Posted 09/12/08 at 02:29:52 AM by Pulkit Chandna

In the last few months there have been a couple of pompous browser launches – FF3 and Chrome. But the launch of Opera 9.6 beta went largely unnoticed. In fact, Opera’s latest browser version failed to elicit any interest whatsoever. Its Opera 9.6 announcement felt like an inaudible whisper compared to Google’s bellowing Chrome marketing campaign. But Opera Software’s PR manager, Thomas Ford, offered a sanguine view of the entire situation to DailyTech. He took pride in the fact that Opera had managed to stay in business, despite the challenge offered by new entrants like Chrome. Ford pointed that Opera’s usage grew by 3% after Chrome’s launch.

Read More

Posted 06/30/08 at 11:36:25 AM by Paul Lilly

If Firefox loses its marketshare momentum, it won't be because Mozilla's developers are resting on their laurels. On the contrary, programmers are already plugging away on the next version, Firefox 3.1. A recently proposed roadmap points to next month for an alpha debut, with a beta release busting onto the scene in August before finishing up the final code by the end of the year.

In addition to the usual bevy of bug fixes, Firefox 3.1 will incorporate several complimentary features originally pushed to the side in 3.0 due to time constraints. Portions of the Ctrl-Tab extension, such as thumbnail previews of open tabs and tab searching and filtering, are expected to finagle into FF 3.1, along with improved download options, better bookmark tagging, a more powerful location bar, and other goodies.

Read More