recent version of Internet Explorer is IE8. For better or worse, IE8 retains the same overall appearance of IE7, but adds a few goodies such as tab grouping, Accelerators, WebSlices, InPrivate browsing, and a SmartScreen phishing filter. It's also the most standards-compliant version of IE to date, though it doesn't pass the stringent Acid3 test.

Like just about every modern browser, heavy focus was put into tweaking JavaScript performance, and as a result, IE8 feels much faster than any previous version of IE.

Opera

First Released: 1996

Pat yourself on the back if you knew that before there was Opera, there was MultiTorg Opera. It wasn't until version 2.0 that Opera would lose its MultiTorg tag and be available to the general public as shareware.

Image Credit: cybernetnews.com

Written from scratch, Opera 2.0 was completely independent from Mosaic, IE, or Netscape. And from the beginning, Opera purported to be a highly standards compliant, light-weight browser. Opera 2.0 supported HTML 3.0, it could zoom with proportional full page scaling from 20 percent to 1000 percent, it could save, open, insert, and restore sessions, and it offered multiple image and video support.

Image Credit: w3.org

Released in 1997, Opera 3 became the first version of Opera to support JavaScript. As development on 3.x continued, the alternative browser added file uploading, an integrated file download/transfer manager, pop-up blocking, plug- in support, and CSS support.

Image Credit: XML.com

One month after Opera 3.62 was released, Opera 4.0 hit the scene in June of 2000. The updated browser brought tabbed browsing into the fray, while also adding a handful of other features, such as an integrated news and email client, SSL 2, 3, CSS1, CSS2, XML, and HTML 4.0 support, print preview functionality, and a Kiosk mode.

Image Credit: open-mag.com

With the release of version 5, Opera changed its business model from by making Opera ad-sponsored rather than a trial download. But arguably the most influential addition was the introduction of mouse gestures, which is now supported by just about every browser on the planet either natively or through extensions.

Image Credit: howtocreate.co.uk

Opera 6 included PNG alpha transparency, better pop-up blocking controls, skin choices, and the Unicode character standard. Opera users also found themselves unable to connect to MSN.com after Microsoft blocked access to anyone not using Internet Explorer. Although Opera wasn't the only third-party browser denied access, the company took particular exception to Microsoft's short-lived ban. In a press release, Opera Software said:

"Opera is internationally acclaimed and renowned for its strict compliance with all international Internet standards. Maybe Microsoft should take a look at its lack of respect for the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) international Internet standards before bad-mouthing others."

The full, no-holds barred press release can be found here.

Image Credit: monkeygumbo.com

Still scorned over the MSN.com fiasco, Opera released a special "Bork" version of Opera 7 for Windows. When visiting MSN.com using the special Bork version, the page would be transformed into the language spoken by the Swedish Chef from the Muppets ("Bork, Bork, Bork!").

Corporate politics aside, Opera 7 introduced the Presto layout engine, resulting in a faster browsing experience. Standards support also received a boost.

Image Credit: myopera.com

Built around the same rendering engine as version 7, Opera 8 added full voice capability and navigation, the ability to fit window to width, notifications of blocked pop-ups, and automated weekly update checks. In September of 2005, version 8.5 permanently removed the ad banner, making it completely free for all users from then on.

Image Credit: tothetech.com

Opera 9 was released back in 2006 and remains the current version today (Opera 9.64). Throughout its development cycle, version 9.x would upgrade its Presto 2.0 layout engine to Presto 2.1.1.

Version 9 became one of the first browsers to pass the Acid2 web standards test. Widgets were also introduced in version 9.

Grail

First Released: 1995

According to its creator -- Guido von Rossum, best known for developing the Python programming language -- one of the goals in creating Grail was to make a "hackable" browser for researchers, noting it was a pain to have to hack the Mosaic C sources. Because Python code is smaller than C code, Rossum argued it would be far easier to tweak Grail's code.

Image Credit: cnri.net

Grail offers full support for HTML 2 and partial HTML 3.2, it can save and print documents, perform searches, it supports bookmarks and history, and more.

Arachne

First Released: 1996

If your computing roots date back to DOS, you might remember surfing the web with Aracne, a graphical browser that could be used with MS-DOS, OpenDOS, and Dr. DOS. The freeware browser was small enough to fit on a single 1.44MB floppy disk, but contained a surprising amount of features for such a teensy package.

Image Credit: mashable.com

Aranchne could render frames, tables, and animations and offered support for HTML 4.0 . It also came with a simple HTML editor, FTP support, and even a basic WAV player. This in addition to supporting POP3, SMTP, and other protocols. And did we mentioned in fit on a floppy?

Amaya

First Released: 1996

More of a web editor than a web browser, the W3C created Amaya in 1996 "to showcase Web technologies in a fully-featured Web client." The goal was to develop a testbed that would adhere to more standards than any other browser available. Amaya is still being developed today, where it continues to be used as a testbed for new technologies.

Image Credit: w3c.org

Oracle PowerBrowser

First Released: 1996

Built from the ground up, Oracle's PowerBrowser client combined a built-in personal web server, support for tables and images, Internet search features, built-in basic Java and Basic scripting capabilities, and support for third-party applications called Network Loadable Objects (NLO) all into a single package. It was initially available for Windows, but would later add support for Macs and UNIX.

Image Credit: dba-oracle.com

Mozilla / Seamonkey

First Released: 1998

You know Mozilla as the developers behind the popular Firefox browser, but before there was Firefox, there was the Mozilla Application Suite. Now known as Seamonkey, the cross-platform suite was based on the source code for Netscape Communicator. It consisted of a web browser (Navigator), Mail and Newsgroup app (Communicator), a web page developer (Mozilla Composer), and an IRC client (ChatZilla).

Image Credit: theinquirer.net

Mozilla represents an important part of the company's history, as it introduced extensions, without which Firefox would not be nearly as popular as it is today.

Konqueror

First Released: 1996

Another multi-purpose client, Konqueror combines a file manager, KDE technology, open-source browser, and a universal viewing application all in one.

Image Credit: konqueror.org

As a browser, Konqueror boasts support for JavaScript, Java applets, CSS, SSL, and other standards. It can run on just about any UNIX-like OS, and can also run under Windows as part of the KDE on Windows project. The HTML rendering engine Konqueror uses -- KHTML -- is the same one employed by Apple's Safari browser.

K-Meleon

First Released: 2000 (version 0.1)

If you've ever tried K-Meleon and thought it felt a lot like Firefox, there's good reason. Both browsers are built around the Gecko rendering engine. So what's the difference? K-Meleon is much more light-weight, trading in extensive plug-ins, options, and various goodies for an ultra lean design that's lighter on resources. Some have referred to K-Meleon as Firefox without the bloat.

Image Credit: Filehippo

But it's not completely bare-bones. K-Meleon allows users to change skins and themes, and it supports tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, pop-up blocking, and macros. It's also a Windows-only browser.

Galeon

First Released: 2001

Like K-Meleon, Galeon is based on the same Gecko layout engines as Firefox, only Galeon is written for GNOME. And also like K-Melon, Galeon's goal is to provide a light-weight and efficient browser without sacrificing standards compliance.

Image Credit: softpedia.com

There was some debate over whether Galeon should be a simple browser or whether it should cater to the power user crowd with advanced options and functionality. This ultimately led to the undoing of the Galeon's original development team.

Safari

First Released: 2003

Apple first introduced the Safari web browser in 2003, but it wasn't until 2007 that a version (Safari 3) would be compatible with Window. Safari 3's UI did nothing to hide its Mac heritage, but looking beyond the aesthetics, the browser boasted the ability to resize text boxes that are embedded in web pages, fairly fast rendering, and pretty good standards compliance.

When Apple released Safari 4 earlier this year, Jobs and Co. called it the world's fastest browser. That's debatable, although our own testing did find the revamped browser to offer notable speed improvements, particularly when it comes to JavaScript performance.

Safari 4 also shed its Mac OS digs for a more Windows-like appearance, along with a simplified navigation layout similar to Google's Chrome browser, both of which are built around the WebKit platform. The addition of Cover Flow meant iTunes users would feel right at home browsing through bookmarks and site history.

Firefox

First Released: 2004

The second most used browser on the planet and a favorite here at Maximum PC, Firefox's roots trace back to the Mozilla Application Suite. The creators -- Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross -- sought to offer a capable browser without the heavy backage being lugged around by a full-blown multi-purpose suite, and so Firefox was born. Or more accurately, Phoenix was born, as the browser was initially called but was later changed to avoid stepping on any trademark toes with the same-named BIOS manufacturer.

Image Credit: piercedotzler.com

Firefox was well received from the beginning, earning accolades in the media for its feature-set. Released in 2004, Firefox 1.0 came with a customizable search bar built into the menu bar. It also came with a pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, a built-in RSS reader, central download manager, and was considered more secure than Internet Explorer, in part because it didn't support VBScript or ActiveX. And of course it supported extensions, which would ultimately provide the foundation for Firefox's continued success.

Image Credit: worthinstalling.com

By the time Firefox 1.5 was released in 2005, Mozilla's open-source browser had managed to grab 10 percent of the Windows-based browser market share. In addition to security and bug fixes, the half-version update let users reorder browser tabs, it ran faster, it offered the option to clear private data through the user menu, and it introduced automated updating.

Image Credit: winsupersite.com

While many of the changes to Firefox 2.0 were subtle, it did offer some notable improvements over previous versions. Namely, Firefox 2.0 slapped together built-in phishing protection, inline spell checking, improved search through search term suggestions, client-side session and persistent storage, and a Session Restore feature.

Image Credit: brothersoft.com

Released in June 2008, Firefox 3's biggest change was the move to the Gecko 1.9 layout engine, which had been in development for 34 months. According to Mozilla, the new layout engine supercharged the browser with more than 15,000 changes to improve performance, stability, webpage rendering, and simplified code.

On the feature front, Firefox users could now add bookmarks simply by clicking on the start button in the URL bar. Other additions included the Smart Location Bar, new graphics and font handling, better memory management, a new download manager, and more. Anticipation was so high for the release of Firefox 3 that it ended up setting a Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour period.

Mozilla originally intended to label its next browser version Firefox 3.1, but after assessing the number of changes being made under the hood, the browser maker ended up labeling it Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 upgraded the Gecko engine from 1.9.0 to 1.9.1, bringing with it better compliance with web standards, support for border images, a private browsing mode, and enhancements to the AwesomeBar. The latest version also puts a lot of focus on JavaScript performance courtesy of the new TraceMoneky JavaScript engine.

Chrome

First Released: 2008

Google surprised a lot of people when it released its Chrome browser in 2008, but even more surprising was that it wouldn't remain in beta for very long, at least for a Google product. Built around the same WebKit platform as Apple's Safari browser, Chrome took a barebones approach to its layout. It also claimed improved security and reliability over every other browser on the market thanks to its abiltiy to treat each browser tab as a separate process.

Another notable feature is Chrome's Incognito mode, a private browsing mode that can be run at the same time a regular Chrome window is open.

Image Credit: dvice.com

Not a whole lot changed visually with the release of Chrome 2, but as far as performance goes, Google claimed a whopping 30 percent increase over the already speedy browser. Performance claims aside, users could now quickly remove sites from the "most visited" section, it offered a true full-screen mode, and an autofill function that remembered what you typed into web forms.

Still similar in appearance to previous versions, and still without extensions support, Chrome 3 brought to the table a New Tab page, basic theming capabilities, support for advanced HTML5 capabilities, and more performance tweaks.

Have a favorite browser of all time or know of one we missed? Be sure to tell us all about it in the comments section below!

Can Windows 7 Fix Vista’s Tarnished Image in the History Books?

Justin Kerr — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:07:23 -0500

Windows 7 still isn’t officially released to the general public yet, but I’m willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that it will be a universal hit. Users making the jump from Windows XP have a lot of advances to look forward to, and for the most part we can thank Vista. The similarities between the two OS’s are shocking, so much so that many have simply dubbed Windows 7 as “Vista done right”.

Nobody will argue that Windows 7 isn’t a huge leap forward in terms of performance, but even a $600 PC purchased today has more than enough muscle to deliver an excellent experience in Vista. The simple fact that Windows 7 will be born into a mature world full of drivers written for it’s predecessor will almost singlehandedly ensure a successful rollout. Lack of drivers if you recall, was the single largest complaint against Vista’s at launch and Microsoft even alleges that it was a huge factor in reports of it’s early instability.

"I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there" said Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft, in a ChannelWeb story. "So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista."

So with the Windows 7 launch day less than three months away, are you ready to forgive Vista?

Privacy Shmrivacy, Web2.0collage.com Knows Where You've Been

Paul Lilly — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:21:00 -0500

Think your browsing history is secure from prying eyes so long as you never leave your PC unattended? Think again. A new site, Web2.0collage.com, digs through your browser's history and then constructs a collage of the web2.0 websites that you've visited.

"Web2.0collage.com mixes art and technology to raise privacy concerns," the site states on its homepage. "Many of us consider our browser history to be private, but that is no longer the case. Any website you visit can determine your browser history by exploiting the very features designed to enhance your Internet experience, a fact many people are not aware of."

Web2.0collage.com works its artistic magic by using JavaScript and them assembling the pieces together in a collage of thumbnails. What you do with it is up to you -- the site links to Zazzle.com to give you some ideas -- but if you're concerned about who's snooping your browser history, you should probably start by clearing your cache.

Imagine Connecting to the Internet with a 300 Baud Modem

Justin Kerr — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:00:57 -0500

An enterprising antique hardware collector known only as “Phreakmonkey” on You Tube has recorded and posted a video showcasing what the internet would have looked like in 1964. After detailing his lovingly preserved Livemore Data Systems “Model A” Acousitc Coupler 300 Baud Modem, he then proceeds to demonstrate how he uses it to establish a connection to the net.

Oddly enough, my 10 Mbps cable modem choked on the streaming video a bit, but my faith in my ISP was quickly restored when I compared it to the 300 characters per second this speed demon maxed out at.

This modem is about as (un)maximum as it gets around here, but it certainly is an interesting watch for nostalgic types who enjoy taking a look back at the history of digital communication.

Ever Wonder Where "@" Comes From?

Andy Salisbury — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:32:14 -0500

To many of us, the @ symbol is second nature. Used for email addresses and tweets alike, we’ve grown so accustomed to it that its nature isn’t generally of interest – unless you work for The New York Times.

According to the Times, the “at sign” (or, a “snail” if you’re Italian and a “monkey” if you’re a southern Slav) is a fairly recent invention, dating back 473 years. Reports state that a Florentine merchant that went by the name Francesco Lapi used the @ symbol in a letter he wrote on May 4, 1536. Back then it was used to indicate a measure of weight or volume, known as an amphora. The letter read, “There [is] an amphora of wine, which is one thirtieth of a barrel, is worth 70 or 80 ducats.”

The reason that it became commonplace for keyboards in today’s world, is because it was shorthand for “at the price of” in the records of English merchants. And, in 1971, engineer Ray Tomlinson used it “to indicate that the users was ‘at’ some other host rather than being local” for the very first emails ever sent.

Image Credit: The @ Book

The 50 Most Important PC Components of the Modern Computing Era

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:30:00 -0500

The personal computer has a storied history, stretching all the way back to the days of the Commodore 64 and IBM PC. But for us, the most interesting PC hardware developments really started about 15 years ago. Along with the eminent arrival of Windows 95, this was when Moore's law would really kick into high gear and bring us amazingly fast PC components like Intel's front side bus-multiplying Pentium, AMD's gigahertz-breaking Athlon, and yes, the wonderful world of 3D graphics accelerators.

We take an in-depth look back at the 50 most important pieces of PC hardware in the modern computing area. From CPUs to videocards and even monitors, these components were the envy of every PC enthusiast, whether you could afford them or not. They might not have been the fastest parts at the time, but they sure were the most notable. And before you ask, many of these entries were used of our Dream Machines. Join us as we journey with the ghost of PC past, and share your own favorite PC parts in the comments section!

Intel Pentium 90

Circa: 1994

Intel's Pentium processor brought the x86 architecture to new heights, as well as brought along a new naming scheme. Unable to patent numbers, Intel avoiding dubbing its newest chip the 586. The Pentium introduced several improvements designed to address the performance bottlenecks of previous processors. Chief among them was a 64-bit wide date bus, two execution units, a much improved floating point unit (FPU), and faster clockspeeds. Intel's Pentium processor launched at 60MHz, but it didn't take long for faster chips to follow before it eventually topped out a 233MHz. The 90MHz version was the first Intel CPU to use a FSB multiplier – the FSB was clocked at 60MHz, multiplied by 1.5 to achieve the 90MHz Clock speed. From this point forward, Intel virtually dominated the CPU market until AMD’s Athlon debuted five years later.

AMD DX4-100 486

Circa: 1995

The last clone in the true Clone Wars, AMD's Am486 arrived almost a full four years after Intel's 486 came out, and one month after the Pentium. To compete with the existing 486 chip, AMD undercut the competition by selling its version for less, while clocking it higher than Intel's 486. The DX4-100 cost less than Intel’s 486DX2-66, but its 8K write-back cache provided a speed advantage of up to 50%.

Quantum Fireball ST3.2A

Circa: 1996

The Quantum Fireball ST3.2A was the first good drive to use the UltraATA/33 interface, theoretically capable of reaching transfer speeds of a whopping 33 MB/s. It was available in capacities up to 6.4 GB, which—since it was significantly higher than the 2 GB ceiling for FAT16 partitions—ushered in the superior FAT32, which is of course one of the file systems still with us today.

Diamond Monster Sound

Circa: July 1997

The Diamond Monster Sound was the first card to fully support the then-burgeoning DirectSound 3D API, offering convincing directional sound effects through a pair of headphones or a 2.1 speaker setup. Even though it was fantastic for playing games that made use of the new 3D sound technology, it was a hard sell at the time, because of its poor performance with older, DOS-based games. In fact, this weakness was enough that we (and this is back while we were still Boot) originally gave the first Diamond Monster Sound card a review score of 7, saying “Assuming that game support for DirectSound 3D materializes, the Monster should become a coveted part of the ultimate gaming system.” It did, and it was.

Canopus Pure3d

Circa: 1997

Until the Voodoo Graphics, gamers were trapped in a 2D world. Sure, there were a handful of so-called 3D accelerators from S3 and ATI that were nothing more than old 2D videocards equipped with hardware to accelerate texture filtering. The original Voodoo graphics added much more horsepower, which wasn't fully tapped until GLQuake.

When paired with GLQuake, the OpenGL-accelerated version of Quake, the first-person shooter came alive. The difference in graphics was astounding, instead of fighting to get 15fps, a Voodoo-equipped system could hammer a solid 30fps, at a higher resolution, no less. While many vendors sold Voodoo Graphics cards, the Canopus Pure3D was the Cadillac of the bunch. With double the texture memory of other Voodoo cards, the Pure3D let you crank the texture settings in all your games, for maximum visual quality.

Pentium II 400Mhz

Circa: 1997

The Deschutes version of the high-performing Pentium II marked Intel’s big jump into the triple-digit front-side bus. Klamath (the original PII), topped out at 266MHz with a 66MHz FSB, while the PII 400 (with a 100MHz FSB) was the sweet spot for high-end system builders – it performed at almost twice as fast as older Klamath parts.

Obsidian X24

Circa: February 1998

While the original 3DFX Voodoo card was the first consumer-level 3D accelerator, it's successor the Voodoo 2 showed the first hint of the potential for overkill lurking within the nascent market. You see, the Voodoo 2 allowed users to slave two cards together using SLI (Scan Line Interleave) to nearly double performance. The Obsidian X24 packed two complete Voodoo 2 chipsets on a single board, and paired them with a then-massive 24MB framebuffer. This was the only Voodoo 2 board that supported resolutions up to 1024x768, and was actually used in many 3D arcade cabinets (Cruisin' USA, anyone?)

Intel 440BX Chipset

Circa: April 1998

When old farts talk about the “good old days” of chipsets, they’re talking about Intel’s 440BX. With its 2x AGP that actually worked and a massive 1GB(!) of SDRAM support, the 440BX’s reign was literally years. Even better, plebians could buy 233MHz or 266MHz Pentium II’s running on the 66MHz front side bus and overclock them to 100MHz or higher. The 440BX was so successful, that it eclipsed its intended replacement from Intel: the ill-fated RDRAM-only 820 chipset.

AMD K6-2 series

Circa: May 1998

Continuing the success of the K6, AMD's K6-2, released in 1998, brought another MMX unit to the table as well as a new SIMD instruction set famously known as 3DNow! This gave AMD a slight head start in tearing through 3D applications before Intel fired back with its SSE instruction set. The K6-2 held appeal as a cost-conscious upgrade for Super Socket 7 motherboard owners. Later on, AMD would follow suit with the K6-2+, which added 128KB of L2 cache and a smaller manufacturing process (180nm versus 250nm).

ASUS P2B

Circa: May 1998

Built on Intel’s 440BX chipset, the legendary Asus P2B board helped build up the company’s reputation as a performance motherboard maker. Boasting three ISA slots, four 32-bit PCI slots and an AGP 2x slot, this Slot 1 Pentium II had such long legs, that some variations that were able to run Slot 1 were able to run Slot 1 Pentium III CPUs too. Sure, it didn’t have the sexy soft FSB of the also popular Abit BX6, but the jumper configuration actually supported a wider frequency range than the BX6. The P2B also had the advantage of being a rock-solid board, with many likely still seeing duty today – more than 10 years after it was introduced.

ATI Rage Pro - All-in-Wonder

Circa: 1998

While it lacked the raw 3D power of the 3DFX Voodoo 2, ATI's All-in-Wonder had a different trick up its sleeve--it came equipped with a TV tuner. The Rage Pro was a mid-rate 3D accelerator, and in lieu of the PVR software that we all expect with our TV tuner cards today it included ATI's Digital VCR software, which let you record TV shows on your PC. It even worked with WebTV for Windows 98. Pretty fancy, eh?

Intel Celeron 300A

Circa: August 1998

The difference of just one letter can sometimes be amazing. Intel’s Celeron 300A was a 300MHz part that became infamous for its overclockability. Based on the 2nd generation Mendocino design, the 300A featured 128k of on-die cache running at a full clock rate. Even at the same clock speed of the Covington Celeron 300, the 300A performed twice as fast as the cache-less counterpart, and that was without any overclocking. Coupled with a decent motherboard, you could bump the 300A to 450MHz by tweaking the FSB from 66MHz to 100MHz, making the 300A the fastest available x86 processor.

Creative Sound Blaster Live!

Circa: August 1998

The Sound Blaster Live! Was the card that first brought Creative Labs’ EAX API to bear against (and eventually doomed) the dominant A3D API. What gave the Sound Blaster and EAX an edge was the ability to apply real-time effects like reverb and echo to music and in-game sound effects. Though the effects were sometimes not as subtle as they could have been, they added a whole new layer of realism to sound in 3D games, capturing the dramatic acoustic differences between—for instance—a basketball court and a dank cave.

AMD Athlon Slot A 1GHz

Circa: June 1999

Arguably the most significant series in AMD's CPU history, and certainly the most important in the company's recent history, AMD's Athlon line hit Intel square between the eyes and was such a success, even the Intel faithful found themselves building an AMD system for the first time. Dirk Meyer, who would later rise in rank as AMD's CEO, led the design team that developed Athlon, at first a cartridge-based processor with 512KB of L2 cache. Debuting at 500MHz, AMD beat Intel to the 1GHz mark with its Athlon processor, an important (and much anticipated) milestone at the time.

56k Modem v.92

Circa: August 1999

Ah, the 56k modem. Like the little engine that could, the 56k modem got us onto the internet slowly but surely. And hey, at the time, 56k seemed pretty zippy, really, even if 56k modems could never actually reach speeds of 56 kilobits per second (the FCC mandated that no dial-up modem could achieve speeds of greater than 53.3 Kbps). It was also a relief that the v.92 and v.90 standards ended the standards war between K56flex and X2. Vendor competition is usually a good thing for consumers, but having to buy a new modem when you switched ISPs is something we don’t miss a bit.

ABIT BP-6

Circa: September 1999

Sure, overclockers may think they’re outlaws by thumbing their nose at Intel’s authority but that was like shoplifting from the candy store. Running ABIT’s BP-6 was like pulling an armed robbery and then leading the LAPD on a high-speed chase for three hours. The BP-6 was, after all, the first board to allow you to run two Socket 370 Celeron’s in SMP mode. At the time, Intel had made it strictly verboten to run Celerons in dual processor mode but the company obviously didn’t do enough with the Celery to limit its 2P functionality. That made anyone who ran the BP-6 the ultimate bad ass because he or she not only flipped the bird at Intel, but he or she also had to run a “real” OS like Windows NT, 2K or Linux to get dual processor support.

Plextor Plexwriter 8/20 SCSI

Circa: 1999

In 1999, anti-buffer underrun technologies like Sanyo’s BurnProof weren’t yet available, so SCSI drives like the Plextor PlexWriter 8/20—with their immense 4MB cache allotments – were de rigueur for coaster avoidance. In fact, in our May 1999 issue, we called the 8/20 “the flat-out best CD recorder that’s ever passed through our lab.” And we followed up that declaration with the qualifier that the drive created a 650MB data disc in an astonishing 11:14 minutes. Of course, today’s best burners churn out full 8GB dual-layer discs in under that time. But we still have a soft spot in our hearts for the Sexy Plexy.

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro

Circa: 1999

Here was a keyboard that we would’ve happily taken with us to the grave. We adored the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro so much that we used it until our handprints were firmly imprinted onto its once-white surface – it was really that comfortable. The Natural Keyboard Pro was Microsoft’s second mass-market ergonomically-split keyboard, but one-upped the Elite model with its two USB ports, programmable shortcut keys, and familiar “inverted T” arrow key configuration (the Elite used a non-standard cross-like arrow key arrangement). We can do without modern “swiss-army” keyboards with full-color LCD screens and dozens of programmable macros keys – this Carpal Tunnel buster is all we need.

3Com 3c905 Network Interface Card

Circa: 1999

For us, the 3Com 3c905 Network Interface Card is the piece of hardware that symbolizes the dawn of the broadband era. Sure, it wasn’t the first NIC to connect your computer to a high speed network, but it was the first card that was fast, reliable and worked with nearly any OS you could throw at it. Combined with early DSL or cable internet, this was the card that, for many people, opened up the door to the internet.

FIC SD11

Circa: January 2000

Plagued by voltage issues and generally a buggy board, we note FIC’s SD11 not for being stable, well designed or even being great. But it was the first four-layer board that supported AMD’s new Athlon CPU. And FIC was, arguably, the first one to actually push an Athlon motherboard. Most board vendors, we were told, feared the wrath of Intel for supporting the K7. The support of FIC (and others such as MSI Gigabyte) helped legitimize the award winning Athlon chip. The fear of Intel may have all been imagination, but we still believe that without the support of the SD11 and other early Slot A boards, the Athlon and its offspring would not be here.

Klipsch v.2-400

Circa: Jan 2000

The release of the Klipsch v.2-400 was a turning point for computer speakers. Before that, “multimedia speaker” was a sort of euphemism for “crappy little plastic box,” and anyone looking for high fidelity sound from their computer was left without any options beyond plugging it into their stereo. With the Klipsch v2.400, all that changed. Suddenly, for $250, you could get a setup that combined high-quality satellites with a top-notch sub, providing sound quality that was simply unheard of. It’s no surprise that the Klipsch v.2-400 graced our Dream Machine in 2000, and its successors the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 and 2.1 powered all three of our Dream Machines in 2001.

Cooler Master ATC-100

Circa: 2000

Remember the days of ugly plastic PC cases that came in an off-white eggshell color? We do, but not fondly. Cooler Master changed the PC chassis industry with its all-aluminum case that paid as much attention to look as to functionality, and started the trend in fashionable enclosures with this aluminum beauty. Countless imitators and successors have improved on the original ATC-100 design, but we laud Cooler Master as the first to prove that cases need not be boring. Would people really shell out more than $200 for a box that merely stores their PC’s innards? Two ATC-series equipped Dream Machines prove that the answer is yes.

Sony F520 21” CRT

Circa: 2000

We wouldn’t be caught dead using a CRT monitor today, but back in 2000, this 21” Sony Trinitron was one of the most coveted pieces of hardware in our lab. By the early 2000’s CRT development had basically peaked; the F520 actually sat at the top of the CRT ladder for four years, making its way into four different Dream Machine configurations. Here’s why: the F520’s .22mm grille-pitch spec had yet to be challenged by the NEC-Mitsubishi competition. The upshot is that the F520 offered the finest image detail around – games and images looked better on this than any other display.

M-Systems DiskOnKey

Circa: December 2000

It’s amazing to think that USB thumb drives have been with us for less than a decade now. In that time they’ve become a ubiquitous nerd commodity, made floppy disks obsolete, and took most of the wind out of the sails of writable optical media. And why wouldn’t they? They’re available with capacities that trump any competing media, miniscule form factors, and highly rugged construction.

But it all started with the humble IBM DiskOnKey, manufactured by Isreali company M-Systems. Released with just 8mb of storage, the DiskOnKey’s capacity left something to be desired, but it nevertheless heralded the advent of truly portable data.

Visiontek GeForce 3 Ultra

Circa: 2001

As the first card to support DirectX 8, the GeForce 3 marked the opening move of 3D accelerator technology away from the old fixed-function pixel processing pipe toward the more general, programmable hardware we use today. A later update to the original GeForce 3 series introduced the tiered pricing model to the GPU market, using the same core in multiple models. Cheaper cards featured slower or less capable GPUs as well as less memory.

Nvidia nForce 2 chipset

Circa: July 2002

It’s been said that Nvidia chipsets are like Star Trek movies – only the even ones are worth a damn.

And we heartily agree as that would make nForce 2 the Star Trek II: The Wraith of Kahn (without the great Ricardo Montalban). Equipped with a high performance dual-channel memory controller, dual Ethernet ports and hardware-based real-time Dolby Digital encoding, the nForce 2 shook up the chipset world by shoving VIA to the side and cementing AMD’s Athlon XP as the chip to have in performance computing.

Radeon 9700 Pro

Circa: December 2002

As the first DirectX 9 3D accelerator, the Radeon 9700 Pro introduced programmability into parts of the 3D pipeline that had previously offered a limited number of fixed functions. The series of GPUs that followed were all variants of the original R300 design, and managed to hold the graphics performance crown through an entire generation of Nvidia graphics cards. From the launch of the Radeon 9700 in August 2002 until the GeForce 6800-series launched in April 2004. RV300-based designs dominated the GeForce 5000 series GPUs in legacy DirectX 8 apps and the demanding new DirectX 9 games.

The Radeon 9700 series is also notable because it delivered sufficient memory bandwidth that gamers could run most games with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled without dropping below playable framerates.

Intel 875P chipset

Circa: April 2003

You may not know it now, but at one time, Intel was firmly against using DDR memory and instead tried to push the entire PC industry to adopt Direct RDRAM, an incredibly fast, serialized RAM technology. Unfortunately, it also came with a price tag for RAM makers who were already faced with keeping the factories running so as not to lose even more money. The battle raged for years and only after the RAM makers rallied behind AMD and its DDR-using Athlon did Intel relent. What does this have to do with the 875P? As Intel’s first performance chipset in the post-RDRAM days, it helped allay fears that Intel would try to intentionally sandbag DDR to make RDRAM seem like it was the right direction. Instead, the 875P was a winning chipset. With AGP 8x, dual-channel DDR400 and a dedicated port in the northbridge for Gigabit Ethernet communications, the 875P went a long way toward patching things up with enthusiasts.

Western Digital 360GD Raptor

Circa: May 2003

In 2003 Western Digital released the 360GD Raptor, the first ATA drive to operate at 10,000rpm platter speeds. Sure, it cost as much as drives with 5 times the capacity, but it was still the first real chance for power users to get enterprise-class hard drives for their desktop machines, and they ate it up. Capacity was low, (only 32 GB on the first Raptor) but if you had one in your computer, you were pretty much guaranteed to be the first player on any server to load a map, and that felt good.

Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0

Circa: 2003

While it certainly wasn’t the first optical mouse to hit the market – not by a long shot – Microsoft’s IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 was the critter that put the nail in the ball mouse’s coffin. The third iteration of the IntelliMouse Explorer brand upgraded its sensor to capture images at 6000 times per second, curing the legendary skipping problem that first-person shooter gamers suffered from with most other optical mice. Perfect button placement, an ergonomic "hump" design, and blissful responsiveness made this mouse superior to a ball mouse in every way. Gamers revolted when Microsoft pulled the 3.0 from shelves to push other models, and the 2006 comeback just didn’t have the same impact.

Sony DRU-710A

Circa: 2004

Sony was first to the market with a dual-layer DVD burning solution with their DRU-700A burner, but that model was marred by well-publicized compatibility problems stemming from the budding nature of the DVD+R DL format. It wasn’t until its successor, the DRU-710A, was released late in 2004 that enthusiasts could take advantage of practical dual-layer burning. The drive also boasted the fastest 16X burning speeds at the time, completing 4.5GB burns in less time than it takes for some of us to run a mile. Later firmware updates added support for more media formats, keeping the 710A relevant and our favorite DVD drive for quite some time.

AMD Athlon 64 FX-55

Circa: June 2004

When AMD held the CPU crown with the FX-53, they had seemingly no place to go after that: the 130nm process had hit its limit. It was a surprise, then, when they released an Athlon 64 4000+ with pretty much the same specifications as the 2.4GHz FX-53, complete with 1MB of cache. The FX line needed a new flagship chip, which came in the form of the FX-55. What made this chip special was AMD’s “strained silicon” process on the parts of the die that limited frequency growth, allowing the FX-55 to achieve 2.6GHz. Performance-wise, this top AMD part bested its rival Pentium 4 Extreme Edition in most benchmarks, making it the preferred chip for anyone with a grand to spend on their CPU.

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

Circa: January 2005

Oh enthusiast computing. It’s a little wonky sometimes but it’s never boring. That can be said of Asus’ AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939, A8N-SLI Deluxe board. Built on Nvidia’s nForce 4 SLI chipset, the A8N-SLI Deluxe was perhaps the first board that we saw that supported SLI (that is if you forget about the Intel Xeon-based board that Nvidia developed SLI on and then promptly pretended never existed). At the time, naysayers (some of us included) never thought multi-GPUism would succeed. And why not? To even get it to work optimally, you had to use a whacky-ass card to reconfigure the PCI-E 1.0 slots from x16 and x1 to dual x8s. Surprisingly, enthusiasts were willing to do it and multi-GPU functionality is a must have on any enthusiast motherboard today.

AMD Athlon X2 4800+

Circa: 2005

The age of mainstream dual-core computing was cemented by AMD’s Athlon 64 X2, led by the 4800+ chip. AMD's Athlon 64 X2 series consisted of two CPU cores on a single die sharing a crossbar that connects them to the integrated memory controller. These internal data links paid huge performance dividends compared to Intel's dual-core configuration, which had each core pushing communication through a shared frontside bus. SSE3 instructions were added to the X2 series, but most importantly, AMD managed to keep the new chip on Socket 939. While not all boards were compatible, many 939 mobos could handle an X2 upgrade with nothing more than a BIOS update, which meant AMD could tap into an existing install based for its new processors. True multi-tasking (meaning playing Half-Life 2 while running background apps) was finally possible!

Cooler Master Aquagate Mini

Circa: 2005

Cooler Master’s self-contained watercooling system was a cut above the crowd with its integrated waterblock and pump. The Aquagate Mini R120 was the first water-cooling system we saw targeted for entry-level users who wanted the advantages of liquid cooling without the mess and hassle that usually accompanied those configurations. The radiator, pump, block, and reservoir were all integrated into one pre-assembled two-piece unit – even the coolant came pre-filled! All you had to do was latch the block to the CPU and attach the radiator to the side of your case. No tangling with long tubes or messy distilled water was necessary. The Aquagate wasn’t necessarily the best performer when compared to other cooling solutions, but its all-in-one design was undeniably innovative.

PNY Verto GeForce 6800 GS

Circa: 2005

The introduction of the PCI-Express bus in 2004 removed the one videocard per system limitation imposed by AGP. It didn't take long for Nvidia to resurrect the SLI acronym--although this time it stood for Scalable Link Interface. By pairing two GeForce 6800-series cards, such as this PNY Verto GeForce 6800 GS, you could nearly double your performance in most games. Having the fastest videocard in your rig was no longer enough, now you needed a pair of the fastest videocards. Shortly thereafter, ATI announced Crossfire and the videocard arms race between ATI and Nvidia continued.

Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW

Circa: 2005

We were perfectly content with computing on 20” 1600x1200 CRTs until this game-changer came along. Dell’s reasonably priced 2405FPW brought 1900x1200 gaming to the masses and made wide-screen a must for enthusiasts. Not only did this panel deliver excellent image quality (with minimal ghosting and color banding), the 24” 2405FPW sported an array of alternate video inputs so you could plug PC, consoles, and DVD player into one monitor. Not to mention that it was several hundred dollars cheaper than the [slightly smaller] Apple Cinema HD display, and included USB and memory card slots to boot.

Intel Core 2 (Conroe)

Circa: 2006

Waking out of its Netburst slumber, Intel took the CPU world by storm with its Core 2 architecture. Instead of remaining fixated on higher clockspeeds, Intel refocused its attention on being more efficient with its pipeline. This meant a return to lower clockspeeds, however it also meant a return to prominence as the performance king. After Prescott failed to live up to its hype, the media remained cautiously optimistic that Core 2 could live up to Intel's promised performance gains, but much to the chagrin of AMD, Core 2 lived up to its billing, and then some.

The first Core 2 Conroes burst out of the gates with 167 million transistors, a 65nm manufacturing process, 2MB of L2 cache, and a 1,066MHz frontside bus. Despite debuting at just 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz (E6300 and E6400, respectively), Core 2's performance made it instantly attractive, and Intel's aggressive pricing sealed the deal.

Nvidia nForce 680i

Circa: November 2006

Once it solidified its lead over ATI in graphics cards, Nvidia made its move on Intel’s performance chipsets – and for the most part succeeded. With its emphasis on overclocking, advanced southbridge features and its SLI support, the 680i SLI was the chipset to have if you wanted to build an enthusiast PC.

Sure, there were teething pains, but for most enthusiasts it was worth the sacrifice. Besides, what was the alternative? Running two Radeon X1950 cards? Feh. The 680i SLI continued to be popular until a lack of compatibility with Intel’s new 45nm quad-cores and lack of PCI-E 2.0 pushed it aside.

Intel Core 2 Duo X6800

Circa: 2006

Featured in our 2006 Dream Machine, the shockingly fast Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU marked Intel’s return to the “brainiac” design that emphasized performance per clock rather than insanely high clock speeds (as characterized by the Pentium 4). In a nutshell, the X6800 was wider, faster, and cooler. It’s wider because its microarchitecture was designed to process four instructions per cycle. Faster describes the Core CPU’s ability to process a 128-bit SSE instruction in a single cycle instead of the two cycles its contemporaries require. And it was designed to run cooler than its smoking-hot processors. Pit against the Athlon 64 FX-62, the X6800 took every CPU-intensive benchmark by a huge margin.

Asus EN8800 GTX

Circa: January 2007

Billed as one of the first DirectX 10-capable 3D accelerators, the GeForce 8800 series of GPUs are nearly as memorable because they represented a quantum leap in performance for DirectX 9 games. Graphics cards like this overclocked ASUS EN8800 GTX first went on sale in early 2007, but there weren't any DirectX 10 titles to play. There was, however, a glut of incredibly system-intensive DirectX 9 games. Games like Oblivion and Company of Heroes crushed the mightiest of DirectX 9-era 3D accelerators; but the 8800 GTX provided enough GPU juice to run every DirectX 9 title at the highest resolutions. And, later that year when the first true DirectX 10 titles shipped, that same GPU also gave us the first taste of fully programmable graphics, although likely at a pretty low resolution.

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000

Circa: May 2007

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 was the first SATA hard drive to break the 1 TB barrier. Sure, a terabyte isn’t really that much bigger than 750 gigabytes, but there’s definitely something to be said for the psychological impact of moving up into a whole new unit of measurement. Also, the 1 TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 was the drive that really demonstrated the capabilities of the new perpendicular magnetic recording technique, the technology that allowed for the higher-density platters needed for a 1TB drive, and birthed a series of delightfully trippy flash cartoons.

Gateway XHD3000

Circa: 2007

When consumer-targeted 30-inch desktop LCD monitors emerged in 2007, we were supremely disappointed that these monstrous widescreens lacked an internal scaler. Convention monitor-scaling technology wasn’t powerful enough to drive the 30” panels’ 2560x1600 resolution, so they were all restricted to dual-link DVI interfaces with no on-screen display options. Gateway surprised us by being the first company to release a 30” panel with a built-in scaler, in this case a Silion Optix HQV Teranex Realta processing chipset. In layman’s terms, that meant this chip allowed the XHD3000 to support numerous interface options, an onscreen calibration controls, and even picture-in-picture functionality. HDCP support let us play high-def video in its intended resolution, and gaming on this monster was a pleasure. And at launch, the XHD3000 was actually cheaper than alternatives from Apple and Dell.

Zalman CNPS 9700 LED

Circa: 2007

This blooming, copper-finned successor to the already awesome CNPS 9500 added more than enough performance to justify its 200 point model number change. Not only was this air cooler easy to install (by 2007 standards) and looked slick, its adjustable 2800rpm 110mm fan provided plenty of cooling to let us overclock our Athlon FX-60 testbed. On a full CPU load, the 9700 was 14 degrees cooler than a stock cooler, earning it a coveted 10-Kick Ass score in our February 2007 issue. Zalman’s current flagship cooler, the 9900NT, inherits most of the features of the 9700, and remains one of our favorite coolers.

Intel D5400XS “Skulltrail”

Circa: February 2008

“Who you tryin’ to get crazy with ese? Don’t you know I’m loco?” Well, actually, we didn’t. We never actually thought that when Intel said it was loco, that it really was loco. But the company showed just how insane in the membrane it could be with enthusiast Skulltrail platform. The D5400XS mobo continues possibly one of the most over the top boards ever made. Featuring two sockets for LGA771 Xeon’s (rebranded as Core 2 Extreme QX9775) chips, this Extended ATX board had four x16 PCI-E slots, supported up to 16GB of FB-DIMM RAM and even let you overclock those Xeons, err, Core 2 Extremes. The ultimate insane stunt Intel pulled, though, was swallowing its pride and integrating not one, but two nForce 100 bridge chips on it. That made the Skulltrail the only retail board capable of running CrossFire and SLI until the arrival of the X58.

Intel X-25M

Circa: September 2008

Like a lot of the items on this list, Intel’s X-25M SSD is notable for being the first piece of hardware to really deliver on the promise of a new technology. There had been a lot of buzz about SSDs right from the get-go—transfer rates that would blow your mind, they said—but when the X-25M was released, there still hadn’t been a single piece of affordable hardware that lived up to the hype. Intel ‘s SSD made believers out of us, though, landing benchmarks that blew our go-to performance drive, the WD VelociRaptor, out of the water.

Sapphire Radeon 4800 HD X2

Released: October 2008

Putting two GPUs on a single PCB, in a single PCI-Express slot wasn't anything new when ATI released the Radeon 4870 X2. The problems we'd had with similar boards from both ATI and Nvidia left us wary. But, after careful examination, we found that the X2 board came with no gotchas. It worked with multiple monitors, had moderate power requirements, made an acceptable amount of noise, and was fast as hell. Best of all, you could drop a pair of them in most any motherboard and get four GPUs worth of performance for the price of two.

Intel X58

Circa: November 2008

Paired as the launch chipset with Intel’s rocket Core i7 CPUs, the X58 is, in many ways, far less of a chipset than previous Intel chipsets. With the memory controller moved into the CPU you wouldn’t think that the X58 would get into the history books, but the X58 marked a major sea change for performance computing: the reunification of multi-GPU graphics. With no Core i7 chipset offering, Nvidia decided to license motherboard makers to run SLI, rather than have everyone build new enthusiast boxes with ATI’s reenergized Radeon HD lineup.

Intel Core i7

Circa: November 2008

Why is this CPU more significant than the 8088, Pentium, or Pentium M? As the second new chip produced after a series of embarrassing losses to archrival AMD, the Core i7 will answer for the world whether Intel is prepared to ride the momentum of its Core 2 launch with another winning chip or if it’s content to rest on its laurels, as it did with the Pentium 4. Core i7 also represents a major new direction for Intel, which has stubbornly clung to the ancient front-side-bus architecture and discrete memory controller for years. Indeed, with its triple-channel integrated DDR3 memory controller and chip-to-chip interconnect, the block map of a Core i7 looks more like an Athlon 64 than a Core 2 chip.

Intel Atom N270

Circa: 2008

Why is the Atom processor important? Because despite a global economic downturn, worldwide PC sales have remained on an uptick thanks in large part to the explosive growth of netbooks, the vast majority of which sport an Intel Atom processor inside. On the hardware front, these low-power chips only boast 47 million transistors, 512KB of L2 cache, and a top clockspeed of 1.86GHz. A dual-core variant exists for the desktop, but so far not for mobile PCs. Even though most power users would consider the Atom N270 underpowered for many computing tasks, 15 million Atom-based netbooks shipped in 2008 alone counts for something.

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"End of an Era" as Intel Chairman Craig Barrett to Retire in May

Mark Edward Soper — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:21:43 -0600

With the announcement of Craig Barrett's retirement in May, one of Intel's last links with the pre-PC era will vanish. Barrett's career at Intel started in 1974, when Intel was just seven years old and was introducing the first general-purpose microprocessor, the 8080. The 8080's descendents included the first 16-bit processor, the 8086, and the IBM PC's processor, the 8088. The IBM PC and its many descendants enabled Intel's rise to processor dominance.

Barrett became Intel's CEO in 1998, taking over for the legendary Andy Grove. Barrett's tenure as CEO saw the development of Intel's first Celeron economy CPU and high-end Pentium III processors, the introduction of the Pentium 4, diversification into communications chips, development of new Xeon and Itanium server processors, and the introduction of the Centrino portable chipset/processor technology.

During this period, Intel received formidable challenges from AMD's Athlon and Athlon XP, and frequently saw its processors beaten by AMD's processors in real-world performance tests. Barrett became chairman of Intel in 2005, and during his tenure as chairman, saw Intel retake the performance crown from AMD with the introduction of the Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, and Core i7 processor lines.

Barrett, 70, is retiring at a time in which Intel, like other technology companies, is facing tough times, and announced last week that it's closing two fab plants in the US as well as three assembly test facilities in Malaysia and the Philippines, affecting over 5,000 employees.

What was the first Intel product you used? Was it a processor, motherboard, chipset, network adapter, or something else? Looking back at Barrett's long career, what do you think were Intel's biggest hits - and misses? Hit Comment and tell us.