Firefox 4 Beta 7 Boasts Major Enhacements

Yesterday, Mozilla released the 7th Beta of their new 4.0 browser.  The most significant improvement is a new JavaScript engine which dramatically speeds up the browser.   The new JagerMonkey JIT compiler boosts performance by five times in the V8 Version 6 benchmark and by three times in both the SunSpider ad Kraken benchmark tests.  In addition, more supported for accelerated graphics has been added and even added 3D support.  This means that users will be able to tap into the power of their graphics card for rendering, rather than merely using the power of the CPU to render a page.  In order to take advantage of these improvements, your computer needs to be equipped with a graphics card that is advanced enough to do these tasks.  

These features have been available in the Minefield browser for several weeks.  Mozilla is expected to release the final version of their new Firefox 4.0 browser early next year.  Mozilla has informed developers that this Beta version is stable enough that developers can begin finalizing their plugins for the final version of Firefox 4.0.

Google And Mozilla In Cutting Edge Battle

Google and Firefox are offering tech addicts, like ourselves, the ability to download and use the most recent versions of their upcoming new browsers.  Google started this by offering users the ability to choose which version of their browser they want to install.  You can choose to install the "Stable" version, the "Beta" version of the "Developer" version.  The stable and beta versions are relatively secure and stable.  They have been tested and are pretty reliable.  However, the Developer version is updated every few days and is more prone to crash and not work properly on certain website.  Recently, Google gave users the option to also download the "Canary" build of their browser.  The Canary build can be installed side by side with the other version of the Chrome browser and contains daily builds of the browser.  It is updated daily and is unstable and prone to crash at any time.  But it gives users the ability to see what Google is working on and what they are experimenting with.  To download and install Canary, click here.

Not to be undone, Firefox is currently working on the next generation of their popular Firefox browser.  Firefox 4.0 is currently in Beta.  I have downloaded the most recent Beta version, Beta 6, and found it to be extremely stable and feature rich.  However, Mozilla has made daily nightly builds of Beta 7 available for download.  It's known as Minefield and users are warned to install and use at their own risk.  Various versions of Minefield are available for download, Linus, Mac and Windows 32 bit and 64 bit.  Minefield is very interesting.  It contains the brand new Javascript engine which will power Firefox 4.0.  Beta 6 does not have the new engine but Minefield does.  There is a drastic increase in speed in Minefield.  The speed increase is noticeable and feels as fast as Chrome.  I download the latest nightly build every morning to keep up to date with the most recent version.  Until a few days ago I was downloading the 64 bit version but started to experience problems with the browser crashing.  For a couple of days I was unable to run Minefield.  Yesterday I downloaded the 32 bit version and now Minefield is up and running on my computer.  Computer geeks, like me, are urged to try Minefield to see how drastic the increase in speed in the next Firefox browser will be.  To download Minefield, click here.

Hidden Windows 7 Tool Securely Wipes Free Space

We've discovered a hidden tool within Windows 7 which allows you to securely wipe the free space on your hard drive.  When you delete files on your computer, Windows shows the free space as being available but traces of the deleted files remain on your hard drive.  The traces left behind make it possible for technicians to recover the data.  However, there is a tool within Windows 7 which is supposed to go through those deleted files and securely delete the traces left behind.  Apparently this tool is also available in Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista.

To launch this tool you need to do the following:

1.  Launch the "command prompt" by going to "Accessories" and finding the program.

2.  Type in the following command:  Cipher/w:(X).  Where "X" is indicated, type in the letter of the drive, usually C.

That's all you need to do.  Be patient.  This may take several hours.

Browser Wars Really Heating Up

With today's release of Internet Explorer 9 Beta, the browser wars have reached a new level.  For years, Internet Explorer was the king of the hill.  Several years ago, The Mozilla Foundation released an open source browser that has steadily been chipping away at Microsoft's market share.  About 2 years ago Google jumped into the fray with its Chrome browser.  Chrome really changed everything.  The minimalist screen was different than anything out there and the speed of the browser immediately began changing the browser landscape.  Suddenly, all of the browsers starting fighting over the title of "fastest browser."  Microsoft had fallen seriously behind all of the competitors and is generally seen as slow and out of date.  When Microsoft started working on its most recent version of Internet Explorer, IE9, they started looking for a way to catch up in the speed wars.  They have come up with a way of using the computers processor and video card to help do some of the work to make the browser work faster.  Suddenly, Internet Explorer becomes the trail blazer and all the competitors find themselves trying to come up with a similar feature.  Mozilla is working on the next generation of it's browser, Firefox 4.0.  In the 4th Beta of their 4.0 browser, they added this feature but in order to make it work, users had to manually turn it on.  About a week ago Mozilla released it's 5th Beta and turned on the hardware acceleration by default.  My experience with Beta 5 is that the graphics are greatly improved but not quite up to par with Internet Explorer 9.  Chrome recently added hardware acceleration to the Developer Version of their browser a couple of weeks ago also.  But most people do not know that they can download even more updated versions of Chrome and Firefox.  Here's how to download up to the minute versions of the browsers.

Chrome gives you the option to download Chrome Canary Build.  This version of the Chrome browser is updated almost daily.  It carries the greatest risk because it is truly experimental but users who want to see what Google is cooking up can download it here.  It works side by side with any other version of Chrome.  The icon for the Canary build is yellow.

Firefox has introduced a brand new engine in its nightly builds.  This engine drastically speeds up Firefox.  This version is updated daily and can be downloaded here.  Some security software may recognize this is a virus and not allow you to download it.  I use Norton and when I update daily, Norton considers it a virus and deletes it.  I therefore have to reinstall it every day if I want to use it.  When you install it you will see that it is entitled "Minefield."

In the meantime you can download Internet Explorer 9 right here.  Windows XP users will not be able to use IE9.  And when you download IE9, it will replace IE8 on your computer.

Let us know what you think of this state of the art browsers.

Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 Released

Not quite s promised, Mozilla released it's fourth Beta of it's new Firefox 4.0 browser.  The Beta was supposed to be released yesterday but had to be delayed after a couple of bugs were discovered.  To download the new beta click here.  The new version offers several upgrades.  Most notable is a new hardware acceleration rendering feature which claims to harness the power of your video card to more quickly display graphics and text.  At this point, Mozilla is trying to play catch up to Google's Chrome which has established a reputation as the fastest browser on the market.  This new feature is turned off by default.  Reason being that Mozilla is afraid that this feature may not be ready for prime time.  But to turn on this feature is relatively easy and painless.  Here's what you need to do to turn on this feature:

1.  Type "about:config" in the address bar.

2.  In the search bar type in "mozilla.widget.render-mode."  Set the value to 6.

3.  Next, go back to the search bar and type in "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled."  Set the value to True.

That's it.  To see what changes you made you can always type "about:support" in the address bar.

Let us know what you think of this new feature. 

Mozilla To Release Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 on Monday

The Mozilla Foundation has announced that they intend to release the 4th Beta of the Firefox 4.0 browser on Monday.  They indicate that the code for this beta is "mostly frozen" and on the way to being shipped out on schedule on Monday.  The beta is planning to introduce hardware-accelerated graphics for Windows users and tab sets, which is commonly known as "Tab Candy."  "Tab Candy" is a feature that is pretty similar to something that Apple's iOS4 offers.  You can drag and drop to re-arrange all your tabs into groups, create new groups by simply dragging a web page outside an existing group and dragging another item on top of it, and rename each group based on what task is assigned to it.  The hardware-accelerated graphics feature will increase the display of text and increase graphics as well.  However, this graphics feature will not be turned on by default.  Users will be required to go into the about:config page and adjust some of the settings to turn on this feature.  Mozilla's developers are concerned that this feature is not ready for prime time and want to see it rolled out slowly.  Mozilla is indicated that they expect many betas to be released prior to the final release of the new browser.

Mozilla is hoping that the newest version of their browser will help them get back on track.  For several years, Firefox was gaining ground on Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  In the past several months, Firefox has been losing ground to Internet Explorer and to Google's Chrome Browser.  Next month, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing a public beta of their new Internet Explorer 9.  The browser wars seem to be hearing up, with each contestant trying to one-up the other.

Microsoft To Release Emergency Patch Monday

In a somewhat rare move, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing an "out-of-band" update on Monday.  This is the term that Microsoft uses to describe an update that is outside of the normal monthly schedule of updates.  A couple of weeks Microsoft announced that they had discovered a vulnerability in the way that Windows parses the shortcut files for icons on the desktop and system tray.  Since then, Microsoft has noticed a large increase in the number of attacks based on this exploit.  About a week ago Microsoft issued a work around patch that allowed Windows users to manually apply the fix.  I tried this but found that it eliminated the icons on my desktop and taskbar.  

Microsoft has announced that the patch will be released by 12 noon central time on Monday.