ReadWriteWeb

Mozilla, the company behind the world's second most-popular browser, writes this morning that it is "happy to announce that the wait is over." Firefox, its open-source entry into the browser market, has made its way onto the iPhone and iPod Touch. Before you get too excited, it's not as a browser, but as a companion to Firefox on your desktop, giving you mobile access to all of the details normally saved at home.

IBM's Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and Linux, announced this morning that Big Blue is "moving to Firefox as its default browser" because the open-source browser is "stunningly standards compliant", "not beholden to one commercial entity" and "extensible" among other reasons.

The decision puts IBM's nearly 400,000 employees solidly in Mozilla's court, adding yet another vote of confidence for the worlds number two browser.

Last Thursday we wrote about Firefox's launch of its newest version, 3.6.4. This version separated the browser itself from the plug-ins that ride it. So if a plug-in were lagging, or otherwise going haywire, it wouldn't crash the whole screen. These improvements are restricted to Linux and Windows until Version 4.0, which will include Mac.

Today, Mozilla has announced a further upgrade, to version 3.6.6.

Mozilla just launched the latest update to its popular Firefox browser. This new version (3.6.4) introduces a number of stability and security fixes, but most importantly, Firefox now protects Windows and Linux users from browser crashes when the Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins freeze.

Flock, the "social" Web browser formerly built on top of Mozilla's Firefox, has just made a radical change. It's now powered by Chromium, the same technology found in the underpinnings of the speedy (and rapidly growing) Google Chrome.

Long decried among many early adopters as slow, busy and buggy, Flock today aims to change those former perceptions with the launch of its overhauled browser. The company describes the new Flock as "simple," "clutter-free" and "lightning fast."

WebM, the open video standard introduced at Google's recent I/O developer conference, is now coming to Firefox 4. According Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan, the key sticking point was making sure that the new WebM codec licensing was compatible with GPL - an open-source licensing type that allows users to copy, modify and redistribute software free of charge as long as modifications made are shared with the community.

That issue has now been addressed, allowing Mozilla to support the codec in its Firefox Web browser.

Mozilla is following in Opera's footsteps by porting an AppStore-friendly version of its browser over to the iPhone with an free app called Firefox Home. Due to Apple's restrictions the app will not offer a full-fledged browser experience, and thus you will not be able to simply navigate to any website. Instead, users will be able to sync their browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs onto their iPhone using Mozilla's encrypted Firefox Sync technology.

Google Chrome has had a big impact on the browser market since its release in September 2008. The latest report from NetMarketShare puts Chrome at 6.73% market share, ahead of Safari on 4.72% and behind only IE (59.95%) and Firefox (24.59%).

What's more interesting about Chrome is the activity it's enjoying from early adopters and geeks. Our own browser statistics at ReadWriteWeb show that Chrome was used by 17.89% of our readers in April, putting it behind only Firefox (38.95%) and IE (24.76%). Further, our figures show a very clear movement from Firefox to Chrome over the past year. Chrome has gained nearly 11% over the past year, whereas Firefox has lost over 15%.

HTML5 is quickly becoming an important part of the Web surfing experience, and according to online ad network Chitika, almost half of all Internet users are already using HTML5-compatible browsers. On Chitika's network, Firefox (version 3.5 and higher) is the most popular of these HTML5-compatible browsers, followed by Chrome and Safari, with Opera coming in a distant fourth in this race. The league of HTML5-incompatible browsers is mostly comprised of different versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Love Linux? Love your Mac? No you don't - not like the hundreds of people out there with Apple and Tux tattoos. But even then, that's not hard core - it's not like Apple is just a Web 2.0 darling du jour.