This week I would like to go over some new changes in the tech world become before diving into the main feature of this article: the release of Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4.
Recently, the tech world has been abuzz with a rather broad array of developments, aside from the commotion caused by the release of Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4. Google’s co-founder Larry Page became the new CEO of Google on April 4, taking over from Tim Cook. Over the next few months, we will see how that pans out.
Acer’s CEO also stepped down recently amid conflicts over the future direction of the company. Acer will now be “more like Apple, less like HP.” It will be interesting to see how this brand will change its image and discard the cheap label.
In mildly related news, Google has also been busy with its proposed gigabit network that it plans to build in Kansas City, Kan. The company chose Kansas City over Topeka, Kan. This is ironic if we consider that Topeka had changed its official name to Google, Kan.
Gmail also had a nice April Fool’s Day gaff with the introduction of Gmail Motion, which will purportedly use body gestures to compose and send e-mails. It was just crazy enough yet plausible enough to be something that Google would do.
Panasonic made a splash with the release of the first rewriteable 100 gigabyte Blu-ray XL discs. Though, to be honest, portable hard drives have far outpaced optical media at this point, and flash drives are steadily climbing in size.
Speaking of Blu-ray drives, the entire Star Wars saga will be released on Blu-ray on Sept. 16 later this year, for the truly fanatical.
Tech news would not be complete without some Apple rumors. Sources claim that the next generation iPod Nano will, once again, be adorned with a camera. The camera was removed from this generation’s Nano, but it appears as if Apple may be reconsidering that decision. Furthermore, Sony’s CEO let slip that they were manufacturing cameras for Apple.
This was a rather important piece of news because Sony had been widely speculated to be the source of Apple’s cameras. This fact, however, could never be confirmed.
Of course, Apple can never be left alone. Everyone wants to be the new Apple of the industry. Amazon has recently pre-empted Apple and is offering a new service called Amazon Cloud, giving all users 5 gigabytes of free space to stream data from. This includes both music and media. If you buy an album of music, you get bumped up to 20 gigabytes of space per year. Most people have Amazon accounts; if you do not, they are free to create.
Therefore, there is no excuses for not having your data backed up when your computer crashes. The new feature can be checked out on the Amazon homepage.
And now, onto the main discussion: Browser wars!
Microsoft recently released Internet Explorer 9 into the wild, and coincidentally, Mozilla has pushed out its release of Firefox 4. While Internet Explorer is the reigning heavyweight in the browser marketshare, Firefox has established a loyal following and users are quick to help you change over should you express any amount of interest.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) brings the default Windows web browser up to speed with other browsers. It is the first time we see a browser from Microsoft that is not only useable, but comparable and possibly even competitive with other browsers out there.
IE9 matches or exceeds other browsers in important factors such as safety, speed and compatibility with web standards, which have been exceedingly lacking in the past.
It also features an “inPrivate” browsing mode which is now offered on nearly all major browsers, as well as hardware graphics acceleration. IE9 also is, extensibility for the first time, allowing for add-ons to enhance the functionality of the browser, depending on users’ tastes. Firefox offers all of these features as well, but has a few more tricks up its sleeve.
In addition to an extensive catalogue of add-ons and extensions that have been developed and tweaked over the past decade, Mozilla brings a unique new feature to the table called Panorama. This allows users to see their tabs in a sort of “exposé” view (for Mac users). In other words, you can “zoom out” on your tabs.
Furthermore, you can group your tabs into “tab groups” allowing you to really organize your work. And you can name them too. Here’s the kicker: when you are viewing one tab group, you will only see the tabs from that tab group at the top of your window. So it’s like having just those tabs open. But then you can go into Panorama view and jump to a different tab group, enabling you to switch out your tabs from a completely new set of tabs. It’s useful for switching between contexts as well as switching between researching your essay and shopping for a new camera. It’s really quite impressive and is definitely worth trying out.
IE9 has its own unique features. These include the ability to pin a website to the Windows taskbar, which would allow you to open a new browser window straight into that page. It is really not that different from just clicking a shortcut to a webpage, but Microsoft wants to make a big deal out of it.
It is possible that it will make use of HTML5 offline storage data in that case and make those links actually useful. The other interesting feature that sets IE9 apart at the moment is the ability to opt-out of being tracked by websites.
Most browsers do not offer this option by default. IE9 has really stepped up the performance, reliability, and power for Microsoft’s browser, and it shows. The browser no longer looks like a dinosaur compared to other browsers, and it will run with the best of them.
Both Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 bring some unique features to the table. From Panorama to pinning websites to purely raw performance, these two browsers vie for your attention. Which one you use is up to you.
I’m currently still in the process of trying out both, as they seem to each have their own application. A lot of enterprise and business websites and logins require Internet Explorer, so that has come in handy. However, there have been a few times where the website didn’t recognize the new IE9 browser for what it was and failed.
Finally, this may signal that we are reaching an end to the era of poor browser performance for Internet Explorer in general. However, it could also just be the beginning of a new era of serious competition.
