Items tagged with Browser
Digital assistants are now a part of everyday life for many users, whether it's barking out commands at Siri on an iPhone, summoning Google Now (or later Duplex) on an Android device, asking Cortana to look something up in Windows 10, shouting at Samsung's Bixby on a Galaxy device, or asking Amazon's Alexa to perform one of its many skills. So what's next in the AI assistant space? Mozilla is building a new voice-controlled web browser called Scout. We all know Mozilla as the developer of Firefox, one of the popular browsers that people turn to when they don't want to use Internet Explorer or Edge...
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Google has started pushing out a version update to its Chrome browser, Chrome 67 (67.0.3396.62, to be exact), for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The latest releases introduces several fixes and improvements, including password-free login support by way of WebAuthn, a new specification that is supported by default in Chrome 67. It's the first stable release of Chrome to offer this ability. WebAuth, or Web Authentication, is an API that allows for logging into websites using biometric schemes, such as fingerprint scanning and facial recognition technology. It also supports USB devices that can...
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Earlier this month Google rolled out an update that aimed to mute those annoying videos that automatically play with sound while you are surfing the web. While that was a welcome goal, the update also had some unintended consequences for fans of web-based games. The update rendered those games unable to play sound. Google has recognized its error and has announced that it will be updating Chrome to temporarily remove the update that broke the games. The original update automatically paused Web Audio projects when a webpage launched. The same feature silenced the audio in these web-based games and...
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Managing the web and its many destinations is not an easy thing to do, though it's one that every browser maker has tasked itself with accomplishing. That includes Google and its popular Chrome browser. As it were, one of the things Google recently set out to do was to make the web less annoying by muting some videos that play automatically when visiting a website. Unfortunately, it's had the undesired side effect of breaking millions of browser-based games. Google introduced the feature as a default option when with Chrome version 66, which it started pushing out three weeks ago. In previous versions,...
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Over the coming days and weeks, Google will push out a new build of its Chrome browser that will introduce several fixes and improvements. Perhaps the most welcome change included in Chrome version 66 is a new feature that mutes sound when a website automatically plays a video. This is one of the biggest annoyances on the web, especially if you leave the volume on your PC or mobile device turned up, and it's nice to see Google taking action. This is a feature that Google has been working on for a long time, and initially planned to roll out earlier. Instead, it previously implemented the ability...
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Mozilla has announced the launch of Firefox 59, which is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The new release builds on Firefox Quantum and is a significant update for fans of the browser. Among the performance enhancements of the new browser include faster load times for content on the Firefox Home page. The faster page load times are thanks in part to loading from the networked cache or the cache on the user hard drive. Graphics rendering has been improved thanks to a move to Off-Main-Thread Painting (OMTP) for Mac users; this feature landed for Windows and Linux back in Firefox 58....
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Google's Project Zero team has publicly disclosed a security vulnerability in Microsoft's Edge browser for Windows 10 after Microsoft failed to issue a patch in the allotted time. The Project Zero team alerted Microsoft of a bug relating to the browser's Arbitrary Code Guard (ACG) back in November of last year. As is the team's policy, companies generally have 90 days to fix flaws that it discovers before a public disclosure. Image Source: Flickr via okubax In this instance, Microsoft requested and was granted a two-week grace period. Unfortunately Microsoft was still unable to fix the flaw before...
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Mozilla ended 2017 with a bang by retooling its Firefox browser with a focus on speed with the release of Firefox 57. Now called Firefox Quantum (it is okay to still refer to it as simply Firefox), Mozilla's browser is noticeably faster than previous versions—over twice as fast, according to Mozilla. It is a solid foundation to build upon, and Mozilla is doing that, with Firefox 58 bringing even more improvements to browser space. If you are a Firefox user, you can initiate an update to the latest release by clicking on the three horizontal lines in the upper-right corner, clicking on Help,...
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Makers of the Opera browser are fighting back against the recent trend of hijacking people's browsers with cryptocurrency mining scripts. The Scandinavian browser maker became the first to implement built-in protections against such scripts in the desktop version of Opera, and now the company has turned its attention to its mobile browsers, with built-in protections for Opera Mini and Opera for Android. Cryptocurrency mining is obviously very big right now, and somewhat recently, mining scripts that hijack web browsers have started to appear. Known as cryptojacking, it's estimated that more 3 billion...
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Mozilla surprised a lot of people with Firefox 57, also known as Quantum. While it is customary for browser makers to hype up speed improvements with each new major update, oftentimes it's tough to tell a difference outside of running some benchmarks. Not so with the new and improved Firefox browser. Mozilla retooled its browser in hopes of making up for lost ground against Chrome, and part of the perceptible speed increase is the result of how Firefox handles scripts from tracking domains. Specifically, Firefox delays loading scripts from tracking domains when possible during the time a webpage...
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Everyone is flipping out over cryptocurrency after seeing Bitcoin continue to skyrocket in value (the recent dip notwithstanding). It seems everyone wants a piece of the action, including some website owners, who have started injecting digital coin mining code on webpages. When you visit one of these sits, it taps into your CPU, sometimes without your knowledge or consent. That's not cool, and Opera is doing something about it. The latest Opera beta, version 50, includes a new feature blocks these scripts from running. It's called NoCoin and it is a work in progress. NoCoin is part of Opera's built-in...
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Amazon has announced that users of the Fire TV devices can now surf the web on their TVs thanks to the addition of Firefox and Silk web browsers. The move is yet another way to give Fire TV users access to YouTube while Amazon and Google are still fighting it out in public. The YouTube app was pulled from the Fire TV and Echo Show, then returned, and then was pulled again. Amazon is said to be considering its own YouTube rival in the wake of the spat. Along with giving access to YouTube -- something that Amazon deftly avoids mentioning in its press release about the feature -- users will also be...
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We could have told Mozilla that installing an extension on its Firefox browser to promote a niche TV series would be a bad idea, but nobody from Mozilla asked us. Mozilla should have known this too. Now it does, on hindsight, following a backlash from angry Firefox users who discovered that an extension had been remotely installed on their machines, leading many to wonder if they had fallen victim to malware. Mozilla is now backpedaling from the bad business move. Image Source: Flickr via Johnathan Nighingale What happened is, Mozilla partnered with the team behind Mr. Robot, a television show...
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Back in September, Google praised the benefit of autoplaying content on the web, pointing out that users watch and listen to a lot of media these days. At the same time, Google said one of the biggest complaints is unexpected media playback, which can not only make unwanted noise, but also consume power and use data. So, Google promised to clean things up with Chrome 64 when it arrives next month by giving users more control over audio. Don't feel like waiting? You can take control (partially) right now by downloading the Chrome 64 beta. One of the features that is included in the Chrome 64 beta...
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