Chrome surges past Firefox to become world's no. 2 Internet browser

Google's Chrome has surpassed Mozilla's Firefox to become the world's number two Internet browser, behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, reveals the latest stats released by StatCounter. According to the Ireland-based research firm, Chrome grabbed 25.69 per cent of the total market share in November, while Firefox managed a share of 25.3 per cent. It's notable it is the first time when Chrome has edged Firefox in the browser popularity wars. Both the browsers trail Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has a 40.63 per cent of the market share worldwide.

"We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally," says Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter in a blog post. "Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also."

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Going by the StatCounter's stats, this is a massive accomplishment for the Google Chrome, which was launched just three years ago. It's notable that other browser, Opera, has been making efforts for a long time to join the top league but still has managed less than 2 per cent of the market share worldwide.

Net Applications' stats, however, suggest that Chrome needs to do a bit of work before grabbing the number two spot. According its stats, Firefox took home 22.14 per cent of the global share, while Chrome managed 18.18 per cent.

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Google Chrome had hit 25% global market share milestone in September this year. The StatCounter stats revealed then Chrome had 25.02 per cent of market share, trailing Firefox's 30 per cent and Internet Explorer's 45 per cent. It was then speculated that Chrome would easily surpass Firefox in a month or so.

Microsoft Internet Explorer is at the top spot for now. In a blog post, Microsoft claims that the IE9 usage share on Windows 7 worldwide is higher than all the versions of Chrome and all versions of Firefox, trailing only to IE9.

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Chrome Set to Surpass Firefox in Market Share

Google's Chrome is on the brink of replacing Firefox as the second-most-popular browser, according to one Web statistics firm.

Data provided by StatCounter, an Irish company that tracks browser usage using the free analytics tools it offers websites, shows that Chrome will pass Firefox to take the No. 2 spot no later than December.

As of Wednesday, Chrome's global average user share for September was 23.6%, while Firefox's stood at 26.8%. IE, meanwhile, was at 41.7%. The climb of Chrome during 2011 has been astonishing: It has gained eight percentage point since January 2011, representing a 50% increase.

Chrome may pass Firefox as the world's second-most-popular browser by the end of the year. (Data: StatCounter.)

During that same period, Firefox has dropped almost 4% points, a decline of about 13%, while IE has also fallen four points, a 9% dip.

If the trends established thus far this year continue, Chrome will come close to matching Firefox's usage share in November, then pass its rival in December, when Chrome will account for approximately 26.6% of all browsers and Firefox will have a 25.3% share.

[via StatCounter

Google Chrome 12.0.742.122

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. It has one box for everything: Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages. Will give you thumbnails of your top sites; Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab. Google Chrome is an open source web browser developed by Google. Its software architecture was engineered from scratch (using components from other open source software including WebKit and Mozilla Firefox) to cater for the changing needs of users and acknowledging that today most web sites aren't web pages but web applications. Design goals include stability, speed, security and a clean, simple and efficient user interface.

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Mozilla releases Firefox 5 beta with HTML5 & CSS support

Mozilla has released a beta version of the fifth version of the Firefox web browser for downloading and testing. 
The Firefox 5 beta includes additional support for CSS (cascading style sheet) animations, web standards including HTML5 and better desktop integration for Linux users. 
In a blog post, Mozilla wrote: "This release includes the Firefox channel switcher, performance and stability enhancements and support for the new CSS animations standard to allow developers to build more amazing web experiences." 

"The new Firefox channel switcher lets users move between Firefox Aurora, beta and release channels to test features at various levels of development, quality and polish," said Mozilla. 

The Firefox Aurora development channel is designed to support more frequent releases. The beta version of the web browser was previously tested in Firefox's "Aurora" development channel for five weeks. 

"The shift to a rapid release development cycle delivers cutting edge Firefox features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster," the company added.

The final release of Mozilla Firefox is set for the end of June 2011. Download Firefox Aurora, Firefox 5 beta or Firefox mobile beta versions here. 

The Next-Generation Browser: No URL Bar

Netbook and tablet users looking for more screen space to display content from their favorite websites are getting some help from a pair of popular Internet browsers. 
Google and Mozilla are testing versions of the Chrome and Firefox browsers that hide the bar used to show the URL of websites you visit. The features are experimental and it's unclear if they will become part of the mainstream. Web surfers who want to always know where they are may have security concerns. 

In the latest build of Chrome Canary, an early stage version aimed at developers, you can enable ‘Compact Navigation'. Once enabled, you can right-click on any tab and select ‘Hide the toolbar.' The URL will disappear. To see the address bar again, click on an open tab and the URL bar will appear underneath.

  

In Chrome Canary 13, just enter "about:flags" in the URL bar, select Compact Navigation and restart the browser.

Mozilla is also experimenting with a similar feature for the Firefox browser. A new add-on for Firefox 4 called LessChrome HD will hide all the toolbars below your open tabs whenever they're not in use. The toolbars reappear when you move your cursor over a tab, or when you switch tabs. LessChrome HD can be installed from the Firefox Add-ons page.

The advantage: Hiding the URL allows users of netbooks and tablets to have a bit more space to display the content of a website.
The drawback: The tradeoff can be dangerous when users don't see the URL of a page -- making them easier targets of phishing attacks.

Wolfgang Gruener of Conceivably Tech notes that once you are at the web site you want, there's no need to permanently display the address, unless you are worried about security.

Firefox and Chrome hold together 43 percent of the browser market (StatCounter), so they could push for a less ubiquitous URL bar. But Microsoft, which holds the other half of the market with Internet Explorer, is showing no intention to let you hide the URL bar any time soon.

Google chrome secret pages

There are some hidden pages in Google chrome browser.These pages show information about the browser, its memory ,cache..etc. Just type in the bold codes in the address bar of chrome and see the magic.

about:version  - This shows the version of google chrome browser and other details such as webkit and V8 which is the javascript engine and it’s user agent

about:stats     - This shows the statistics of browser a list of internal counters and timers.It also has a very funny title “Shhh! This page is secret!”.

about:memory  - This shows the memory occupation of the browser and also of other active browsers.This can also be found out by right-clicking on the blue area at top and selecting task manager and at the bottom click on “stats for nerds”. Task manager short-cut Shift + esc

about:network  - This page is very much useful for I/O tracking

about:plugins  - This page shows a list of plugins that are available in the browser.You can also enable and disable the plugins

about:cache  - This page shows the list of webpages that google chrome has cached.It is recommended that you should regularly clear the browser cache

about:cache  - This page shows the list of webpages that google chrome has cached.It is recommended that you should regularly clear the browser cache

about:dns      - Google Chrome has the ability to prefetch the DNS records for 10 frequently visited hostnames. This is a feature which can be disabled in Options > uncheck “Use DNS pre-fetching to improve page load performance”.

about:histograms  - This lists all the histograms for google chrome browser’s internal metrices.

about:internets  - This shows the 3D pipe screensaver which gets embedded by Google chrome from windows.this is only possible if you have the file sspipes.scr in C:\Windows\System32.

about:crash  - This crashes the active tab.Google chrome displays a sad image with the text “Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. To continue, press Reload or go to another page”

Chrome 11: Search and Translate with speech input

Google updated its increasingly popular browser, Chrome, to version 11, adding support for HTML voice input, squashing over two dozen bugs, and switching to a flattened, 2-D version of its familiar logo. 
Google's vision of making every app a Web app is now one step closer to reality with speech input HTML. To show off the new feature, Google's own Translate site has been updated with a microphone icon that lets you speak the words you'd like translated.

The microphone doesn't appear unless you've updated Chrome to 11. No other current browser displays the microphone icon. In quick tests, the speech input worked perfectly, though it only accepts English.

The update wasn't deemed significant enough for an entry in the official Google blog, but the company posted about it on the Google Chrome Blog, which boasts, "Speech input through HTML is one of many new web technologies in the browser that help make innovative and useful web applications like Google Translate's speech feature possible."

The Google Chrome Releases blog goes into more detail about bug fixes, noting that a record $16,500 was paid out to bug sleuths who reported issues to Google's Chrome team. The largest award, at $3,000, went to a user who goes by the handle "kuzzcc" for finding "Possible URL bar spoofs with navigation errors and interrupted loads." Fifteen of the 25 listed bugs were considered "high" priority, and 10 of them were found by Google employees, who didn't receive cash awards.

If you're eager to have the new logo or speak to your browser, and you're already a Chrome user, just click the Gear icon and choose "About Google Chrome"; the update will download and on your next restart of the browser, you'll have version 11. First-time users can download Chrome 11 at google.com/chrome. Installers are available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7; Mac OS X 10.5 or later (Intel only); or Linux in Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora/openSUSE distros.

Firefox 4 Hits 100 Million Downloads After A Month

Mozilla released its new Firefox 4  a month ago and within a day it had more than twice as many downloads as Internet Explorer 9 after its launch. The browser build hits 100 million downloads after one month in existence, according to the Firefox download stats ticker. 
What’s more impressive is that the browser has now taken over 7.94% of the worldwide browser market according to StatCounter, with Internet Explorer 8.0 at 29.99%, Firefox 3.6 at 24.43% and Chrome 10 at 15.35%. 
When compared to the percentages two days after its launch it looks like Firefox 4 has taken a solid chunk out of Firefox 3.6 usage: On March 22 IE had 45% of the global market, followed by Firefox 3.6 with 30% and Chrome with 17%. Firefox 4 was at 1.95% then. 

Many people stopped using Firefox because it was so excruciatingly slow, and was pleasantly surprised at how much faster 4 was compared to 3.6 and even compared to Chrome when loading Flash-heavy sites. 

But maybe being speedier isn’t enough to win the high stakes browser wars? On the Firefox 4 launch day, Chrome came out with its Chrome 11 beta, including support for an HTML5 speech input API (which essentially means that you’ll be able to talk to your computer).

Internet Error Codes and Meaning

Sometime you are browsing the internet and trying to open any website, your e-mail and any FTP sites , but you see different error codes there.

 You should be familiar with these error codes.

 You can solve these problems if you are well-known with the meaning of error codes.

Error Codes	Meaning
400	This is bad request error, First check you may be typing wrong URL name and server could not understand your request.
401	You are trying to open any unauthorized access site or page. Check your username and password if you are trying to open any webpage.
402	Payment Required Error
403	You are trying to open any forbidden page and you are blocked by that domain.
404	Here you are trying to open the webpage that was removed or re-named, also check the URL spelling.
408	This is time out error. you should send the request with in time that the server set for you.