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Microsoft’s browser rivals aren’t happy after it made switching defaults easier
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Microsoft's rivals have hit back against the company's recent change to its stance on picking a default browser. 

The company that got into so much trouble in the 1990s for trying to squeeze rivals made an interesting change with Windows 11: obscuring the option to change the default browser, limiting it to only technically capable users and the very motivated. 

Anyone using Windows 10 could easily change the default with a single click, something that a lot of people did. But that all changed for anyone updating to Microsoft's latest OS. 

All change

While Edge isn't a bad browser, making it the default and then hiding the settings to change that does kind of stink, a point made loudly by its rivals. 

Microsoft even took it a step further and began funnelling links from its services, including the Start Menu, into Edge as well. 

All of that changed in a recent update, however, when Microsoft reintroduced an easy one-click process for changing the default – but instead of being pleased, some of the biggest names in the browser market have now hit back.

Old grudges, widely held

Speaking to The Register, Microsoft's rivals were still not happy with the company and its attempts to make Edge into a dominant browser.

“It has always been our stance that Microsoft, and others like them, should make it easy for users to choose to use the products that suit them,” said Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner. “This should apply to all users, not just the ones who are technically competent enough to realize that they need to install an optional update, and know how to actually do so. It should be installed for all users.” 

“While they have made an attempt, the fact that it has been done the way it has leads to the assumption that it is only being done to avoid being prosecuted for anticompetitive behavior, not to actually solve the underlying problem.”

READ MORE

>Opera launches Pro tier for its built-in browser VPN

>Google introduces a step-by-step privacy guide for Chrome browser, but is it enough?

>Browser wars: Microsoft Edge just steamed past a major rival

Mozilla, which actually found a way around the changes, was similarly critical.

“People should have the ability to simply and easily set defaults and all operating systems should offer official developer support for default status,” the company said.

“In practice, we'd like to also see progress on reducing the number of steps required to set a new browser as default, and on opening and making APIs available for apps to set default that other Microsoft applications use.”

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Microsoft’s browser rivals aren’t happy after it made switching defaults easier
  • No Comments

Microsoft's rivals have hit back against the company's recent change to its stance on picking a default browser. 

The company that got into so much trouble in the 1990s for trying to squeeze rivals made an interesting change with Windows 11: obscuring the option to change the default browser, limiting it to only technically capable users and the very motivated. 

Anyone using Windows 10 could easily change the default with a single click, something that a lot of people did. But that all changed for anyone updating to Microsoft's latest OS. 

All change

While Edge isn't a bad browser, making it the default and then hiding the settings to change that does kind of stink, a point made loudly by its rivals. 

Microsoft even took it a step further and began funnelling links from its services, including the Start Menu, into Edge as well. 

All of that changed in a recent update, however, when Microsoft reintroduced an easy one-click process for changing the default – but instead of being pleased, some of the biggest names in the browser market have now hit back.

Old grudges, widely held

Speaking to The Register, Microsoft's rivals were still not happy with the company and its attempts to make Edge into a dominant browser.

“It has always been our stance that Microsoft, and others like them, should make it easy for users to choose to use the products that suit them,” said Vivaldi CEO Jon von Tetzchner. “This should apply to all users, not just the ones who are technically competent enough to realize that they need to install an optional update, and know how to actually do so. It should be installed for all users.” 

“While they have made an attempt, the fact that it has been done the way it has leads to the assumption that it is only being done to avoid being prosecuted for anticompetitive behavior, not to actually solve the underlying problem.”

READ MORE

>Opera launches Pro tier for its built-in browser VPN

>Google introduces a step-by-step privacy guide for Chrome browser, but is it enough?

>Browser wars: Microsoft Edge just steamed past a major rival

Mozilla, which actually found a way around the changes, was similarly critical.

“People should have the ability to simply and easily set defaults and all operating systems should offer official developer support for default status,” the company said.

“In practice, we'd like to also see progress on reducing the number of steps required to set a new browser as default, and on opening and making APIs available for apps to set default that other Microsoft applications use.”

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Browser wars: Microsoft Edge just steamed past a major rival
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As the browser wars rage on, Microsoft Edge is one step closer to challenging Google Chrome as it has finally surpassed another major rival.

According to data from the web analytics service StatCounter, Microsoft’s browser is now used on 9.65 percent of all desktops worldwide which still pales in comparison to Chrome’s 67.26 percent market share.

Back in February of this year, Edge was closing in on Safari but based on new data from March, Apple’s browser now has 9.57 percent of desktop browser market share worldwide. Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox has slipped slightly from 9.18 percent to 7.57 percent.

Surprisingly, Internet Explorer is still being used on one percent (0.92%) of desktops globally, most likely by users that haven’t upgraded to Windows 11 or even Windows 10 yet. Microsoft is planning to retire its IE 11 app on June 15 of this year though, so these users will have to make the switch to Edge or even to an alternative browser like Opera which has 2.83 percent of desktop browser market share worldwide.

Mobile is a different story altogether

Although Edge is certainly making inroads on desktop, the same can’t be said for Microsoft’s browser on Android and iOS.

According to StatCounter's mobile data, Chrome is used on 63.26 percent of all smartphones which makes sense as there are currently over 3bn active Android devices in use and Google’s browser comes preinstalled on Android smartphones. Likewise, Safari, which comes preinstalled on iPhones, has 24.81 percent of the mobile browser market share worldwide. Samsung’s browser, Samsung Internet, meanwhile is currently in third place at just under five percent (4.99%).

Read more

> This long-lost Microsoft Edge feature may be making a comeback

> Microsoft Edge wants to make the web more accessible for everyone

> Microsoft Edge is throwing its weight behind web apps

Although Microsoft Edge doesn’t even appear in StatCounter’s mobile browser market share data, its usage is growing on mobile. According to Edge’s Play Store listing, the browser’s mobile app has been installed over 10m times and has 4.5 stars based on 453k user reviews. Apple’s App Store doesn’t provide the same detailed install data that the Play Store does but Edge for iOS is ranked #18 in utilities and has a 4.6 rating based on more than 78k user reviews.

A recent report from Windows Central says that Microsoft is reportedly planning to consolidate its Android efforts into a single division to offer tighter integration between Google’s mobile operating system and Windows 11. While the move is likely more geared towards having Android apps run better on Windows, the software giant’s renewed interest in Android could see it double down on Edge’s mobile app for the platform.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Browser wars: Microsoft Edge just steamed past a major rival
  • No Comments

As the browser wars rage on, Microsoft Edge is one step closer to challenging Google Chrome as it has finally surpassed another major rival.

According to data from the web analytics service StatCounter, Microsoft’s browser is now used on 9.65 percent of all desktops worldwide which still pales in comparison to Chrome’s 67.26 percent market share.

Back in February of this year, Edge was closing in on Safari but based on new data from March, Apple’s browser now has 9.57 percent of desktop browser market share worldwide. Meanwhile, Mozilla Firefox has slipped slightly from 9.18 percent to 7.57 percent.

Surprisingly, Internet Explorer is still being used on one percent (0.92%) of desktops globally, most likely by users that haven’t upgraded to Windows 11 or even Windows 10 yet. Microsoft is planning to retire its IE 11 app on June 15 of this year though, so these users will have to make the switch to Edge or even to an alternative browser like Opera which has 2.83 percent of desktop browser market share worldwide.

Mobile is a different story altogether

Although Edge is certainly making inroads on desktop, the same can’t be said for Microsoft’s browser on Android and iOS.

According to StatCounter's mobile data, Chrome is used on 63.26 percent of all smartphones which makes sense as there are currently over 3bn active Android devices in use and Google’s browser comes preinstalled on Android smartphones. Likewise, Safari, which comes preinstalled on iPhones, has 24.81 percent of the mobile browser market share worldwide. Samsung’s browser, Samsung Internet, meanwhile is currently in third place at just under five percent (4.99%).

Read more

> This long-lost Microsoft Edge feature may be making a comeback

> Microsoft Edge wants to make the web more accessible for everyone

> Microsoft Edge is throwing its weight behind web apps

Although Microsoft Edge doesn’t even appear in StatCounter’s mobile browser market share data, its usage is growing on mobile. According to Edge’s Play Store listing, the browser’s mobile app has been installed over 10m times and has 4.5 stars based on 453k user reviews. Apple’s App Store doesn’t provide the same detailed install data that the Play Store does but Edge for iOS is ranked #18 in utilities and has a 4.6 rating based on more than 78k user reviews.

A recent report from Windows Central says that Microsoft is reportedly planning to consolidate its Android efforts into a single division to offer tighter integration between Google’s mobile operating system and Windows 11. While the move is likely more geared towards having Android apps run better on Windows, the software giant’s renewed interest in Android could see it double down on Edge’s mobile app for the platform.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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This extension could make Firefox the ideal browser for content creators
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Mozilla has released a new extension for Firefox that allows users to manage color calibration in its browser across devices.

By default, Firefox uses color management from Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems to optimize and render colors and images to enhance users’ browsing experience. However, with its new Extended Color Management Add-On, users can disable color management and then restart Firefox so that the colors of graphics and videos are consistent across devices.

By doing this, media engineers and content creators can make consistent and reliable assumptions about the color pipeline between content shown in a browser and the actual pixel values sent to a computer’s display.

While most users are completely unaware of this, different monitors, operating systems and browsers vary in color output. In order to ensure each workstation is able to see consistent color output across images and video, color management applications need to be calibrated to the same specifications which can be quite tedious.

While creative applications like Photoshop allow you to disable color management, most browsers don’t allow you to do so. This is why Mozilla’s Extended Color Management extension can be very useful for those that need to have material reviewed by another party remotely through a browser on a well-calibrated display.

Extended Color Management

In a new blog post, Mozilla’s Extensions and Add-Ons team revealed that some of the world’s leading visual effects studios including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) use Firefox as part of their creative process when making movies and TV shows.

As visual effects studios and their vendors began working from home during the pandemic, color calibration became especially difficult when compared to how easy it was to manage in-office. This is why Mozilla worked with ILM over the past year to develop its new Extended Color Management add-on.

Read more

> The most popular Firefox extensions of 2021 were both adblockers

> Firefox will no longer be so slow to boot up

> Firefox Focus wants to help keep your web searches private

With the company’s new extension, Lucasfilm and its remote partners are now able to see the intended colors and view ‘dailies’ more easily than ever before, especially when working remotely.

Global imaging supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, J. Schulte explained how the company worked with Mozilla to make it even easier to view content with color accuracy in Firefox, saying:

“At ILM we want to ensure that all content is as color accurate as possible no matter where we view it. The updates to Firefox have allowed us to increase the color accuracy of content viewed in a browser further than any other browser. When we identified a new use case for Firefox, their team was responsive and updated their browser to fill the need.”

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

This extension could make Firefox the ideal browser for content creators
  • No Comments

Mozilla has released a new extension for Firefox that allows users to manage color calibration in its browser across devices.

By default, Firefox uses color management from Windows, macOS, Linux and other operating systems to optimize and render colors and images to enhance users’ browsing experience. However, with its new Extended Color Management Add-On, users can disable color management and then restart Firefox so that the colors of graphics and videos are consistent across devices.

By doing this, media engineers and content creators can make consistent and reliable assumptions about the color pipeline between content shown in a browser and the actual pixel values sent to a computer’s display.

While most users are completely unaware of this, different monitors, operating systems and browsers vary in color output. In order to ensure each workstation is able to see consistent color output across images and video, color management applications need to be calibrated to the same specifications which can be quite tedious.

While creative applications like Photoshop allow you to disable color management, most browsers don’t allow you to do so. This is why Mozilla’s Extended Color Management extension can be very useful for those that need to have material reviewed by another party remotely through a browser on a well-calibrated display.

Extended Color Management

In a new blog post, Mozilla’s Extensions and Add-Ons team revealed that some of the world’s leading visual effects studios including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) use Firefox as part of their creative process when making movies and TV shows.

As visual effects studios and their vendors began working from home during the pandemic, color calibration became especially difficult when compared to how easy it was to manage in-office. This is why Mozilla worked with ILM over the past year to develop its new Extended Color Management add-on.

Read more

> The most popular Firefox extensions of 2021 were both adblockers

> Firefox will no longer be so slow to boot up

> Firefox Focus wants to help keep your web searches private

With the company’s new extension, Lucasfilm and its remote partners are now able to see the intended colors and view ‘dailies’ more easily than ever before, especially when working remotely.

Global imaging supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, J. Schulte explained how the company worked with Mozilla to make it even easier to view content with color accuracy in Firefox, saying:

“At ILM we want to ensure that all content is as color accurate as possible no matter where we view it. The updates to Firefox have allowed us to increase the color accuracy of content viewed in a browser further than any other browser. When we identified a new use case for Firefox, their team was responsive and updated their browser to fill the need.”

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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This browser you’ve never heard of is now worth a billion dollars
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A startup offering an enterprise-focused web browser has surpassed a billion-dollar valuation, despite launching only a matter of weeks ago.

Island exited stealth mode in early February, but has already achieved unicorn status courtesy of a $ 115 million Series B funding round that valued the company at $ 1.3 billion. Although the product was under development for two years prior to launch, Island is still among the fastest startups to achieve the milestone.

The funding round was led by venture capital firm Insight Partners, which has previously invested in the likes of Shopify, Qualtrics and DocuSign, all of which have multi-billion-dollar market capitalizations. Other investors include Sequoia Capital, Stripes and Cyberstarts.

Island browser

The core difference between Island’s browser and the likes of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge is a heightened focus on cybersecurity. According to Island, typical browsers are entirely unsuitable for use in a business context, despite their ubiquity in the professional sphere today.

“The most widely deployed app in the enterprise is the browser, but it’s a consumer-based design,” Island CEO Mike Fey told TechCrunch, when the company emerged from stealth.

“A consumer wants to have infinite freedom; they want to be able to install anything they want, go anywhere they want, and do who knows what with their browser without any issues. The enterprise, however, wants to make sure that their customer data is safe, that their critical information is protected, and that they’re getting a good experience.”

Although Island’s service is built on the same Chromium engine as many popular browsers, and therefore has a familiar interface, it places a number of restrictions on the way in which end users can interact with the web.

Read more

> The fastest macOS browser around might surprise you

> The inside story of the browser wars

> These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic

For example, the Island browser gives security teams control over simple functionality such as copy-and-paste, screen capture and content downloads. It also places limits on the kinds of extensions that can be installed and the domains that can be visited.

Separately, the service gives IT administrators access to advanced tools to help secure SaaS applications and prevent data leakage, as well as full insight into all deployments to help identify the source of incidents as quickly as possible.

“Island has created a whole new way of thinking about enterprise work. By fundamentally transforming the work environment to be secure-by-design, the Island Enterprise Browser enables organizations to achieve entirely new levels of security, productivity, and IT efficiency,” added Fey.

“New investment from Insight Partners and increased investment from our original funding partners validates our product-market fit, accelerates our momentum, and highlights the huge opportunity in front of us.”

  • Also check out our list of the best VPN services around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

This browser you’ve never heard of is now worth a billion dollars
  • No Comments

A startup offering an enterprise-focused web browser has surpassed a billion-dollar valuation, despite launching only a matter of weeks ago.

Island exited stealth mode in early February, but has already achieved unicorn status courtesy of a $ 115 million Series B funding round that valued the company at $ 1.3 billion. Although the product was under development for two years prior to launch, Island is still among the fastest startups to achieve the milestone.

The funding round was led by venture capital firm Insight Partners, which has previously invested in the likes of Shopify, Qualtrics and DocuSign, all of which have multi-billion-dollar market capitalizations. Other investors include Sequoia Capital, Stripes and Cyberstarts.

Island browser

The core difference between Island’s browser and the likes of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge is a heightened focus on cybersecurity. According to Island, typical browsers are entirely unsuitable for use in a business context, despite their ubiquity in the professional sphere today.

“The most widely deployed app in the enterprise is the browser, but it’s a consumer-based design,” Island CEO Mike Fey told TechCrunch, when the company emerged from stealth.

“A consumer wants to have infinite freedom; they want to be able to install anything they want, go anywhere they want, and do who knows what with their browser without any issues. The enterprise, however, wants to make sure that their customer data is safe, that their critical information is protected, and that they’re getting a good experience.”

Although Island’s service is built on the same Chromium engine as many popular browsers, and therefore has a familiar interface, it places a number of restrictions on the way in which end users can interact with the web.

Read more

> The fastest macOS browser around might surprise you

> The inside story of the browser wars

> These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic

For example, the Island browser gives security teams control over simple functionality such as copy-and-paste, screen capture and content downloads. It also places limits on the kinds of extensions that can be installed and the domains that can be visited.

Separately, the service gives IT administrators access to advanced tools to help secure SaaS applications and prevent data leakage, as well as full insight into all deployments to help identify the source of incidents as quickly as possible.

“Island has created a whole new way of thinking about enterprise work. By fundamentally transforming the work environment to be secure-by-design, the Island Enterprise Browser enables organizations to achieve entirely new levels of security, productivity, and IT efficiency,” added Fey.

“New investment from Insight Partners and increased investment from our original funding partners validates our product-market fit, accelerates our momentum, and highlights the huge opportunity in front of us.”

  • Also check out our list of the best VPN services around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Google Chrome is apparently the fastest macOS web browser ever made
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Google is constantly working to improve the speed of its browser and it appears these efforts have paid off as Google Chrome recently achieved the highest score yet on Apple's Speedometer 2.0 benchmark.

Since the launch of Chrome back in 2008, the search giant has set out to build the fastest browser regardless of whether you're using it on a smartphone or laptop.

In order to measure the speed of its browser, Google uses a combination of internal benchmarking infrastructure and public, industry-standard benchmarks. When it comes to comparing JavaScript performance in browsers, Apple's Speedometer 2.0 benchmark is the most broadly used tool today as it provides an accurate depiction of real world testing.

Since 2015, Google has been measuring Chrome's Speedometer scores on a 13-inch MacBook. While the browser's performance improved on Intel-based Macs, the release of Apple's M1 chips in 2020 have led to a huge performance increase.

Improving Chrome's performance

In a new blog post, Google explained that the projects it has worked on over the years have made a significant improvement to Chrome's performance. However, this wasn't the case with all of them.

For instance, with pointer compression the company was willing to take a small performance hit in order for Chrome to use less memory. This was also the case when the Spectre CPU exploit hit and Google had to trade performance to guarantee the safety of its users.

Read More

> Google Chrome update makes searching your history less of a nightmare

> Google Chrome is killing off its Android Lite Mode

> These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic

All in all, years of work on projects like fast C++ lookups, thin strings, revamping parser and more have led to an 83 percent improvement in Chrome's Speedometer score. Still though, it was the combination of Apple's introduction of the M1 CPU with Google's Sparkplug and LTO+PGO projects that helped Chrome rocket to the top of the Speedometer scores. Chrome now scores over 300 on Speedometer and this is the highest score any browser has ever achieved.

These scores will likely continue to improve as Google develops its browser further and Apple's new M1 Ultra chip will also give Chrome another big performance boost on macOS.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic
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The transition to working from home during the pandemic drastically changed the way in which we use technology with the browser becoming one of the most important tools for remote work.

Now as we've reached the two-year mark of the start of the pandemic, Mozilla has published a new blog post taking a closer look at which browser extensions were the most downloaded and used during the early days of the lockdown in Firefox.

As meetings went virtual with employees relying on video conferencing software like Zoom to connect with their teams, the browser extension Zoom Scheduler saw a 1,522 percent increase in installs. This is because it integrates Google Calendar with Zoom so that users can scheduler or start their Zoom meetings directly from their calendar.

Since remote workers also spent more time looking at their work from home monitors, the Dark Background and Light Text extension, which flips the colors of webpages to make them more visible, saw a 351 percent increase in installs at the beginning of the pandemic. Likewise, the Tree Style Tab extension also experienced a 126 percent increase in downloads as it can help users deal with tab overload by opening browser tabs in a cascading “tree” format similar to vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge. 

Protecting our privacy and staying entertained

Cybercrime ran rampant during the beginning of the pandemic so in addition to using a VPN and antivirus software when working remotely, Firefox users also began installing privacy extensions for their browser.

Cookie AutoDelete, which eliminates unused cookies whenever you close a tab in Firefox, saw its install numbers skyrocket by 386 percent and the browser extension also averaged more than 206k installs per month between March and May of 2020.

As remote workers used Facebook's social media platform to stay connected during lockdown, Mozilla's own Facebook Container was another popular browser extension. This extension isolates your Facebook identity into a separate “container” so that the social media giant can't track your moves around the web.

Read More

> The most popular Firefox extensions of 2021 were both adblockers

> Google, Microsoft set aside rivalry to build more secure browser extensions

> Microsoft Edge has nearly toppled a major rival in the desktop browser war

Blocking trackers was also important to those working from home during the pandemic which is why the Privacy Badger browser extension saw installs jump by 80 percent globally. An interesting thing about this browser extension is that it gets better at blocking trackers the longer you use it since Privacy Badger “learns” more about the hidden trackers you naturally encounter while online.

When it came to staying entertained while in lockdown, Firefox users installed the BetterTTV browser extension to alter the look and feel of Twitch, the Watch2gether extension to have watch parties with friends and colleagues online and YouTube Non-Stop to solve the problem of the video platform's annoying “Video paused. Continue watching?” prompt.

Regardless of which browser you're currently using, browser extensions can help add to your online experience and make the software and services you depend on while working from home even more useful.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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