Microsoft is clearly focusing on making Internet Explorer compatible with the latest standards, including HTML5, CSS3 and SVG2 support. Even though Microsoft is very focused on making its browser more standards compliant, the current version only scores 55 points (out of 100) on the ACID3 test.

Speeding up the Browser

Besides better support for standards, Microsoft is also focused on speeding up the browser. According to Microsoft, now that "the differences between script engines on benchmarks [are] approaching the duration of an eye-blink," the company is focused on making the actual user experience faster instead of just focusing on improving benchmark results that most users won't notice. The new JavaScript engine will compile the code in a background thread on a separate core of the CPU. While the IE9 developer preview's JavaScript performance isn't quite as fast as the latest Chrome releases yet (something Microsoft freely admits), it is considerably faster than IE8. IE9 will also use a compatible computer's GPU to speed up the browser's performance even more.

Get it Now

You can find more information about the IE9 developer preview in Microsoft's announcement. You can download the preview release for Windows here.

And what's to blame for these drops?

Between January and February, Google Chrome was the only browser to gain market share, reports Ars Technica, who gathered their data from Net Applications. By month-end, Chrome reached a 5.61% market share, a decent slice of the pie and more than other browsers like Apple's Safari (4.45%) and Opera (2.35%), both of which have been around far longer.

You could argue that Chrome's growth has to do primarily with who makes it: Google, of course. Thanks to advertisements for the new browser right on the Google.com homepage, Google has a platform for getting word out to an audience of millions quickly. However, those ads have been gone for some time now and Chrome still climbs. Why is that?

Interestingly enough, it's not due to an advanced feature set. Chrome has been notorious for lacking even the most basic browser features, having initially launched without support for RSS feeds, extensions or a Mac version (all of which have been added now, RSS support via an optional extension, though). Yet despite these missing features, Chrome managed to capture 1% of the browser market within the first day of its release back in September 2008.

Chrome is Fast, but Not the Fastest

One factor that may make the browser so appealing is its speed. Based on the open source Webkit engine, which also powers Apple's Safari browser, Chrome easily beats out Firefox and IE in a number of browser speed tests. However, speed can't be only reason for its climb - independent browser Opera beat Chrome in several categories including browser boot-up and Javascript performance, for example. And with the latest Opera release, the company claims they've created "the world's fastest browser for Windows." And our own Frederic Lardinois confirmed this by doing speed tests.

Chrome's Rise Due to Extensions and Mac Version?

So if it's not speed alone, what else may be driving Chrome's growth? Besides the release of a long-awaited Mac version in December, another factor could be the launch of extensions for Chrome. These add-on software applications put the Google browser more firmly on the same playing field as the others in the market. Many heavy web surfers rely on particular extensions, having grown comfortable with their favorites over the years. Some would even say they require them in order to work effectively on the web.

Or Is It Bookmark Sync?

In addition, Chrome recently released a handy "bookmark sync" feature last month. This lets Chrome users keep their favorite saved websites synced in between multiple computers just by associating a Chrome installation with their Google account.

Still, no single Chrome feature can account entirely for its rapid growth. Opera is faster, Safari is speedy as well, all offer extensions and Safari supports Mac and PC, too. So perhaps what's really appealing about Chrome is its simplicity. With a design that eschews search boxes and heavy toolbars in favor of one big combo search/address box, only four navigation/action buttons and just two menu buttons which are labeled with icons, not names, Chrome keeps the focus on the web, not the browser. And that may be its best selling point of all.

We also have some numbers from StatCounter that show the race to be much closer than Net Applications would have you believe.

StatCounter, on the other hand, shows IE 8 and Firefox 3.5 in a virtual tie, with 21% each, and IE 7 coming next with 19%.

In December, we reported that Firefox 3.5 had overtaken all versions of Internet Explorer for the top spot, but that was only looking at statistics from StatCounter. We're inclined to believe the StatCounter numbers over the Net Applications numbers for a few reasons. Take a look at the StatCounter graph of the same period.

A lot has happened in the browser wars since we declared Firefox 3.5 the number one browser version. When word hit that Internet Explorer was at fault for the Google hacks in China, both France and Germany recommended that their citizens switch browsers. This caused a large number of people to flee Internet Explorer and adopt other browsers, such as Firefox, in its place. At the same time, Firefox finished multiple rounds of release candidates before finally releasing Firefox 3.6. This release caused a lot of people to stop using Firefox 3.5 and switch to the newer version, causing the numbers for 3.5 to drop slightly.

While we can see these drops in the graph provided by StatCounter, the Net Applications graph shows a steady climb for IE 8. We find ourselves unable to declare a current leader in the never-ending war of browsers superiority, and, in all honesty, think it would be futile do so at this moment in time. With new versions and public relations battles over security, everything is shifting and we think it will be a while before any browser clearly pulls ahead.

That said, it won't stop us from taking a look the next time the numbers change.

That's saying a lot for the browser implicated in the Great Google Caper of 2010 and we have multiple security experts who said a lot on why it just isn't true.

Internet Explorer: The Reigning Champ of Security?

"In my opinion the browsers aren't the real problem for most users," Kristensen told us. "The main concern for normal users is by far all the third party programs, such as programs from Adobe, Sun, Apple, and many other vendors, which are being exploited."

Browsers, whether Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, update themselves requiring little if any user involvement, he said, so most vulnerabilities are taken care of. With other programs, however, updates often sit waiting for "months and even years before they update."

Kristensen did concede, however, that the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Opera currently have no un-patched vulnerabilities and are therefor a more secure choice compared with IE, while offering the same caveat.

"The normal user faces the almost same risk whether they run IE, Firefox, or Chrome if they haven't updated all their software," said Kristensen.

Vincent Steckler, CEO of anti-virus software provider Avast, agreed that Evans' statement didn't really add up.

"Other browsers may also have vulnerabilities but to suggest that changing browsers can increase vulnerability is not correct," he told us this morning. "It is changing from the known to the unknown - while it may not increase your protection, it will not decrease it."

IE 6: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

On this point we can find some agreement. Michael Sutton, VP of security research at security provider Zscaler, notes that a switch may be a wasted effort, except for in one case.

"Switching browsers in response to a single vulnerability is a wasted effort. All browsers have vulnerabilities," said Sutton. "So what happens when you switch to Firefox and they announce a critical vulnerability? The larger story here is that the attack succeeded by targeting users running IE6 - an 8-year-old browser."

Whether you switch browsers or not, there is one thing for sure - you need to stop using Internet Explorer 6 already. In the end, though, it doesn't come down to running an ancient browser, as the vulnerability may go well beyond that.

"Currently it is evident that running IE6 on XP or Windows 2000 is a very bad idea, and any other browser would be a better choice for XP and Windows 2000 users," Kristensen told us. "It is also evident that there is an unpatched vulnerability in IE7 and IE8 which may or may not be exploitable on Vista and Windows 7."

We have to admit, the French may be right on more than red wine and food. Go get yourself a copy of Chrome, Firefox or Opera if you haven't already.

The French government joined Germany today in recommending that its citizens switch to another browser in light of last week's admission by Microsoft that Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 all contained the same security vulnerability, in which "Internet Explorer can be caused to allow remote code execution."

As we reported on Friday, Internet security company McAfee pointed out this security vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which allowed hackers in China to attack Google, Adobe and a large number of other companies, including Yahoo and Northrop Grumman.

We contacted Microsoft's PR firm, but due to the holiday in the U.S. today, we weren't able to reach anyone inside the company. An article in The Telegraph, however, paraphrased Microsoft as having said "that the German government had over-reacted about the threat posed by the vulnerability, and that general users were not at risk."

Joe Wilcox of Beta News was not so timid, his suggestion that "it's time to stop using any version of Microsoft's browser -- IE6, IE7, IE8 and forget someday releasing IE9."

According to StatCounter, Internet Explorer still accounts for 45% of browser use in Europe, as opposed to 53% in North America and just over 55% worldwide.

While Microsoft is working on a fix for the problem, we have yet to hear of any resolution to the issue. We'll have to keep an eye on this one and see if the recommendations do anything to lessen Internet Explorer's complete and total dominance in the browser markets.

Infect, Conceal Access and Siphon Data

McAffee's chief technology officer George Kurtz notes that this attack is a good example of the types of attacks that governments and large organizations are currently faced with. This new generation of malware is highly targeted and "designed to infect, conceal access, siphon data or, even worse, modify data without detection."

According to the German government, users should switch to alternative browsers, as other hackers will surely start to exploit this same vulnerability within days.

Image credit: Flickr user nickrussill / CC BY 2.0

While IE still dominates the browser market - with 55% of people using some version - all combined versions of Firefox occupy 32% and have been steadily gaining ground. Released at the end of June, version 3.5 of Firefox has quickly climbed the charts. IE 8, on the other hand - which was first released in beta more than a year earlier, with a full release in March 2009 - now holds a similar 20% of the market to that of Firefox 3.5's 22%.

It would seem that a majority of Firefox 3.5 users were already using 3.0 and upgraded, as the 20% drop in 3.0 use almost directly correlates to the 22% increase in 3.5.

Ever since the release of Google's Chrome, browser developers have emphasized JavaScript performance. There is still a lot of work left to be done in this area, but developers have also started to investigate other parts of the browser that could benefit from new technologies.

According to Firefox developer Bas Schouten, the current implementation of Direct2D in this pre-release version will work best with graphics cards that support DirectX10 and WDDM1.0 drivers. On systems that fulfill these specs, though, users are likely to see significantly better performance on graphics-heavy sites. Sites that mostly render static text or depend on Adobe Flash to display their graphics won't benefit greatly from Direct2D. One benefit of Direct2D that users will notice on most sites, however, is improved font rendering.

For the time being, this is just an experiment and it isn't clear if Mozilla will integrate this technology into Firefox 3.7. What is clear, is that Mozilla seems to be ahead of Microsoft and by doing its development out in the open and through open source, Mozilla will be able to rely on its vast developer community to test and enhance these features.

What About Google and Apple?

Some would argue that the release of Google Chrome started this new race towards faster browsers, and as CNet's Stephen Shankland pointed out earlier today, the Chrome development team is quite aware of Mozilla's efforts and investigating the use of hardware acceleration in Chrome as well. As Shankland also notes, these Direct2D efforts shouldn't be confused with other projects like WebGL or Google's Native Client. Direct2D-enabled browsers will be able to render current pages faster, while these other technologies will require developers to redesign their sites.

Currently, a lot of these experiments are mostly focused on Windows. With OpenCL in Snow Leopard, Apple already offers a programming interface for using graphics cards for general-purpose computing. Apple is probably also looking at OpenCL to speed up Safari, though we aren't aware of any projects from Mozilla or Google that are making use of OpenCL at this point.

Get it Now

If you feel like experimenting with a new browser, you can download an early pre-release of an alpha version of Firefox 3.7 here. While we have tested this browser for a while and didn't see any crashes, it is worth remembering that this version isn't meant to be run in a production environment and that most of your extensions will likely not work.

JavaScript Performance

Today's presentation of IE9 was refreshing, as Sinofsky noted that IE8's JavaScript performance was clearly slower than that of its competitors. The current build of IE9, however, has already closed this gap significantly and the difference in performance compared to the latest builds of Chrome and Firefox were only minor. As Microsoft notes, given how fast modern JavaScript engines have become over the last year, improvements in the JavaScript engine don't influence real-world performance at this point and other browser sub-systems become the bottlenecks that impede improvements.

Hardware Acceleration and Font Smoothing

Microsoft also plans to make use of DirectX-based hardware accelerated graphics and text in IE9. In his demo, Sinofsky showed that Bing maps can render about 14 frames per second in IE8. With hardware acceleration in IE9 turned on, he got 60 frames per second. In addition, this technology will also increase font quality and readability in IE9.

Videos

Microsoft already published a number of videos with the engineers working on IE9 on Channel 9 (sorry, these are Silverlight only).

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.

"Some folks at Google," as the project team is quaintly described on Google's new What Browser site, were charged with explaining what a browser is and what choices consumers have. They got halfway there; but as far as helping consumers make informed choices, information is still limited to pretty colors and shiny logos.

The cornerstone of the site is this average user-friendly animated video explaining in painfully simple terms what a web browser does. It's not an OS, and it's not a search engine. It was simple enough that my 8-year-old niece didn't have too much of a problem with the post-video comprehension check I gave her.

The site gives equally simple text tutorials on how to change a homepage, a default search engine, and a default browser. Credit must go to the "folks" at Google for making these parts of the site accessible to the average Internet user, something that is difficult for a justifiably biased technology company to do.

Talk Nerdy to Me

The "Under the Hood" section of the site seemed like it might give the geekier among us some food for thought with regard to browser performance. It contained this history lesson of a browser timeline from Wikipedia and a series of diagnostic tests, mostly related to browsers' processing of JavaScript.

We ran the Google-developed V8 Benchmark Suite on four major browsers. It broke Internet Explorer, and returned seemingly arbitrary results of 164, 673, and 1794 for Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, respectively, on a scale of "bigger is better." We ran the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on all four browsers, as well. You can click through to see our results for Chrome, IE, Safari, and Firefox.

Google's Still Got Some 'Splainin' To Do

We also opened the site with Epiphany, and WhatBrowser said it was Firefox 3. When we tried it out on Konqueror, well...

What browser? indeed. We're still waiting to see what result the Google site will return.

Which brings us to our final and most serious criticism. The site features the logos of the five major web browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera. No mention is made of the many other available options nor of their current existence.

The reason we feel these browsers should have been in some way included in Google's browser icebreaker is the same reason we feel there should have been at least some discussion of each browser's corporate affiliations, best uses, and technical capabilities: Out of fairness to the aforementioned casual Internet user who, after looking at this page, might know what his browser is but still won't have a clear idea of whether or why he should consider using other browsers.

I'm primarily a Chrome user, and I love the lightweight interface and speed. But it's not the most reliable for enterprise web-based software such as WebEx and certain other web applications. When I'm testing web apps for work, I very often have to break out one of my standby browsers.

The flip side of that coin is that, since IE is still a dominant figure in the territory, most apps and sites will still perform well enough in Internet Explorer. I can think of just one app I've tested this year that didn't have any IE support.

Some users will care whether or not their browser is open-sourced, or whether or not it's standards-compliant. Some will care much more that it's reliable for using enterprise web-based software. But the glaring absence of this information from Google's presentation shows us that, in the effort to avoid obvious accusations of favoritism, they've neglected a great opportunity to create an informed consumer culture around web browsers.

By presenting just the logos of five browsers, Google has done something to make consumers slightly more aware of their options but nothing to break down the rhetoric- and sentiment-driven attitudes of average users toward technology products.

So, let's have a little conversation about that now: What's your browser of choice, and why? When did you start thinking critically about your browser? What performance or other issues trouble you most? Let us know in the comments.

As Google's Mike Smith and Alex Russell told us when we talked to them about this project, a lot of companies have good reasons why they can't just simply switch away from Internet Explorer. After all, these enterprises often have made large investments in an infrastructure that is only compatible with IE. As Google pointed out to us, though, this shouldn't hold back developers who want to explore the possibilities that newer, faster and more modern browsers like Chrome can offer.

Google, which has lately developed a tendency to route around other vendors, developed this plugin without help from Microsoft, but Smith and Russell noted that Microsoft gives developers a lot of ways to easily extend Internet Explorer.

Focus on Developers

Thanks to this plugin, developers will now be able to give these users an option to at least switch to a faster rendering engine by just adding one single line of code to their sites ().

Indeed, this current release is mostly meant to give developers a choice for how they want to deliver their web apps to their users. At least for now, users won't be able to make the switch to the Chrome engine persistent, though they can invoke the plugin by putting 'cf:' in front of any URL.

Google is obviously interested in getting its web apps into businesses. These web apps tend to work best in a modern browser with a fast JavaScript engine and that is not something Internet Explorer is known for. As Mike Smith told us, the Web shouldn't be hobbled by this.

As for the user experience, the Google team tells us that the switch will be absolutely seamless and that the plugin will offer the same speed and reliability of Chrome inside IE.

A Trojan Horse?

Google hopes that this plugin will enable developers in enterprises to write code for a modern browser that isn't held back by some of the old paradigms. That, of course, is a noble undertaking. At the same time, though, we can't help but wonder if Google also plans to use this plugin to plant a Trojan horse inside these companies. After all, very few businesses are ready to make the switch from IE to Chrome right now, but Chrome Frame now offers companies the option to get the best of both worlds and - maybe - switch over to Chrome completely in the long run.

As for Google itself, the company plans to use Chrome Frame to make Google Wave run smoothly in Internet Explorer but hasn't announced any other plans to use Chrome Frame in other products yet.

The creators of Firefox had the sense to realize that their uphill battle against Microsoft's IE was not going to be fought between equal armies. Internet Explorer was already pre-installed on almost every PC, and the Redmond company had ten times the resources to spend on development and research than their open-source competitor. Spread Firefox began as an effort to harness the collective voices of the programmers, marketers and enthusiasts contributing to the Mozilla project. Rather than positioning themselves as a corporate competitor, Firefox likened itself to a political cause. Externally, the group referred to itself as a "movement", and internally, the very infrastructure of the community site was powered by CivicSpace (formerly DeanSpace). The site is a modified version of the Drupal content management system created for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign.

Spread Firefox became a rallying hub for open-source advocates and Microsoft dissenters. Since the very beginning, Firefox was humanized as the eager young candidate with a can-do attitude, while Microsoft's IE was portrayed as being bloated, corrupt and resting on his laurels.

In this world, the initial political platforms had nothing to do with health care or fiscal responsibility, but rather the impending threats of spyware and Trojan horses. Instead of putting signs on their lawns, volunteers put "Get Firefox" buttons on their personal websites. Instead of holding bake sales, they held hack-a-thons to build new extensions.

It's not unreasonable to compare the browser's fans to Howard Dean's leaflet-touting Deaniacs. While most enthusiasts opt to don t-shirts or work on web development, there are certainly zealots. One group of hardcore Oregon State University fans went so far as to create a 220 ft. Firefox crop circle.

Both Dean's campaign strategies and Spread Firefox are testament to small contributions and the power of the internet. The race to 1 billion downloads is a huge step in the browser territory struggle; however, as with Dean's campaign, it's still a long way from single-handedly toppling the status quo. Nevertheless, the Firefox campaign may be aided by Microsoft's antitrust case and the company's recent proposal to include rival web browsers in the Windows OS throughout Europe.

Mozilla's bid to become commander in chief, at least in Europe, may actually be achieved in the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see if Opera, Safari and Chrome will step in to split the vote.

For more information on Firefox, visit the Spread Firefox site, or to download the browser, visit the product page.

Featuring one-time Lois and Clark actor Dean Cain, the ads are uncharacteristically hip and discuss such real-world Internet problems as the fear of missing something (a.k.a. insomnia by social media) and the fear of your S.O. finding your porn cache. However, at least one of the videos was just too cool for Microsoft. After becoming strangely popular and talked-about online, the video was renounced by the software mega-company and pulled from the promotional website. Somewhere tonight, a creative director weeps.

The spot itself features a young lady spewing copious amounts of what used to be breakfast on a young man. She'd borrowed his laptop and evidently stumbled upon some hideous new Rule 34 form of online entertainment. The ad serves to highlight IE8's sneaky no-history InPrivate browsing feature.

The ads are, as a group, delightfully off-brand. They're too cool for Microsoft, which has generally dwelt somewhere between stodgy and cutesy in terms of marketing.

Better still, they show that Microsoft just might be listening to what users really need: Web Slices to get quick views of personally important sites without wasting unnecessary time browsing between full-on tabs; sharing accelerators for sending along lolcats or other media with a single right-click; and yes, a way to keep the missus from finding out about your love affair with Suicide Girls.

The features are nifty in themselves. We'd totally use them if we weren't already committed to Chrome and Firefox.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Browser Version Market Share

The fact that as of today almost 23% of all Internet surfers are still using IE6, however, leads us to believe that it will take a while before a larger number of IE7 and IE6 users will switch to IE8. While it's a major update, IE8 does not include a lot of new 'must-have' features for most users who just use their browser to get around on the net, and who probably don't care much about accelerators and web slices.