Mozilla has released a new beta version of the Firefox browser for Android and it brings with it some major changes. The biggest one of all is that the app is written in Java, which is native to Android, instead of the Mozilla developed XUL used on the previous versions. Due to this, you can expect some major improvements in the performance of the app.

Other big change is the new UI, which looks a lot better. It has what Mozilla calls the ‘Awesome Screen’. It’s very similar to the screen you see in Chrome for Android, with the address bar at the top, thumbnails for frequently visited sites below and right at the bottom a list of recently closed tabs. Read more »

Apple has released two new updates today, one for OS X Lion and the other for the desktop Safari browser. The OS X update brings Lion to 10.7.4 and includes some crucial security fixes.

Recently OS X came under fire when the OS would display FileVault passwords in plain text file for users who upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion and kept their FileVault settings. The issue has now been patched in the latest update. Read more »

If you are a Windows Phone user you are probably familiar with how the Marketplace works. In case you don’t want to browse apps from your Marketplace app on your phone you could only check them out via Zune or some third-party service.

That’s why last September Microsoft launched the Web Marketplace where you can browse and purchase apps directly from your browser. It’s a neat feature, much like the one Android users have been enjoying for a while now. Read more »

One of the best features of Chrome is the ‘Most visited sites’ view in the new tab, where the browser presents you with a grid of thumbnails of sites you visit most often. This is a derivation of the speed dial function in Opera, that allows the user to manually set any site they want as a speed dial on the new tab page for quick access.

Mozilla has recently taken to borrowing every good feature from Chrome in their new release. The recently released Firefox 12 brought the silent update feature. With the Firefox 13 beta, Mozilla has added the most visited sites to Firefox’ new tab page. Read more »

The latest beta of the Opera browser is now available for download. Codenamed “Wahoo”, the new, 12th, version of Opera introduces a plethora of new features, which are intended to make web browsing a lot better than before.

For starters, Opera 12 Beta is slightly faster and more optimized. It even takes a hint from Firefox and Chrome and now comes with themes support. Read more »

In the time it took you to install Firefox 11, Mozilla has released Firefox 12 for Windows, OS X and Linux. As usual, it doesn’t bring a host of new features but there is one that makes the process of upgrading that much more painless, which is good considering how often Mozilla has started releasing new updates.

Firefox 12 brings the ability to silently upgrade in the background. What this means is that when a new update is available, the browser will automatically download it (configurable, of course) and then install the update without you ever knowing about it. You won’t even get the Windows UAC warning message asking for your permission to install it. This is exactly how Chrome has been updating itself all this time and it’s good to see this functionality carried over to Firefox as well. Read more »

Now that you’ve invited some more friends to Dropbox and received the extra space you so wanted, it’s time to get cracking with uploading some more stuff.

And to make it easier for you to do so, the Dropbox team have enabled the ‘drag & drop’ upload functionality in their web interface, allowing you to stuff your Dropbox in a jiffy.
Read more »

MOBOTAP has updated its Dolphin Browser for iOS to version 4.0. The main feature in this new update is Dolphin Sonar, which lets you do things like searching the web, sharing links on social networking sites, adding bookmarks, etc. using just your voice.

Other additions include the URL keyboard, ability to quickly switch between four different search engines, night mode, ability save images directly to your phone’s photo library, additional font size options and general stability and performance improvements. Read more »

Google has just released a new version of its Chrome web browser, giving it some extra weapons in the battle for dominance of the browser market. Three and a half years after its initial release, Google Chrome hits version number 18 and brought further-reaching GPU-acceleration support and extended WebGL support.

Google Chrome 18 enables GPU-accelerated Canvas2D on Windows and Mac computers with a discrete GPU or an APU, which should lead to a dramatic performance improvement in some web applications. Gaming has been specifically mentioned, but all graphic-intensive web apps should feel better on the new Chrome browser. Read more »

Opera just released the latest version of its server-accelerated Mini web browser for Android. Opera Mini 7 brings several new features, including improved hardware acceleration, which should drastically improve its smoothness.

The Speed Dial screen has also been updated and you are now allowed to select the number of buttons you see there. Previously, Speed Dial was set to show 9 of your bookmarks and there was no way to alter that. Read more »

Initially Mozilla took a firm stance when it came to HTML5′s video tag – only open-source video codecs are welcome, proprietary stuff like h.264 will not be supported. Now however, their position has softened – Firefox will support whatever media codecs the host OS has in addition to Theora (which was there from the start).

The change will first be implemented in their experimental Boot 2 Gecko mobile OS (which we saw in action at the MWC) and later added to the Android version of Firefox. Desktop Firefox might prove a bigger challenge, however. Read more »

Oh, Firefox 10, we hardly knew ye. Also, 9. And 8. And 7, 6, 5 and 4. Thanks to the new rapid release cycle, Mozilla is just flying through the version numbers for Firefox. And so as expected, v11 has just been officially released.

So what’s new in this one? Quite a few things, actually. First of all, Firefox now recognizes Chrome if it is installed on your machine along with Opera and Internet Explorer and will ask you if you want to import bookmarks from it. If Mozilla intends to win back some of its old users from Chrome, this new feature is in the right direction to make the process of jumping over that much easier. Read more »

Google revealed they are busy at work to create a Metro version of their popular desktop browser Chrome for Windows 8. Microsoft’s new OS is a strange beast with two different environments – Windows 7-style desktop and the new Metro interface – which will run separate apps.

While the current browser will work just fine in desktop mode, it won’t be accessible in Metro, which is the preferred UI for tablets. Google is specifically looking to improve touch support for the Chrome on Metro. Read more »

Opera Software just announced the availability of its Opera Mini 6.5 mobile browser on yet another platform. The native version of the popular data-saving browser just hit the BlackBerry App World and, if you happen to have a BlackBerry OS smartphone, you can have it right away.

You need to be running version 4.2.1 or later of the BlackBerry OS, no matter your carrier or country. This means that Opera Mini will be available on every half decent BlackBerry device, but the PlayBook tablet. Read more »

Opera has long held the top spot in mobile browsers and is still highly popular (especially Mini, which is the browser of choice in developing countries). According to StatCounter its reign has come to an end, with the two popular smartphone OSes battling for first spot.

StatCounter has Android’s browser on top, but they treat iPhone and iPod as separate. Add them up and Mobile Safari climbs on top. Read more »