Browsers and extensions

After a long wait, Barnes & Noble has finally unveiled a browser-based platform, allowing users to explore and read the company's e-books from a Mac or PC.

Dubbed Nook for Web, the platform requires no sign-in, software download, or Nook account for users to start reading. According to Barnes & Noble, the service allows users to search for books and sample them, as well as read entire titles after purchase. Barnes & Noble says that Nook for Web comes with the same "Nook-like reading environment" found in the company's applications and e-readers.

Barnes & Noble took … Read more

SPDY, a Google project to try to speed up the Web, is gaining new allies interested in using it as a basis for rebuilding a fundamental Internet technolog that's remained largely unchanged since 1999.

SPDY reworks HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol by which Web browsers request Web pages and by which Web servers deliver those pages over the Internet. Every time you load a Web page, you use HTTP or its securely encrypted sibling, HTTPS. An upgrade would bring improvements to a vast number of people -- but on the flip side, making changes to something so basic and … Read more

Just as Apple finished up OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion, Google said yesterday that its Web browser will stop supporting OS X 10.5, aka Leopard.

Leopard debuted in 2007 after a long gestation period. Apple's OS updates arrive more frequently these days -- roughly annually -- and Chrome comes even more frequently with a six-week update cycle.

"Please note, on Mac we now require 10.6 or higher, and this release will not be available if you are on 10.5 or lower," said Chrome team member Jason Kersey in a blog post yesterday … Read more

Surprised to find out that Mozilla's Thunderbird isn't dead yet? Well, have we've got news for you.

Mozilla is just now (sort of) pulling the plug on its open-source e-mail software, TechCrunch reported today. The company is looking for feedback and plans to share a final action plan in September.

In a "confidential" message sent to "Mozillians" prior to an official announcement this coming Monday, Thunderbird Managing Director JB Piacentino said Mozilla is moving its resources away from further developing the software with hopes that Thunderbird's vocal fans will take over that … Read more

A new way to manage your torrents puts a bit of Torque in your Web browser. Debuting today from the company that makes uTorrent and BitTorrent, the alpha version of BitTorrent Torque creates rudimentary torrent controls in JavaScript that can be run from your HTML5-compliant browser.

In a blog post announcing Torque, BitTorrent developer Patrick Williams explained that Torque works by providing a JavaScript hook to a custom BitTorrent client backend. From there, developers can write apps that use Torque's APIs.

Currently, there are two extensions for Torque. One is Paddle Over, which integrates drag and drop file transfers … Read more

Internet Explorer has been facing growing competition from rival browsers, but it's still the leader with more than 50 percent of the market, according to Net Applications.

IE grabbed a 54 percent market share last month, down from 56.7 percent a year ago. Traveling further back in time reveals an ongoing decline from November 2007 when Microsoft held almost 80 percent of the desktop browser market.

In second place with a 20 percent share in June, Firefox has also seen its share gradually drop. Mozilla's browser scored a 23 percent share a year ago after hitting a … Read more

Mozilla's browser-based smartphone operating system has grown up a notch, winning over partners such as Sprint and ZTE and picking up the marketing-friendly name of Firefox OS.

In addition, Mozilla has announced several partners, a necessity for making a bunch of software into something people actually use: only a very small number of people have the skills and interest to install a mobile-phone OS.

Carrier Telefonica and chipmaker Qualcomm already were partners that emerged when Mozilla announced B2G at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. They'd said to expect phones by the end of 2012 then, but now … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Adobe Systems, retooling as fast as it can for a future of Web publishing and Web apps, sees the technology as mostly caught up to the Flash technology that Adobe previously preferred.

"I think it's close to 80 percent," Arno Gourdol, Adobe's senior director of Web platform and authoring, said in an interview during the Google I/O show here.

Gourdol, who leads Adobe work to embrace Web standards, has a lot on the line as the company tries to make a difficult transition away from the widely used but fading Flash. He's eager … Read more

Searching on a popular search engine nowadays does not guarantee an anonymous state. When you click on a search result, your computer automatically sends information such as search terms, IP addresses, and the date and time that you landed on a site. But when this information is paired with additional account information, your odds of being uniquely identifiable increase tremendously.

For this week's Freeware Friday, check out some of our favorite tools to boost the privacy of your online experience and reduce leakage of sensitive information.

Disconnect (Firefox, Chrome) Disconnect is a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari … Read more