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The Windows Web Browser Choice Screen Works
According to the latest data from Opera, the Windows Web Browser Choice Screen—a browser download and activation pop-up mandated by the European Union in all versions of Microsoft’s operating system—is working. They say it’s “dramatic uptake on downloads.”

Opera reports that their downloads have more than doubled across the European continent during the introduction of their latest version. Some countries saw their rates tripling. One, Poland, experienced a 328% surge. Of the total number of downloads, a 77% came from the Choice Screen in Poland. On average, 53% came from the Choice Screen in the whole of Europe. Not bad at all, considering that the roll-out has just started in early March, and will continue to happen “well into May for existing Windows computers and for five more years on new installations.”

It seems the Eurocrats were right. Hopefully, the UScrats will take good note.

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• Opera more than doubles download numbers in Europe after Choice Screen introduction (opera.com)

Enter Session Buddy, a Chrome extension that provides more predictable and more functional tab and session management. The extension also reliably saves your session when Chrome crashes, but it also allows you to choose when your session is saved, re-open a previously saved session with a few clicks, or modify saved sessions.
  Session Buddy doesn’t replace Chrome’s built-in session saving; it just bolsters it. Chrome still handles on-crash session saving all by itself, but if Chrome comes back up and hasn’t managed to save your session or doesn’t offer you a chance to restore your tabs, It’s a safe bet that Session Buddy caught it at some point before the crash, and Session Buddy even allows you to access those saved tabs before restoring them.

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• Session Buddy Brings Tab Saving to Google Chrome (appscout.com)
• Session Buddy Saves and Restores Custom Browsing Sessions in Google Chrome (lifehacker.com)

Google has filed at least four patent applications for technology it is building into its Chrome browser to try to make the web a more powerful foundation for applications.

Three patent applications concern Google’s Native Client, a technology for letting downloaded software modules run directly on a processor rather than more slowly through on-the-fly decoding as with the commonly used JavaScript. The fourth patent application involves O3D, a technology to let browser applications take advantage of 3D acceleration of graphics hardware.

Ultimately, Google hopes to standardize the technology so all browsers can use it, though it is not waiting for a standard. “Native Client so far is outside any standards process. We’re in discussions with other browser vendors on how to move that forward. We’d like to see all these things standardized,” said Linus Upson, engineering director for the Chrome browser and Chrome OS, in an interview in December.

Microsoft has started dropping broad hints that an emergency patch for Internet Explorer will be released very soon to counter targeted attacks and the publication of exploit code for a “browse and you’re owned” vulnerability in its flagship Web browser.

The out-of-band update will be released once the company is satisfied that it has been properly tested against all affected versions of Windows.  This could happen as early as this weekend.

The twist is that security vendor McAfee (MFE) says that the people who electronically attacked Google used a vulnerability in Microsoft (MSFT) Internet Explorer, and not just any version of IE, but IE 6.0. That’s right, people at Google actually use a version of IE that is two major revs back from the current one. The irony, of course, is that Google, which has its own Chrome browser, must have employees using Microsoft’s. Microsoft posted a security advisory about it and why not? It’s not as though finding security holes in Microsoft software is that rare a situation, and it must have provided a fair amount of humor to subtly point out that some number of Google employees actually use Microsoft’s browser.

That’s where the business issues of Chrome come into play. As McAfee CTO George Kurtz, CTO of McAfee answered when Computerworld asked him about why Google wouldn’t be using Chrome:

“It is easy to come to that conclusion, but IE is ubiquitous and is used in almost every corporation. Keep in mind, there are many enterprise applications that only work with IE–so it is difficult to just mandate an alternate browser even if you are the creator of that browser.”

Zack previously posted on the latest beta of Firefox Mobile for the Nokia N900 and to kick off the new year Mozilla gave us all a present with the Release Candidate 1.0 version available as of last night. I just installed it on my own Nokia N900 and look forward to trying out lots of different Internet sites.

Here is what’s new in Firefox RC 1:

Easy Navigation to Web Content

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Opera has released a pre-alpha version of its Opera 10.5 browser for testers. Opera also touts growth in the adoption of the mobile web via Opera Mini.

Opera has released a pre-alpha version of its Opera 10.5 browser for testers.

According to Opera officials, the pre-alpha technology is based on the Evenes branch of the Opera browser software and includes Windows and Mac builds, with an UNIX/Linux version coming later.

In a post about the new release, Roberto Mateu, a product analyst at Opera, said Opera doe not typically release software for user testing so early in the development cycle, but the company was so “excited” about this release that Opera decided to show it off.

The Opera 10.5 pre-alpha features Carakan, a new JavaScript engine, which is seven times faster than the engine in Opera 10.10 on Windows, Mateu said.

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• Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha is All About Speed (and Private Browsing) [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)
• Opera Feels The Need for Speed – Releases First Pre-Alpha of Opera 10.5 (readwriteweb.com)

Firefox users should receive an offer to update their browsers Friday afternoon with Firefox 3.6 Beta 5, which offers some new improvements, including the HTML 5 API. As you might recall, the Firefox 3.6 update is oriented around the new HTML 5 improvements, which automate some taks which previously required a plug-in, such as video. (We’ve run a speed test here.)

• Support for the HTML5 File API.
• A change to how third-party software integrates with Firefox to increase stability.
• The ability to run scripts asynchronously to speed up page load times.
• Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
• Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
• Support for the WOFF font format.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

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• Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Officially Available for Download [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)

 Microsoft’s lawyers no doubt breathed a collective sigh of relief this week when European regulators opted to drop their current case against the company. The case stemmed from the software giant’s bundling of its Internet Explorer browser with Windows.

Microsoft averted a court battle by agreeing to give users access to non-Microsoft browsers. Users who opted into Internet Explorer will receive a software update next year that will give them the ability to switch to another browser.

The software company was reportedly “pleased” with the EU’s decision.

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• EU Drops Browser Antitrust Case Against Microsoft (mashable.com)
• Microsoft and EU reach browser settlement (telegraph.co.uk)

Microsoft have been listening, dear readers. It’s difficult for me to splutter the words out loud, however it does seem that the technological evolution of words on paper can just about squeeze in.

Previous Office editions included Home & Student, but this was geared towards the home user, rather than that of the latter student. Office 2010 will include a dedicated academic edition, called Office Professional Academic 2010.

This edition will include Outlook for the first time, which suggests they may have finally realised the importance that email has with students of this generation. Alongside this, they are noticing the increase in web email and the rise of Google Docs and corresponding email services. Even though Live@edu (with Moodle integration as an added bonus) is on the increase and surprisingly taking over in the race with Google, Outlook would seemingly act as an additional element to the email experience. One would hope, at least.