Some of Mozilla's initiatives for this year include an HTML5 Web app store, a mobile operating system and perhaps most intensive of all, a decentralized system for user identification and authentication at the browser level. In other words, a browser-based replacement for usernames and passwords.

Secure as it may be, application-level encryption won't be practical for some of the things Mozilla is working on, a few of which will naturally require that more data points about users are collected. This is a big deal to consumers and legislators alike, as issues like user tracking and online privacy receive more attention in the press and the halls of the U.S. Congress.

A Five-Point Plan For Data Security & Privacy

So how will Mozilla secure your data in the future? They've proposed a five-point set of guidelines to govern their development moving forward. Data should be collected only when doing so presents an obvious benefit to the user, and the vendor (in this case, Mozilla) should always be aware of what data is being stored, as well as how, where and why.

Mozilla also promises to do its best to minimize how long any given data point is stored on its own servers. If data is not needed for an extended period of time, it shouldn't be stored for long, if at all. That data should also be invisible to the server whenever possible. "If we can implement a given feature by never sending data to the server, or by using application-level encryption, then we will," Mozilla said.

Finally, if it's possible to use anonymized, aggregate data rather than individually identifiable information, Mozilla's engineering team will strive to do it.

Before SOPA exploded as one of the biggest tech news stories in recent memory, there was a growing amount of focus being put on online privacy and related issues. User data tracking and retention have caught the attention of U.S. legislators, who have demanded answers from Amazon over the user privacy afforded by its Silk browser and expressed concern about online user tracking in general. This level of transparency on Mozilla's part is probably no coincidence in light of these issues and the microscope they will continue to be placed under in the near future.

Mozilla has heard the pained cries of IT managers everywhere and today announced that they're going to put out an Extended Support Release version of Firefox to help organizations better manage and support the software.

The ESR version of Firefox will be developed as a separate product from the Firefox consumers are used to using, and thus utilizing the ESR won't be without its drawbacks. For one, there's an increased likelihood of bugs being introduced and persisting, since the ESR won't have the same massive beta testing group that Firefox proper has. Over time, the ESR runs the risk of becoming less secure than Firefox itself, and might even confuse some users if they're accustomed to using the standard version at home.

The move represents a bit of a change of heart for Mozilla, who previously brushed off concerns about providing proper enterprise support. By contrast, Google Chrome has made an effort to ease the pain of IT departments. Late last year, Google's three-year-old browser surpassed Firefox as the second most widely-used browser, according to one firm's statistics. By taking the enterprise a little more seriously, perhaps Mozilla can manage to minimize the competitive threat posed by Chrome.

The new ESR will not cover Firefox Mobile or the Thunderbird email client. Mozilla says it will publish implementation details sometime in the next week.

The hoax was perpetuated by an entrepreneur living in Canada named Tarandeep Singh Gill. He's the founder of a comparison shopping Website called AtCheap.com. In an email with ReadWriteWeb moments before he publicly revealed who he was, he told us that he hoped to lure a few people away from Internet Explorer, but he did not expect it to get the level of coverage that it did.

"I was really surprised that most media outlets fell for it," he said.

Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we're re-publishing some of our best posts of 2011. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2012. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

"While working on my latest website, IE6 compatibility was being a pain in the ass," he told us. "So I thought of doing this, with a hope that this would knock off a few people from IE6."

Anatomy of a Hoax: How Did It Spread?

Gill's hoax started with a phony company called AptiQuant, a self-described "psychometric consulting company." He bought the domain name aptiquant.com on July 14 (according to WHOIS records), threw up a Wordpress install and copied the content from another business' website wholesale, changing the names of staff members on the "Our Team" page, but leaving their headshots intact. He even went so far as to set up Facebook and Twitter profiles for AptiQuant, the latter of which was suspended after the hoax was exposed.

The similarities between the content of the two sites stopped at a press release titled Is Internet Explorer For The Dumb? A New Study Suggests Exactly That, which linked to a legitimate-looking PDF of a scientific study claiming to demonstrate a correlation between usage of Internet Explorer and having a low IQ.

The story began spreading online on July 28, with outlets as big as NBC, Business Insider and Mashable picking it up right away. Within a few days, hundreds of outlets had reported on the study, including some of the most reputable news sources in the world.

"At a certain point, AptiQuant's release itself became irrelevant; the conclusion was repeated because other, more trusted news outlets had reported on them," wrote Wired's Tim Carmody in a post that outlined several glaring red flags in the supposed research and on the fake company's Website.

Some Internet commenters were suspicious from the beginning, but it wasn't until today, five days later, that the whole thing was confirmed to be fake. Several hours after news of the hoax began making the rounds, whoever is running the AptiQuant Website posted this concession that the study was indeed concocted, adding a few more "tell-tale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in less than 5 minutes!"

So how does a fake news story like this get spread around so easily? The rapid online news cycle and pressure for writers to chase pageviews are at least partially to blame, former ReadWriteWeb writer Frederic Lardinois wrote on Silicon Filter. It also doesn't hurt that people generally like taking jabs at Microsoft and that Internet Explorer is the browser that many Web developers and IT workers love to hate, especially its antiquated version 6, which stubbornly lives on.

So Why Did He Do It?

The original "research" makes this motivation pretty obvious. In fact, this is something that should have been a dead giveaway to any journalist reporting on the story originally. The report's conclusion reads:

It is common knowledge, that Internet Explorer Versions to 6.0 to 8.0 are highly incompatible with modern web standards. In order to make websites work properly on these browsers, web developers have to spend a lot of unnecessary effort. This results in an extra financial strain on web projects, and has over the last decade cost millions of man-hours to IT companies. Now that we have a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of incompatible browsers, better steps can be taken to eradicate this nuisance.

Even if you ignore the very agenda-driven rhetoric (for example, the call to "eradicate this nuisance"), the rest of the above paragraph should call into question the legitimacy of the research. How often to you see psychologists and other scientific researchers refer to Web standards? Is IE's poor adherence to standards really "common knowledge" outside of the Web development community? Why would researchers be concerned with things like the financial scope of Web projects? Are these problems that would motivate anybody outside the IT world to conduct research of any kind? Probably not.

MG Siegler wondered why Google would bear this expense, "paying all that money to a competitor." He considered whether antitrust concerns played into the decision, or whether it was about mobile dominance. But Chrome engineer Peter Kasting offered a simpler answer today: "Google is funding a partner," not a competitor.

"One thing is certain: Google is not paying Mozilla a billion dollars out of the kindness of their hearts," Siegler wrote. "Doing so would be irresponsible to their shareholders. Again, they're paying all that money to a competitor." But Kasting contends that this is a misconstruction.

"People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads," Kasting says. "It's very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible."

According to Kasting, "It's completely irrelevant to this goal whether Chrome actually gains tons of users or whether instead the web advances because the other browser vendors step up their game and produce far better browsers. Either way the web gets better. Job done."

Chrome and Firefox Can and Do Coexist

"It's not hard to understand the roots of this strategy," Kasting says. "Google succeeds (and makes money) when the web succeeds and people use it more to do everything they need to do. Because of this Chrome doesn't need to be a Microsoft Office, a direct money-maker, nor does it even need to directly feed users to Google. Just making the web more capable is enough."

By funding Firefox, Kasting explains, Google is not concerned about competition with Chrome. It's keeping another important browser alive. "Firefox is an important product because it can be a different product with different design decisions and serve different users well," he says. Kasting says that Google supported Firefox before work on Chrome even began, and it only built Chrome because it thought it would drive the Web to improve even faster.

The Teams Are Committed to Working Together

There's plenty of past evidence to support this interpretation. For example, even though Web apps are one of Chrome's most important revenue streams, Chromium and Firefox engineers have been working together to build open standards for Web apps to communicate.

On its own, Chrome has pushed the envelope for Web technologies, but as Kasting points out, "Mozilla is clearly committed to the betterment of the web, and they're spending their resources to make a great, open-source web browser." A better Web, according to Kasting, will serve Google's goals no matter what.

We've wondered this year whether Firefox was doomed, but if Google is committed to it, for the sake of the Web itself, the answer is certainly not.

To ensure such nightmares are never relived, the company will start rolling out automatic upgrades to Internet Explorer across Windows 7, Vista and XP, the company announced in a blog post today. Rather than relying on users to update the browser themselves or requiring you to trick your parents into updating theirs around the holidays, Windows will update to the latest compatible version of IE on its own.

This doesn't mean that every Windows machine on the planet will automatically be updated to the latest stable build of Internet Explorer overnight. The automatic update feature will be rolled out in Australia and Brazil first, and then to other countries over the course of next year. The software will upgrade to the most recent version of the browser that's compatible with one's operating system. Thus, Windows XP users can only go as high as Internet Explorer 8. Still, that's a huge and worthwhile improvement from version 6.

The feature will be available to most Windows users, but it can easily be disabled, much to the delight of corporate IT departments everywhere.

In 2008, Mozilla entered into a three-year partnership with Google. In exchange for remaining the default search engine on Firefox, Google hands over about 84% of Firefox's total revenue. Well, it's 2011 now and, as ZDNet's Ed Bott points out, the status of that partnership is unclear.

Not only does the search giant have its own hugely popular Web browser, but it now has the Android mobile operating system, which is also growing fast. The value once inherent in being the default search engine in Firefox has declined as Google's tentacles have extended into the browser and mobile spaces and Firefox's growth has slowed. Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google.

The Mobile Revolution Isn't Helping Firefox

Making matters worse is the explosive success of Apple's mobile devices. Naturally, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad come with Safari as the default browser and any third party iOS browser has to be built on WebKit, rather than the Gecko engine Firefox uses. The only presence Firefox has on the iPhone and other iOS devices is an app that ports one's bookmarks and other browser data to the device.

At the moment, Firefox's mobile focus is on Fennec, a browser that's available on Android and as an alpha on Windows Phone 7. The rapid growth of smartphones and tablets over the last few years, which is only just getting underway, have not been much of a boon for Firefox.

Now the majority of its revenue is in jeopardy, potentially putting its position on the desktop browser market at risk. Still, Google isn't the only search engine. If they pull out of the partnership, that leaves an attractive opening for Microsoft, who is always looking for ways to challenge Google with Bing. Users of Microsoft's browser already have the option to download a version of Firefox with Bing as its default search engine.

What do you think? Is Firefox screwed or will the browser find new ways to turn things around? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Chrome now has 25.69% of the global browser marketshare, just a slight notch above Firefox, which holds on at 25.23%. In September, it was predicted that Chrome was on track to bump Firefox from the #2 slot by about this time, and sure enough that projection has come true. Granted, that prediction was also based on StatCounter numbers, and this data often looks different depending on who is doing the reporting.

It's worth noting that this latest data comes from only one source, and that these kinds of statistics can offer differ from source to source. For example, Net Applications still puts Chrome behind Firefox and Internet Explorer. Chrome is still growing fast in that data set, but at 17.62% it's several percentage points lower than what StatCounter is reporting.

Still leading the pack, of course, is Microsoft's Internet Explorer. We've come a long way since the days when IE duked it out with Netscape Navigator, but IE remains entrenched on many people's machines, often because it's the default on Windows. This isn't as cringe-worthy as it once was for Web developers, since Microsoft has put a renewed focus on Web standards support. Internet Explorer 9, the latest version, is now the most-used browser on the Windows 7 operating system, according to the company. That said, plenty of machines are still running Windows XP and even Internet Explorer 6 refuses to die off completely.

Internet Explorer still has a hefty lead over Chrome, but if the growth of Google's young browser is any indication, it could provide a formidable challenge to IE in due time.

Meanwhile, in the mobile browser market, Apple's Safari has risen over 12 percentage points to have a 62% share of that market, according to leading Internet statistics provider Net Applications. However, Apple will have to continue to look over its shoulder at Android, which has also gained over 2011. Let's look more closely at how the desktop and mobile browser markets changed over 2011.

The latest data from Net Applications still shows Microsoft's Internet Explorer at over 50% market share on desktops (52.63%). Chrome (17.62%) is less than 5 percentage points below Firefox (22.52%), which hangs onto second spot for now. Safari has 5.43% and Opera 1.56%.

The trends data is more telling. Since December 2010, only Chrome and Safari have increased their market share. IE, Firefox and Opera all declined. Here are the gains and losses:

• IE: -6.63%
• Firefox: -1.17%
• Chrome: +7.26%
• Safari: +1.41%
• Opera: -0.71%

Source: Net Applications

Our own browser statistics for ReadWriteWeb show an even bigger swing towards Chrome, which is understandable, as we have a much more tech-savvy audience compared to the data from Net Applications. Chrome became the number 1 browser among RWW readers during 2011. Last month it was about 36%, up 12% from last November. Firefox is our number 2 browser at about 29%, down nearly 4% over the year.

Among our own writers, most now use Chrome as their primary desktop browser. Very few use Firefox.

Of course in an increasingly multi-device world, mobile browser share is very important too. On that front, according to Net Applications, Safari has risen 12.86% to now have 62.03% of the mobile browser share. The next best is Android browser at 18.60%. So Safari on mobile is now almost the equivalent of IE on desktop.

The big losers over 2011 in the mobile browser market have been Opera Mini (-13.4%), Symbian (-4.94%) and Blackberry (-0.87%, but it only has 2.03% share overall). Opera, despite its constant innovation, is really struggling to keep hold of users on both its favored mobile platform and on the desktop.

Source: Net Applications

Google & Apple Have The Momentum Heading Into 2012

In Net Application's statistics, Firefox is holding grimly on in the desktop browser market. But Chrome has the momentum and, as Jon Mitchell pointed out, it has done much of the innovating in this market over 2011. ReadWriteWeb's own statistics have Chrome as a clear number 1, which is typically a good indicator of where the mainstream is heading. All of this suggests that Chrome will overtake Firefox as the number 2 browser very soon. Then Google is set to make a run at dethroning Microsoft from number 1, but that's still at least a couple of years away.

On the mobile browser side, Apple is becoming increasingly dominant. However the rapid growth of the Android platform will keep them on their toes, so it's unlikely that Apple will enjoy the monopoly that Microsoft had for over a decade in the desktop market.

Let us know in the comments what browsers you use on both desktop and mobile. Did you switch browsers during 2011? If so, tell us why.

Whether they explicitly ask you to do it or not, chances are your parents' Web browser could use an upgrade. The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal put out a humorous call to action asking that you do just that, with or without the consent of your parents. Lifehacker goes so far as to show how to trick them into thinking nothing's changed.

So, this Friday is Update Your Parents' Browser Day. As Madrigal points out, the more up-to-date everyone's Web browsers are, the easier life will be for people who design and code websites for a living. Sure, a few hundred people upgrading their parents' browser on Friday isn't going to put a noticeable dent in the current browser marketshare break-down. Yet if enough people got into the habit of performing this task, we could perhaps see older browsers phased out a little more quickly over time.

It goes without saying that the browser in most dire need of being phased out is Internet Explorer 6, the decade-old, hard-to-kill browser that now even Microsoft wishes wants to get rid of. If somebody in your family is still running IE6, do the world a favor and upgrade them to a newer version of IE or, if you can get away with it, install Chrome or Firefox.

It'll Be Faster, Mom

If your folks (or other relatives guilty of having outdated browsers) are hesitant, one way you can sell them is with a promise of increased browsing speed. Everybody seems to think their computer runs slower than it should. Chrome has an especially solid reputation for speed among the major browsers, so it's a good candidate to install. It has a different UI from IE and Firefox, but it's pretty intuitive and shouldn't be hard for newcomers to get used to.

Improve Security (and Reduce Those Year-Round IT Phone Calls)

One of the most compelling reasons for keeping any software up-to-date is of course security. This is especially true of browsers. If family members are running anything other than the latest stable release of a browser, update it. Again, if they'll let you, switch them to a browser with a better track record for security, such as Chrome. Just remember to carry over their bookmarks and browser settings.

The more you can keep malware and security threats at bay, the lighter your load will likely be the next time you come around and are asked to play Family IT Director.

Enter Covert Browser, which was approved by Apple earlier this week. It uses Tor to encrypt Internet traffic and route it through three different servers to ensure data about users cannot be intercepted by third parties. Such data would include browsing history or, more commonly, one's geographic location.

Common use cases for Tor include activists wishing to elude authorities, journalists hiding their sources and even law enforcement encrypting their own online communication. Wikileaks has also used Tor to transfer documents.

In this case, Tor's infrastructure is being used to reroute and strongly encrypt Internet traffic, something that previously wasn't possible on non-jailbroken iOS devices, at least not to this extent.

The initial release of Covert Browser has some stability issues, with a few users noting that the app crashes frequently. As one commented in the user reviews, "I can't order my drugs, tiger meat and rhinoceros horns with a browser that crashes all the time!" Hoffman has already submitted an update to the App Store that attempts to fix these problems.

The latest version of Opera supports radial gradients in CSS3, which allows front-end developers to define the color and placement of circular gradients using only CSS code, rather than relying on images to create this visual effect. It also uses the newest version of the JavaScript standard, ECMAScript 5.1, and supports HTML5 microdata for search engines. Using microdata, developers can add semantic context to certain content, which allows Google and others to present it accordingly in search results.

Indeed, Lawson used the new features to build a radial double rainbow on this page, although it will only load in Opera currently.

Opera says it's the first browser to support HTML5 microdata, which is a standard adopted by most major browsers for more visually distinctive search results. For example, Google uses "rich snippets" for results that include information about, say, a person or audio content, displaying search results for those pages differently than it would for a standard Web page. The feature also furthers the goal of a semantic Web by adding machine-readable context to pages.

Not a Top Browser, But a Standards Champion

Opera is by no means a heavyweight in the Web browser market, but it is important nonetheless. It has about 200 million users across the globe and in some countries it even enjoys a majority of the browser market. There are mobile versions of Opera for every major smartphone platform, Windows 7 and Blackberry included. It's also built into some gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii.

Despite being a minor player in the U.S. browser market, Opera has always been an early adopter of Web standards. It was one of the first browsers to utilize CSS for styling and laying out pages, something that is very central to the way the Web looks today. Since then, it has generally done quite well on Web standards compliance tests.

Next week, Amazon will ship its Kindle Fire tablet with a new "cloud-accelerated" browser called Silk. It uses cloud-based infrastructure to make pages load faster, something Opera is already doing.

The breach, which was confirmed by CNet today, affects the security of encrypted data accessed over HTTPS, in addition to raising privacy issues.

An initial attempt to fix the problem was unsuccessful, but MoboTap pushed out a second update pushed out today claims to have resolved the issue.

Dolphin had long been a popular browser among Android users when it launched on iOS earlier this year.

The list, as always, is a bit subjective so please let us know in the comments if we missed an app or you have found one that you cannot live without.

HeyStaks -- (Free: iTunes, Android)

HeyStaks is "social search" brought to iOS and Android. It is not dissimilar from the approach that Microsoft is taking with Bing and Facebook integration but the HeyStaks community is the one that powers the social aspects of search.

Untappd -- (Free: iTunes, Android)

Untappd is a way to track what beers you have drank and then rate and share them socially. Have you ever frequented a pub that has a giant beer list and wanted to work your way through it? There is a bar here in Boston called the Bukowski's that is know for its beer and has a "Dead Authors Club" where you drink 133 beers in 180 days to join the club. Untappd could be a great way to keep track of your progress and share it with your friends.

Puffle Launch ($0.99: iTunes, Android)

Some of our favorite people at ReadWriteWeb recently have been game developers. Puffle Launch is brought to users from Disney, so it is not exactly your classic indie studio type of game, but it is still very cool. So, basically this weird red blog wants these little golden rings and will stop at nothing to get them. The graphics are reminiscent of Super Nintendo and the game play is a mix between pinball and Super Mario. When it comes to cool games, Puffle Launch is probably the September Pick of the Month.

Android

Hipmunk -- (Free)

Hipmunk is a favorite service amongst the frequently traveling ReadWriteWeb staff. It functions a lot like Kayak but with a better user interface in aggregating flight and hotel information when searching to make a trip. The great part about Hipmunk for Android is that it works in just about the same way as the desktop version, which is just about what you want from a native travel search app.

Washington Post -- (Free)

Really, the Washington Post coming out with a decent Android app is long overdue. When local competitor TBD.com launched (note, I worked there) in 2010, it already had an Android app on its first day. It can create a headline feeding widget to the home screen of an Android device, which is a good feature for a news app. The Washington Post has been making a concerted effort recently to modernize its Web and mobile presence and bringing a dynamic app to Android is a good first step.

Flickr -- (Free)

Flickr continues this month's trend of major Android apps that were released by prominent Web companies. Flickr is still one of the best photo services available online and has been sorely missing a good mobile presence. The app allows you to upload from anywhere and capture with an in-app camera. Flickr provides filters and Twitter and Facebook sharing. Instagram what?

Card.io -- (Free)

Card.io provides a software developer kit for Android developers to easily accept credit cards for in-app purchases. It allows users to scan credit cards with their phones' cameras to use the information to make purchases. It does not actually process the payment or save information, but rather just imports credit card information that the app can use.

Smozzy -- (Free)

One of the coolest and most disruptive free apps we have seen in a while. It is in a public beta stage and technically is only supported for T-Mobile phones including the Nexus S. Smozzy lets you browse the Web without a data plan, entirely through text messages (SMS and MMS). You text what you want to see and Smozzy will go get it and deliver it via text. It has experiemental AT&T and Sprint use and untested Verizon use. Best used with unlimited messaging plan. This is the type of service that may not be available if T-Mobile is acquired by AT&T because Ma Bell would never allow users to purposefully skirt data usage.

Cut the Rope -- ($0.99)

Cut the Rope has been available for iOS since July but is just making its way to Android. It is a game similar to Fruit Ninja but is more complex in that you have to cut ropes in a puzzle format to feed Om Nom, a little green monster that has an insatiable appetite. Om Nom want candy.

Invisible Universe -- (Free)

This is one of the most dynamic apps that I have seen in a while. Imagine Google Sky mixed with all the cosmic currents and nebulae that you cannot see. That is Invisible Universe. It is like an augmented reality of the night's sky except the reality is not augmented because you could not see it with your eyes in the first place. It uses GPS to track where you are, what you are looking at and show you the universe as you would never think of seeing it. A similar app is called Weather Reality, where you point your phone in a direction or towards the sky and it gives you what is happening with the clouds or rain or temperature in your viewfinder. Invisible Universe is like that, except with the cosmos.

iPhone & iPad

OfficeDrop -- -- (Free: iPhone & iPad 2)

OfficeDrop has just been optimized for the iPad 2. It allows users to scan, search and organize paper documents, PDFs and other documents and make them available through the cloud. It is a digital file system similar to Dropbox.

Dolphin Browser HD (Free: iPad)

The popular third-party browser has finally made its way to iOS with Dolphin Browser HD for the iPad. We reviewed it here. It is a tabbed, social browsing experience that is one of the only (and one of the best) options if you are trying to get the cord from iOS Safari. Apple has been reluctant to let third-party browsers in the App Store and as such several prominent browser makers do not even bother. Dolphin did not shy away and created a very Chrome-like browser for the iPad.

NBC -- (Free: iPad)

I cannot watch full episodes of Chuck on my TV with my Roku, but I can now watch them on my iPad. NBC follows in the footsteps of ABC by unleashing a free app that can allow users to watch episodes, clips and behind the scenes geeky goodness of their favorite shows. With NBC and ABC and company releasing apps that basically mimic the functionality of Hulu Plus, it is a wonder that Hulu has a future among the networks looking to sell it.

Quora -- (Free: iPhone)

The social question and answer site finally has a mobile presence. It is pretty basic in terms of the functionality that Quora offers but it may be the key to bringing the Quora community back to the forefront of the tech scene after it made a nosedive in mind share following its massive hype at the beginning of 2011. Tell us, does Quora still excite you?

Flight Card -- (iPhone: $4.99)

Flight Card is a flight tracking app for the iPhone that lets you track flights by route, flight number, gate, departure times and more. Anyone who travels a lot is always checking to make sure that their flight is on time so as to make sure that you spend as little time in the airport as possible. Flight Card bypasses the airlines native apps (which are never really all that helpful) and brings the information to your iPhone in a simple, native package.

Filmic Pro -- (iPhone: $2.99)

Filmic Pro was technically released on Aug. 31 but that is close enough to September that we will include it here since it did not make our August Apps of the Month. Filmic Pro is one of the most powerful video camera and editing tools that can be found on a smartphone. The feature list is impressive, with variable frame rates, framing guides, three different resolutions, import videos and more. If you are serious about shooting video with your iPhone, seriously consider Filmic Pro.

Notable App Updates for September

It is always important to remember to go into your device and update apps on a regular basis. Updates provide new functionality, performance and security upgrades and make sure that the bugs from the last version have been taken care of.

Notable iOS Updates:

• Yahoo Fantasy Football '11, TweetDeck, The Weather Channel, Rdio, Words With Friends HD, Kindle, Order & Chaos Online, Foursquare, iBooks, Skype, Google Books, Evernote, OpenTable, Infinity Blade, Spotify, Zaarly, Google+, Instagram 2.0, Dropbox, MLB At-Bat Postseason.

Notable Android Updates:

• Gmail, Google Books, Google Maps, Tumblr, Norton Mobile Utilities, Flixster, LinkedIn, IMDb, Gun Bros, Google Voice, Foursquare, Dictionary.com, Words With Friends Free, The Weather Channel, TweetDeck, Spotify, Rdio, Skype, Robo Defense, Pandora, New York Times, Netflix, Lookout Securituy, Hulu Plus, Kindle, Firefox, Facebook, Evernote, E*Trade Mobile.

The coup would be quite an achievement for Chrome, which was just released in 2008 and has been growing rapidly ever since. By comparison, Firefox was first launched in 2004 and took much longer to attract significant market share.

Every analytics firm and Web usage tracking service will have different numbers, but in general we tend to see Chrome creeping up on Firefox. Whether that happens by December or at some point next year, what's significant here is the growth Chrome has seen in its three years of existence.

Earlier this week, Mozilla released Firefox 7, which aims to use less memory than previous versions of the browser and hopefully make for a faster Web browsing experience.

Firefox for tablets, which does not yet have a release date, will be optimized to run on Honeycomb Android tablets. The browser will include features from the desktop version of Firefox such as tabs, themes and the Awesomebar, an adaptation of a feature launched with Firefox 3 that enables quick access to bookmarks and browsing history. Items synced from the desktop can also be accessed there.

Firefox For iPad? Don't Hold Your Breath

Despite being the second most popular browser on desktops, Firefox has not captured much marketshare in the mobile space, where operating systems and devices come with more stringent restrictions and other complexities.

Apple, which is expected to command the greatest percentage of the tablet market for years to come, does not allow non-WebKit browsers onto its iOS operating system. That, combined with technical restrictions on the Windows Phone and Blackberry platforms, leaves Mozilla with little choice but to focus its efforts on Android.

In addition to UI enhancements, Mozilla has been working to make its mobile and tablet browsers more responsive and faster, in response to one of the more common complaints made by users.

For a more detailed look at the upcoming tablet UI for Firefox, check out these mock-ups from Barlow's Flickr stream.