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firefox

Essential Mac OS X Applications: 2011 Edition

The Mac has continued to grow strongly in the past 12 months thanks to increased sales influenced by the iPad and third party applications are more accessible than ever through the Mac App Store, but out of the abundance of software available for the platform, which are the best applications that no Mac should be without?

Let’s take a look at the essential applications for the Mac in 2011 and find out, as we run down apps in every category from web browsers to audio conversion programs and utilities!

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Essential Windows Applications: 2011 Edition

Are you treating yourself to a new PC this summer and wondering what applications you should install to make the most out of Windows 7? Then you’re in luck, because I’m about to run-down the list of all the applications which I think should be on every Windows computer out there. From web browsers to security programs and multimedia applications, we’ve got it all covered, so are you ready for a rollercoaster ride down software lane? Buckle up, get comfy, and let’s check out the best that the Windows world has to offer!

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Steve Jobs Isn’t The Only Flash Hater, So Is The Firefox Vice President! Do You Feel The Same Way?

Apple, or more specifically CEO Steve Jobs, gets constant criticism for the lack of Adobe Flash on its iPad and iPhone devices. The reason being cited is quite a simply one: it’s not very good. It’s a controversial opinion, what with a great chunk of web-based media being flash-based, and in some cases entire sites. However, it turns out that Steve Jobs is not the only one who hates Flash.

The Vice President of Firefox projects at Mozilla, has today followed suit and has had this to say when asked whether Flash would eventually become irrelevant:

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New Firefox 4 Beta Released – Includes Bookmarks/Open Tabs Sync & Panorama

Mozilla’s brand new version of Firefox has now hit the Beta stage, and adds a few intriguing new features that existing and new users alike may find quite useful…

The first change that may be noticed is the addition of Firefox Sync by default. Firefox Sync allows you to view all of your passwords, your browsing history, and even your currently open tabs from any device that you’re using Firefox with.

If you have never used it before, you’ll have to set up an account for the add-on (Sync comes bundled with Firefox 4 beta, but an add-on is required to be downloaded for earlier versions) before being able to utilise its features.

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Firefox Home iPhone App Released for Download

The Firefox Home application for iPhone we’ve been hearing so much about lately has finally made it through Apple’s approval process and in to the App Store.

Available for the iPhone and iPod Touch for free, the Firefox Home iPhone app allows you to take our tabs with you when you’re on the go, so you don’t have to start a whole new browsing session when you leave your desk.

The concept is pretty simple. All you have to do is install the free Firefox Sync add-on for your desktop browser, before creating an account and password which links your tabs between your desktop computer and phone. Then, when you download the Firefox Home app for iPhone and iPod Touch, you simply enter your account information and you’re good to go!

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Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 1 Download Released

Firefox fans, get yourselves over to the Mozilla website to pick up the newly released beta 1 version of Firefox 4! The new version of the popular web browser has been in development for quite a while now, and the beta version marks the release of a build stable enough for the average Joe to use.

Quite a lot has changed since in the development of the new version, so here’s a quick run down of things that you’ll want to look out for when using the web browser.

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Firefox Mobile Web Browser Download For Nokia N900 & N810 Released

Mozilla Firefox has finally gone mobile! Surprisingly, it isn’t the iPhone or Android which has the honour of being the first platform to house the browser, but Maemo for the Nokia N900.

Not familiar with Firefox Mobile? You should be! Its entry in to the mobile market will ensure that there’s as much variety on your portable devices as your computer, eventually directly challenging other browsers such as Opera Mini on Android and iPhone platforms.

We’ve got a complete run down of all the features for you below, so just take a look at why you might finally want a Nokia mobile phone again…or at least get a glimpse of what we can perhaps expect from the world’s newest mobile browser should it come to the Android and iPhone mobile platforms.

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Mozilla Firefox Hits 2 Billion Add-On Downloads, Which Are Your Favourites?

In November 2008, Mozilla’s Firefox web browser hit a whopping billion add-on downloads. Here we are, just a year and a half later, and Firefox has passed the 2 billion add-on downloads mark!

Firefox is still the second most popular browser in the world, and a lot of people who use it have multiple add-ons that they depend on in their day-to-day browsing. Mozilla have highlighted some of the best Firefox Add-Ons out there and I personally depend on various add-ons when browsing the web, here’s a few of my favourites…

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Firefox 3.6.4 Update Released – Plugin Crash Protection Feature Added

Mozilla has released an update to their Firefox web browser, bringing us up to version 3.6.4.

The biggest addition to the latest version is the new ‘crash protection’ feature (as we reported about when it was being tested in the Firefox 3.6.4 beta). If you’re a Windows or Linux user (sorry Mac users, you’ll have to wait for this one), you can browse the web with more protection from third party plugin crashes when playing online games or viewing video content within sites.

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Firefox Web Browser Themes – World Cup Personas!

If you’re as excited for the World Cup as I am, you’ll be interested to know that Mozilla has launched their World Cup themed Firefox Personas!

If you’ve not used Personas before, they’re basically web browser themes introduced in Firefox 3.6, next to the abundance of already available plugins and add-ons, and allow you to customise the look of your browser easily.

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Mozilla Prism Review (Desktop Web Apps)

Mozilla are best known for their web browser, Firefox, and perhaps their e-mail client, Thunderbird. Both of which I use regularly and am particularly fond of. So, after trawling through their website and discovering a whole load of other projects they have on the go, I was quick to delve deeper. The first, and ultimately most intriguing project I came across was Mozilla Prism. So I downloaded it, free of charge, as is always the way with Mozilla, and tested it out.

Prism is an application that can come in a couple of different forms; either as a standalone application, or an add-on to the Firefox web browser. Both of which produce the same result, however I found the Firefox add-on made its job a great deal simpler. So what is it exactly and what does it do?

Well in truth, not a lot. However the single thing it does is actually quite impressive. You see, Prism allows the user to convert any web-based application or indeed web page, into a desktop application at the click of a button. Of course, this is not always necessary in many cases, but for web-apps such as those from Google, for example GMail, Calendar or Docs, it can be extremely productive.

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Firefox 3.6.4 Beta Released = Less Crashing?

All you Firefox fans out there who like to test out Beta software will want to download the latest version of Mozilla’s browser, Firefox 3.6.4, which has hit Beta and introduces some key changes too.

The Beta continues what was started with the release of the Firefox 3.6.3 one called Lorentz. The main reason you’ll want to try out the new Beta is because it now provides ‘uninterrupted browsing for Windows and Linux users when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.’

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Browser News: Firefox 3.6.2 Update & Opera Mini Awaits App Store Approval

Mozilla have released Firefox 3.6.2 ahead of schedule today, and it’s one that Windows XP and Vista users in particular should get as quickly as possible. The early release of the new version improves stability and fixes a nasty security flaw that left users on XP and Vista open to a bug allowing an attacker to execute malicious code.

This bug prompted Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security to warn users to switch to another browser until this bug was fixed, similar to how they told users to stop using Internet Explorer back in January. The 3.6.2 update was rapidly released as the post went live.

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Google Chrome Browser Share Grows Through February

It’s been a while, probably not since Google Chrome was released to the world, but web browsers are back in the big news again all thanks to Microsoft’s EU enforced ‘ballot box’ for selecting a browser to install.

Also, Net Applications have recently released statistics which paint a very interesting picture about the world of the internet browser and perhaps that of future operating systems with the likes the Google Chrome OS being spawned from the Google Chrome browser.

Unfortunately the situation has been pretty similar for a while: IE have boasted over 60% of the market share for years now, with Firefox edging closer and closer to the 25% mark with the rest fighting over the remains. But that looks like it might change, and in fact Chrome was the only major browser growing in February, and that is before the Microsoft Windows Browser Ballot which promises to change much.

Before we look at why – the figures. Google Chrome is up a significant 0.39% to 5.61%, whilst Firefox fell 0.20% to 24.23% and Internet Explorer suffered the biggest hit with a fall of 0.54% to 61.58%. Opera (0.03%) and Safari (0.08%) both also fell, although seeing as both of them combined fail to make up more than even 8% of the market they are unfortunately not much more than footnotes.

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Microsoft Browser Ballot – You’re “Open To Choice”

In recent months and years there has been an extremely lengthy and somewhat tiresome squabble between technology giants Microsoft and the European Commission over how unfair it is that Internet Explorer web browser is packed into the Windows operating system and many users never become aware of any alternative such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari or more recently Google’s Chrome. Anyway, the result of the conflict is that users of Windows PC’s will soon be faced with a big decision.

You will be presented with the choice via a selection process that will appear on your PC within the next few weeks. Testing of the process will be next week in several countries including the UK, and you can download it via Windows Update. Eventually though, it will be an automated update that everybody that’s connected to the internet, should receive.

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Linux Training Week: Software Availability

One of the biggest issues when moving away from Windows is software availability; what we do on a computer isn’t defined by the operating system, but the third party software we use on that operating system. Because most of the software written for Linux operating systems is open source, it may be difficult to find a replacement for the everyday software that you use on Windows or Mac OS X.

Web Browsers and Email

Everybody has their favourite browser, and you’ll find many available for Linux. I chose to use Firefox (which is installed on Ubuntu by default), Google Chrome (my browser of preference on Windows and OS X) and Opera 10 Browser in addition to this.

When testing each browser, I found them to be on par with each other, although Opera was definitely slower than Firefox and Chrome. I found Chrome to be extremely fast and lightweight in comparison to Firefox, and it remains my browser of choice on Linux. If you make the switch, or already use Ubuntu, I definitely recommend checking Chrome out. Enabling Flash was also an easy process – I simply downloaded the plugin on first use and everything worked great.

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Firefox 3.6 Update Released – New Persona Themes & Faster!

You may have seen our coverage of the Firefox 3.6 beta 1 and beta 3 late last year – since then, there have been quite a few further changes made, which lost its beta status this week as Mozilla released the finished version of Firefox 3.6 upon the world.

There’s lots of reasons to carry on using a Firefox’s great web browser, the most visually noticeable change to Firefox with the new release is the introduction of a new feature called Personas. Downloadable from getpersonas.com, you can choose from other 35,000 themes on offer that let you customise the way that Firefox looks.

When viewing Personas, you can hover over one to see how it will look in your browser, where you’ll get a preview before you choose to install it by clicking it. Downloaded themes can be managed via the Add-Ons window, where you can change and uninstall your Personas using the “Themes” tab.

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Invisible Hand Review (Cheap Online Shopping Price Finder)

Invisible Hand is a remarkable piece of software which is lightweight and extremely efficient. It is an add-on for your web browser that works as a real time price comparison tool. As you browse products on the web, the invisible hand automatically finds you cheaper deals elsewhere. For expensive retailers, it’s a nightmare, but for us consumers it’s a dream come true. After all, everyone loves to get a cheap bargain when they’re looking to do some discount shopping online.

The software browses through 115 different retailers spanning the USA, UK and Germany. Obviously I can only comment on the UK as any others are unnecessary for me. In the UK the software browses major retailers such as Amazon, Curry’s, Dixons, HMV, Play.com, John Lewis and Misco. There are in total 46 UK retailers within the software’s capabilities.

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Essential Software for Mac OS X

More people today are using Mac’s than ever before – OS X market share has been climbing steadily since the release of Mac OS X, but third party software is just as important as the OS it’s running on, so what do you need to put on your Mac?

Web Browsers

Every new Mac comes with Snow Leopard pre-installed, which gives you Safari 4 out of the box. If you’re on an older Mac or just don’t like Safari, there are a host of alternatives available. I have three browsers installed on my Mac, but often use Safari. If you want to customise your browser then I recommend Mozilla Firefox, my PC and Linux browser of choice. As well as offering plugins and add-ons that allow you to make the browsing experience more personal, it’s open source too. You could also try Google’s Chrome browser for OS X. It’s been unofficially available for quite some time now, but the official Google Chrome Beta was released a few weeks ago and it’s very speedy and takes up less system resources than Safari.

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PortableApps Review (Applications For Your USB Memory Stick)

Some things in life are truly frustrating… Having to use Internet Explorer on a public PC, being without an e-mail client that has all my settings already saved – you get the idea, but what’s the solution? Actually, I think I’ve just found it, and all you need is a USB memory stick!

In case you hadn’t already guessed, I’m talking about the PortableApps platform, which is a completely free download, and allows you to install portable versions of many applications on your USB pen drive so that you can take them with you, and can use them on any PC. When downloading PortableApps, you have three packages to choose from: “Platform Only”, “Suite Light” and “Suite Standard”.

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