An Introduction to Firefox’s Tab Candy from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Opera Mini 5 Beta is now available for Android-based mobile phones.

The new version of Opera offers a big leap in features and functionality, compared to the previous version – Opera Mini 4.

Opera Mini 4 Beta Features

• Tabbed Browsing – Not exactly new and exciting for veteran internet users, but still a useful feature.
• “Speed Dial” – This feature enables users to get to their favorite Web page with just one click, with a set of visual bookmarks when they open a new tab.
• Opera Link – Allows for synchronization of bookmarks and Speed Dial between the phone and the user’s computer.
• Download Manager – Gives better control over downloads, including the option to pause and resume file downloads.
• Both Touch and Keypad: The user interface has been designed for both touchscreen- and keypad-style mobile phones.

Although it’s their very own baby, Microsoft apparently knows when to quit, so they “participated” in the funeral service performed for Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft has sent flowers and wrote a card, saying “Thanks for the good times IE6,” the card reads. “See you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven.”

Unfortunately, IE6 isn’t really dead yet. Some 12%  of internet users are still utilizing this old and broken browser. Web developers all over the world just yearn the day when no one uses this browser. Hopefully, we’ll soon see the day when all browsers are standards-compatible.

Let us just ponder, Microsoft, whose fault is this? Web developers spent days and months, battling with the problems created by your inferior browsers (IE6 and IE7), and now no one is in a hurry to make changes to accommodate IE8.

A very complicated diagram in the post shows how IE8 determines whether to go to “quirks mode,” “IE 8 almost standards mode,” “IE 8 standards mode” or “IE 7 standards mode” when displaying a site.

Microsoft now promises to deliver more standards support with IE9, including Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) standards, and maube SVG and HTML5 standards. That, of course, remains to be seen. The fact remains that developing sites to fit the different IE quirks is STILL a tiresome, annoying job.

Current StatCounter Global Stats concerning web browsers show that about 24% of internet users surf with IE8; IE7 has a market share of about 19%, and dropping; Firefox 3.5 has about 17% market share and IE6 still holds 12% of the market.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Version Market Share

Firefox has tons of wonderful add-ons, that turn the browser into a mean piece of software for web developers, web designers or power internet users.

Apparently, the popularity of add-ons also made them a target for malware creators. Two add-ons in the experimental section of addons.mozilla.org were found to be containing malware – Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader and all versions of Master Filer.  Mozilla has since increased the number of scanning tools, and will be taking additional steps to minimize the risk of further incidents.

This vulnerability is known to affect Firefox on Windows only, if either Master Filer or Version 4.0 of Sothink Web Video Downloader are installed. Versions of Sothink Web Video Downloader greater than 4.0 are not infected.

Simply removing the ad-ons won’t clear the trojans, so you need to scan your computer with an anti-virus.

Be careful out there…