Windows 8 Beta Candidate Build 8220.

With the upcoming Windows 8 Beta release (set for February), a leak from PCBeta has revealed some of the interesting features and changes.

Now, we won’t go too deeply into the Windows 8 itself, which no longer has the start menu orb and now includes a Ribbon like Windows Explorer, but looking at the screenshots below, you can see at least one new Internet Explorer 10 feature, which is:

When viewing the “About” window, IE10 now has an option to enable/disable auto updates.

Overall, it looks like the UI is yet to be updated for the desktop version of Internet Explorer 10.

[Via: PCBeta]

Back in 2011, we’ve posted an article called “Alternative Windows Phone 7 Web Browsers? We Need Them“, where I complained about the lack of web page compression in the mobile version of Internet Explorer.

Well, I went a step further and sent few emails to Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, suggesting him to add Opera Turbo like feature for the upcoming IE10. He replied something along the lines of “Thanks, I’ll think about that”.

Turns out, Windows Phone 8 version of the Internet Explorer will in fact feature web page compression technology. According to a few recently leaked details (some of them were just confirmed by Microsoft insider), the software giant will use proxy servers that are set to reduce the web pages site by as much as 30%.

Nokia Lumia 900

And if you are wondering what else is coming, check the following list:

Windows Phone 8 Features

• Support for dual cores
• Support for four different resolutions, though no specifics were given
• NFC support added, including payment and content sharing with WP8 and Windows 8 machines
• Carrier control and branding of “wallet” element is possible via SIM or phone hardware
• MicroSD support added for expandable storage
• Transitions to core components from desktop, including kernel, network stack, security components and media support
• Simplified porting of desktop apps to mobile
• Zune desktop integration scrapped in favor of new, unnamed syncing app
• Deeper Skydrive integration, including ability to sync data such as music collections
• Xbox Companion app will get Windows 8 partner client
• Native code support, simplified porting from Android and iOS
• App-to-app communication and integration
• Skype client with deep OS hooks that will make it almost identical to placing standard voice calls
• Camera app now supports “lenses” which allow third parties to skin and add features to camera interface
• DataSmart tracks and reports usage via app and live tile
• Gives preferential treatment to WiFi, can automatically connect to carrier-owned hotspots
• Proxy server will compress websites in Internet Explorer 10 up to 30 percent
• Native Bitlocker encryption
• Support for proprietary, custom built apps to be deployed behind company firewalls

Now, obviously I had nothing to do with such feature integration, but hey, it doesn’t hut to think that way.

[Via: Engadget, PocketNow]

Back in 2011, we reported that Microsoft will ditch plugins support from its Immersive Internet Explorer browser in favor of the HTML5.

Now, software giant reports that when the touch friendly version of IE detects some sort of plugin, Flash for example, it will offer them a one click option to switch to the desktop version of IE10.

How exactly will this happen? See the screenshot below

According to Program Manager, John Hrvatin, “This mechanism provides a short-term mitigation. The desktop browsing experience and most plug-ins were not designed for smaller screens, battery constraints, and no mouse. Providing an easy way to the Windows desktop is the last resort when no comparable plug-in free fallback content exists.”

It’s February already as we look at the January’s browsers marker share numbers. As it turns out, there were few substantial differences for major vendors.

For the first time since eternity, Internet Explorer has actually increased its share from 47.76% to 48.16% (0.4 point jump). Is IE cool again?

Continuing its steady downtrend, Firefox has now less than 20% of the market share as it dropped from 20.09% to 18.97% (1.12 point decrease).

Just as we thought that Google Chrome will continue to grow forever and ever, its market share has deceased for the very first time ever, down from 17.58% to 17.20% (0.38 point decrease). Such change deserves this:

With all the iPhones and iPads sold that include Safari, Apple’s web browser user base grew by 0.6 point, up from 8.67% to 9.27%.

After few shaky months and market share increase last time, Opera’s user base grew by 0.01 point, up from 1.66% to 1.67%.

What about Opera’s mobile web browser? Actually, Opera Mini is doing quite well, this time its share increased by 0.1 point, up from 1.89% to 1.98%.

That is all for today, folks.

Available for IE9 as well.

Back in 2011, Microsoft has revealed a Compact Inspector feature for Internet Explorer 9, which allows web developers to quickly notice the IE’s platform changes and tweak sites accordingly.

Now, with the new Metro UI overtaking pretty much everything, the software giant has revealed a tweaked version specifically for IE10 and as you might have guessed, it does use Metro tiles.

In case you are using the developer preview of Internet Explorer 10, simply add the following line of code to your web site (before any other scripts) and click on the following widget

src="http://ie.microsoft.com/TestDrive/HTML5/CompatInspector/inspector.js">

Don’t forget to include the script tags.

And if you have no intentions on using it, there is a Test Drive web site, which allows you to play with the new Compat Inspector.

Back in 2011, Google has launched a HTML5 based Angry Birds game, which could be played for free with a WebGL compatible web browser.

Now, Microsoft has decided to follow Google’s lead and promote Internet Explorer in a similar fashion. As a result, “Cut the Rope”, a highly popular game on various mobile devices has been ported to HTML5.

If you are not familiar with this game, it’s really pretty straight forward, all you have to do is cut the rope and hope to catch all the yellow starts during the outcome.

With a total of 25 levels, it sure looks like a nice game to burn some of your precious time.

Play Cut The Rope.

With the Firefox 10, Opera 12 and Internet Explorer 10 releases just around the corner, guys from TomsHardware have decided to test the latest stable builds of the top 5 web browsers on both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Lion.

How did your favorite web browser perform? Let’s find out.

Tested versions

Internet Explorer 9
Firefox 9
Google Chrome 16
Opera 11.60
Safari 5.1.2

Startup Time Performance Benchmarks

JavaScript Performance Benchmarks

HTML5 Performance Benchmarks

Harware Acceleration Performance Benchmarks

Conclusion

Even though Firefox did not beat other browsers most of the time, its consistency and strong score average has demonstrated how solid Mozilla’s web browser actually is. Therefore, as concluded by the TomsHardware journalists, the winner this time is Firefox 9, followed by Google Chrome 16 and Opera 11.60.

As far as Mac OS X benchmarks go, Safari still remains the web browser of choice.

[Thanks, Ichan]

IE team cooks another cake.

Following Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway, United States has joined a list of countries that have now less than 1% of the Internet Explorer 6 users.

To celebrate such occasion, Microsoft had to order another cake, which was probably eaten by the Steve Ballmer himself.

Obviously, the next question that you might want to ask is: what about other countries? Well, IE6 still has 7.7% of the global market share as in the China itself Internet Explorer 6 is still used by a whopping 25% of the users.

Want more details? Check the IE6 Countdown!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this]

It’s that time of the month again when we look at the market share results for the last month. How your favorite browser did finish the 2011 race? Let’s find out.

Already broken through the 50% barrier, Internet Explorer share continues the downtrend, this time it has decreased by 1.19 point, from 48.95% to 47.76%.

It looks like more releases did not really help Mozilla as Firefox is going in the same direction as IE, down from 20.58% to 20.09% (0.49 point decrease).

With every month passing by, Google Chrome is gearing towards the #2 spot in the market and has now increased its share by 0.68 point, up from 16.90% to 17.58%.

Thanks to Apple device sales, the happy days continue for the Safari web browser as its share has grown from 8.35% to 8.67% (0.32 point increase).

Despite overall downtrend, Opera has managed to rebound some of its losses and is now up by 0.11 point, all the way from 1.55% to 1.66%.

Opera Mini on the other hand has been doing well for quite some time and saw a generous 0.36 point increase, up from 1.53% to 1.89%.

That’s all for now, folks. What are your predictions for 2012?