Posted 09/08/08 at 07:04:16 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

In the PDF archive of the August 2008 issue, you can find:

• PC vs. MacBook Notebook Battle!
• Ultimate Guide to Firefox 3
• Nvidia's Next-Gen GTX 280 GPU Unveiled!
• How To: Create your own Internet TV Show!
• Awesome Product Reviews, including MSI's new P35 Combo Platinum mobo!
• Ask the Doctor
• Rig of the Month
• The Watchdog
• And a whole lot more!

Click the big giant cover image to the right to download the PDF archive today!

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Posted 08/22/08 at 08:16:37 AM by Mark Edward Soper

Mozilla's Firefox browser's biggest strength has always been customization. When Mozilla created Firefox 3, the huge improvements in its underlying architecture made Firefox 2 plugins obsolete. To help encourage a new generation of add-ons, Mozilla Labs launched the Extend Firefox 3 contest in March to create a new generation of plugins.

Entries wrapped up on July 4th, and after spending the rest of the summer judging over 100 entries, Mozilla Labs has finally announced the winners of Extend Firefox 3.

"The Envelope, Please"

Extend Firefox 3 presented grand prizes in three categories:

• Best New Add-on
• Best Updated Add-on
• Best Music Add-on

And, now, the winners (drum roll, please):

Best New Add-on

• Pencil - a GUI prototyping and diagramming application
• Tagmarks - one-click tagging for bookmarks
• HandyTag - automatic tagging for bookmarks

Best Updated Add-on

• Read it Later - offline page reading
• Tag Sifter - browse bookmarks by tags
• Bookmark Previews - adds album and thumbnail views to the bookmarks manager

Best Music Add-on

• Fire.fm - accesses last.fm music library (last.fm co-sponsored this category

What do you think about the winners? Do you have a favorite that didn't make the cut? Catch us after the jump for your chance to create your own award show.

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Posted 08/04/08 at 08:30:00 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Net Applications has released the global market share statistics of all major web browsers for the month of July. Internet Explorer registered a slight increase, as its market share went up by .01% to 73.02% compared to the previous month. Although the increase is statistically trivial, its significance lies in the fact that it has come after months of steady decline. IE’s only major competitor, Firefox, witnessed a month-over-month decline of .19% and ended up with 19.03% market share. Undoubtedly, Firefox’s market share grew on the back of the pompous Firefox 3 launch in June. So the slight decline can be seen as a correction of sorts. However, Firefox 3 is still going strong at the expense of Safari and its predecessor Firefox 2. Both Safari and Opera were down in July, according to Net Applications' July survey.

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Posted 07/02/08 at 09:48:48 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Firefox 3 has stormed its way to a Guinness World Record for the most number of software downloads in 24 hrs. A shade over 8 million downloads from 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008 have effectively made Firefox 3 the GTA IV of web browsers.

The browser’s launch, as you all would easily recall, was named “Download Day 2008” and is now an urban technology legend. If you played a pivotal role in setting the world record than you can claim your Download Day certificate and flaunt it the way you like.

Now please bend towards your computer screen and conjure up your best clandestine expression because here is a little secret for you all: even those of you who haven’t even downloaded Firefox 3, and thereby have no hand in the record whatsoever, can get the Download Day certificate. Anybody can!

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Posted 06/30/08 at 08:48:41 AM by Nathan Edwards

Let us lay out a hypothetical situation for you: You’ve been driving that lumbering old Crown Vic since Ken Starr was culturally relevant. It’s clunky, not particularly fast, and prone to breakdowns, and it lacks any sort of sex appeal. But you’re used to it, and it’s not like you’re made of money, right? Suddenly your benevolent (and extremely wealthy) uncle calls you up and offers you a Tesla roadster. It’s fast, sleek, and technologically advanced, runs without gasoline, and is sexy as all get-out. And he’s giving it to you for free. Do you take it?

Hell yeah, you take it. And if Uncle Mozilla offers you a fast, light, open-source, wildly configurable, sexy web browser, you take that too. Internet Explorer’s a clunker, and if you’ve somehow managed to go the past four years without switching to the roadster that is Firefox, it’s high time to take a test drive. If you’re already a Firefox user, well, here comes your supercharger.

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Posted 06/20/08 at 03:41:46 PM by Mark Edward Soper

TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative rewards researchers for discovering vulnerabilities - but the timing of a report on a Firefox vulnerability seems suspicious. Learn how to protect yourself - now.

Just five hours after Firefox 3 was released to a waiting world, TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative was informed of a serious vulnerability in the brand-new browser, IDG News Service reports. That's fast work, but some are wondering about the timing of the information...

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Posted 06/19/08 at 03:19:24 PM by Nathan Grayson

Firefox fans were bristling with enthusiasm on Tuesday, June 17, and with good reason -- it was Firefox Download Day. Two days later, Mozilla is already reaping the rewards. According to analysis conducted by StatCounter, usage of Firefox 3 skyrocketed from 7.8% of total Firefox users to 18.9%. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer felt the pressure of Firefox 3's newly expanded girth, dropping from 56.3% market share to 55.4%, while Firefox moved up to a cool, breezy 36%. So let's give it up for Mozilla. Their creative marketing strategy has certainly earned them some applause and a pint of Guinness -- a joke which I totally did not steal from the press release.

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Posted 06/18/08 at 10:43:55 AM by Mark Edward Soper

Couldn't download Firefox yesterday? You still have time to help set the world record. Get clicking!

Thanks to the redefinition of "Day" as "a 24-hour period" - and thanks also to the problems everyone in the world had in logging onto the Spread Firefox website yesterday, Download Day continues, with close to 7,000,000 downloads as of posting time.

Originally, Download Day was scheduled to start at 10:00AM PDT yesterday, and end 24 hours later. However, if you read yesterday's installment of "how to bring a website to its knees", you know that things didn't work out exactly as planned.

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