A new Google-funded study of browser security by security research firm Accuvant Labs crowned Chrome the champion of security features, and ranked Firefox below Internet Explorer in terms of protection available from web-borne threats. Predictably, Microsoft and Mozilla have different opinions on what makes a browser secure, and why Accuvant's findings are off base. All of this got us thinking about which browser is the most secure, and whether the security features listed in studies like this even matter to the rest of us. More »

Google funded study confirms.

Accuvant, the US based research, firm has published a new study, which compared security features of the three most popular web browsers: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox.

As it turns out, the search giant funded study has made a conclusion that Google Chrome is the most secure browser out there, followed by Internet Explorer and Firefox.

After such claims, Mozilla has decided to respond with the following statement:

“Firefox includes a broad array of technologies to eliminate or reduce security threats, from platform level features like address space randomization to internal systems like our layout frame poisoning system. Sandboxing is a useful addition to that toolbox that we are investigating, but no technology is a silver bullet. We invest in security throughout the development process with internal and external code reviews, constant testing and analysis of running code, and rapid response to security issues when they emerge. We’re proud of our reputation on security, and it remains a central priority for Firefox.”

So here you have it folks. Despite continuous IE bashing in various communities, it still managed to beat Firefox in a non-biased study.

What do you think?

Chrome/Safari: If you love the new "pull to refresh" gesture that seems to be sweeping the nation, you can actually add it to your browser with this simple extension. More »

With just one month left before the end of 2011, it’s time to check the latest stats for the browsers market share.

Falling below 50% last time, Internet Explorer is now down from 49.58% to 48.95% (0.63 point decrease).

Despite regaining some of its market share on October, Firefox is nearing towards 20% level, down from 21.20% to 20.58% (0.62 point decrease).

Soon to cross paths with Firefox, Google Chrome continues its dominant uptrend, up from 16.59% to 16.90% (0.31 point increase).

Gaining market share for many months, this time Safari has lost some of it, climbing down from 8.54% to 8.35% (0.19 point decrease).

Just like Firefox, it looks like Opera is stuck in the never ending downtrend as its share has also decreased from 1.49% to 1.45% (0.04 point decrease).

With the growing popularity of HTML5 games and applications, it looks like Google has a vision of its own.

According to the EDGE, during the Develop Liverpool conference in London, Google’s developer Paul Kinlan has announced that Google Chrome will receive gamepad support tin the first quarter of 2012. In addition to that, it will feature a support for cameras and microphones that don’t have to be plugged in.

While not many details were revealed, it is known that the search giant is already working on the next instance of its Google TV service, with the hardware set to debut sometime next year.

Why add gamepad support anyway? If our speculation stands correct (and only time will tell), we guess that Google Chrome will be an essential part of Google TV, offering its users an ability to play HTML5 games on their TV with a gamepad attached. Think about it as Google’s version of a gaming console.

Chrome: Like the name suggests, the Awesome New Tab Page extension adds a new New Tab page to Google Chrome. The result is a Windows 8 Metro UI-inspired new tab page that's fully customizable with apps, widgets, bookmarks, and so on. More »

Chrome: The web provides tons of great written content, but that can get a little overwhelming when you're not in the mood to read all day long. Announcify is a browser extension for those times when you'd rather just listen. All you have to do is browse to any article and click the Announcify button. More »

It is October already and there’s no time to waste. So, let’s dive into the latest browsers market share results and explore those changes.

Just a couple more months and Internet Explorer will break the 50% market share barrier, this time it lost 0.62 point, down from 51.59% to 50.97%.

With more and more Firefox releases hitting the Internet, Mozilla’s browser has managed to secure 0.03 point of the market share, up from 21.03% to 21.06%.

Google Chrome does not have any plans to stop and has now broken though 15% barrier, up from 14.46% to 15.17% (0.71 point increase).

Continuous sales of Apple devices have helped Safari to increase its market share by another 0.32 point, up from 7.71% to 8.03%.

After 6 months of losses, Opera’s market share stayed flat at 1.58%.

Makes web a beautiful place.

Google Chrome has recently unveiled a recent project of their own, called “Johnny Cash Project”.

What is it all about? The search giant has asked Johnny Cash fans from all over the world to come together and create a memorial music video for his last recording.

The final result is amazing and can be viewed in the following page.

Google's brought some good news for those of us who've been tolerating Chrome in Mac OS X Lion: they've released an update for proper compatibility. It's not that Chrome didn't work before, but it didn't fully support the new UI and—more importantly—wasn't terribly stable. This latest release promises to fix those things while also adding support for C and C++ code, seeking to blur the lines between web and native desktop applications. All good things for Mac users, we think. More »

It looks like the web ain’t all rainbows and sunshine as the latest document; “Future of JavaScript”, obtained from Google’s internal “JavaScript Summit” had some interesting things to say.

First of all, Google now encourages developers to start targeting Chrome only web browser when possible and is eager to implement at least some of the ECMAScript Harmony as soon as possible.

According to the same document, in case developers start focusing on all the web browsers, they will have to wait multiple years to get a direct Harmony support.

Here is an excerpt from the document:

What will Google developers be using?
We will strongly encourage Google developers start off targeting Chrome-only whenever possible as this gives us the best end user experience.

Developers who can focus solely on Chrome can expect to be able to see some Harmony features in Chrome (behind a flag) by the middle of 2011. Developers focusing on all browsers will have to wait multiple years for direct Harmony support, due to the relatively slow pace of the standardization process.

Whether or not Harmony claims are true, remains to be seen, but in case they are, Google’s position is pretty much justified, if you ask us.

Web browser benchmarks on Windows and Mac OS X.

With the recent Firefox and Google Chrome releases, TomsHardware has decided to test all the competitors in both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems.

There’s no time to waste, so let’s dive into the results.

Startup Time

Page Load Times

It’s Friday, Friday…

Another month passes by as we look at the August market share stats to find out, how web browsers competed at the end of summer.

Internet Explorer is approaching the 50% market share mark, as it’s now down another 1.13 point, from 52.72% to 51.59%.

Firefox is the new IE and it continues to show, this time its market share has decreased by 0.4 point, down from 21.47% to 21.03%.

Another month and another gain for Google Chrome, in August Google’s web browser market share grew by another 0.97 point, from 13.49% to 14.46%.

Combining both desktop and mobile versions of Safari, its market share continues to climb as well, up from 7.37% to 7.71% (0.34 point increase).

Despite reporting growth in the latest financial report, all major trackers show Opera’s market share contraction, this time it went down from 1.62% to 1.58% (0.04 point decrease).

Chrome has implemented a built-in print dialog that, by default, gives you a preview of your print job in a new tab and handles all of your printing needs without going through your operating system's default print dialog. It's a nice feature when it works, but in practice, the preview crashes—a lot—and when it does, the Print button is disabled. Here's how to work around Chrome's crashy print dialog so you can still get your print on when necessary. More »

The battle for best browser on Windows is especially close, but we have to pick Google Chrome for its speed, extensibility, and awesome syncing features. More »

Chrome: efTwo adds a new, more powerful "find on page" feature to Google Chrome, letting you search for multiple words at once as well as variations on each word, not exact matches. More »

The browser debate is pretty heated on all platforms, but we love Chrome on the Mac. It's fast, easy to use, has a great developer community, and even handles failure with grace.

When going to a .com domain in Google Chrome, you don't have to type the www. or .com because this handy keyboard shortcut can do it for you. Just press Control+Enter on any platform (it's even Control+Enter on a Mac) and Chrome will take care of the rest. You can do this in Firefox, too, but it's not just limited to .com. Either way, this can save you milliseconds of typing several times per day. More »

Shortmarks lets you manage and sync your custom search engines and bookmark keywords across computers and browsers, without even needing to download an extension. More »

Chrome: Google's Instant Pages feature, previously available to Chrome beta users, is now available in the latest stable version of Chrome to load Google search results much faster. You can see the side-by-side speed comparison in the video above. More »