The desktop, as you know it today, is going to be history in a while. You don’t need me to tell you that your world is increasingly moving online and you could soon be using far more comprehensive applications than those that exist today. And your browser will be your ticket to the web. Thats why I’ve decided to give you a monthly report about the innovations coming up in the world of your windows to the web and call it Browse Better.
Firefox
Firefox has updated their Weave Sync plugin to take the fight down to the wire with Opera’s Link. It synchronizes every damn thing in your browser to provide a seamless shift to any other Firefox browser on any other platform and device. Of course, their mobile browser Fennec is yet to move beyond one device, so to speak. But that feature exists to make you happy. And I must say, Weave Sync works like a charm.
Mozilla also launched their Test Pilot plugin which allows people to essentially turn beta-testers for Mozilla. I know there are so many people out there wanting to do their bit for open source, but are not adept at programming. This will really help them push the open source wheel further and faster. More people testing is always a good thing. (When I downloaded the plugin, there were no tests on at that time. I look forward to sharing my experience about Test Pilot as soon as that happens)
Opera
“The world’s fastest browser” is now reaching its 10th version and boy has it come a long way. I recently poured over their financial results and Opera Software seems to be doing great for itself. The Release Candidate 2 is out now [download link] and the final version will be available from September 1.
The biggest feature that it bringing to the table is Opera Turbo which improves the life of people with slow connections. This will be a very compelling feature for emerging markets to make the switch. That apart, it also features a refreshed UI and an improved engine which promises faster speeds of upto 40%.
Also read: 10 reasons to download Opera 10
Google Chrome
Google Chrome took a decently sized leap with a few tweaks and improvements here and there[download link]. The most visible of them would be the start page and the Omnibox (Google speak for the address bar). They also claim to be 30% faster than the stable releases which can never be a bad thing.
Plus if you run the beta from the command prompt and flag it with --enable-sync, you can see synced bookmarks in action. All the bookmarks are stored inside your Google Docs account from where you can share and organize. Sigh, what’d we do without you, Google?
If you’re getting bored with all that geek speak, try Chrome Experiments for some Javascript fun. It is just amazing to see what Google Chrome is capable of.
Also Read: 10 things you should know about the Google Chrome OS
Internet Explorer
There hasn’t been anything significant going on in the world of IE, but an 8 year old product called IE 6 is still making its presence felt. It all started when Mark Tramell from Digg got pissed about how much time goes into making Digg IE6 friendly thanks to the 10 odd percent traffic that still comes from IE6 users. But they later figured out that most of them are tied to IE 6 not by choice but by compulsion.
Here’s the real reason why people still use IE6 according to the Digg survey.
Lead Image Credits dalbera
