Firefox
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) vs. Firefox 3.6 vs. Google Chrome 10 vs. Opera 11 vs. Safari 5
TomsHardware has posted a nice benchmark and compared some of the most popular web browsers. Unfortunately, Firefox 4 was not included.
Browsers
Google Chrome 10.0.648.134
Firefox 3.6.15
Internet Explorer 9
Opera 11.01 (build 1190) 51
Safari 5.04 (7533.20.27)
Startup Times

Page Load Times

What's Your Current Web Browser of Choice? [Reader Poll]
Every now and then, we like to take the temperature of Lifehacker readers to see where their loyalties lie in the browser wars, and the competition is as fierce as it's ever been.
ActiveInbox Turns Your Gmail Labels Into an Effective GTD System [Video]
<!-- videoId: BcqfAcJ_VhI --><!-- /videoId: BcqfAcJ_VhI --> Chrome/Firefox: Gmail labels can be useful for
Xobni Adds Context to Your Contacts in Gmail, and We've Got Beta Invites [Downloads]
Firefox/Chrome: Gmail's address book is nice, but isn't mind-blowing.
Open New Tabs by Dragging Links and Text to Chrome's Tab Bar

Many of us probably right-click on links to open them in new tabs or search for text on Google. Reader hackbreaker shows us another quick way: just drag links or text to the tab bar. More »
The best social networking add-ons for all your browsers

If you're a social networking butterfly, or if you have the malevolent aspirations of one day becoming a 'social media expert,' you almost certainly spend a vast amount of time surfing the Web. You probably use a modern browser like Firefox or Chrome, and you almost certainly have a ton of tabs open at the same time.
It can be hard work, keeping track of multiple websites. Hitting F5 is a pain in the ass -- and waiting those few seconds for a page to reload can be mighty frustrating. Then there's the matter of remembering all of your login names and passwords (because you don't use the same password on more than one site, right?)
Wouldn't it be great if there were some add-ons and extensions that could make light work of your surprisingly busy social networking lifestyle? Even if you only use Facebook or Twitter, there are still plenty of annoyances that could be offloaded to add-ons.
Internet Explorer and Safari first to fall at Pwn2Own 2011, Chrome and Firefox still standing
Pwn2Own, the annual three-day browser hackathon, has already claimed its first two victims: IE8 on Windows 7 64-bit, and Safari 5 on Mac OS X. Google Chrome looks set to survive for its third year in a row.
Internet Explorer 8 was thoroughly destroyed by independent researcher Stephen Fewer. "He used three vulnerabilities to bypass ASLR and DEP, but also escape Protected Mode. That's something we've not seen at Pwn2Own before," said Aaron Portnoy, the organizer of Pwn2Own.
Safari 5, running on a MacBook Air, was compromised in just five seconds by French security company Vupen. Both attackers netted $15,000 for successfully compromising a browser.
The contest continues today and tomorrow. Firefox 3.6 is yet to be attacked, and tomorrow will see the very first mobile browser deathmatch. Windows Phone 7, iOS, Android and RIM OS, all with their stock browsers, will be attacked by security researchers to find out just how secure mobile browsing is. Again, $15,000 is available for the first person or team to compromise each of the browsers.
Google, Apple and Mozilla, incidentally, all rolled out updates to their browsers just before Pwn2Own. It was not a coincidence.
Onclick Javascript Does Not Work in Google Chrome and Firefox?
If you have found that onclick event does not work on Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari web browsers, then here is quick way to fix it:
Replace onclick form id with its name
For example, let’s say you have the following:
id=”form1″ name=”checkform1″
Find JS event:
onclick=”document.form1.cSSld.value=””
Replace with:
onclick=”document.checkform1.cSSld.value=””
All set. It now works with all web browsers.
First Piece of Mozilla’s Web Apps Project Arrives, But Can it Outfox Chrome?
At great long last, Mozilla has revealed the first developer release of their Web Apps Project, which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem.
Back in May of 2010, Google announced plans for what would become the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla responded immediately with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project.
WebGL 1.0 spec finalized, everyone but Microsoft supports it
The Khronos Group has finally put its stamp on the WebGL 1.0 spec, and that's good news for those of you running Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, and any other up-to-date WebKit browsers. If you're an Internet Explorer user, however, you're still not invited to the party.
Microsoft, with IE9 only being available for Windows Vista and 7, is perfectly content with IE9's DirectX-based hardware acceleration. It will be interesting to see what happens with the mobile version of IE9, too -- if HTML5 and WebGL apps take off, Microsoft (and Nokia) will want to support them.
Mozilla's Jay Sullivan doesn't appear worried though, saying "Between Firefox and Chrome, people will build stuff." You can, of course, add WebGL support to Internet Explorer yourself -- by installing Google Chrome Frame, though admittedly that brings a whole lot more functionality than browser-based 3D.
If you've got a compatible browser and want to see what WebGL 1.0 can do, head on over to the Khronos Group demo site or check out Google's previous demo offerings!
Mozilla releases first stable version of Open Web Apps
The open and free alternative to the Chrome-specific Web Store is now almost upon us! Developers, feast your eyes on the first milestone release of Mozilla's Web Application project.
Developers, this milestone release means that the OWA Application Manifest spec is now stable -- so you can now safely begin building apps. There is also a stable JavaScript API that you can use to interact with the browser (installing, uninstalling, etc.) There's also the beginnings of a tutorial that you can use to get started.
Quickmarks for Google Chrome makes bookmark keyword launching easy
One feature I still miss when switching between Chrome and Firefox is support for bookmark keywords, which make launching sites from the address bar a breeze. Chrome's Omnibar does a fairly good job of finding what we want to launch from standard input (e.g. gmail), but it would be nice to have straight-up keywords (like gm). Sebastian showed you one method using custom search engines -- but those don't sync, so it's not an ideal situation.
Quickmarks is up to the task. Simply install the extension, and then do some manual editing. Any bookmark that you'd like to launch via a keyword needs to have [keyword] appended to its name. For example, you can right click your Gmail bookmark and choose edit, change its name to Gmail [gm], and Quickmarks is now able to launch it.
To open a bookmark using its keyword, simply click into the Omnibar or tap Ctrl+L B [space] and then enter your keyword. The B trigger tells the Quickmarks entension to fire up and watch for keyword input.
Since Chrome can sync both your extensions and your bookmarks, once your [keywords] are sent to the cloud you'll have access to them on all your Chrome installs.
February, 2011 – Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari Share Up; Firefox, Opera – Down
It’s the 1st of March already, so let’s dive into February market share data.
With the release of Internet Explorer 9 RC, Microsoft has taken some share back, up from 56.00% to 56.77% (0.77 point increase).
While everyone awaits the final version of Firefox 4, an open source web browser continues the downtrend, from 22.75% to 21.74% (1.01 point decrease).
Google Chrome does not seem to be stopping anytime soon as we see a yet another increase, up from 10.70% to 10.93% (0.23 point increase).
Things look good in the Safari camp as well, this time its market share has increased by 0.06 point, up from 6.30% to 6.36%.
After some recover, Opera has lost 0.13 point of the market share in February, down from 2.15% to 2.28%.
CueThat for Netflix adds movies to your queue while you surf

CueThat is a slick little browser add-on that lets you add any movie you happen upon while browsing the Web to your Netflix queue. Just highlight a title, right click and choose CueThat from your context menu, and voila: it's added to your list. It even works with movies that are still only screening in theaters.
CueThat is offered as an extension for both Firefox and Chrome, though the bookmarklet works just as well and is usable in any Web browser. It's well worth adding to your bookmark toolbar if you're a Netflix user who hunts for movie reviews or recommendations while browsing the Web.
Add custom search engines to your browser easily with Mycroft
One of the oldest -- yet somehow least-lauded projects in existence -- is Mycroft. Perhaps its under-hypedness is due to its total simplicity -- Mycroft is nothing more than a massive directory of search plug-ins that you can add to Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer. Check the top 100, and you'll get some idea of Mycroft's scale.
For Firefox and Internet Explorer, this means you can search just about every site in existence from the Search bar in the top right corner of your browser. For Chrome users, this means you get even more functionality from the uber Omnibar.
Incidentally, Chrome users, did you know that you could use specific search engines from the Omnibar? When you grab a search plug-in, make sure you provide a keyword. Make it something short -- like 'pb' for Pirate Bay or 'imdb' for IMDb -- and then, when you want to search The Pirate bay, just type pb, followed by your search term.
January, 2011 – Google Chrome Breaks Above 10% Market Share Barrier
With a great year for web browsers that 2010 was, it’s time to dive in directly into 2011 and check the very first month market share stats.
Internet Explorer continues the downtrend with a 1.08 point drop, from 57.08% to 56.00%.
With the upcoming Firefox 4 release, Mozilla’s web browser is still struggling to gain any significant market share, this time it lost a 0.06 point, down from 22.81% to 22.75%.
As stated in the title, Google Chrome has now more than 10% of the market share, up from 9.98% to 10.70% (0.72 point increase).
Just as iPhone and iPad popularity grows, so does Safari’s market share, its market share has now increased by a 0.41 point, from 5.89% to 6.30%.
With the release of Opera 11 Final, Norwegian web browser gained 0.05 point of the market share and went up from 2.23% to 2.28%.
Reveal Passwords Bookmarklet Ensures You'll Never Get Locked Out of Your Accounts

We've long been advocates of random password generators and autofillers like LastPass, but using them means you probably don't remember your passwords by heart. This handy bookmarklet will reveal your autofilled passwords for you, replacing the cryptic dots for that session. More »
Adobe initiative to let you easily clear 'Flash cookies' from your Mozilla or Google Web browser
In a strong, head-held-high missive, Adobe has detailed a new initiative to bring Flash local storage clearing to Web browser UIs. The new API, NPAPI ClearSiteData will let Firefox and Chrome users clear Flash's Local Shared Objects, or 'Flash cookies,' in the same way that you currently clear cookies and temporary Internet files.
LSOs are very commonly used throughout the Web, but unlike conventional cookies they're a little harder to delete. A lot of websites use them to track you across the Web, but they're also used by sites like YouTube to store your video preferences.
Google Ditches H.264 Support In Google Chrome
The HTML5 web video wars are heating up again, this time with the news that Google has announced to remove support for the h.264 codec from the Chrome browser in the next couple months. Google product manager Mike Jazayeri admits that ” H.264 plays an important role in video” but that Google has decided to direct their resources exclusively “towards completely open codec technologies”.
What does it mean for Chrome users? Chrome will eventually only support HTML5 web videos that are making use of Google’s own WebM (VP8) codec or Theora video codecs, and will refuse to play H.264 videos if the website in question streams video in that format only. While that’s not the case for Youtube and maybe a few other sites, the majority of Internet sites will not encode their videos multiple times to make sure they can be watched in all browsers.
Lets take a look at browsers and their HTML5 video support:
- Google Chrome WebM8, Theora
- Firefox, WebM8, Theora
- Opera, WebM8, Theora
- Internet Explorer 9, H.264
- Safari, H.264
Google Chrome until now was the only browser that supported all video codecs. Internet users now have the problem that their favorite browser may not be able to play videos that they want to watch on the Internet, which means that they need to keep a second browser installed, or download the videos to the computer to watch them locally.
H.264 is the Blu-Ray codec and Apple makes use of it as well in their products. If you look at entertainment devices you notice that the majority plays H.264 but not WebM or Theora.
The majority of commenters at the official blog announcement over at the Chromium blog appear to disagree with Google on the move. Some thing Google tries to push their own codec at the expense of the Chrome user experience, others state that the WebM8 codec is inferior to h.264 in quality.
What’s your take on this? And how will you handle HTML5 web video?
Move Firefox and Chrome's Cache to a RAM Disk for Faster Browsing [Browsers]
We've previously shown you how to move your Firefox cache to













