ie9

Google has joined Mozilla in its attempt to push Microsoft to permit full-fledged browsers other than Internet Explorer on Windows RT, its operating system geared for devices running ARM processors.

Mozilla objects to Microsoft decisions that, it says, prevent it from bringing a competitive version of Firefox to Windows RT. Other browsers don't get access to the same operating system abilities that IE10 gets, recalling browser battles from earlier years that ultimately triggered government antitrust actions in the United States and Europe.

Now Google, maker of the Chrome browser, has weighed in:

We share the concerns Mozilla has raised … Read more

The reversal of Internet Explorer's ill fortunes appears less likely to be a fluke with the release of April statistics for Web browser usage.

Net Applications' global browser statistics, updated today, showed the top browser reclaiming a sliver of usage from its rivals, growing from 53.8 percent in March to 54.1 percent of usage in April on personal computers.

The top rivals kept their rankings overall. No. 2. Firefox held dropped from 20.6 percent to 20.2 percent; Chrome rose from 18.6 percent to 18.9 percent; Safari dropped from 5.1 percent to 4.… Read more

I confess to have become browser-bored. I have a feeling that Chrome might be the best, but I don't use it because it seems like Google is trying to trap me in a vortex of Googlephilia. Don't they have enough pieces of me already?

I use Firefox (I know, I know), because, oh, they seem like nice people. They're even nice when it crashes, which is more than I'd like it to.

Then there's Internet Explorer. It seems to have been around since PCs were worth using, without ever seeming terribly interesting.

So the advent … Read more

Microsoft is clearly looking for any ammunition it can find to criticize Google and win over Internet users.

Today, Microsoft seized on a Wall Street Journal report that Google sidestepped privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser to track Internet users. The Journal story said the search giant and other ad companies used special code to get around Safari's privacy controls in order to track users on computers and mobile devices.

"Apparently, Google has been able to track users of Apple's Safari browser while they surf the web on their Apple iPhones, iPads and Macs," Ryan … Read more

Internet Explorer staved off rival browsers on personal computers in the first month of 2012, but a new battlefield is emerging where Microsoft has virtually no presence today: mobile.

Among personal computers, IE reclaimed a chunk the global browser usage, rising from 51.9 percent in December to 53 percent in January, according to new statistics from Net Applications.

However, while browsing with desktops and laptops dominates, mobile devices are catching up. Smartphones and tablets accounted for an all-time high of 8.8 percent of browsing in January, up from 7.7 percent the month earlier.

And on mobile, Microsoft'… Read more

Microsoft has released a new update for Internet Explorer 9 that aims to patch several outstanding security holes.

Available through Windows Update since Tuesday, the security update is rated critical by Microsoft, which means that people who have Windows Update set to "install updates automatically" will automatically receive it.

Users who haven't enabled that option are advised to install the update manually from Windows Update. IT administrators who support large organizations should also apply the update with whatever patch management software they use in-house.

The update targets eight vulnerabilities in IE9, some of which could let a … Read more

IE9 left no doubt that Microsoft understood the importance of supporting modern Web standards. But IE10, updated yesterday with the third platform preview, is the vehicle delivering much of that support.

Microsoft fleshed out IE10's impressive list of new technologies at Microsoft's Build conference for developers. New items on the list such as Web Workers, Web Sockets, 3D Transforms, Application Cache, and IndexedDB are music to the ears of many Web developers who want to make rich, interactive Web sites.

But it's important for a much larger developer group, too: IE10 also is a key foundation for Windows 8 applications. … Read more

Microsoft has rolled out a new update for Internet Explorer 9 that fixes a host of different security holes.

Launched yesterday on Microsoft's familiar "Patch Tuesday," the August 2011 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer is a critical one that resolves issues not just in IE9 but in versions 6, 7, and 8 as well, according to a Microsoft blog. The update is available through Windows Update, so IE users who have Windows automatic updates turned on should have already received it.

The patch takes care of five holes in IE that were disclosed in coordination with … Read more

One of the reasons I've been skeptical about Google Chrome Frame is that using the software was difficult for one of the prime audiences using the ancient Internet Explorer 6: those who had no choice.

That's because some corporations lock down computers so users don't get the administrative privileges needed to upgrade IE to a version less than a decade old or to install an alternative browser. With that lockdown, it also wasn't possible to install Chrome Frame, which implants Chrome's modern Web page rendering technology into Internet Explorer.

At Google I/O in May, … Read more