Webware

Firefox has a CPU usage issue and, consequently, can cause overheating problems in some laptops, particularly ultraportables. That's what I've found over the last couple of years.

But don't take my word for it. This is documented on a Mozilla support page entitled "Firefox consumes a lot of CPU resources." The page states: "At times, Firefox may require significant CPU [central processing unit] resources in order to download, process, and display Web content." And forum postings like this one about a Dell Netbook are not uncommon: "Mini9 would get way too hot."

The Mozilla support page goes on to say that "you can review and monitor CPU usage through specific tools" and describes ways to limit CPU usage, such as: "A Firefox add-on, called Flashblock, allows you to selectively enable and disable Flash content on Web sites."

Let me describe my experience. I find that tab for tab, Firefox uses decidedly more resources than other browsers--Safari, for example. And in the past (when I was actively using a Windows Vista-based machine) Firefox also compared unfavorably with Microsoft's Internet Explorer for CPU usage.

More specifically, here's the behavior as I see it. When I'm accessing sites with multimedia content such as the CNET front door, Firefox CPU usage will bounce around between 30 and 60 percent, and sometimes spike higher (80 percent and above), as indicated by the Mac OS 10.6.2 Activity Monitor.

On the other hand, the Safari CPU usage with the same pages open is much lower--typically between 2 percent and 10 percent.

My theory is that most users don't notice this because in mainstream laptops, this isn't an issue. But it can become an issue in ultraportables--typically under an inch thick--which are more sensitive to heat because of the design constraints. The ultrathin Apple MacBook Air, which I use as my main machine, is a good example.

The fan is usually an audible indicator of CPU usage issues. When I'm using Firefox and I have tabs open on multimedia-rich sites (which is par for the course these days), the Air's fan will almost invariably kick on and stay on until I close the tabs. As I write this, the fan has finally shut down after I closed the Firefox tabs (e.g, CNET front door). Those same tabs in Safari are still open and not causing any significant spike in CPU usage or fan activity.

When I contacted Mozilla, a technical support person guessed that Safari is possibly better at optimizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox. And that may be true. However, I had similar issues before when I was using a Hewlett-Packard business ultraportable (also very thin like the Air) that were not necessarily tied to Flash usage. In short, Firefox was less efficient with CPU usage compared to Microsoft's IE 8. And the behavior was similar. The HP laptop would quickly heat up and the fan would kick on.

Finally, let me reemphasize that I'm guessing that most users don't notice this because heat dissipation is not a big issue for mainstream laptops that are not necessarily thermally-challenged when accessing multimedia-rich Web pages. That said, this has been a steady problem for me because I use ultraportables almost exclusively and has forced me to limit my use of Firefox.

The Twitter service with the cutesy raccoon mascot is making a new home on BlackBerry and Google Android phones. The free Seesmic, like its proliferate rivals, lets you read, manage, and compose Twitter messages much more flexibly than you can do from Twitter's Web site. We crash-tested both mobile versions as soon as we heard the news.

Seesmic on Android
Seesmic 1.0 for Android is available from the Android Market app, which is located on the smartphone. It takes up just over 1MB. The interface spreads four tabs along the top in both landscape and portrait mode, one each for the timeline, replies, direct messages, and your profile. There's also a ribbon on the screen that you can tap to refresh the feed. Click to open a tweet and you can save it as a favorite, retweet, or reply as a public "@" message or as a private posting. From the menu button, you can refresh, compose, or tinker with the settings.

Although Seesmic's Android interface is much more stripped down than its desktop AIR app for Windows and Mac, the app manages to remain flexible by giving you a choice over the kinds of notifications you'd like to receive, and over the partner services you'd prefer to use to send a photo, video, or shorten a URL.

Sure, it's blurry (blaming the BlackBerry camera), but squint hard enough and you'll see that Seesmic associated a picture with my account that's not actually my face.

(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The biggest flaws we've noticed so far? ... Read more

Google co-founder Sergey Brin

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's dual-pronged operating-system strategy will likely produce a single OS down the road, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Many Google observers were puzzled when the company announced plans for Chrome OS in July, coming amid growing acceptance of the company's Android operating-system project as a smartphone and Netbook OS. After all, why design an open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the personal computing experience when you're currently developing another open-source operating system with the goal of reinventing the mobile computing experience?

Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own.

But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.

It's not clear when Google thinks it might want to merge the projects, but it seems to be eyeing a future in which the smartphones currently served by Android meld into the Netbooks Google has in mind for Chrome OS. Of course, Brin's vision might not necessarily be shared by all members of the Google management team.

"As Sundar [Pichai, Google's vice president of product management] said in his presentation, we're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small computers," Google said in a statement in response to questions about how and when the two projects would merge. "Having two open source operating systems from Google provides both users and device manufacturers with more choice and helps contribute a wealth of new code to the open source community."

Any future combination of Chrome OS and Android could be aimed at a new type of device distinct from Android's smartphones or Chrome OS's Netbooks.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

This also allows Google to pick and choose the best ideas to emerge from each project, setting up a bit of friendly internal competition to develop new operating-system technologies. The main difference is that while Android is a shipping product, Chrome OS is still very much in the research stage, with devices not expected until late 2010.

It's way too early to know how that pending convergence will affect development for the different operating systems, as it seems pretty clear Google is spending most of its time at the moment building out each one separately.

But Brin--no idle bystander--believes at some point, Google will emerge with one next-generation operating system.

Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3, Google Chrome 4, Apple's Safari 4, and Opera 10 include features that block sites known to host malware and malicious downloads. All but Opera also let you browse without leaving any tracks. But just as important as these protections is ensuring that whichever browser you use is thoroughly patched.

Filtering out bad sites
Firefox's built-in antiphishing tool claims to update its bad-site database 48 times a day, according to Mozilla's Firefox security page. Firefox 3 uses Google's Safe Browsing service to automatically block sites that are known to host malware. The Google Code site describes how Safe Browsing works in Firefox.

To verify that attack-site blocking is enabled in Firefox, click Tools > Options > Security and make sure "Block reported attack sites" is checked.

Firefox will prevent known-bad sites from opening when "Block reported attack sites" is checked.

(Credit: Mozilla Foundation)

The same feature is built into Google's own Chrome browser. You can ensure that malware-site filtering is on in Chrome by clicking the wrench icon in the top-right corner, choosing Options, and selecting Under the Hood. "Enable phishing and malware filtering" should be checked. The Google Chrome Help site describes the feature. (Hint: This page looks very similar to the description on the Google Code site.)

Google's Chrome browser blocks known-bad sites when "Enable phishing and malware protection" is checked.

(Credit: Google)

The SmartScreen technology in version 8 of Internet Explorer blocks known-malicious downloads as well as bad URLs. Other new security features in IE 8 include automatic blocking of click-jacking and cross-site scripting attacks, automatic crash recovery, and highlighting of the actual domain name in the address bar. The Microsoft Security site describes the SmartScreen Filter and includes links to a SmartScreen FAQ and information for site managers.

Apple's Safari browser added phishing and malware blocking in version 3.2, which was released in late 2008; read about this and other security features in Safari 4 on the Apple Safari site. Likewise, Opera's Fraud Protection predates the phishing and malware filters in IE and Firefox and is enhanced in the latest version 10. But attack-site blocking is only one of Opera's many security features, which you can read about on the Opera site.

Browsing in private
To activate private browsing in Firefox 3, click Tools > Start Private Browsing, or simply press Ctrl-Shift-P. You can set Firefox to start in private-browsing mode by clicking Tools > Options > Privacy and check "Automatically start Firefox in a private browsing session." The Mozilla support site provides more information about this feature. Likewise, put IE 8 in private-browsing mode by clicking Safety > InPrivate Browsing, or by pressing Ctrl-Shift-P. You can also open a new tab and click either Browse with InPrivate or Open an InPrivate Window.

IE 8 also lets you control the information about your browsing habits that's shared with Web tracking services. To activate this feature, click Tools > InPrivate Filtering Settings and choose "Let me choose which providers receive my information." This opens the InPrivate Filtering settings dialog, where you can turn filtering off, choose which services to block from tracking you, or automatically block all trackers.

Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate Filtering lets you block some or all Web tracking services.

(Credit: Microsoft)

You can open an incognito window in Google Chrome by clicking the wrench icon in the top-right corner and choosing "New incognito window," or simply press Ctrl-Shift-N. The incognito icon (a shadow figure in a fedora and glasses) appears in the top-left corner of the browser window. The Chrome support site offers a more detailed description of this feature.

Opera lacks an equivalent private-browsing capability but does offer private searching and other identity-blocking features, as described on the Opera site. To activate private browsing in Safari, simply click Safari Settings Menu > Private Browsing.

Automatic and not-so-automatic browser updates
Patching is a way of life with nearly all software, but especially with browsers and the media players associated with them: Adobe Reader, the Flash Player, Apple's QuickTime, and Sun's Java, among others. All of a browser's security features can be rendered useless by a piece of malware that takes advantage of an unpatched hole in the program.

Firefox 3 alerts users to the presence of an update and now also notifies you when your Flash Player is out-of-date. Internet Explorer 8 updates via the Windows Update/Microsoft Update services. Google Chrome made a splash by being the first browser to update itself in the background without requiring any prompting from users. Safari updates automatically via Apple's update service, which also serves up patches automatically for QuickTime, iTunes, and other Apple software. Opera also notifies you automatically when a new version is available.

But updating is too important to leave to others. Back in April, I described Secunia's Online Software Inspector and downloadable Personal Software Inspector, which identify out-of-date programs on your PC. The programs mentioned in that post have all been updated since, but Secunia's services should point you to the most recent versions.

(Note that Secunia sometimes reports a program as being out-of-date when in fact you have the latest version. On my PC, it continually reports my up-to-date Flash Player as being in need of an update, for example. But the free service Secunia provides is worth putting up with this and similar minor annoyances.)

An example of Brizzly's new tweet translation.

(Credit: Brizzly)

Web-based Twitter client Brizzly made a dual announcement Friday: first, it's opened up into a full public beta mode (previously, an invite code was required); and second, it can now translate tweets into your default language on the site.

To translate a tweet in Brizzly--which already expands links, videos, and photos posted to Twitter, creating a more visual experience--you can click on a question mark for an instant translation. This is interesting, as Twitter has made its first moves recently in launching translated versions of the service (starting with Spanish), meaning that there will potentially be many more non-English tweets flowing through the system. It uses Google Translate, so needless to say, it's not totally perfect.

Brizzly added Facebook Connect support last month.

Twitter's geolcation API in action.

(Credit: Twitter/Birdfeed)

Twitter has now launched the geotagging API, or application programming interface, that it announced in August.

Users now have the option to opt-in to geolocation by clicking a box in their settings menu, according to Twitter. For now, the company said, the impact of geotagging will be in third-party apps. Users won't see a difference to Twitter.com just yet.

Twitter contends that including a user's location when he or she tweets could significantly add to its microblogging service. The company wrote in a blog post that the new feature should allow users to "better focus in on local conversations."

Several third-party tools, including Birdfeed, Seesmic Web, and Twittelator Pro are already supporting geolocation, Twitter said. It should be interesting to see how other developers will incorporate location-based information into their apps.

Adobe Systems on Saturday will be unveiling a slightly sleeker version of its Acrobat.com hosted-application service.

The site, which combines a number of tools, including word processing, PDF conversion, spreadsheets, and live Web meetings, has been reworked with a new architecture the company says will help it scale beyond its 6 million existing users. Currently, it is garnering about 100,000 sign-ups a week, with about half those coming from the United States.

Saturday's release includes 35 new features, all of which have been suggested by Adobe's customers through its Reddit-like Ideas page, which lets anyone vote up or down user-generated suggestions. The most notable addition is a new organizer, which consolidates all of the user's files and projects saved on Adobe's servers.

In a phone call with CNET earlier this month, Acrobat.com Director of Project Management Rick Treitman, said the organizer was the No. 1 most requested user feature. "It used to be confusing. We had three organizers, or places where users could organize files. Now there's one," he said.

The new file organizer adds some subtle changes, the most apparent being a white background, which goes against the company's infatuation with using black or dark-gray backgrounds in its products, but which makes it easier to differentiate the text and file types. Treitman said users overwhelmingly complained about it being too dark and hard to read.

Users also wanted a way to search through their files, Treitman said, so the company has added file-searching capability, albeit at a limited capacity. You can, for example, search by file name, but not within the contents of each individual file, something Treitman says is planned for a future release.

The new file organizer, a sea of white, features a new search tool that lets users wade through their files.

(Credit: Adobe Systems/CNET)

Other organizational niceties include a way to create lists, which Treitman compared to the playlist feature in Apple's iTunes software, since you can add files to multiple lists without changing their organization in your main file explorer. Files can either be dragged and dropped into these lists, or added through a right-click contextual menu.

Along with improvements to Acrobat.com, Adobe is also launching its first mobile application for the site, designed for iPhones and BlackBerry handsets. The app itself was actually built by ScanR, and it looks about the same as the company's existing mobile tool. It lets users view and convert any file they have stored on Adobe's servers, as well as convert it into a PDF or send it as a fax. Users can also snap a photo with their camera and have it sent straight to their Adobe storage.

Treitman told us the next big plan for Acrobat.com is to add a work spaces feature that offers an area in which multiple users can collaborate on documents at once and keep track of any changes made. This should bode well for the company's business users, who may have been wooed by tools from Google or Box.net, the latter of which is doing more and more to keep its users within the confines of its file storage service with features like a built-in document editor and a news feed that tracks collaborators' changes.

The new features will not change the price of Adobe's Acrobat.com paid services, which run anywhere from $15 a month to $390 a year, depending on which of the two plans users choose.

The judge overseeing the Google Books case has laid out the schedule for the second round of the final approval process, at the same time granting preliminary approval of the revised deal.

Like before, opponents of Google's settlement with groups representing authors and publishers will have a comment period in which to file objections, and books rights holders who want to preserve their abilty to sue Google for scanning their books will have an opt-out deadline. The final hearing is set for February 18 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

After numerous interest groups and the Department of Justice objected to Google's original settlement over digital books scanning, the parties submitted a revised settlement late Friday night that amended the size of the class affected by the deal and wrote into the document explicit guarantees regarding access to the scanned material that were previously mere promises.

This wasn't enough to satisfy Google's most persistent critics, however, who will likely fill Judge Denny Chin's mailbox with objections to the revised settlement much the same way they did prior to the original September deadline. After the DOJ filed its own set of objections, final approval of the settlement was delayed until the parties could work out something more amenable to the government.

Opponents will have until January 28th to file objections with the court. That's also the same date for affected class members to decide whether or not they would like to opt out of the amended agreement.

Rights holders who opted out of the previous agreement also have until January to decide if they would like to opt into the revised agreement, otherwise the court will assume they still wish to opt out. Those who missed the deadline the first time around have a second chance to opt out by January 28th.

Google released a statement regarding the court filing. "The preliminary approval order sends a positive initial message; this agreement promises to benefit readers and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to distribute their content in digital form. We remain hopeful that the agreement will receive final approval from the court and will realize the goal of significantly expanding online access to works through Google Book Search, an ambitious effort to make millions of books searchable via the Web."

The Open Books Alliance, which has vigorously opposed the settlement, weighed in a little later with a statement of their own.

"Today, in an expected procedural move, Judge Denny Chin granted preliminary approval to the revised Settlement of Google's copyright infringement lawsuit. This is not a surprising development and is not any indication that the court will or will not accept the terms of Settlement 2.0. The same procedural preliminary approval was given to Settlement 1.0, and now sets up a court process that will allow those opposed to the revised settlement to let their objections known to the court. The U.S. Department of Justice has until February 4th to weigh in with the court, as their investigation into the matter continues."

Offerpal Media, one of the companies at the center of a bitter dispute over misleading advertisements on social networks, on Thursday launched a revised policy designed to "forbid any offers that are misleading, deceptive or otherwise objectionable."

Companies like Offerpal are enlisted by many of the big gaming companies built on social networks like Facebook; they help those companies make money by letting game players earn points and virtual goods by completing offers and surveys rather than paying real money.

They make a lot of money doing so. So do the game companies, like Zynga and Playfish (recently acquired by Electronic Arts), which in turn advertise heavily on the likes of Facebook to recruit new players.

But then the negative press started to emerge: many of these "free" offers and surveys actually had hidden costs attached to them that weren't adequately disclosed. Some companies like Zynga started backtracking and going so far as to ban offers altogether. Facebook and MySpace, the two biggest social-network platforms, made very public revisions to their policies. But the controversy continued, and both Facebook and Zynga were named as defendants in a federal class-action lawsuit.

Offerpal, which replaced its CEO amid the controversy, has now come out and said that while it's setting a basic standard for advertisement quality, game makers and publishers enlisting Offerpal's services can opt to be even more stringent. "Offerpal will rate all offers by quality and allow its partners to select a quality level of compliance ranging from 'Level 1' for minimal restrictions to 'Level 5' for highly conservative restrictions," a release explained.

Will the new restrictions keep angry bloggers and consumers--not to mention lawmakers--at bay? More importantly, are they going to amount to anything more than smoke and mirrors? We'll see.