Internet Explorer 8 is here!

Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer, just received its major update on Thursday, March 19, 2009. It has been in Beta for quite a while and the RTW (Release to Web) is finally here. It received a full 5 stars on CNET Download.com however its far from perfect. IE is easily the most popular browser obviously because it is bundled with Microsoft Windows. However, new features are not enough to drag users away from alternatives like Firefox. IE's market share will still be chipped away.

Internet Explorer 8:
85/100 (Great)
Worth Trying. Most Secure and Fastest IE Version Yet.

New Features:
Find out all new features and screenshots by clicking here.

Private Browsing (inPrivate):
A feature being added to most browsers. Web history, cookies, cache are deleted when the browser window closes.

Relative Color Coded Tabs:
A feature from IE7, tabs are color coded depending on where they are opened from. Middle click to open links in new tab, just like in any tabbed browser.

Web Slices:
A unique feature of IE8 and no other browser even with add-ons. View active live feeds rather than just the title of a web page. Examples include Suggested Sites, eBay bidding right from Favorites bar, and more.

Accelerators:
A unique feature of IE8 and no other browser. Highlight any term or phrase or easily search the term from a particular search engine. Accelerators, like add-ons can easily be installed.

Add-ons and Extensions:
At the Official IE8 Add-ons site, there is a large collection of add-ons like Firefox. However, unlike Firefox, they require administrative permissions on Vista and Windows 7 to install for they install for all users, which is significantly more difficult than Firefox. In addition, the collection is not as large.

Compatibility Viewing Mode:
A feature that was used in Beta and RC1 for viewing web pages designed for older browsers. However, its a bit strange how its still here for sites like Google and the browser is considered a final release.

SmartScreen Filter:
Basically an improvement of the Phishing Filter. Like Firefox, also protects from malware sites. Test it here. This site is NOT a real phishing site. Try clicking Continue. It doesn't work. Contoso Bank is a MICROSOFT made up company to test their filter. Don't worry, the site does no harm at all. Note that the filter might not be turned on by default.

Smart Location Bar:
More options are available in the location bar.

Smart Search Bar:
Search suggestions including a preview on various searches such as Wikipedia available.

Crash Recovery:
When the browser crashes, the tabs can be restored.

Tab Isolation:
A feature available in Google Chrome: Each tab (but not plugin like Chrome) is ran as its own process so they can't affect each other. However this often causes high resource consumption.

Domain Highlighting:
Main domains are highlighted to identify fake sites. Available in Firefox through the Locationbar² add-on. IE8's and Locationbar²'s version is more powerful than Chrome's. In Chrome, even sub-domains are highlighted which partially defeats the purpose of the domain highlighting.

Delete Browsing History:
Just like older versions, deleting history takes forever. It not only opens 2 progress windows, then closes one after a few seconds, it takes at least 15 seconds, compared to less than 3 seconds on other browsers.

Installation:
Requires a restart which is a bit annoying.

Performance:
Faster than older versions, but still quite slow. Its also slow just like IE7 in opening new tabs.

Web Standards Support:
IE8 is the last of the popular browsers to pass Acid2. However, it still fails miserably at Acid3. When the test first starts, a text box with source code opens with a score of 12 on the back. Then after around 10 seconds, the box goes away increasing the score to 20. It loads the boxes in the correct position this time however, this was not the case in IE7 (which fails miserably at both tests). IE currently scores the lowest of all the major browsers.

After around 10 more seconds:
Acid3 Score Comparison:
Firefox 3 (Gecko): 71/100 (FAIL)
Firefox 3.1 Beta (Gecko): 93/100 (FAIL)

Chrome 1 (Webkit): 79/100 (FAIL)
Chrome 2 Beta (Webkit): 100/100 however does not pass other parts (FAIL)

Safari 3 (Webkit): 75/100 (FAIL)
Safari 4 Beta (Webkit): 100/100 (PASS)

Opera 9 (Presto): 85/100 (FAIL)
Opera 10 Alpha (Presto): 100/100 (PASS)

Internet Explorer 7 (Trident): 14/100 and also destroys the rest of the page (FAILS miserably)
Internet Explorer 8 (Trident): 20/100 (FAIL-See screenshot above)

Even if you never intend on using IE, I recommend updating anyway as it is tightly integrated with your computer and it would make your whole computer safer. However, it still carries IE's reputation of being slow at security patches, one of the lowest on web standards, etc... For a safe and speedy and fully customized web experience, get Mozilla Firefox as your main browser.

Update to Internet Explorer 8 today!

Get Mozilla Firefox, the award winning browser, as your default main browser.


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PortableApps 1.5 Released

PortableApps.Com
Of course, this came out a long while ago. But I forgot to check my feeds and therefore...

PortableApps, for those that don't know, are a collection of free, open source applications, similar to U3-enabled flash drives. They are bundled with a launcher for on-the-go access, especially via memory card or flash drive.
Some of the more popular applications that have been converted to portable applications include Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Pidgin, Sumatra PDF, and OpenOffice.org, but the PortableApps.com database is huge and includes tens of more applications; at least one hundred.

The PortableApps.com 1.5 in question here is PortableApps' launcher/client. 1.5 includes a bunch of new features, including a new display engine (and new customizable themes, coming in the next release), application renaming and icon hiding, more language support (37 languages at the moment), wallpaper swapping, and more.

See here for more details.

The Baron's Classics the Second

Tally Ho, old chaps. I present before thee another ingenious invention. It is a classic in the sense that it's quite simple, and yet quite functional and practical.

I clarify that it is not the steam-powered grenade depicted to the right, though it does satisfy both requirements of simple and functional.

AutoClick 2.2

It has acquired the functionality of a variety of automated clicking apparati, yet a few features have deemed it "a notch higher" than the remaining assortment of programs of its kind.

For one, it has a hotkey. It is surprising the quantity of auto-clickers, if you will, that lack a hotkey of sorts. This is multiplied in utility when coupled with Windows Hider

Basic functionality is included. Additionally, the species of click is entirely customizable, encompassing such permutations like a double right click. The hotkey may be decided upon entirely by the user. Click Interval is simply defined as 'awesome'. If one has mind to, one may play something of a practical joke with windows hider and Autoclick. Set the hours as high as you can be bothered to place it. Following that, define the Freeze Pointer value as True. Or click the button. Hide Autoclick. Observe the 'lulz' ensue.

Smart Click is the piece de resistance of this rather simple little package. Personally, I've only made 'practical' usage of this contrivance with a flipbook of sorts, when I cannot be bothered to create one by my own hands. The 'engrish' is questionable, but the digital appliance is a quality tool.

iPhone SDK 3.0 is out for developers

The new firmware for the iPhone has come out for developers, and is to come to the end users by later this year around summer. The newest features are really interesting and should make you reconsider if you want to get it or not if you have an iPod Touch. In recent weeks, the iPod Touch 2g has finally been jailbroken, and that allows you all to use it for homebrew purposes and now once the official supported jailbreaks come out, I am all for jailbreak. However, once summer rolls around and the 3.0 SDK is released for purchase, the iPhone owners will surely upgrade and then wait for the jailbreak for 3.0 to come out, but it will probably pose a harder change for iPod touch owners.
Among the newest features from apple with the newest firmware, we find copy, cut and paste, landscape mode for notes, and mail, accessory support, and many other features.
[via Apple iPhone 3.0 preview event]
Update: You know that bluetooth chip that we all found in the iPod Touch 2G for the Nike+ when we were taking them apart? It turns out that that chip was really a bluetooth chip, and when firmware 3.0 finally comes out, we the proud iPod Touch 2G users will be able to use bluetooth enabled headphones.

Today the iPhone OS 3.0 is coming

We all know how popular the iPhone and iPod touch products have been, and now today is the day that the third version of the iPhone operating system is to come. Read about it at the Gizmodo liveblog where the event will begin at 1PM EST.
On a different topic, do you need Microsoft office? Not willing to drop more than a hundred dollars? Do you have enough morals keeping you from pirating it? Are you a student at a school/college that gave you a school email? Then these deals are perfect for you at Microsoft.

[iPhone event via Gizmodo Live Blog]
[Ultimate deals via Microsoft student discounts]

UPDATE: Copy, cut and paste have finally been announced!!!

Assassin's Creed

Not the most recent games, so far, but also not very old. Assassin's Creed breaks new ground when it comes to the action/adventure genre.

Like the title implies, you're an assassin, named Altaïr and you have to assassinate people. This storyline takes place in the Holy Land in the Third Crusade. Lots of history.

Just so I won't spoil the plot, the game basically revolves about Altaïr trying to regain his honor, which he loses when he "compromises the brotherhood" (quote from Altaïr's master, himself, Al Mualim, leader of the assassins). Then, after every mission you complete, you gain another skill that will help you in your quest. Of course, being an assassin, guards and soldiers will try to kill you on sight, so you can either stay and fight them, or run. Either way, you have to escape and lose them. Leaving dead bodies everywhere in the city isn't exactly the ideal way of completing the game, but it'll earn you a few achievements for the Xbox 360. The combat isn't the best because it's really easy to win and the bad guys just stand there and attack one by one. It's hard in the beginning of the game, until you get the ability to counter attack. Then, they drop dead, one by one. You have a sword, a short blade (which includes a bunch of small knives you can you can use to throw at enemies, but you have to pickpocket thugs to restash your stock), your fists, and a hidden blade. It's awesome, especially when you realize that you can use that short blade in combat. You can't attack people with it, but when they attack you, you can counterattack, and there's this crazy awesome move that's an instant kill.

But the best part of the game is running around and climbing walls, better than monkeys and Spidermen. It's so realistic, you'd probably try to do that if you could. There's almost nothing you can't climb up to. Leaping across rooftops and fooling around is actually really fun. The cities are just as awesome. The people react to what you do, if you bump into them, attack them, or climb up a wall near them. I've heard this one, too many times: "God save him; he's gone mad." The coolest parts of the game are when you climb to the highest points in the game and then, the camera moves around so you can see everything below. It's crazy. And when you jump down to a stack of hay, it's almost thrilling, the first time you experience it.




Unfortunately, this game is very repetitive because of all the side mission you have to complete. You have to do the exact same things 9 times throughout the game, and it gets boring. You can choose to collect all the flags scattered around the areas, kill all the Templars, and save all the citizens, but it's not worth it, unless you want to earn some achievements on the Xbox 360. Either way, you have about 1000 flags to collect, 60 Templars to kill, quite a lot of citizens to save, and you honestly cannot get through all of them without searching online for maps. If you're like me, you've probably already done that. I collected all the flags, killed all the Templars, saved all the citizens, and got all the achievements. It took days. Don't do it, until you've finished the game. Better you have no flags at all, than 87/100 flags that you've found yourself.

I wouldn't recommend buying this game, but I would definitely recommend renting it.

To find more about this game, check out Gametrailers.com and you've GOT to check this trailer out: Veoh.com

Fallout 3

You've probably seen the commercials, or at least heard of this game, Fallout 3. Well, most of the video game addicts know that it's a shooter, and it looks cool. They're probably right.

The graphics in this game is really well designed. It really fits in well with the plotline (you're a guy who lives in a wasted land, where there's radiation everywhere, and you're looking for your missing dad). Of course, with all the missions (the important ones and the side missions, too), you really have no other option other than exploring everything they have in there. Unfortunately, of all these wonderfully designed areas, you don't have an option of leaving checkpoints on your map.

In Fallout 3, you have the option of changing perspectives, which is why I didn't say it was a first person shooter. You're also able to level up in many different areas and acquire different skills after playing the game for some time.

There's also an interesting targeting system where you can select a body part of your enemy as your target.




If you want to learn more about this game, check out Gametrailers.com for a more detailed review.

FSW Quick Tip 1: Windows Desktop Search not for you?

Welcome to the first of the weekly issue of FSW (Freedomstar Weekly) Quick Tip. Every Monday, a new quick tip will be provided to you. All software presented will be free of charge, though some may have a paid version with enhancements available. Most software will be multi-platform, although some may be Windows only. These quick tips will include a basic overview of hte product and a rating for it. A video presentation of this may be available in the future.

Is Microsoft Windows's built in desktop search too difficult for you? Are you looking for fast and efficient searching? Here are two useful programs with instant indexed search, and more.

Copernic Desktop Search:
This winner of CNET Editor's Choice Oct. 04 as well as numerous other awards. This software provides a pleasing tabbed interface and searches all your files on your hard drive. Unlike Google Desktop, it does not search the entire internet. It performs a one-time indexing of your whole hard drive upon install and then performs real time indexing as files are added and deleted. The personal non-commercial version is free although there are paid enhanced versions available. Compare them here.

The free version has flashy ads and gives you an alert of buying the pro version.

Pressing the web search button opens a Copernic Search Engine in your default web browser.

The installation took me 10 seconds with the configuration taking around 5. Searches can also be refined directly from the main search panel for each tab.

Unfortunately, the free version does NOT include search as you type a.k.a Instant Search and does not index network drives, both of which are possible with Google Desktop. Instant Search is partially available in Google Desktop. The preview list of results when you search is instant although the main search from the browser is not. It also lacks plugin support.

Copernic Desktop Search rating:
95/100 (Superior)

Google Desktop:
Google Desktop Search allows you to search your computer just like you would search Google. Instant search results are available and full results are viewed in the browser just like Google. A variety of files are supported for indexing including Gmail and Google Talk chats. You can also choose to have a search bar in your taskbar, deskbar floating around, or the full sidebar similar to Windows Sidebar where you can add numerous gadgets. These gadgets can also be detached. Gadgets include viewing YouTube videos, Weather, Gmail, and much much more. For more details, visit the official Google Desktop page.

Upon installing, it will perform a one time full indexing of your computer. Then after that, it will be performing real time indexing as new files come in. Fully customizable with additional plugins to support more file types.

Note: The version available with Google Pack/Updater appears to be higher than the latest version available at the main site. I recommend using Google created and certified gadgets for third party ones often cause Google Desktop startup to freeze a lot. Some computers may have Google Desktop pre-installed.

Google Desktop tends to use a lot of system resources sometimes with 2 processes.

Pressing Ctrl twice automatically launches a search bar to quickly find files or search the web. Very handy.

Note: If using Windows Vista with Aero enabled and no windows are maximized, the gadget button and search box will cause the taskbar to turn solid black as if a window is maximized rather than translucent. The gadget button also is quite buggy.

Google Desktop rating:
95/100 (Superior)

Personally, I use Google Desktop because it integrates smoothly with Google and it gives me an alternative to Windows Sidebar, although I'm considering on switching. However, Copernic Desktop Search is award winning and powerful. You decide. Which one will you use? Weighing the pros and cons of each, both received a rating of 95.

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Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is here!

After much delay, Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 is finally here! This pre release preview version includes numerous new features and will eventually be incorporated into Firefox 3.5.

New Features:

• Improved the new Private Browsing Mode.
• Improvements to web worker thread support.
• Improved performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
• New native JSON support.
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
• Support for new web technologies such as the
• Features in earlier versions can be found here: Beta 1 and Beta 2

Collection of screenshots of Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 3. As always, click images to enlarge. Note: The following screenshots contains only default features. No add-ons

Opening Screen and About Page. Notice the New Tab button is here w/o add-ons

Higher Acid3 Tests (93/100)

Private Browsing Feature improved in this beta:

Clear the History/Private Data from a selective period of time, like in Chrome:

Standard SSL Sites will now have the domain in blue.

OGG Videos don't require plugins or players to be played:

Other features of Firefox 3.1 include drag and drop tabs into new windows, Ctrl+Tab Tab switching (the Tab Switch Window like Windows Alt+Tab from Beta 1 coming back in future releases).

Download Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 3 today and help test the new versions of Firefox if you're interested. By default, it will install into a different directly than the standard Firefox. Therefore, it will not override your current Firefox installation, meaning you will still have your original Firefox installed. Remember that some of your add-ons might not have been updated to work with Firefox 3.1 Beta yet.

It is planned that the version be bumped up to 3.5 in future versions because this was originally planned to be a minor update however numerous new features triggered this decision.

If you don't want to try the beta but normal Firefox versions, download the stable released Mozilla Firefox 3.0 today!

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Google Chrome: The Browser Wars have been re-ignited

On September 2, 2008, Google Inc. surprised everyone when they released a beta version of a new browser without an advanced notices. Google Chrome came out of beta exactly 100 days later. It currently has less than 2% of the market share and is slowly chipping away from the share of other browsers, especially Internet Explorer, which is also being chipped away slowly from Mozilla Firefox as well as others. It is now a very heavily advertised product around on the internet including being bundled by default with various products in addition to being all over YouTube and other sites.

Google Chrome Overview:
Pros:

1. Currently the speediest stable released browser (non-beta)
2. Easily drag and drop tabs into new windows
3. New Tab page shows most visited pages
4. Isolated Tabs so that if one tab freezes, only that tab crashes, not the whole browser (Multi-Process: Each tab and plugin is its own process)
5. Create application shortcuts so a web page runs as its own application
6. More address bar space with Omnibar, integrating search with the address bar
7. Incognito Mode (Private Browsing): Web History and cookies won't be stored
8. No obtrusive download manager

Cons:

1. Multi-Process architecture often causes excessive overall memory usage
2. Lack of plugin support: Most plugins don't officially support Chrome
3. No option to block third-party cookies (links to tracking cookies), only an option to restrict their usage
   
4. No extension support (yet)
   
5. No printing setup
6. Windows only (Mac and Linux in the works)
7. No option to show menu bar if users wish
8. Many times the entire browser freezes and then after closing, at least 1 process remains and cannot be ended through task manager. In order to end it, users must reopen Chrome and close it although in this situation, it takes at least 1 minute to open.
9. Unless users press Show all downloads, the downloads stop if the tab accidentally close
10. No download resuming after browser closes
11. No RSS Feed support
12. No autoscrolling support. Added in Chrome 2 (Beta) however it is difficult to use compared to other browsers
    

Google Chrome Feature Review:
Google Chrome is the newest browser and it has reignited the browser war. Upon its release, browsers like Mozilla Firefox started adding features like drag and drop and Private Browsing.

Isolated Tabs is useful feature also available in Internet Explorer 8. Each tab and plugin is run as a separate process so that the two cannot contact each other or affect each other. If one tab goes down, the whole browser wouldn't go down in flames. However, multi tab architecture often leads to excessive RAM usage. In addition, even when I closed any tabs using plugins like Adobe Flash Player, the process remains. Microsoft Silverlight doesn't support it but when I visit a page using this plugin, although the plugin doesn't work, the process still opens and stays open until manually ended. In addition, tabs that are on the same domain (i.e. two Wikipedia pages) will run as one single process.

Download Statusbar is a feature that allows downloads to show in a statusbar in the tab from which it downloads. Unfortunately, unless the "Show all downloads" button is pressed, the download automatically stops when the tab closes. Also, there is no resuming of downloads.

Drag and Drop allows tabs to be quickly dragged out of hte window into a new window as well as back into other windows.

Extension Support is not available yet although Google says they are working on it. However, my concern is that Chrome might be badly hurt from add-ons. Add-ons naturally slow down browsers although it is worth it. Personally, I am a very big fan of add-ons in Firefox. Unless you have a lot of add-ons like me, the browser won't be slowed down noticeably. With Chrome, add-ons will probably cause an extreme RAM and CPU overload considering that the add-on would have be factored into each tab's process. Popular add-ons such as Adblocker Plus actually speed up page loading because ads (esp. Flashy) often takes longer to load then the page itself.

Application Shortcuts allows web pages to be run in its own window and own application without the URL bar, toolbars, etc...


Other Notes: During testing, I experienced a lot of problems with text field editing in Chrome. For example, while editing an article in Wikipedia, clicking into the text field doesn't have the blinking cursor where I clicked, but at the end of the article. When I started typing, it scrolled to the bottom and started typing there. This happens numerous times already.

Learn more about Google Chrome's features here.

Note: Many of Chrome's features can be enabled on Firefox through add-ons. Read about it here.

Web Standards (Acid2 and Acid3)
The web standards test is the way that browsers can test if the browser meets web standards. Most browsers pass Acid1 and Acid2. At first glance, Google Chrome seems like it passes Acid2. However, if you zoom in, you may realize a very thin and light line to the left of the nose. It must match pixel by pixel to pass. See screenshot below from Google Chrome 1.0.154.48. The line is boxed around in the following screenshot. As always, click to zoom and if you're using Firefox 3+ or another browser supporting image zooming, zoom even more to see the line better.
As of March 11, 2009, no released browser passes the Acid3 test. Google Chrome 1.0 scores 79/100 on the test.

Google Chrome Rating: 90/100 (Excellent)

Personally, I would prefer Mozilla Firefox, which I have been a fan for years.

Verdict:

Google Chrome lacks many features of modern browsers, such as RSS Feed Support and Full Screen Reading, but is one of the fastest browsers available today. If you're in need of a super speedy browser that doesn't "even have a progress bar because its that snappy" [CNET Prizefight]. However, if you want to be able to personalize your browser like never before, try Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome, like many Google products, are very simple in design. Both browsers are perfect alternatives to Internet Explorer. To find out a comparison between various browsers, click on the CNET Prizefight link to watch a video (you MAY have to disable ad blockers for this video sometimes starts off with an ad). Chrome's engine is Webkit, which is what Apple Safari uses. One of the most unique features is isolated tabs and plugins, available in no other browser currently (IE8 only has tab isolation). if you're looking for a complete all in one browser, get Mozilla Firefox, the award winning open source browser, today. But If you're looking for a simple but speedy browser, Google Chrome is for you.

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