GetBrowser » Internet Explorer

Mozilla Firefox Abandons Internet Explorer plug-in

Calking Chi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:16:07 +0000

We have just learned that Mozilla were thinking of developing a plug-in that would allow Internet Explorer to run on Firefox. Mozilla had hope that this could turn IE into a decent browser, but decided not to go ahead with the idea. This is something that Google should have done as well.

According to The Register, Asa Dotzle from Mozilla Corp. said that this idea of a plug-in much like the one that Google Chrome uses was discussed two years ago. The idea was to try to make Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser much faster, this would have been achieved by using the Firefox JavaScript engine.

Google thought that there was something good to offer an IE plug-in, which they released last September. Google have also been working hard on Google Wave and have made certain that Internet Explorer is able to run the new software.

Microsoft and Mozilla were not happy about this as they feel that the Chrome Frame would undermine not only the security but privacy as well. The move would also throw a huge amount of confusion if implanted.

In short, Chrome Frame is a plug-in. It’s like Flash. It doesn’t talk to things around it in the ways that it should.

Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8

Calking Chi — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:58:27 +0000

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is a big improvement over previous versions, but it has few features that outshine those in competing Web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. However, there is one area in which the Microsoft browser has a very big advantage-namely, in its ability to give companies, ISPs, Websites and software developers the option to create customized and easily deployable versions of IE 8. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 provides fine-grain control over how IE 8 is installed, what options and settings it will have, and how security is set. This makes it possible, for example, for a business to deliver an employee browser that has the right security settings and that points to company Web resources right out of the gate.

Now, the Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 has just been released by Microsoft. The IEAK has been designed to simply the deployment, management and customization of Internet Explorer installations in computer networks and distribution channels. It can be used to create custom installations of Internet Explorer that are accessible right after deployment. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8 is available in 24 different languages from the Microsoft Technet website.

System administrators can download the kit from the website which also provides access to an online help and other documentation to aid these administrators customize the Internet Explorer experience. To outline some of the customization that is possible with the Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8:

Administrators can use it to install custom components, select the language, search provider, homepage and support urls, install favorites or feeds, configure connection settings, change privacy, security and proxy settings or customize other features of Internet Explorer.

Detailed information about the various options are provided on the What Internet Explorer Administration Kit Can Do For You page on the Microsoft website. Microsoft has also released documentation and a IEAK 8 deployment guide to get administrators and technicians started.

Europe to Test Microsoft Browser Ballot System

Calking Chi — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:39:43 +0000

Finally, Microsoft has come up with a browser ballot screen the European Union likes.

The EU was not going to approve Windows 7 without a way for users to choose a browser other than Internet Explorer. Microsoft had taken a first pass at a browser ballot, but the EU didn’t like that one. Now, in the second go-round, Redmond has come up with something that passes muster.

The new ballot allows browsers to be easily downloaded from the ballot screen; doesn’t favor any one browser—not even IE—over another; includes a little introduction to each browser; and presents browser choices alphabetically.

If this is really the end of Microsoft’s long browser battle in Europe, the company can breathe a sigh of relief.

In January, the European Commission announced that Microsoft violated European competition law by bundling its Internet Explorer browser with Windows. As a result, Microsoft announced on June 11 that it would ship a version of Windows 7 in Europe without a browser, dubbed Windows 7 E.

All in all, if EU Approves Test of Windows 7 ‘Browser Ballot’ at last, we may see such a situation: IE may lose more market share in Europe while other browsers will gain more market share st the same time. But what does Opera will do next step?

IE 6 is the most popular browser around the world?

Calking Chi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:44:23 +0000

As December comes, the browser market share of September is available to us too.

According to Net Applications’s job, Microsoft’s IE browser lost more market-share during September while rivals Firefox and Chrome gained. During the month of September, IE decreased by 1.3 percentage points in September, falling to 65.7%. However, IE has lost 8.5 percentage points in the last 12 months and has dropped 2.6 points in the last three months alone.

The market share of browsers above is just for some kinds of popular browsers, but have you paid attention to all browsers (such as IE 6, Firefox 3.5, etc) ? If you have done it, you must be amazed for IE 6 browser is still dominating the market, according to Net Application.

Compared to August, IE6 has lost only 0.8% of its market share, dropping to 24.4%, which still makes it by far the most popular web browser, in front of Internet Explorer 7.0 with 19.39%, Internet Explorer 8.0 with 16.84%, Firefox 3.5 with 12.65%, and Firefox 3.0 which holds 9.62% of the browser market.

Is it amazing and surprising? If let you choose a better browser, no one will be browsing with IE 6. Unfortunately, it seems that old habits die hard and there are so many people who stick to use IE 6.

Just for Laughs—Why People are Still Using IE 6?

Calking Chi — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:03:32 +0000

Why do people still use IE 6? In fact, IE 6 is always a hot subject of debate and most web designers and developers who target all sorts of browsers will ask the same question. The CSS support is problematic and the JavaScript support is proprietary nonsense, which are IE 6’s feature. Now, I bring you a pie chart goodness as to why folks are still using IE 6. Of course, this is just for laugh.

Now, let us educate people about the advantages of better browsers(such as Firefox, Google Chrome etc) and throw IE 6 away.

Google Sneaks Chrome Frame into IE—the War Between Google and Microsoft

Calking Chi — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:46:04 +0000

Some days ago, Google released an IE plug-in named Chrome Frame designed to let Microsoft’s IE browser use the features and performance of Google’s own Chrome browser.

For IE users, installing Google Chrome Frame will allow them to seamlessly enjoy modern Web apps at blazing speeds, through the familiar interface of the version of IE that they are currently using. That is to say, It can let IE 6, 7, or 8 use Chrome to render Web pages and execute their JavaScript programs. To use it, people must install the open-source plug-in, currently in the developer preview stage, and Web developers must insert a line of code onto their Web sites that engages Chrome Frame when a person visits the site.

When Chrome Frame appears, the owner of IE—Microsoft becomes nervous and angry of course. Thus, when get the information about Chrome Frame, Microsoft scrambled to ruin Google’s party, and warned users not to download the plug-in for Google Chrome Frame makes IE less secure. As is said by Microsoft, this plug-in allegedly increases opportunities for malicious behaviour.

Now, as a response to Microsoft, Google defends the security of its new Chrome Frame plug-in and claims that the software actually makes IE safer and more secure.

So, you see, here is just a word-war between Google Chrome and Microsoft IE. They both want to defeat the opposite and gain more browser market share. But what will happen next?

Google Chrome Gets into IE with Plug-in Chrome Frame

Calking Chi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:15:24 +0000

Prehaps in order to help web designers and developers to build rich apps, Google has released a plug-in called Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer, which is wielding a fierce new weapon in its war against Internet Explorer too.

Here is what Google says in their Google’s Chromium Blog about Chrome Frame:

“Google Chrome Frame is an early-stage open source plug-in that can bring Google Chrome’s open web technologies and speedy JavaScript engine to Internet Explorer. With Google Chrome Frame, you can:

Start using open web technologies – like the HTML5 canvas tag – right away, even technologies that aren’t yet supported in Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8.

Take advantage of JavaScript performance improvements to make your apps faster and more responsive.”

The Google team is also trying the idea of Chrome Frame into the notion of maintaining an open Web, something the company has recently been working hard to promote. Today’s announcement puts much emphasis on the fact that Chrome Frame is open source and focused on increasing the availability of open Web technologies.

The Chrome Frame plug-in requires IE6, IE7 or IE8 on Windows XP or Windows Vista, and can be downloaded from Google’s site. And it can be fairly used simply, developers just have to add a single tag to web page which detects whether IE has Frame plug-in installed or not.

Open Currently Viewed Webpages within Firefox Using Other Browsers

Calking Chi — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:59:17 +0000

As a Firefox fan, I use Firefox almost all the time when surfing the Internet. But you may meet some situations that Firefox cat’t work well, such as some websites that won’t get good performance in Firefox, even IE-only web pages. At the same time, these web develpoers need to see what things when testing new pages. So, perhaps we may need some extensions, which allows the current page or a selected link to be opened in other browsers, such as IE, Google Chrome.

When you need to open some currently viewed web pages using IE, Firefox extension IE View may be available to you. As is said, IE View lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to *always* load in IE. When reached in Firefox, these marked sites will automatically be reopened in IE. It is useful for incompatible pages, or cross-browser testing.

IE View is just developed for Miscrosoft IE. In fact, there are also some similar extensions developed for other browsers.

Chrome View: This add-on allows you to quickly open the currently viewed page in Google Chrome.

OperaView: Open pages in Opera from Firefox context menus. It is very usefull for web developers.

Safari View Win: Adds a context menu entry to open the currently viewed web page in Safari on Windows. (Another add-on Safari View on Mac OS X)

These simple extensions are really useful for web designers and developers, which enable them to open web pages within Firefox using IE, Opera and other popular browsers.

Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for IE Browser Testing

Calking Chi — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:07:45 +0000

For web designers and webmasters, browser testing is an important and frustrating problem. In most cases, developers design for one target browser (such as IE 6) and once they’re done, they start tweaking their design to make it compatible with other browsers (such as IE, Firefox and so on).

In order to make test easy for these developers, there are many ways available before a website launched, and these include having multiple browsers and operating systems installed, running virtual machines with different configurations or using a hosted image service where a screenshot is produced for a given browser version and operating system to be used for comparison purposes.

Starting today, there’s a new way for testing browser compatibility developed by Microsoft and it’s called SuperPreview. In this article, I’ll be giving you a brief review of SuperPreview as well as comparing and listing alternate systems for testing your website designs.

“We built SuperPreview to simplify the process of testing and debugging layout issues across different web browsers and platforms. With SuperPreview you can view your pages in multiple browsers simultaneously or view how a page renders in a browser and compare it to a comp or mock-up image of a page. SuperPreview helps web site authors address an important part of that problem—namely, how to identify and fix cross-browser layout issues,” revealed Steve Guttman, product unit manager, Expression Web.

With SuperPreview, Microsoft hopes to streamline the migration of websites from older versions of Internet Explorer to IE8. Because they are tailored to a different set of standards, websites designed for a specific version of IE will be rendered erroneously in another version. This is why Microsoft has also included multiple rendering engines into IE8, allowing the browser to become compatible with older content which is not in tune with modern web standards.

Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview is available for download here.

6 Portable Web Browsers You Can Try!

Calking Chi — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:03:47 +0000

Portable apps are softwares which don’t require any installation and can be used directly from the USB flash drive. It comes handy when you are not using your own computer and want to have your passwords and all other private information in the browser, which you don’t want to share with your friend. Here are 6 portable web browsers for users of Windows PCs. If you surf the Intetnet out of home usually, I think these portable browsers are worthy to be used.

Internet Explorer

I have to say that these browsers are not portable in its real meaning. However, they do provide us good ways to use a beefed-up version of IE with your personalizations wherever you can plug in your USB drive.

1. Maxthon Portable

As a browser most widely used in China, Maxthon browser is a powerful tabbed browser built for all users. Besides basic browsing functionality, Maxthon browser provides a rich set of features to improve your surfing experience. Maxthon won Webware 100 award in 2008 and the download of Maxthon from main site reached 170 million times.

Download

2. Avant Browser

100% Free! No cost, No limitations. No Adware. No Spyware, this is Avant browser’s slogans. Avant Browser’s user-friendly interface brings a new level of clarity and efficiency to your browsing experience, and frequent upgrades have steadily improved its reliability. Avant Browser is freeware That’s right.

Download

Opera

3. Opera@USB

As we all know, Opera is one of the best web browsers in the world. The Opera 10 portable browser also has the same features of the main browser but the only difference, is that its not the installer version, and can be used anywhere from the flash drive.

Download

Mozilla

4. Portable Firefox

Perhaps most people have had a good konwledge of this browser already. John T. Haller’s Portable Apps project is always right on top of the latest Firefox updates, so it’s the place to go if you need the Fox in your pocket. The most recent unstable branch is provided as well, in case you want to test it without installing.

Download

5. PocketKMeleon

K-Meleon is a very fast, customizable, lightweight web browser for the win32 (Windows) system based on the Gecko layout engine (the rendering engine of Mozilla).

Download

Webkit

6. Google Chrome Portable

Carsten Knoblauch’s project allows users to surf the Internet with Chrome (currently v. 3.0.195.20) everywhere for providing protable Chrome on your flash drive. He updates frequently and the page’s download link should always hook you up with the latest version.

Download

That’s all. If don’t see your choice on the list, share it with us in the comments please!

GetBrowser » Internet Explorer

Mozilla Firefox Abandons Internet Explorer plug-in

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