safari

Updated, June 17: The sandboxing of plug-ins, such as Flash, in Safari 4 will be limited to users running Mac OS X 10.6, which will be available this fall. The feature is currently not available, nor will it be available to Windows users. Windows users should also note that changing the default search provider is limited to either Google or Yahoo.

The public version of Safari 4 was released Monday amid all the iPhone noise at WWDC, and Apple confirmed what those who played around with the beta version already knew: Safari is now a serious browser for serious … Read more

Editor's note: This review has been updated from its original to include source information.

Among the news and announcements at the WWDC Keynote this morning, Apple previewed the next iteration of Mac OS X Leopard. Snow Leopard, as Mac OS X 10.6 is known, appears to pack a lot of new features and is slated for release in September, though no hard dates were announced during the Keynote.

The goal of Snow Leopard, according to Apple, was not to reinvent Mac OS X, but to refine, simplify, and speed up the overall experience. They were careful to point … Read more

Correction: QuickTime 10 is likely to be released with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in the fall, and won't be updated Monday.

At WWDC Monday morning, Apple's Bertrand Serlet came out with guns blazing, not just in support of Snow Leopard, but of Safari and QuickTime, too. Announcing that Safari 4 would leave beta later Monday and that QuickTime would receive a massive overhaul, Serlet introduced new features while taking swipes at both Microsoft and Mozilla.

Safari 4 can be downloaded from CNET Download.com for Windows and Mac.

The senior vice president of OS X … Read more

The problem with statistics is that it's too easy to jigger data down to numbers that prove in the end how quickly the exercise can resemble art as much as science. Take the latest stats regarding Opera's mobile performance, for instance. StatCounter's Tuesday graph showed proof of Opera's climb above the iPhone's Safari browser for the month of May.

Yet the claim that "Opera took 24.6 percent of the worldwide market compared to 22.3 percent for iPhone" is quickly followed by the admission that one only needs to calculate page views … Read more

CARLSBAD, Calif.--Although it has managed to grab nearly a quarter of the browser market, Mozilla now finds itself in an unenviable position--competing against Microsoft, Apple, and Google all at the same time.

Speaking at D: All Things Digital on Thursday, Mozilla's Mitchell Baker noted that the company didn't set out with that in mind.

"That's not the business model you are going to pick," Baker said. "It is a daunting space to compete with the three giants of the era."

That said, Baker and fellow Mozilla executive John Lilly said there is still a place for Firefox.

"We've just got to be us," Lilly said. "Mozilla has always been about scratching an itch."

Another challenge, Lilly said, is that people don't perceive the browser as something that changes their Web experience. "Most people just think it's this pane of glass," Lilly said. Three quarters of people use the browser that comes with their computer, he said.

But browsers are important, Lilly maintained.

"We spend more time with our browser than we do in our cars," Lilly said. "The real truth, I spend more time with my browser than I do with my family." … Read more

Apple recently redesigned the tab system for its Safari 4 browser, placing tabs at the very top of the browser screen. As an occasional Safari user, I find the new tab placement confusing. Half the time I forget that the tabs are even there. It seems like much has been given up for very little benefit. Apparently, I'm not alone in my complaints and confusion about the updated tab placement.

Even more confusing to me, however, is why Apple decided to change tabs in the first place. Did you request it? I know I didn't.

This, however, is … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

This news may come as a shocker to the tech-savvy folks in the house, but 60 percent of companies use Internet Explorer 6 as their default browser, according to Forrester Research. Meanwhile, your IT department spends a decent amount of time erecting barriers to prevent browser upgrades. Bottom line: companies need a browser policy, or they will risk productivity losses.

Welcome to the wonderful world of enterprise browser adoption. While the tech press spends a lot of time talking about Web 2.0 and even 3.0, Corporate America is … Read more

Apple Insider has spotted a a newly released patent filed by Apple back in late 2007 that shows volume controls that can be integrated into various Web browsers. Described as a way to control "audio signals which may or may not be welcomed by the user" the patent depicts a new panel that sits in the top, right-hand corner of a user's browser and allows per-site controls over incoming audio signals. There's also a mute button that can cut out just the sounds from the browser entirely while leaving sound from other desktop applications untouched.

According to the patent, the key goal is to add a volume control overlay over sites that do not provide it, as well as a system that will remember the user's preferences between browsing sessions. This would be useful in Flash-heavy sites where the controls may be hidden away, or entirely absent. It would also let users create custom sound profiles, so you could have YouTube videos on your computer at work always start out at a low volume level, or your Internet alarm clock site always play at 100 percent.

The patent also describes situations where users can create specific rules that will change how audio can be played back based on whatever other applications are running. So you could theoretically set it to mute all your browser audio only when you're listening to music in iTunes, or using an audio-centric application like Skype, then bring the sound back as soon as you're not getting audio output from those applications. Apple has done something similar on the iPhone by interrupting music when you're getting a phone call, or slightly lowering the volume on notification sounds when you're using other apps.

What makes this patent filing notable is that it's not just for Safari, and is listed as being applicable to multiple browsers, which means it could either be a part of an upcoming OS or as a standalone application. As the usual disclaimer goes though, patents are often filed for technologies that never make it to market.

I've embedded the entire patent after the page break. (Thanks to Patents.com and Scribd for that.)

Update: Several readers have pointed out that Windows Vista has had a similar feature since its release called Volume Mixer that lets you pick out the maximum volume level for each application. However it's worth noting that in Apple's proposed implementation, the user would be able to control it on a per-site basis. … Read more