Mobile web browser Skyfire is one of the only browsers around that lets users watch movies from online video site Hulu. Or rather, it was. WMExperts reports that Hulu has begun blocking Skyfire users.

This development comes on a long, protracted battle between Hulu and Boxee, a media center application for OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux that provides access to web video from dozens of sources.

After killing Boxee support, Hulu eventually launched its own desktop application, cleverly called Hulu Desktop. Does this mean that Hulu might be working on a mobile viewing device? I wouldn't be surprised if the company simply wanted more control over how users can interact with the media on its web site. On the other hand, since Boxee, Skyfire, and most other applications that allow users to watch Hulu video leave the advertising intact, I can't see how it should make much difference to Hulu and the company's content partners how you watch the videos.

[via AppScout]

Ever try closing a series of tabs in Firefox by hitting Ctrl+W over and over until you were down to your last tab? Ever overshoot and accidentally wind up closing the whole browser and then having to wait (im)patiently to reload the browser?

There's a setting tucked away in the recesses of Firefox 3.5's configuration options that will keep the browser running after you close the last tab. Instead of closing, Firefox will simply display a single blank tab.

Here's how it works. Type "about:config" into the location bar (without the quotation marks), and then finding the setting labeled "browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab" (again, without the quotes) and double click that setting to change the value to false. That's it. Now when you close all your browser tabs Firefox will stay open.

[via Lifehacker]

So, you're a web designer, and you want to start taking advantage of new features in CSS 3 and HTML5. That's great, but you know that most of your users aren't running browsers that support these new standards. You could just wait for browsers to get with the times, or you could check out Modernizr.

Modernizr is a JavaScript library by Faruk Ates that detects which functionality a browser can support, and allows you to use if-statements to fine-tune your fallbacks for browsers that don't support the new hotness. Modernizr can't fix old browsers, but it can make it more practical to support newer ones. On top of all the CSS 3 styles it can detect support for, it also allows you to use and style HTML5 elements without breaking your site for IE users. Not too shabby for a little bit of JavaScript.

When I was looking over my news feeds yesterday morning, I though I had spied some exciting news. A few sites were reporting about a new Delicious extension for Chrome. Some of them trumpeted its arrival as proof that Chrome extensions were real.

I found that statement a little odd, because AdSweep has been around since early April. Didn't that pretty much prove the "reality" of Chrome extensions?

To make things even less exciting, the Delicious extension is about as un-noteworthy as they come. If you've got the 'Bookmark on Delicious' bookmarklet in Chrome already, guess what? The extension does the exact same thing. All it does is create a Delicious icon at the end of your address bar instead of on your bookmark toolbar.

I don't know about you, but that's nothing to get worked up about. Google's three example extensions? Equally yawn-worthy.

Heck, I'm still waiting for integration with Google services. Anyone else wondering where the support for things like Google Bookmarks is? It is their browser, after all.

Don't get me wrong - I love Chrome's speed and minimal UI, but after this long I thought we'd see some much more interesting extensions. If you know one, please share it in the comments. I'd love to see it!

While it might not be news to some of our readers, more casual computer users might want to take note.

Pay web2.0collage a visit, and you'll learn just how easy it can be for a website (any website) to poke around and see what sites you've been visiting. The app limits itself to displaying polite websites, but it's safe to say it could just as easily display all the NSFW sites you've been visiting as well.

This isn't exactly a new trick. How web 2.0 aware are you? does the same kind of sniffing, comparing the sites you visit against a list of popular websites to see how savvy a surfer you are.

Both sites should serve as a reminder to everyone that unless you take steps to protect your privacy, there are sites on the Internet that will gladly help themselves to your data.

How can you prevent this from happening? I echo the suggestions from several Slashdot commenters and recommend using Firefox and the NoScript addon.

[via Slashdot]

In the few days since Firefox 3.5 was officially unleashed on the public, it's been downloaded well over 7 million times according to Mozilla's real-time download tracker. That's nowhere near the estimated 8 million downloads achieved in the first 24 hours after Firefox 3.0 launched, but it's still pretty good.

It's also probably worth pointing out that anyone who was running Firefox 3.5 RC3 on launch day probably isn't included in these numbers since RC3 is basically the same as the final release, which means if you had that version installed you didn't download any updates.

Now that there's a new version of Firefox, there's also a new version of Firefox Portable, which lets you run the browser from a USB flash drive. If you were running an older version of Firefox Portable you should be able to upgrade automatically from within the browser. But if you want to give Firefox 3.5 a try without installing it to your computer, the portable version is an excellent alternative.

And while Mozilla thinks Firefox 3.5 is stable enough to take remove the "beta" and "release candidate" labels, some Linux distributions might be slower to add the browser to their repositories. But that doesn't mean you can't install the browser manually. Kabatology has posted instructions for installing Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu by typing a single line of code into a terminal window.

[via Lifehacker]

Firefox 3.5 is available for download today, following months of testing. The latest version of the web browser adds a ton of new features and bug fixes. Probably the most important thing is that it feels faster, thanks to a new Javascript engine and updated rendering engine.

But there are also a few new bells and whistles including a private browsing mode that lets you surf the web without saving any data to your computer. You know, because you don't want your spouse knowing what you're buying for their birthday. Because that's what you'll use this feature for.

There's also support for "tab tearing," which lets you drag and drop tabs between browser windows. Or you can drag a tab out of a browser window to create a new window. Firefox 3.5 also supports HTML video which lets you watch some videos embedded in web pages without any plugins.

Mozilla hasn't updated the official Firefox download page yet. But you can download Firefox 3.5 from a number of other sites including Softpedia and Filehippo.

Update: The change is now up at getfirefox.com.

Added: Direct download links (US English) straight from Mozilla:

Windows: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=win&lang=en-US

Mac: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=osx&lang=en-US

Linux: http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=linux&lang=en-US

Mozilla has released an updated version of Weave, a Firefox plugin that lets you synchronize your profile, settings, and passwords across multiple computers. In other words, every time you change your bookmarks, web site login information, or other data on your work computer, the changes will be reflected on your home machine as long as you have Weave installed on both systems.

Weave 0.4 adds support for preference syncing, automatic logins, and support for Fennec 1.0 beta 2 for Maemo Linux. That last one means you the mobile version of Firefox for Nokia Internet Tablets can be configured to have all of your desktop bookmarks, passwords, and other settings with just a few clicks. Eventually Weave should also work with Fennec for Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, which could save you an awful lot of time when setting up a mobile browser.

It looks like somebody at Mozilla is listening. Just yesterday, we asked when we could get a version of Firefox 3.5 that didn't have the silly "release candidate" next to its name. Now we have an answer: Tuesday.

Webmonkey and Betanews are both reporting that Mozilla has confirmed that's the date it will push out the full version of Firefox 3.5. The latest version of the popular web browser has been available for testing for months, but by removing the beta and/or RC label, Mozilla is essentially saying that the browser is ready for the public to use without fear of encountering major bugs of security flaws. You know, until some major bug of security flaw is discovered and Mozilla pushes out Firefox 3.5.1.

Firefox 3.5 includes a number of changes from Firefox 3.0, including faster Javascript rendering and a private browsing mode which allows you to surf without saving your personal data. It also supports viewing some web video in a browser without any plugins.

In related news, Mozilla's released an update to the mobile version of Firefox today. Fennec Beta 2 for Nokia Internet Tablets and Alpha 2 for Windows Mobile was released today. The latest version of Fennec includes performance tweaks and a new theme.

[via Mozilla Links]

Cooliris is a browser plugin that lets you search for and view pictures and videos from sites including YouTube, Flickr, and Google Images. It works with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Flock, all of which support tabbed browsing. But up until recent, Cooliris didn't support tabs at all. When you launched the plugin, it would automatically show you a full screen media browser. The only way to search for multiple items would be to launch separate instances of the browser and flip between them.

But the latest version of Cooliris lets you find and view media within a normal browser tab. And that means you can also open up multiple instances of Cooliris within a single browser session. You can look for pictures of kitties in one tab while watching the latest updates on YouTube from Iran in another.

One thing to beware of though, is that Cooliris can be a bit of a RAM hog. If you thought Firefox used a lot of memory under normal conditions, try launching 5 or 6 Cooliris tabs and see what happens. OK, I'll tell you. The browser locks up and you get a warning notice telling you to close Cooliris tabs or other "3-D graphical applications."

[via WebWare]

Mozilla pushed out a third release candidate for Firefox 3.5 last night. If you're running an earlier release candidate or Firefox 3.5 beta, you may have woken up this morning to a message alerting you that there's a new security and stability update.

The tricky thing is Mozilla has a habit of leaving the "RC" out of the labels for its release candidates. This can prompt a lot of folks to think that they've just downloaded the final build of Firefox 3.5. The reason Mozilla does this is because if there are no major problems with the release candidate, effectively it will be Firefox 3.5. And it'd be silly to expect you to download and install an identical version of the browser just to get rid of the "RC" in its name.

That said, Firefox 3.5 RC3 is now available for download from the Firefox beta page. Existing users can upgrade by clicking the "check for updates" option in the Help menu of their browsers.

There's a minor uproar happening on Twitter over Microsoft's plans to continue using Word to render HTML email in Outlook 2010. Fixoutlook.org reports that nearly 8,000 people have signed a petition via Twitter to encourage Microsoft to change its mind and support web standards before the new version of Office leaves beta. To back up its claims, the site links to an HTML email message rendered in Outlook 2000, and the same message in Outlook 2010: the new version looks a whole a lot worse.

By sticking with Word's rendering engine, which Microsoft started using to render email in Outlook 2007, Microsoft would also be sticking designers with outdated font tags and tables, instead of the latest CSS hotness. According to The Email Standards Project, Microsoft's reason for doing this is to allow Outlook users to use Word's prepackaged design tools and email templates, and have those render correctly for other Outlook users. Microsoft itself is worried that rendering through a browser could slow performance and lead to inconsistent appearance across different HTML engines.

While it's not active in Chrome yet, Google is playing with a new concept for the browser's new tab page in the latest builds of Chromium.

The number of thumbnails on the page has been reduced to eight and two optional elements have been added. They are the recent activities list, which displays your last three visited pages and downloaded files and suggestions. While it currently reads "What Will We Put Here?" it's safe to assume that this would include recommendations Google makes based on your browsing history.

What's missing? The column that contained recent bookmarks, history search, and recently closed tabs/windows.

Rearranging your thumbnails has also been simplified. You no longer have to enter editing mode, just drag, pin, and remove items to your heart's content. Accidentally delete something? You'll be prompted to undo removals just in case. You can also switch from thumbnail to a two-column list / favicon view.

To try the new page out, you'll need to download the buildbot's latest version of Chromium. Once you've got it installed, add --new-new-tab-page to the target in your shortcut properties. The same switch in the Chrome dev channel build yields a different (and much less pleasant) result: two rows of four thumbnails and a lengthy history list below.

Video after the break!

[via Google OS]