So you may have heard that Mozilla is hoping to set a world record for the most software downloads in a single day today. The company has been hyping today as "Download Day" for about a week. But a more apt name might be "Down Day." That's because GetFirefox.com is down. As in dead, kaput, service unavailable.
This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but if you encourage millions of users to download your software on the same day, your servers are going to take a hammering. But it appears that even Mozilla had no idea how many people would be trying to download Firefox 3 today.
There's a good chance that you may get through if you keep hitting refresh. And there's a good chance that the company will manage to break the world record if it ever gets the servers back up. But you know what? If you don't really care about setting a world record, Firefox 3 RC 3 is pretty much identical to Firefox 3 final. So if you're already running RC2 or RC3, there's no need to kill yourself trying to update your browser today. Tomorrow, next week, or even next month will probably be soon enough.
In the meantime, if you've got your heart set on downloading a next-generation browser, you can always take Opera 9.5 for a spin. That company's servers are holding up just fine.
Update: Some users are reporting success with these download links. Windows, Mac, Linux
Update 2: It looks like the site is back up, but incredibly slow. Like dialup slow.
Apple's Safari web browser may be hot stuff on the Mac, but since launching a Windows version a little while back, not too many Windows users have bothered to install the browser. So what does Apple do? Simple, the company sneakily adds Safari 3.1 to the Apple software update utility so that you download it automatically if you have any Apple software on your PC -- even if you've never installed Safari on your computer. In other words, a whole bunch of Windows iTunes users suddenly found a copy of Safari on their computers.
While a lot of folks criticized Apple for shoving unwanted software at the general public, the strategy appears to have worked. Net Applications reports that Safari's market share of the Windows browser space rose from .07% to .21%. That's still a ridiculously tiny number. But it's bigger than it was. So the message is clear: Give the people what they don't want. Some will be too lazy to uninstall it. And they might even try using it. Ugh, did we just write that?
We love software that packs a ton of tools and features into a single package. Call it Swiss Army Knife addiction. But it's just possible that HydraBrowser might go too far. At its most basic level, HydraBrowser is a web browser based on Internet Explorer, which means it will user whatever version of Internet Explorer you've got installed on your PC as its rendering engine. But HydraBrowser packs a ton of tools that you won't find in IE7 unless you spend the next week customizing it with add-ons.
Here are just a few of the things that set HydraBrowser apart from Internet Explorer:
Tabbed toolbar navigation that displays a separate set of menu options and icons for Tools, Edit, Favorites & Sidebar, Security & Settings, Tools, and RSS
A web gallery feature which lets you add thumbnailed bookmarks for pages you regularly visit to the navigation toolbar
Integrated translation tools using Google or Babelfish
Easy access to pop-up/ad-blocking settings as well as image, video, and sound blocking
Built in backup utility for saving your HydraBrowser settings.
Overall, HydraBrowser is choc full of useful features. And you can minimize the toolbars and sidebars which take up so much screen real estate in the image above. But overall, we're a little overwhelmed with the application. It suffers from a bit of Flock syndrome, in that there are so many tools you might never need that you kind of wonder why you'd ever want to use this browser instead of IE7 or Firefox.
One of the nice things about modern desktop browsers is that there are tons of third party add-ons. These plugins let you do everything from change the way web pages look to making it easy to save web pages to social bookmarking services like del.icio.us.
Mobile web browsers haven't gotten nearly as much love from third party developers. That's why we're excited to see that Dale Lane has written a Post to del.icio.us plugin for Pocket Internet Explorer, the stripped down web browser that Microsoft includes as part of the Windows Mobile operating system for cellphones and PDAs.
When you click the link from the Menu toolbar, the plugin will automatically submit the current web page to your del.icio.us bookmarks, taking the name of the page from Internet Explorer. You can also add tags before saving your page.
Post to del.icio.us is available as a free download. You can also get the source code from Lane's web site. The plugin requires Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.
Microsoft isn't the only company releasing a point upgrade to its mobile software this week. Opera has released Opera Mini 4.1 beta, which is a minor update to its Opera Mini web browser for cellphones with Java virtual machines. For a minor update, Opera did manage to pack a few useful features into Opera Mini 4.1:
Opera claims the new version is 50% faster than Opera Mini 4.0
There's a new URL autocomplete feature based on your browsing history
You can now search for text in a web page
Web pages can be saved for offline viewing
You can upload and download files from within the browser
Google search has been integrated with the URL bar, allowing you to conduct a web search from any page.
Opera Mini 4.1 is available as a free download. If you've got an older version of Opera Mini on your device, note that Opera Mini 4.1 will install alongside it, not over it. So you will have to uninstall the older version manually.
Apple has released an updated version of the Safari web browser with a slew of performance, compatibility, and reliability tweaks. Safari 3.1 also adds support for CSS 3 web fonts, HTML 5 audio and video elements, and other web standards. Safari was the first browser to pass the Acid2 standards test, but like pretty much every other browser available today, it fails to pass the Acid3 test.
The update also includes:
Improved JavaScript performance
Enhancements to the Windows version including localization in 16 languages, Improved back/forward performance, and better pop-up blocking
Double clicking on the tab bar opens a new tab
URL metadata is included when images are dragged or saved from the browser
Supports trackpad gestures for back, forward, and magnify on MacBook AIR and Pro computers
As expected, Microsoft has released the first public beta version of Internet Explorer 8. While IE8 superficially look a lot like Internet Explorer 7, it sports a bunch of new features including a redesigned favorites bar, automatic crash recovery, a new "WebSlices" feature that lets you subscribe to content within a web page much the way you would with an RSS feed, and some rendering engine changes.
But make no mistake, this is clearly beta software. IE8 beta 1 is not compatible with pre-release versions of Windows Vista SP1, doesn't work with a ton of IE7 add-ons like Skype, Google, and Yahoo! toolbars, and appears to enjoy making abstract paintings out of some web sites as you can see in the image above.
We know many Download Squad readers have been testing IE8 beta 1 out since the download links went live at about 3PM EST today, so what have your experiences been like? What works? What doesn't? What do you like? What needs improvement? And is Internet Explorer 8 likely to convince you to switch from Firefox, Opera, or whatever web browser you currently use?
Not happy with the way the Opera web browser handles tabbed browsing? Just download the latest snapshot of Opera 9.5 beta. The newest build includes advanced tab management features that let you choose how Opera reacts when you close a tab. When you close a tab, you can decide whether to activate the last active tab, activate the tab to the right, or the first tab opened from closing tab. In other words, you can make Opera act a bit more like Firefox, Safari, or other web browsers.
Opera already had other tab management features, like the ability to drag and drop tabs to arrange them in your browser. If you drag a tab outside of the Opera window, you can even load that page in a new browser session.
The new tab management option is the sort of thing we don't expect most users to need or even notice. But advanced customization features are one of the areas where Opera really shines. Now if it could just render every web page we visit as well as Firefox or Internet Explorer, we'd be truly happy.
Opera and Mozilla aren't the only companies preparing to launch new and updated mobile web browsers. Acesss has released a public beta of NetFront 3.5 for Windows Mobile 5.0 and newer devices. And like Safari, Opera Mobile, and all the cool new kids on the blocks, NetFront 3.5 includes an improved zooming interface that makes it easier to see full web pages or zoom in on just the content you want to read.
While NetFront doesn't get a lot of attention these days, a few years ago the mobile web browser was probably the best alternative to Pocket Internet Explorer. It rendered pages more quickly, included tabbed browsing, and had a few other options that you just wouldn't find in the default Windows Mobile browser. But then Opera went and shook things up with the launch of Opera Mobile, which is still probably the speediest mobile web browser around.
But if NetFront 3.5 beta is any indication, it might be too early to write this browser off. It includes many of the same features we expect to see in Opera Mobile 9.5, including zooming, easier page navigation, and faster page rendering. And most importantly, it's available for download today, while you won't be able to get your hands on the new Opera browser for at least a few more days. NetFront 3.5 beta will expire on May 31. After that, NetFront will either release an updated beta or start charging for the software.
Opera Software is going where many have gone before, and filing a complaint against Microsoft. In a nutshell, Opera is asking the European Commission to force Microsoft to take two actions:
Divorce Internet Explorer from Windows
Make sure Internet Explorer supports web standards
The first part makes sense. Microsoft has an unfair advantage in the web browser wars because it bundles Internet Explorer with its widely used Windows operating systems. This isn't the first time someone has cried monopoly and pushed for Microsoft to unbundle software from Windows. And in fact, the European Commission has already ordered Microsoft to offer versions of Windows without Windows Media Player.
Opera wants Microsoft to either unbundle IE and Windows or to bundle alternative web browsers as well as Internet Explorer.
As for the supporting standards bit, are you serious? Opera's argument is basically that Microsoft is breaking the web because many web developers design pages to render properly in IE without paying much attention to competing browsers like Firefox or Opera. But should the European Commission or any regulatory agency be issuing rulings about what version of CSS, XHTML, JavaScript and other software developers should be supporting?
