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Opera 10.6 Beta Released

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And the Internet browser wars go on. While it is true that the general public is probably mainly aware of the big three – Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome, a considerable number of people out there use Opera. With this new release, a lot more might just change loyalties in the near future.

Opera 10.6 beta has been released, and it is promised to be 50% faster. According to Michael Muchmore of PCMag, it is indeed faster than Chrome 5 – but not by that much. Still, many of us would give a lot for more speed, wouldn’t we?

Aside from the speed, though, Opera 10.6 beta has more to offer. For one, it already supports Google’s WebM video format, which was recently announced. For those who prefer to use Microsoft’s Bing (as opposed to Google or Yahoo), Opera also integrates this search engine as the default. The browser also has more HTML 5 support.

In terms of visuals, Opera 10.6 beta is a bit different from its predecessors. The iconic O button is now replaced by MENU. While it does not mean much in terms of performance, some users might prefer this more obvious button. Also, the speed dial new tab page is now viewable in wide screen mode- quite helpful for those with sight issues.

Currently, the browser is only available for Windows, so Mac and Linux users will have to wait. The forecast is that the final version will be out by the summer. To download the beta version, visit http://www.opera.com/browser/next/.

Google Puts Chrome for Mac and Linux into Stable Beta Version

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Alright, Chrome browser users, here’s some good news from Google. The latest Chrome for Mac and Linux has been finally put into a stable beta mode and will be gradually rolled out to all Chrome for Mac and PC users. You know what it means when something comes out from being “unstable” to “stable” version, right? Well, it simply means that most often than not, the stable version is more reliable and has lesser bugs. Plus of course, tons of new features are also brought in.

For both versions of Chrome for Mac and Linux browsers, these features come in bunch. Generally these new features include – browser preferences synchronization in addition to the previous bookmark synchronization feature. Browser preferences include themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, preferred languages and even page zoom settings.  This means that once you’ve synchronized all these settings in one of your Chrome beta installation, you’d get the same settings in all your Chrome installations on various dekstop and laptops that you use.

In addition, the new Chrome beta release also enables each Chrome extensions to work in incognito mode. You can set this up via the Chrome extension manager.

The new Chrome beta release also incorporates HTML5 features including Geolocation API, App Cache, web sockets and file drag-and-drop.  You may want to see how HTML5 function by browsing websites developed in HTML5 such as http://scribd.com. You can also try dragging and dropping attachments in Gmail or enabling geolocation in Google Maps.

If you’re a Chrome for Mac user like me, you’d be glad to know that the latest version of Chrome beta now has full-screen mode and a powerful bookmark management feature. We’ve been wanting these features since Chrome for Mac was released and so the Google Chrome folks are finally giving it to us.

If you can’t wait for Chrome for Mac to be automatically updated, you may want to download it from this link.

Firefox aka Fennec for Android Looks Good, Saves Web Pages to PDF Too

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Although it is just a “pre-alpha” build you can see outright that Mozilla’s browser for Android phones nicknamed – Fennec or Firefox for Android has the makings of a pretty good if not great mobile phone browser.  One of Fennec’s developer’s slipped out some details about Fennec for Android and while it’s full of precautionary statements, I went ahead and installed the browser on my Nexus One.

The download and installation process went well without any hitch. Right after installing, I immediately fired up the browser – puff!  My phone’s screen goes blank. So, I rebooted my phone and fired up Fennec again.  Then there it was, rendering the startup page for Fennec on my Nexus One’s screen. I immediately type it some sites and noticed how fast the pages loaded up considering that it was still a “pre-alpha” release.

Now for some key features of Fennec or Firefox for Android that we should all look forward to:

Saving web pages into PDF – This is something that caught immediately caught my attention. This would come in handy for some offline reading of pages later on.

Tab Browsing History – You’d see this pop out from the left-most side of your screen. A pretty neat way of saving your browsing history and accessing them again later on.

Weave Sync – This looks like a pretty interesting feature. It will let you share bookmarks, browsing history, tabs and password between your Fennec on your mobile phone and Firefox on your desktop.

Some bugs

Fennec for Android is still buggy at this stage and that’s pretty understandable since it is just a pre-alpha release. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use and evaluate how good it is right now.

One thing that I noticed that the browser lacks and which I hope the developers will work on before the public release are pinch-to-zoom and +- controls for zooming on web pages.

Overall, Fennec for Android is a promising mobile browser that could give Opera Mini and the others a good competition.

To download Firefox for Android pre-alpha release, scan the QR below.

Apple Approves Opera Mini for iPhone

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Opera continues its trip across various platforms as its Opera Mini browser app has just been approved by Apple. Expect the Opera Mini app to make its appearance in the Apps Store anytime now. Depending on your iTunes, setting the Opera Mini app will be available for free download within 24 hours.

It comes as a surprise that Apple approves the Opera Mini browser since it will definitely compete with Apple’s very own Safari browser on the iPhone and iPod Touch. But it just shows how open Apple is when it comes to competition, although I’m pretty sure that the Opera Mini is not the first approved app which directly competes with an Apple service.

So what does the Opera Mini app brings to the iPhone/iPod Touch table? A couple of good features actually topped by its fast mobile web browsing capability. Credit should be attributed of course to Opera Mini’s compression of web data by up to 90% before sending them to the iPhone/iPod Touch. This results to faster page loading.

Opera Mini will be most useful if your iPhone is running on slower networks such as 2G EDGE. It works great with iPhone 3G and 3GS models and would save you some precious data charges when browsing the web using your iPhone due to data compression.

“We are delighted to offer iPhone and iPod touch users a great browsing experience with the Opera Mini App,” said Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “This app is another step toward Opera’s goal of bringing the Web to more people in more places.”

Alright, I know that you’re probably grown tired of using the iPhone/iPod Touch’s Safari browser. Time for a cool change. Check out Opera Mini for iPhone/iPod Touch now.  You may also want to watch a short video demonstrating the features of the Opera Mini browser on iPhone (check out the video after the jump). [Read more…] about Apple Approves Opera Mini for iPhone

Opera 10.50 Browser for Mac Makes You Want to Forget About Safari

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Alright Mac users, if  you’re tired of using the stock Safari browser on your machine but you don’t feel like using Google Chrome for Mac or Firefox, how about Opera 10.50 for Mac which is now available for download?  This new version of Opera for Mac is said to be using a new Javascript engine and boasts of key features like HTML5 support and multi-touch gestures.

Honestly, I’ve never used the Opera Browser on a laptop or desktop before. The only time I used it was on my old Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone. But that was a long time ago. For all I know, both the Opera Mini browser for mobile phones and the Opera desktop browser have probably gone through several revisions already.

Anyway, here are the new things that you should expect in the latest iteration of Opera browser for Mac:

  • More stable than the pre-alpha build
  • A whole new polished UI
  • Supports Opera Unite allowing you to download unite apps from the Unite Apps Repository
  • Supports HTML5 tag
  • Supports widgets as stand-alone apps
  • New menu for Developer Tools

Now, why did we say that Opera 10.50 for Mac might make you forget about the Safari browser that comes preloaded in your Mac? Well, blame it on the guys from 9 to 5 Mac who’ve tested the browser and found that it beats Safari in a WebKit Javascript benchmarking test.

You may want to give Opera a try on your Mac, get it from here.

Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate Goes Up for Download

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Frankly I don’t remember the last time I downloaded a release candidate for Firefox. In fact, I don’t even know what version of Firefox I have on my Mac. Well, forgive me Firefox fans because ever since Google Chrome for Mac came out, I’ve stopped using both Safari and Firefox.

But if you’re not like me and still using Firefox whether on your Mac or PC, you might want to check out the latest release candidate that you’d probably be trying out for the last time before Mozilla officially release Firefox 3.6 is now available for download.

If you’re using Firefox 3.6 beta, the latest RC is an automatic update so you don’t have to download and install anything manually. This RC now contains 75% of the current Firefox add-ons that were updated by their authors. So, they would all work perfectly with Firefox 3.6.

New features of the Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate which you may or may not be concern with are as follow anyway:

  • Users can change the browser’s appearance with a single click using Personas.
  • Firefox 3.6 alerts users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
  • Changes to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability.
  • Improved automatic form fill provides better options from your form history.
  • Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
  • Support for the WOFF font format.
  • Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
  • The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.
  • Support for the HTML5 File API
  • Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

So, are you brave enough to use an unstable version of your favorite browser? I’m sure you are.  You may get Firefox 3.6 RC here.