Opera 8.02 free

Opera is giving away registration codes for their latest browser, 8.02, for free. They are celebrating their 10 year anniversary.

Go to the Opera Community Party page and look for the SURPRISE!!! Free registration codes box. I don’t know how long this will last. According to the CNet story, the offer ends tonight (8/30/05) at midnight.

The code will be good for the life of the 8.x release line.

30.Aug.05 Browsers, Technology Comments (4)

AOL browser = pre-IE 7?

AOL has released a browser that looks like almost everything being promised in IE 7. The AOL Explorer features:

• Tabbed browsing.
  • Options for this are similar to Firefox
• View your AOL/AIM mail on the fly.
• Pop-up blocking.
• Spyware scanning
• Integrated desktop search
• RSS reader

The initial file download is small (400K) but that only sets up the connection to download the installation files (4.2 MB). In case you are wondering, the files are saved to (Windows XP):

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL Downloads\searchligh_dts_gm_setupUS

You can delete the files after installation.

Sorry Linux and Mac users. It requires Windows 98SE or higher and IE6 to run.

Maybe this could be a good alternative for users that only want to use IE. Local Active X and Javascript is disabled by default. Plus, the spyware scanner would help those people that blindly click ‘Yes’ to every pop-up box requesting permission to install “enhancements”.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. -Albert Einstein

21.Aug.05 Browsers, Technology Comments (0)

Mozilla Deer Park

Mozilla has been releasing alpha versions of Firefox 1.1, codenamed Deer Park, for about a month now. The latest version, Alpha 2, works really well but it had an annoying “feature”. If I clicked a link with the middle mouse buttons (scroll wheel), it would open the link in the background. I looked through the Options menus but couldn’t find a way to fix it. I looked through the config screen and was able to correct this annoyance.

1. Open Deer Park and type about:config in the address bar.
2. Start typing background to pull up a matching list of configuration options.
3. Double-click on browser.tabs.loadInBackground to change the setting to False.

There is no need to restart Firefox/Deer Park for this setting to take effect. This also works in Firefox 1.0.x.

Other useful features added to Deer Park include:

• Sanitize
  • Look under Tools -> Options -> Privacy and click the Sanitize Settings button. You can have Deer Park clear out all of your browsing info (history, cookies, etc.) or just specific bits of information every time the browser closes. Also, you can run Sanitize at any time while browsing by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Del.
• Tabs can be reordered
  • In Firefox 1.0.x, you had to load an extension (several to choose from) in order to gain this functionality. Deer Park has it built in.

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. -Mitch Ratcliffe

20.Jul.05 Browsers, Tech Tip Comments (3)

Netscape 8.0 update

I just installed the latest version of 8.0 and I am very impressed. The installation was extremely fast and it didn’t give me the annoying AOL icons! During setup, it asked a few questions and one was my zip code. It asked for this so that it could show my weather information in one of the toolbars at the top of the browser window.

As for the rendering engine, it is using the IE engine to render my site (don’t know why) and several others I test visited. It did use the Firefox engine on some sites (like SearchTheFreakingWeb.com). You can change the rendering engine by clicking the icon in the lower-left corner of the browser and choosing Firefox.

After setup was complete, it gave me the same window to import my bookmarks/settings that Firefox does. It had Firefox 1.0 listed as one of the browsers to import from so I just chose that since that is where all my info is anyway.

The anti-phishing feature is nice. On the active browsing tab, a little shield icon shows up with either a check mark (verified), three dots (…) meaning unknown, or an exclamation point showing that the site should not be trusted. The database for this information is updated from AOL, Truste, VeriSign and Paretologic (a security company).

There are a lot of new features, too many for me to list here. For more information on what’s new, go to the Netscape Product Info page.

So far, I give it a thumbs up. Browsing is fast but opening a new tab using Ctrl + T (like in Firefox) is annoying because it re-opens the page you are currently on in the new tab. That can be changed if you go under Tools -> Options -> Tabbed Browsing and change the setting for When a new tab is created open with:. Another small annoyance is that a new tab is opened next to the current tab. That, too, can be changed in the Tabbed Browsing options next to Open a new tab to the:.

You can definetly tell it is based on Firefox because the menus are laid out the same and the Options window looks exactly the same (except with more choices). This isn’t a bad thing because the Firefox base is seen in the speed at which the pages are rendered. Even when using the IE engine, pages load very quickly.

If you like Firefox, I think you will really like the new Netscape.

19.May.05 Browsers, Technology Comment (1)

Netscape 8.0 released

Netscape is (finally) releasing version 8.0 some time today. Points in their favor:

• Based on Firefox but also supports the Internet Explorer engine. This means that it will be able to render more sites correctly than Firefox.
• Anti-phishing tools built in. Either a pop-up or an icon on the status bar will alert you if you are on a suspicious site.
• A security database is constantly updated and the browser will auto adjust it’s security settings accordingly. The security database is also used for the anti-phishing tool.

Since the new browser is based on Firefox, will it have the same security flaws that have been coming out lately? This may be why it has been so long since the last release of a Netscape browser. The developers knew it (Netscape) was going to be based on Firefox so maybe they wanted to see how Firefox did in the open after it was finally released.

I remember using Netscape Navigator 3. That was one hella ugly browser but it did the job. It really is amazing seeing how far browsers have come since the early 90’s. Who would have thought you would have tabbed browsing, mutli-window inside a single window browsing or plug-ins that add more functionality to the browser?

I like the fact that you can download the browser seperate from the suite. What I don’t like is how heavy they market AOL. Why do they think everyone using Netscape has an AOL/Aim address? It ask me for mine every time I do an install of Netscape and run the browser for the first time. Also, it puts those “Free AOL” links in my start menu (Windows). There should be an install question of “Do you want a lot of annoying AOL links put on your desktop during installation?” so at least I would have a choice.

As of right now (5:29 a.m. CST), the download page still says “Netscape Browser 8.0 is Coming Soon!”, so check back later.

PC World story

A weak man waits for something to happen. A strong man makes something happen.

19.May.05 Browsers, Technology Comments (0)