Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in has been under attack in Web development circles for years, but now Adobe's Reader software is becoming more of a target in the war against plug-ins.

Mozilla released the with its own built-in PDF reader, called PDF.js, which uses the browser's own JavaScript engine to decode the Adobe-created but industry-standard document format.

The Portable Document Format for years was an awkward part of the Web, often ambushing the unwary with long page-load times as the Adobe Reader plug-in loaded. But PDFs have become more common, exposed in Google search results and used … Read more

Google released the stable version of Chrome 24 today, adding support for IndexedDB for apps that work better offline, mathematics formulas formatted with MathML, and faster JavaScript.

The new version also comes with a range of security fixes, including two $1,000 bounties and one $4,000 bounty paid to people who found high-severity vulnerabilities. Because Chrome automatically downloads updates by default in part to patch holes as fast as possible, people just need to restart the browser to update it.

IndexedDB, under development for years, is geared to store data for use even if a Web site or Web … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you want to make money off of apps, you must develop for mobile, right? Wrong, says SweetLabs' Chester Ng, who points to his company's success with its OpenCandy project to help developers earn a living.

The problem is both cultural as well as logistical, Ng said in an interview outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. Desktop software, especially on Windows, has a long history of being developed as freeware. But pitching a secondary software purchase to the user during the installation process had been poisoned, he said.

"The problem is that developers don't like the … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The Latitude 10 tablet, which runs the full version of Windows 8, now starts at $499, Dell said today.

Dell claims it's the "first full-featured, enterprise-ready Windows 8 tablet experience at a price below $500."

True or not, it's clear that, so far, the Windows 8 tablets out there have not been cheap compared to some of their Windows RT and Android rivals.

Specs include 32-bit Windows 8, a dual-core Intel Atom 1.8GHz Z2760 processor, 10.1" IPS (1,366x768) LCD, Corning Gorilla Glass, Capacitive 10 Finger Touch, 2GB SDRAM, and 32GB of … Read more

A new version of Firefox released today puts some extra speed into online games and Web apps powered by JavaScript, thanks to a new compiler called IonMonkey.

Mozilla stated in a blog post announcing the update to Firefox 18 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux) that the new engine makes JavaScript-powered Web sites run up to 25 percent faster than before.

Firefox will now look better on Macs thanks to new Retina support, and all versions of the browser work with W3C touch screen events in addition to MozTouch events.

One security change to the browser lets you disable insecure content … Read more

LAS VEGAS--PC and phone maker Lenovo announced a deal today with BlueStacks, the Android app player that lets Android apps run on Windows and Mac.

Lenovo joins a growing list of hardware manufacturers looking to the Silicon Valley startup to solve the problem of getting popular Android apps onto desktops and laptops. Although anybody can download BlueStacks, Lenovo will be shipping it on its consumer-focused Idea line starting in April.

BlueStacks' appeal may be partially one of perception, where mobile apps get a lot of consumer attention because of their connection to smartphone operating systems. But it's having a … Read more

Windows 8 PC sales aren't trending well, according to a new report. And consumers' addiction to low cost may be a factor.

A blurb on Friday from the NPD Group said Windows 8 holiday sales continue to not impress.

"The launch of Windows 8...did little to boost holiday sales or improve the yearlong Windows notebook sales decline," NPD said.

More specifically, Windows laptop "holiday unit sales" were down 11 percent year-to-year, the market researcher said.

Want more deets? The average selling price of a Windows laptop rose a hair -- $2 to $420, according … Read more

The evolution of the Web is a messy process.

We do so much with the Web today that it's easy to take it for granted. Banking, social networking, word processing, travel planning, education, shopping -- the Web is reaching to new domains and tightening its grip where it's already used. To match that expansion, the Web is evolving.

But the Web is built by countless individuals -- browser engineers who enable new technology, Web developers who bring that technology online, and standards group members who iron out compatibility wrinkles. With so many constituents, it's no wonder there'… Read more

VP9, the successor to Google's VP8 video compression technology at the center of a techno-political controversy, has made its first appearance outside Google's walls.

Google has built VP9 support into Chrome, though only in an early-stage version of the browser for developers. In another change, it also added support for the new Opus audio compression technology that's got the potential to improve voice communications and music streaming on the Internet.

VP9 and Opus are codecs, technology used to encode streams of data into compressed form then decode them later, enabling efficient use of limited network or storage … Read more