browsers

Mozilla once again needs a new chief executive.

The developer of Firefox and defender of open-Web principles announced today that after two and a half years as CEO, Gary Kovacs will step down this year. He'll remain on the organization's board, and Mozilla is beginning a search for a new CEO immediately.

Mozilla Foundation Chair Mitchell Baker credited Kovacs for helping bring the nonprofit organization into the mobile era, releasing a version of Firefox for Android devices and debuting, if not quite yet shipping, the Firefox OS for smartphones. That mobile presence remains just a foothold, though, with … Read more

It seems like just last week that Google was rolling out updates for its Chrome browser for iOS.

In fact, it was: Last week, Google added sharing and history features to Chrome for iOS.

Yesterday, Google brought a few more worthwhile features to its mobile browser: support for AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, and full-screen browsing. Version 26.0.1410.50 also lets you save any Web page as a PDF to your Google Drive account.

Full-screen browsing works just like in Safari: When you scroll up, the Omnibox (i.e., address bar) disappears to give you a bit more viewing … Read more

Sure, technology decisions often are the result of personal predilection, political scheming, and inter-company rivalries. But cold hard data still can win the day -- and that's the main reason why Mozilla is reconsidering its earlier decision not to support Google's WebP image format.

Specifically, new data shows that Google isn't just blowing smoke when it promised that using WebP lets Web site operators save precious bytes when it's sending Web-page data to browsers. Smaller file sizes mean that browsers can show Web pages faster, that Web site operators cut bandwidth usage, and that people with … Read more

The idea behind Browser with Note for iPad is good. Add a memo box to a browser so users can jot notes while browsing, instead of flipping back and forth between Safari and a note app. However, the execution is lacking in many ways, and this app, which is devoid of features, is clogged with a space- stealing ad, and buggy on more than a handful of Web sites.

When you open the new browser, you'll be greeted with a Google landing page, back button, address bar, memo box, and "mail" button. The idea is that as … Read more

Mozilla is taking a new look at the WebP image format it once rejected after some large Web sites encouraged the Firefox developer to take a fresh look and after Google released a freshly upgraded version.

WebP, which derived from the VP8 video compression technology in the WebM project Google launched three years ago, is part of the search giant's effort to speed up the Web. In WebP's case, that speedup comes through use of an image compression technology Google says produces more compact files than either JPEG or PNG.

WebP can be used where both JPEG and … Read more

CSS Variables, a handy technology to ease Web page programming, could be one casualty in Safari with Google moving its resources to its browser engine, Blink.

Google engineers wanted to "fork" the WebKit browser engine project that underlies both Safari and Chrome so they could accelerate the pace of Chrome development and adopt changes too extensive to fit into a single open-source project. Even though splitting Blink away from WebKit may make each browser engine more nimble, it also means it's harder to cooperate.

That's because common features must be developed and maintained by duplicate teams … Read more

The WebKit browser engine is becoming a less flexible foundation for open-source projects with the departure of Google from the project this week and Apple's consequent paring back of the project.

WebKit is a broad project that includes participation from many interested parties -- not just Apple and Google, but also BlackBerry, Samsung, Amazon, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and the programmers involved with the KDE and Gnome user interfaces for Linux. Indeed, the open-source project began as KDE's KHTML engine for the Konqueror browser before Apple got involved.

Google's Chrome team left WebKit this week, forking the open-source … Read more

Review: Firefox for Android used to be a must-use mainly for Firefox fans. It was good at what it did, but it wasn't great, and the competitive field of Android browsers surpassed it on many levels.

In response, Mozilla spent the better part of a year redesigning the browser from the ground up. The new Firefox for Android brings an interface powered by native code, competitive page-load times, and Flash support. As important for Mozilla is that the sum of the new browser's parts will keep its flagship brand relevant on Android as Chrome for Android grows.

New … Read more

Blink, Google's new fork of the WebKit browser engine, is alive.

Yesterday, Google announced the project, which splits its browser work from Apple's in the open-source WebKit project. Today, Blink is up and running.

The first updates -- including a new list of 36 Blink "owners" who have authority to approve changes -- are arriving.

"Chrome 28 will be the first blinking release," Chrome programmer Mike West said in a Hacker News comment. The current stable version of Chrome is version 26; new versions arrive about every six weeks.

"The repository seems to … Read more