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Firefox 8 Mobile Targeted at Honeycomb Tablets Running Android

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Fans of the popular open source browser Firefox will be happy to hear that the Mozilla team has started development of their mobile browser, Fennec, specifically for Android based tablets.

The aim of the team is to release Fennec, together with Firefox 8, and provide a TabletUI, working with Android tablets using Honeycomb (or higher). The work page already includes links to UI mockups, which we added below.

Firefox Fennec for Tablets - Honeycomb: Fullscreen internet
Firefox Fennec for Tablets - Honeycomb: Fullscreen browsing

Work is on-going and the crew hopes to be able to release the final UI early in the development cycle of Firefox 8, which is scheduled for this year.

Enjoy more mockup images after the jump. [Read more…]

Originally posted on July 23, 2011 @ 10:38 am

Google Helping Firefox Dethrone IE?

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Microsoft’s days of dominance are quickly coming to a close as StatCounter has announced that the software giant has lost the gold to an old nemesis.

However what’s surprising about StatCounter’s report is not who inherited the gold, but rather who is really killing off IE in the EU.

The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that in December, Firefox took 38.11% of European market share, compared to IE’s 37.52%.

“This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share.”

Google Chrome in third place is gaining market share in Europe and has grown to 14.58% compared to 5.06% in December last year. (StatCounter Global Stats)

Despite unveiling Internet Explorer 9 to the masses, Microsoft has been unable to slow the bleeding as more and more users are defecting towards Google Chrome which is considered not only faster than its rivals, but safer as well.

While Mozilla (the organization behind Firefox) is probably thrilled at inheriting the gold away from IE, the company needs to figure out a way to increase the popularity of their browser lest they suffer the same fate as Microsoft in a few years.

Originally posted on January 4, 2011 @ 3:34 pm

Can Bing! Save Firefox?

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Unless you live outside of the geek-o-sphere, you probably did not realize that Mozilla recently added Bing! as a search option to Firefox.

Today Bing and Firefox announced that Bing will be included as one of the search engine choices within Firefox on both the Mac and PC.

We’re very excited to be included in the search engine choices in the upcoming version of Firefox.  Having Bing in the “out of the box” list makes it easier than ever for the Firefox community to experience the benefits of Bing.

We expect the Bing option to show up in an upcoming build of Firefox 4. (Bing! Community Blog) [Read more…]

Originally posted on October 7, 2010 @ 1:44 pm

Google Chrome Gains Market Share While Others Lose

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Although it’s only for February, still we could not discount the fact that Google is slowly gaining grounds in the web browser market with the continously improving Chrome browser. Want proof? The latest data collected by Net Applications, a web metrics company is showing that for Google Chrome is the only browser that made some gains in February.

Google Chrome registered an increase of 5.61% in market share from January’s 5.22%, up by 0.39%. Although it’s market share is still not big enough at 0.96% share, still this quite an achievement for Google Chrome, considering that it came late into the web browser party.

Even more interesting is the fact that all of its rival showed a slight decrease in market share during February. Internet Explorer, the top no. 1 browser to date got a decrease in market share of 0.54% from January with 61.58% share in February. Firefox, Safari and Opera also have their market share falling down to 0.20%, 0.08% and 0.03% respectively. Firefox market share is now at 24.23%, Safari at 4.45% and Opera at 2.35%.

Again, it’s a minimal increase and Google has a long way to go to make Chrome browser overtakes or even be at par with both IE and Firefox, but given Google’s marketing strategy plus its continuing effort to enhance Chrome browser, it will just be a matter of time before it becomes a powerful contender in the web browser wars.

Originally posted on March 1, 2010 @ 5:45 pm

Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Series, No Phone Yet

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There you go, Microsoft joins the MWC 2010 party by announcing its completely rebranded Windows mobile OS, now called Windows Phone 7 series.  But aside from the rebranding, Microsoft has also mentioned several new and exciting features of its latest mobile OS.

Although there is no definite handset yet that will carry Windows Phone 7 Series,  Microsoft is banking on the mobile platform’s brand new appeal. In fact, 7 series was built completely from the ground up.  And among its nice features include – a new home screen, integration with XBOX Live and Microsoft Zune, as well as enhanced social networking features.

In addition, the new OS makes a Windows Phone 7 Series phone look a lot like Microsoft Zune. But it heavily focuses on social networking features. And integrating the OS with Xbox, the OS will have Live games, game avatars as well as profiles.

What’s pretty interesting about his development is that Microsoft also announced that their new OS will require mobile phone manufacturers to adhere to a one identity policy. This means that  new phones will be sporting  high res touchscreen, and  three front-facing buttons.

Windows Phone 7 Series will be supported by various telecoms company including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Telefonica, and more.

Via Engadget

 

Originally posted on February 15, 2010 @ 11:59 am