Mozilla Firefox's 8th Birthday

Happy Birthday Firefox. Eight years ago, today, on November 9, 2004 The Mozilla foundation launched the first version of Firefox.

When Firefox was launched, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 was on the top of the market share but had a lot of security issues. Mozilla’s open source browser was responded very well. The browser that would eventually become Firefox, called Phoenix, was actually launched as a beta in 2002. When the first stable version of the browser was launched in 2004, it was renamed to Firefox.

During these years, Firefox has earned reputation in web market. In the last couple of years it has gotten given a serious competition to Google’s Chrome, Opera, Apple’s Safari and others. Currently, Firefox is the world’s third most popular browser, behind Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

Courtesy: Mashable

Create music with JAM with Chrome

Do you want to create your own music with your friends? Now, Google has given a solution to it by releasing the new "Jam with Chrome".  Chrome users can invite up to three friends to join in a practice session, controlling synthesized instruments straight from the browser. You don't need to rely on Garageband to create music with friends.

Go to: Jam with Chrome

On opening Jam with Chrome website, users can pick from 19 music instruments, including acoustic and electric guitars, drum kits, drum machines and keyboards, and then they click again to start playing. Interface is not much easy as other Google services, but there is always Help feature there to help you.

With this step Google is developing a new wave of music composers, without need to buy instruments.

Google Chrome has now Do Not Track feature

If you use Google Chrome and don’t want your online behavior tracked by marketers, today’s your lucky day. Chrome, currently the world’s most popular browser, just got an update with the much-requested “Do Not Track” feature — which Google promised it would release earlier this year.

Do Not Track is an increasingly widespread option. Its goal is to block cookies that give marketers some idea of how you live your life on the Internet. It’s generally used in aggregated data about consumer behavior, although many advertisers — including Google itself — use cookies to target ads to individual users.

The update will be applied automatically for most Chrome users over the next few days.

Courtesy: Mashable

IE and Firefox Cake giving tradition

Internet Explorer is no longer the best web browser, its dominated by Firefox and chrome. But it does not stop the Redmond company to stop the its team from continuing its cake-giving tradition with the makers of Firefox.

According to Mozilla employee Matt Brubeck, the IE team began it all when it sent over a cake to congratulate the company on the launch of Firefox 2 in 2006. Since then, the Internet Explorer crew has continued to send over cakes for each new version, though they smartly switched over to less-costly cupcakes when Mozilla began its accelerated 6-week upgrade cycles. 

To return the favor, Matt hand delivered a massive cake to celebrate the launch of Internet Explorer 10 this week to the Microsoft team's headquarters in Redmond, and signed it "Love  Mozilla." Competition  is only in the field of business, not in kindness.

Courtesy: The Verge

Firefox turns 10

Mozilla Firefox's decade: Firefox turns 10

March 31, 1998:  Coders at Netscape start an open-source project. They call it Mozilla, a former codename for the Netscape Navigator browser which was extremely popular in the 1990s. Mozilla was derived from the words “mosaic” (another popular 1990s browser) and “killer.”

Sept. 23, 2002:  The release of “Phoenix 0.1” marks the earliest version of the browser that would eventually become known as Firefox.

July 15, 2003:  The Mozilla Foundation is established. The foundation is a non-profit organization whose core belief is, “The Web is a shared public resource to be cared for, not a commodity to be sold.”

June 15, 2004:  Mozilla launches the Add-ons Gallery, an official comprehensive list of all the extensions, themes and plug-ins users can employ to customize their browsers.

Nov. 9, 2004:  Mozilla unveils Firefox 1.0, the first full version of the browser. Fans of the project organized a full-page advertisement in The New York Times to herald the release.

Aug. 12, 2006:  Enthusiastic Firefox fans, mostly students from Oregon State, make a 220-foot wide crop circle reproduction of the Firefox logo in an oat field near Amity, Ore.

Feb. 21, 2008: The total for downloads of Firefox surpasses 500 million.

June 17, 2008:  Mozilla releases Firefox Version 3.0, which establishes a Guinness World Record for “Most Downloads of a Software Application in 24 Hours,” totaling more than 8 million. There was no previous record.

Feb. 8, 2011:  The beta version of Firefox 4 includes a “Do Not Track” feature, furthering the company’s commitment to privacy awareness.

March 29, 2011:  Firefox releases a mobile browser for Android devices, initially available in more than 10 languages.

April 2011:  The company implements a “Rapid Release” schedule, making a new version of Firefox available every six weeks. By this schedule, there are always four versions of Firefox being worked on at a given time. Users can try the “Nightly” version, which has the latest updates that have not been fully vetted; the “Aurora” version, which is more stabilized; or the “Beta” version, the last step before an official release.

July 26, 2012:  The download total for add-ons surpasses 3 billion. Firefox currently has over 17,000 user-created add-ons.

Today:  More than 450 million people use Firefox. About 40% of the code was written by volunteers. The browser is extremely popular around the world; it is available in 75 languages and more than half of users employ non-English versions.

   

Watch Google I/O 2012 day 1 keynote

If you’ve missed out on some of the action from the first day of Google’s I/O conference, here’s a chance to relive it: Google has made available the video of the entire 2-hour opening keynote. Here is the link to it

http://youtu.be/VuC0i4xTyrI

Brief summary: 

Software

• Android

In this event, Google released new version of Android code-named as JellyBean 4.1. They also displayed Project butter for increasing the graphic quality and rendering. It provides silky smooth acceleration to the devices. New Android also contains new Google search, camera, notifications, display, lock screen, play store etc. Download preview from here.

• Chrome

New version of Chrome has been released and it will be available for all platforms that means Windows, Mac OS X, Android, Chrome OS and iOS. Yes you read right. Chrome will be available on App store (Download). And it has been updated for all platforms. Download chrome from here.

Hardware

• Nexus Phone

Nexus smartphone is the device to get the JellyBean update. It has the same hardware, but the new OS. It will get update OTA (on-the-air) soon. On the 1st Attendees were gifted Nexus Phone. 

• Nexus 7

Nexus 7 tab provides the smart browsing and full reading experience. It is developed by ASUS and will be available directly from Google Play. As the name shows it is a 7 inch tablet having Quad core CPU and 12 core GPU.

• Nexus Q

Nexus Q is marketed by Google as the world’s first social Music streaming device. It connects over wifi and you and your friends can enjoy the playlist.

• Google Glass

And finally Google Glasses were unveiled by some skydivers who logged in a Google+ hangout and dived from a helicopter. They landed above the Moscone Center, where the event was taking place. It was unveiled by Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google on day 2.

Attendees were gifted Nexus devices at the end of Day 1 event.

Watch the Day 1 event keynote video

                          

Apple WWDC 2012 live update

Finally on 11 June 2012 Apple kicked off it's World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC) event. New updates regarding to all Apple products will be unveiled. Event will be held till 15 Jun @ Moscone Center, San Francisco. First day was of software and unveiled new features of iOS6, Mac OS X 8.0 Mountain Lion, Macbooks and Apple Maps etc.

And following is a slideshow displaying major photos of First day of the event.

Chrome became best browser for one day

Google’s Chrome browser became the most-used browser in the world for one day last weekend, according to web analytics company StatCounter.

A new report by StatCounter revealed that Chrome became the top global Internet browser for the first time on Sunday. It was the most popular browser in India, Russia and Brazil, which helped contribute to it becoming the number one PC browser for the day.

“While it is only one day, this is a milestone,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.About 32.7% of global web browsing occurred on Chrome on March 18, followed by Internet Explorer with 32.5%, according to a Reuters report. On Monday, Chrome occupied 30% of browsing while Internet Explorer accounted for about 35%. Firefox occupies about 25% of the global market share, while Safari trails with 7%.

Chrome still has a way to go to beat Internet Explorer and Firefox in many regions, including China, United States and Germany.

“Whether Chrome can take the lead in the browser wars in the long term remains to be seen, however the trend towards Chrome usage at weekends is undeniable,” Cullen added. “At weekends, when people are free to choose what browser to use, many of them are selecting Chrome in preference to Internet Explorer.”

[Source: Mashable]