Get The Knowledge – a collation of online articles by the people at Techdept. » Browser

Internet explorer: microsoft plans ‘silent’ updates

TechDept — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:00:21 +0000

From January, Internet Explorer (IE) users will be automatically updated to the latest version of the browser.

Microsoft said it was starting the project to update millions of machines to improve security online.

Future updates to the browser would be applied without a user’s knowledge to help beat scammers catching people out with fake updates.

For BBC News: Technology, 16 Dec 2011.

Is google chrome the new IE6?

TechDept — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:30:34 +0000

Let me tell you about a browser. An innovative browser that was the first to implement new Web technologies that allowed for greater interactivity. A browser with a striking new interface. Chrome? No: Internet Explorer 6.

There’s a reason that Microsoft’s browser took over 95 percent of the Web browser market from Netscape (Firefox’s ancestor): IE6 could do things earlier browsers could not. There was dynamic HTML, CSS, and yes, it even had new security features.

But over the years, problems with all these unique capabilities reared its ugly head. Every major Web site started to target IE, to the point that the sites didn’t function correctly or fully in other browsers.

By Michael Muchmore for PC mag, 02 Dec 2011.

Internet explorer finally falls below 50% of web browser use

TechDept — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:00:37 +0000

Web designers around the world, it’s time to celebrate: Last month, Internet Explorer’s share of global browser usage fell below 50% for the first time in more than a decade. Your long nightmare of having to make things work for people who still use IE6 is a little bit closer to coming to an end.

Microsoft’s iconic browser can still claim desktop browser victory, with 52.63% of desktop users still using IE, but as desktop internet usage competes with mobile devices, the browser landscape is beginning to shift more quickly. In terms of all internet browsing, IE has fallen to 49.58%, its lowest share since 1999 and a significant drop from its 2004 high of 95%.

By Graeme McMillan for Techland, 02 Nov 2011.

Google engineer: here’s why google+ is failing

TechDept — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:00:57 +0000

Last night, Google engineer, blogger, and frequent public speaker Steve Yegge wrote an epic rant about Google’s inept handling of the Google+ platform.

His primary message: Google+ is not a platform like Facebook. It’s trying to dictate the direction of Google+ instead of opening up to developers and letting them show Google what makes sense and what doesn’t.

He posted the rant on Google+, but forgot to turn off the “Public” sharing option. It was only meant to be shared internally at Google.

By Ellis Hamburger for Business Insider, 12 Oct 2011.

Microsoft drops flash from IE on windows 8 tablets

TechDept — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:00:45 +0000

One of the web’s most widely used technologies is going to be absent from some versions of Windows 8.

Microsoft is to drop support for Adobe Flash from the web browser that works with the Metro interface on Windows 8.

The Metro user interface is most likely to be used on tablets as it displays applications and programs as easy to touch coloured tiles.

By BBC News: Technology, 16 Sept 2011.

Keep the doctor away with agoogleaday.com

TechDept — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:00:44 +0000

Start to play

The surprising worst browser

TechDept — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:00:08 +0000

Just like any good software company, we track all kinds of data. Last time we shared some of it with you, you loved it, and that data wasn’t even the good stuff. We thought it was, but it dawned on us recently that we’ve been indirectly been tracking something better. And when we realized where to look, we found something unexpected.

In case you haven’t heard, Sauce OnDemand is a tool for automating real browsers (try it out! it’s awesome). We have metadata about millions of browser sessions our customers have used to test their actual websites. As everyone knows, sometimes your software doesn’t work. Maybe it crashes or maybe you had a bug. Sauce OnDemand is no different – almost 100% of the time, nothing goes wrong; our reliability in the last few months is at least 99.94%. In fact, as you’ll see later, we’re now more reliable than modern browsers. But sometimes there’s an error that we think may have been our fault. When there is, we refund the customer and work to fix it. We also record that there was an error. Does that seem significant enough to be italicized? If it does, you’re smarter than we were.

By Joe for Sauce Labs Blog, 17 August 2011.

Want to get all the data you have stored in google+ apps?

TechDept — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:58:36 +0000

Google Takeout allows you to download a copy of your data stored within Google products.

Visit site

What do people type in the address bar?

TechDept — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I added a feature to URL Fixer (a browser add-on that fixes errors in URLs that you type in the address bar) that collects anonymous usage stats from users who opt in in order to help improve the ways that URL Fixer corrects typos; the collected data includes domains that are typed in the URL bar as well as the locale (language/country) of the user who typed them.

I now have six months of data, and I’ve run some statistical analysis on it in order to share some interesting stats with you. (If I were more creative, I would make an infographic out of this information.)Note that this data does not include bookmarked links or links that users click on in websites. It is strictly domains that have been typed directly into the address bar.

Care to guess the most commonly typed domain? That’s right: facebook.com. It was typed almost three times as often as the second most popular domain, google.com.

By Christopher Finke for Christopher Finke.com, 25 July 2011.

Internet explorer users have lower IQ says study

TechDept — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:42:38 +0000

A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.

A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.

It later emerged that the company’s website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.

By BBC News: Technology, 03 August 2011.