It's an awfully charming video by one of the greatest musicians of all time. This 63-year old mega-millionaire is downright folksy when talking about web browsers.

Hey Dolly, if you like IE8 - you should let Google's Chrome sweep you off your feet! Not a lot of features, but it's super fast for a fast-thinking woman like you. Is it customization you're looking for? We know you've seen a whole lot of things all around the world - but have you seen Firefox yet?

Dolly Parton? How are you going to top that, Mozilla?

Thanks to James Governor for finding the above video.

Today, Flock is trying a new strategy. The company plans to extend itself beyond the "social" niche by trying to find a home in an entirely different one: the Hispanic web. To tap into this new audience, Flock is releasing a Spanish-language web browser in partnership with Univision Interactive Media, the top Spanish-language media company in the U.S.

According to Flock's VP of Business Development and Marketing, Dan Burkhart, there are now more than 22 million Hispanics online and the market's growth will continue to outpace that of the English-speaking web for the foreseeable future. Although social networking sites have released Spanish-language versions - for example, latino.myspace.com - he notes that there are "few if any social enabling applications that have made the investment to serve this important market." The Hispanic audience also actively engages in social networking activities. More than 40% visit sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter on a daily basis. Thanks to Flock's built-in social networking features, says Burkhart, that audience can now stay connected to those sites and to popular content from Univision.com.

In order to promote the product to the Hispanic web audience, the homepage of Univision.com will feature a large display ad touting the browser. In addition, there will be other display ads across the Univision network as well as pre-roll trailers inserted into video content. Next year, the company will pursue other offline channels to promote the Spanish version of Flock, too.

As with the specialized versions of Flock that have been released in the past, such as the green "Eco Edition" and the fashionable "Gloss Edition," this new Univision-branded version will offer favorite bookmarks, RSS feeds, media streams of popular Univision links, videos, and photos and persistent links to other areas of Univision.com. It will also come with a default homepage tab that takes you right to the Univision homepage.

However, the company is quick to point out that this new version is different from the Eco and Gloss editions of the browser, both of which are no longer supported. While those versions were clever marketing gimmicks at the time - the Eco edition was released on Earth Day, for instance - neither were able to attract a wide audience. That's because they didn't have sizeable distribution partners, says Burkhart. "By partnering with Univision, who has been the most visited Spanish language website for many years running, we have a dedicated partner who is committed to ensuring that the Univision Edition of Flock is distributed aggressively."

Will the Hispanic Web Market Help Flock Succeed?

It will be interesting to see how Flock does among the Spanish-speaking audience, especially because the browser itself is still the same under the hood. Although it will feature Univision content, Spanish-language menus and soon, a full Spanish-language installer, it's not a new product. It's still the same Flock. And that was the problem that most people had with it in the first place.

Earlier this year, when we asked the question: "why don't you love Flock?" we received over 100 comments in response. For many people the browser's interface was too busy and cluttered, making them feel overloaded with information. Others claimed that Flock was a resource hog and prone to bugs and crashes. And still others preferred Webkit-built browsers like Safari and Chrome, both of which are known for their speed.

The question now is whether or not these same complaints will put off the Hispanic audience, too, or if they will overlook these issues because the browser so uniquely caters to their needs. Only time will tell how well Univision's marketing push succeeds, but ultimately, if Flock can't address its shortcomings in some way, it won't work for any audience, no matter what language they speak.

The Spanish version of Flock is available for download now at flock.univision.com.

While we wondered if Google was getting ready to make extensions a part of the stable series soon, it now turns out that this feature won't arrive in the stable version of Chrome until version 4.0. If you feel adventurous, you could always switch to the dev channel.

Not to get your hopes up, but a recent update to the Google Chrome Privacy Policy makes us wonder. A few days ago, the first two opening paragraphs of the Chrome Privacy Policy were revised. The old and new versions are provided below with bold indicating the changes:

OLD:

The Privacy Policy below applies only to Google Chrome for Windows. For the Developer channel releases on other platforms see the privacy policies for Mac OS X and Linux . The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's products and services, including information provided when you use Google Chrome. In addition, the following describes our privacy practices that are specific to Google Chrome. Google will notify you of any material changes to this policy, and you will always have the option to use the browser in a way that does not send any personal information to Google or to discontinue using it.

Information Google receives when you use Google Chrome

You do not need to provide any personally identifying information in order to download and use Google Chrome. When you download Google Chrome or use it to contact Google's servers, Google receives only standard log information including your machine's IP address and one or more cookies. You can configure Google Chrome to not send cookies to Google or other sites as explained here.

NEW:

The Google Privacy Policy describes how we treat personal information when you use Google's products and services, including information provided when you use Google Chrome. In addition, the following describes our privacy practices that are specific to Google Chrome. Google will notify you of any material changes to this policy, and you will always have the option to use the browser in a way that does not send any personal information to Google or to discontinue using it.

Information Google receives when you use Google Chrome

You do not need to provide any personally identifying information in order to download and use Google Chrome. When you download Google Chrome or use it to contact Google's servers, Google receives only standard log information including your machine's IP address and one or more cookies. On Google Chrome for Windows, You can configure Google Chrome to not send cookies to Google or other sites as explained here. Google Chrome for Mac and Google Chrome for Linux currently do not allow this level of configuration.

What Do You Think?

Maybe we're grasping at straws here, after all, the change could be referring to the developer builds of the browser and they're simply cleaning up the language for simplification. Still, that would be odd considering that they removed the reference to the developer builds' privacy policy, wouldn't it? Or then again, maybe Google is just consolidating the privacy policies for both the developer and public builds. A third option is that Google could be getting a little of the administrative work out of the way before they make the Mac and Linux builds public.

Testers have been reporting that the developer builds have been seeing steady improvement and the Chromium builds (the open source project that serves as the testing ground for Google Chrome) have been shaping up on a daily basis, too. Maybe a public version of Chrome for Linux and Mac is almost here? We can only hope.

This commitment to identity integration, coupled with Chrome's move to cloud-based bookmarking, point to the growth of the borderless social web experience - an experience that has been a long time coming. For years we've asked for social network portability and the freedom to manage our own online relationships. With this rising trend towards browser-based service integration and cloud-based data storage, we're one step closer to realizing that dream.

According to a post on the Mozilla blog, the company will be working with PayPal to provide the developers with a secure way to facilitate international payments. Developers will be able to include a "Contribute" button on their add-on's page that displays a suggested amount. Users will be able to contribute either that amount or one of their own choosing. The developers will also have the option to create different PayPal IDs for each of their Firefox add-ons.

Because many developers may choose to only solicit a small amount for the add-on, Mozilla encourages them to look into using PayPal's micropayments fee structure, a system which reduces the transaction fees for payments under $12 (US).

As far as the donations themselves, the entire donated amount will go to the developers - Mozilla will not be taking a cut...at least for now. In carefully worded text, Mozilla responds in the Contributions FAQ that "for this pilot, Mozilla will not earn a percentage..." , which seemingly leaves the door open for a little skimming off the top at a later date.

Mozilla says they're calling the Contributions program a "pilot" because they want to solicit feedback from the community to shape the future of the program going forward.

New Developer Pages

Along with the pilot program, Mozilla is also launching "About the Developer" pages to accompany the add-on pages. Here, developers will be able to tell their stories, their motivations for creating the add-on, and can spell out what's ahead on the add-on's future roadmap. These new informational pages should help end users determine whether or not the add-on is worth supporting via a financial contribution.

Benefits to Firefox Users

As any regular Firefox user knows, one of the worst things about the Firefox upgrade cycle is that sinking feeling you get when you discover that your favorite extension no longer works with the most recent update to the browser. Unfortunately, this problem is far too common since unpaid developers often don't have the time or energy to continue upgrading their code with each new browser release. This leads to slews of abandoned extensions, forcing users to search for alternatives or give up on having that particular functionality entirely. Sadly, many extensions in the ecosystem are one-of-a-kind, so when one is no longer updated, there just isn't a suitable replacement to be found. Hopefully the new influx of financial support for the developer community will make this less of a problem in the future.

Not only is the Contributions program good for the developers and the end users, it's good for Mozilla, too - especially in this new age of browser wars. The company knows that, for many users, the main reason they run Firefox instead of one of the other browsers out there is for the extensions they've become attached to. If those extensions were to become out-of-date and abandoned, users would have less reason to stick around. At the end of the day, Contributions looks like a win-win-win...except, of course, for the cheap users who will now have to suffer a little twinge of guilt when downloading a new add-on.

But recently, we've begun to question AIR's longevity. Now don't get us wrong - many of our favorite apps (TweetDeck, Tumbleweed, Yammer, etc.) are built using Adobe AIR. However, there's no reason why these apps couldn't just run in a browser instead...and that might even be a better place for them. 

When we think about AIR apps today, one of the top apps that comes to mind is TweetDeck, the multi-columned Twitter application which includes much sought-after features not built into Twitter.com's own web site such as groups, photo-sharing, and saved searches. Yet despite everything we love about TweetDeck, we wonder why it can't exist simply as an online application. What purpose does running TweetDeck in Adobe AIR serve? It's not AIR's cross-platform abilities - after all, web browsers are the original cross-platform apps -and it's not that AIR is notably faster than an online version either. Probably the only reason for TweetDeck on AIR is that when the app was first built, AIR was the hot new thing. Now that the company has settled on the platform, they're just sticking with it.

Yet on the flip side, another popular Twitter client and originally an AIR-only app has gone the other direction. TweetDeck competitor Seesmic, once solely an Adobe AIR desktop application, is now offering a web-based version. Not only is the online app more than functional, it's also being lauded as "the best Twitter browser interface yet." More importantly, it goes to show that you don't need a desktop application to have a speedy, pretty, and useful app.

Streaming Video: Yeah, We Can Do that Online

Outside of the Twittersphere, other AIR apps on our radar in the past have included video-streaming programs like Adobe Media Player, AOL Top 100 Videos, and the YouTube-streaming DeskTube. Incidentally, today DeskTube is launching a new beta of their application, claiming "performance improvements" that now make their player "netbook-ready."

This immediately got us thinking: why do we need netbook-ready AIR applications? Maybe I don't speak for everyone, but my netbook is currently running XP and the only "app" I've installed is Google Chrome. With this fast, lightweight web browser and its pop-out tabs, desktop apps all of sudden seem so passé.

Besides what does DeskTube do (or any of these video-streaming AIR apps for that matter) that the web cannot? In DeskTube's case, in addition to playing YouTube videos, it includes a search feature, top video lists, a built-in uploader, and it lets you share videos via Twitter and Facebook. All those things can be done via YouTube.com right now, so what's the benefit of AIR?

Is the Future RIAs or Just Better Browsers?

Adobe AIR launched back in February of 2008, a time when browsers seemed either hopelessly out-of-date (IE7) or bloated with a plethora of add-ons (Firefox). We saw these little internet apps that could sit on our desktop connecting us to web services as truly amazing creations. But then in September, Google launched their Chrome browser and nothing has been the same since.

At first, we railed against Chrome's lack of extensions and lack of support for RSS among other things, but after a while (and once we filled up our bookmark bar with add-on like bookmarklets), we got over it. Surprisingly, you can live quite well without loading down your browser with extensions. In fact, the only thing that Chrome desperately needs is a Mac version so our non-PC friends can dump the open-source Chromium and use the real thing.

You see, once you "go Chrome" it's hard to switch back. As much as we fear handing yet another bit of our online life to Google, Chrome is where it's at now. Firefox now seems heavy and so much slower than before. Instead, we're popping out tabs to watch sites like FriendFeed and Twitscoop update in real-time. We're switching from online mode to offline courtesy of Google Gears in our Gmail and Calendar. And we're wondering why on earth we need another AIR app.

Today, AIR almost seems like a stop-gap between the heavy web browsers of the past and the speedy WebKit-powered browsers of the future...browsers like Chrome and whatever else comes next.

Enter Firefox for CyberMentors. It's a new custom browser made in partnership with the popular anti-cyberbullying organization Cybermentors.org.uk. It's a good looking option for parents.

In addition to easy access to chat with trained anti-bullying mentors, the browser also offers one-click access to a media sidebar where kids can see the latest news videos about anti-cyberbullying efforts.

We haven't been able to figure out what happens to the sites that get reported as inappropriate through the browser, but maybe the CyberMentors staff finds the site owners and gives them a wet-willie.

People who already have Firefox installed may also get a browser plug-in that offers all the same functionality as the stand alone anti-bullying browser.

Disclosure: The author was bullied a lot as a child, but before the internet existed. He considers having a job as a blogger now a form of revenge. You know who you are! May you be plagued by spammy Facebook apps!

So, what's different? As of today, Cooliris will no longer launch into a full-screen 3D browser when activated. Instead, Cooliris will launch into a separate browser tab. This change was heavily requested by Cooliris users, a multi-tasking bunch of folks who wanted to be able to quickly switch back and forth between Cooliris's 3D web and all the other open tabs and applications running on their computers.

The Benefits of Cooliris in a Tab

However, as much as we loved soaring around through the visually stunning Cooliris application, one of its main drawbacks was the way it took over the desktop's screen upon launch. This sometimes even became an annoyance, like, for example, when an accidental click on the Cooliris button in Flickr had us sucked into the app's full screen mode when we really meant to go to the photo page.

Now all that's going to change because the new default setting is for Cooliris to launch in a new tab. Since all the supported browsers offer tabbed browsing, there was no issue in making this sort of adjustment. (Cooliris supports Safari, IE, and Firefox but tells us they're working on supporting more browsers in the future.) However, full screen mode is still possible, if that's your preference, via a button at the bottom of the screen.

Since Cooliris now launches in a tab, it's given a specific and unique URL. This, in turn, delivers more features to the application. Because it's just a URL, it can now be registered in your browser's history, can be saved as a browser bookmark, and can be shared with friends via social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Of course, anyone clicking on the URL will need Cooliris installed to see what you're sharing, but those that don't will be delivered to a landing page informing them of this.

A Couple of Other Changes

Although the change in Cooliris's launch behavior is the biggest news coming out of this update, there are a couple of other features worth noting as well. To begin, Cooliris now includes metadata for Flickr photos, just like how they had added metadata for YouTube videos, Facebook photos, and Amazon products during their last update. After Flickr, the team plans to keep adding in metadata for all their supported services over the course of future releases.

The metadata isn't just text information, either. A lot of it is hyperlinked. For instance, in the Flickr metadata, you can click on a username or date to be immediately taken to all the photos from that user or time frame. Also new today is a right-side column that lets you browse all the photosets from that user.

If you already have Cooliris installed, just update your extension. New users can download Cooliris from here. This update currently works on Firefox and IE only. A Safari version is coming soon.

Cooliris version 1.11: The 3D Wall in your browser tab from Cooliris on Vimeo.

For now, Google is actually asking users not to download Chrome for the Mac and Linux just yet, unless they are ready to be disappointed. If you're brave though, here is the download link.

Overall, while it is nice to see that Google is ready to show some official Chrome builds for Mac and Linux, if our own experience with Chromium is any indication, this release will be fast and usable - but chances are that it will also crash regularly. As this is a dev channel release, Google will probably push out an update at least once a week, and it will be interesting to watch how the development progresses.

Google has clearly started to make some in-roads with Chrome. Here at RWW, about 8% of all our visitors use Chrome (up from around 6% in January). From what we can see, it has mostly taken away user share from Firefox, which is interesting, given the close relationship between Mozilla and Google. Given how many RWW readers use Macs (about 20% of you), we expect Chrome's percentage to go up quickly on our site and others like it.

When testing a search engine, a lot of people try to think up queries to run in order to see how good the search results are. But in reality, the best way to really put a search engine through its paces is to switch your default search provider in your browser...well, at least temporarily! That way, you can test the new engine in real world scenarios without having to remind yourself to head over to a new URL.

Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer 8, there aren't any complicated steps to follow to make the switch to a new search engine. Thanks to the browser's support of add-ons, you can just head over to the IE Add-ons Gallery and grab the new Bing add-on.

To install it, simply click the "Add to Internet Explorer" button. On the pop-up that appears, check the box that reads "Make this my default search provider" and click "Add." That's it!

If you accidentally added Bing without making it the default, you can click the drop-down arrow in IE's search box and click "Manage search providers." Find Bing in the list, right-click on it, and choose "Set as Default."

Mozilla Firefox

Like IE8, Mozilla Firefox also offers a Bing add-on which adds both search and suggestions to Firefox's search box. To install this add-on, head over to the Firefox Add-ons Gallery and click the "Add to Firefox" button on this page. On the pop-up box that appears, check the box "Start using it right away" before clicking "Add" in order to set Bing as the default.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a bit more tricky. Because this new web browser doesn't (yet) support extensions, you have to add new search engines manually using a specific URL.

To get started, right-click on the search bar and choose "Edit Search Engines." (Alternately, you can click the Wrench icon, then "Options," then the "Manage" button on the "Basics" tab next to "Default Search.")

In the Search Engines window where all of Chrome's available engines are listed, click the "Add" button. Another window appears where you'll be asked to fill in Name, Keyword, and URL. Use the following info to fill out this form:

Name: Bing

Keyword: bing

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s

Click "OK" then click the "Make Default" button before closing the window.

Safari

Apple's Safari browser on the Mac OS is tied to Google, so changing search providers needs to be done by way of a plugin (unless you're handy with the vi editor). One of the easiest ways to change your search engines in Safari is by using the Glims plugin. This software adds a number of features to Safari, including tabs, thumbnails, full screen, suggestions, and more.

Once installed, open the Safari Preferences and under the Glims tab, click on "Search Engines." Then, click the "Add" button to add a new search engine.

In the pop-up box provided, you'll need to fill in the following info:

Name: Bing

Type: Search Engine

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=#query#

Click "Set" when you're done and close the window. Finally, select "Bing" in the browser window search box in order to make it your default engine.

Thanks @gingod for the Safari tip!

If you've been looking for a great resource for finding bookmarklets, you're going to love the new site at bmlet.com, an online directory and search engine just for bookmarklets.

If you'd rather browse through the listings, you can do so from the "browse" link at the top of the page, but here your only options are sorting them by date or relevance. That's not all that useful, to be honest. (And how are they determining relevance, we wonder?) An alphabetical listing or listing them by category would be a lot more helpful. In fact, it's almost not worth bothering with the browse option at all.

That's really not a big deal, though, since the search engine works just fine. However, it looks like the site still has room to grow - we noticed that they were missing a few of our favorites. For example, we love the "share in Google Reader" bookmarklet, but a search for Google Reader only delivered two results: view feed source and note to Reader. Oh well. (You can see a list of great bookmarklets we're using here). But on the other hand, a search for Twitter left us with so many options it was hard to even choose a favorite.

If, like us, you notice any missing bookmarklets on the site, you don't have to wait for them to add them to their directory - you can just add them yourself. After creating an account, you can click the add bookmarklet link and fill in the title, description, javascript, source link, and tags for the bookmarklet you want to share. Hit "submit" and you're done.

Be warned though - it's very easy to lose track of time when delving into this resource. Instead of giving it a quick once-over, I found myself lost in there for over half an hour today. But what better way to spend a Friday, right?

About Extensions in Chrome

According to articles from both Google Operating System and CIO, here's what we know about how extensions work in Chrome, as described during that I/O presentation:

1. Extensions use HTML, JavaScript, and CSS so they're easy for developers to write.
2. You don't need to restart the browser after installing an extension (hurray!)
3. Extensions will work in all future versions of the browser. Developers won't need to update their extensions with each new release. (No more abandoned extensions!)
4. Extensions will run as separate processes: one per extension.
5. Extensions can appear at the bottom of the browser. During the demo, an add-on that displayed new stories from Google Reader was shown in a bar at the bottom of the browser.
6. Google will control the look of extension buttons to keep Chrome's UI uncluttered and consistent.
7. Google will build an extension gallery where developers can submit extensions and users can find extensions to install.

Extensions Available Now

There are already some interesting extensions under development, which you can test out now in a developer build of Chrome.

AdSweep

AdSweep is an add-on that hides advertising on web page you visit similar to how AdBlock works. It uses JavaScript to adjust the CSS of a page and is also available as a user script.

Page Rank for Chrome

Page Rank for Chrome (shouldn't that be "PageRank?") is a simple extension that shows the Google PageRank for the current web site.

Cleeki

Perhaps the most fascinating of the three, however, is Cleeki, an extension that delivers the functionality of IE8's Accelerators to other browsers, a list that now includes Chrome. Accelerators are one of the newest (and best) features in the most recent version of Internet Explorer. Available from the right-click menu, they let you quickly perform actions that would have previously required opening a separate web page (e.g. "map this," "translate this," "find on Facebook," "define this," "email this," "Digg this," etc.)

With Cleeki installed (read how to here), you can do many of those same actions, although its appearance is somewhat different. IE8 accelerators are listed in a small right-click menu, but Cleeki actually opens up a secondary window like a pop-up where you can choose from the available actions and see the results.

The size of that window may turn off some users, so it's a shame that Google Chrome doesn't currently allow for a user preference system since Cleeki is actually very customizable (size, skin, behavior, etc.). According to the Cleeki blog, there's a hacking way to customize it, but they haven't shared that info yet...perhaps they will in the future.

Developers, Write Your Own Extensions

In the meantime, while we wait for this feature to hit the public build of Chrome, developers can get cracking writing their first Google Chrome extensions. For help getting started, they should check out these sample extensions and this tutorial which demonstrates how to write a simple extension.

If you're a developer who has built an extension for Chrome, let us know about it in the comments!

Improved New Tab Page, Autofill, Full Screen Mode

Similar to the beta version of Apple's Safari 4, Google Chrome now allows users to delete items from the new tabs page. As Google puts it, you can now finally hide those "embarrassing gossip blogs" from your Most Visited section, which automatically appears when you open a new tab in Chrome.

Chrome can now also autofill forms with information a user has previously entered into similar forms, and it finally has a full-screen mode that hides the title bar and the rest of the browser window.

Sadly, though, one neat feature that was available in the beta versions - the ability to drag tabs to see them side-by-side - did not make it into the stable version...yet.

Here at ReadWriteWeb, we are big fans of Chrome, but the lack of extensions always makes us go back to Firefox as our preferred browser. The developer version already contains some rudimentary support for adding extensions and user-scripts, but it will probably still take a while before these features will make it to the stable version of Chrome.

If you are already using the stable version of Chrome, these updates will be applied automatically, and if you are not using Chrome yet, you can download it here. Officially, Chrome is only available for Windows, but if you are a very brave Mac user, you can download an unstable and highly unpolished version of Chrome here.

Back when Personas launched in late 2007, we liked the idea, but found the initial crop of designs...well..."ugly as sin." Yikes! Since then, the add-on was seemingly ignored for some time, receiving little attention or improvements. Today, that has changed.

When staring at our bland, boring browser this morning, we decided it was time to take a fresh look at the new Personas and see if the theme selection had really improved. As it turns out, it has - and by leaps and bounds.

Although the category list itself is still somewhat limited, we see a few more options than before. But within each category, where there used to be literally only a handful of choices, there are now at least 10 items to choose from as well as a feed that lets you set Firefox to choose a random theme from that category. Still, didn't Mozilla promise us thousands of designs? Where are they?

Getting More Themes

The majority of the themes are not within the add-on itself, but in the Personas Gallery.

The online gallery is where Mozilla has stashed all those new designs. You'll find the same category lists on the web site, but with far more options...pages and pages of them, in fact. So now, if you can't find any worthwhile designs built into the extension itself, you can easily add more from the gallery.

Make Your Own

Still not satisfied? Think you could do better? You can. The Personas extension lets you design your own custom themes, too. You may not have known about this option because you first have to set "Custom Persona" to show in your Preferences. (Click on "Preferences" and then check the appropriate box.)

Once this feature is enabled, you're given a simple form where you can upload your own Firefox header and footer as well as change the text and accent color. We're not designers ourselves, so we were pleased to find out that this option works even if you don't use an image sized correctly for the browser. For example, we made this nifty custom theme using one of the new wallpapers from the Windows 7 release candidate:

We understand that not everyone is into customization, and that's fine (we guess), but for those of you who are, the Personas add-on is now officially worth the effort.