"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.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a problem with the new security feature: it wasn't working...or at least, so it seemed. As it turns out, the problem was that users weren't informed as to how to properly activate the anti-phishing protection, an issue that points to a poor implementation of what could and should have been a major breakthrough in mobile computing technology.

Although Apple touted the anti-phishing protection back in March when they announced their 3.0 update, the new feature didn't actually materialize until this month when the company released the OS 3.1 iPhone/iPod Touch software. According to Apple, the anti-phishing protection feature will display an on-screen warning message when you attempt to visit a known malicious website.

Once the update was released, security researchers and other Apple enthusiasts began testing the new technology. The results were immediately disappointing. "I've not been able to get it to block anything," Michael Sutton, vice president of research at security firm Zscaler was quoted as saying. He had been testing the feature using known phishing websites identified by the anti-phishing database hosted at PhishTank. The Mac Security Blog also found after extensive testing that it simply "does not seem to work." MacWorld, however, found that the feature worked sometimes, but the inconsistency hinted that the technology was not "ready for public consumption," they reported.

What gives? Did Apple really release a broken feature? Were they even aware of the problem? Blogger Jim Dalrymple of The Loop decided to go straight to the source: he asked Apple.

Apple Says "You're Doing it Wrong"

Apparently, this was not a case of the anti-phishing technology being broken. It was a case of everyone simply "doing it wrong." As it turns out, in order for Safari's anti-phishing database to update, there are a few particular steps that need to be followed, explained an Apple spokesperson. After updating the phone to the OS 3.1 update, users need to do the following:

1. Launch the Safari web browser.
2. Connect to a Wi-Fi network.
3. Charge the iPhone with the screen off.

The spokesperson added that for "most users" this process should happen automatically when they charge their phone. We would have to disagree. "Most users" don't launch the Safari browser prior to charging their device - if anything, they close down any open applications before plugging in the phone to charge.

Poorly Implemented, Poorly Explained

If you follow the above steps, the feature will work. However, most users will never know to do this unless they happen to closely follow technology news and blogs. The general mainstream population - the very demographic Apple so craftily attracts via their billion dollar marketing campaigns - expects things to "just work." That is the Apple promise, after all.

Yet even on Apple's own website where they detail the various new features in the OS 3.1 update, there is no mention as to how the anti-phishing protection should be utilized. It simply lists that the feature exists. A helpful link to a "how to" guide would seem appropriate here or, at the very least, a footnote.

Having to perform the somewhat unintuitive steps to get the anti-phishing protection feature to function properly seems like an unusual miss for a company who generally makes things simple and straightforward. Why does it need Wi-Fi, for example? Apple claims that the Wi-Fi connectivity is required so as not to incur any additional data fees for the end user. But launching the browser? We almost wonder if it wouldn't have made better sense for Apple to implement the feature in the new iTunes update instead. The desktop software could retrieve the updated anti-phishing database from the internet upon launch and could then sync it to the iPhone or iPod Touch the next time it was plugged in. That would also alleviate another common problem with the current implementation - if the phone isn't plugged in long enough, the update won't complete and users will only be partially protected. On the other hand, the inclusion of the database via a sync would have ensured that all the data was copied over to the phone.

In the end, though, Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos, reminds us that maybe we shouldn't be too hard on Apple. "Many other smartphones don't offer even the most elementary form of anti-phishing protection to their users," he says. That may be true but, unfortunately, the way Apple chose to deliver their anti-phishing protection feature means that most iPhone users won't be protected either.

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.

Additional Opera 10 features include web mail and web feed reader integration and an inline spell-checker for blogs, Twitter and Facebook posts. To find out more info on Opera 10 beta 3 or to install it, visit opera.com/browser/next.

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.

Granted, most of the new features in Safari 4 are not exactly new, but, as Apple does so often, it exceeds at putting all of these features together in a very attractive package.

New Features

Just like Chrome, Safari 4 has moved its tabs all the way to the top of the browser window. Apple, however, did not copy Google's unified search and address bar but stuck with the more traditional separation of the two.

Cover Flow

The new Cover Flow interface for bookmarks and your browser history is partly just eye-candy, but it also does work surprisingly well and can come in handy when you just remember the layout of a page, but not the exact name. The interface displays a screenshot of the bookmarked pages. Secure pages are blacked out.

Top Sites

The speed-dial startup page, named 'Top Sites' by Apple, is quite similar to what we have seen from Google and Opera. The page is generated automatically, based on the sites you visit most often, but Safari 4 also allows you to rearrange items on the page and pin certain sites to the page, so that they won't disappear even if you don't visit them as frequently. You can set Top Sites to display 6, 12, or 24 pages. Top Sites will also notify you when a page has been updated.

Full History Search

Safari now also features a 'full history search,' which not only remembers the page titles and URLs you went to, but also indexes the text from every page you visit. It should be noted that Opera also offers full history search.

Performance

In our informal tests, running the Sunspider JavaScript benchmarks, Safari beat out Firefox 3.0.6 by a wide margin (800ms vs. 2280ms), though the latest developer version of Chrome came out on top (617ms). While using the browser, however, it didn't feel like there was a significant difference between Chrome and Safari 4. Emails in Gmail opened almost instantly, and even complex pages rendered very quickly.

Safari on Windows

On Windows machines, Safari finally feels like a native application that mostly blends into the environment - though the plain gray background still makes it stand out a bit.

Developer Tools

Safari 4 now includes a wide range of developer tools. Among those are a new resources pane, a tools for managing databases, and a JavaScript debugger and profiler.

Verdict

Safari 4 is a significant update to Apple's browser. In terms of features and usability, it might actually now be ahead of most of its competition, and Safari's performance is on par or better than its competition as well. Where it lacks, however, is in its support for third-party plugins (though the existing plugins do tend to be of a rather high quality). For mainstream users, this is often not an issue, and these users will be more than happy with Safari. As you would expect from Apple, Safari's user interface is extremely well thought out, and features like Top Sites or the full history search make it a browser that is both functional and fun to use.

Net Applications thinks that that the U.S. election, the Thanksgiving holiday, the rising unemployment in the U.S., and the extra weekend in November led to an increase in residential browsing during that month, but the general trends clearly also continued during December.

Will IE8 Make a Difference?

It will be interesting to see if the upcoming release of IE8 will be enough to turn Microsoft's fortunes in the browser market around. While we like the beta version of IE8 as a general purpose browser, it still doesn't have the extensibility and speed of Firefox. Google is also working on an extension architecture for Chrome, which will allow developers to port their Firefox plugins over to Google's browser and give users even more alternatives to IE7 and IE8.

The default search engine for Inqisitor is obviously Yahoo's own product, but you can also switch to Google as your default search provider. While Flickr and Wikipedia are already built into the plugin by default, Inquisitor also allows you to add shortcuts to any other search engine to its repertoire.

Personalization

In this new version, Yahoo has also started to personalize the results based on your previous search behavior.

In our tests, the personalization seemed to work quite well, though it takes a few searches before the plugin learns enough about your behavior to become useful.

The plugin can now also analyze your bookmarks and include them in your searches. This is useful, but modern browsers like Firefox 3 and Chrome already include this functionality in their own address bars now and can display their results a bit faster than Inquisitor.

In the future, we assume that this functionality is going to become a standard browser feature, but if you are looking to enhance your search box now (and especially if you are using Internet Explorer), this plugin is definitely worth a try.

Why sponsor ReadWriteWeb? It is one of the 10 most popular blogs in the world, according to Technorati, and reaches an influential audience. Our site is read by tech and media professionals, early adopters, developers, designers, analysts, CIO's, VC's, media execs, leading thinkers. Email us now for more details.

E.Factor stands for "The Entrepreneur Factor" and represents a vibrant online community and virtual marketplace designed for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.

Strands has created a social recommender engine that is able to provide real-time recommendations of products and services through computers, mobile phones and other Internet-connected devices.

Calais, powered by Thomson Reuters, brings state-of-the-art semantic functionality into your blog, content management system, site or application.

The Web 3.0 Conference is for the builders of the next generation Web: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and venture capitalists. It's on October 16 - 17, 2008 in Santa Clara, CA.

Talklets, from TEXTIC, is a Text to Speech system for your web pages or applications. Its API gives you the ability to convert text to speech, dynamically, on your website.

Compete Search Analytics is a way to build and optimize search marketing campaigns.

Direct Media Exchange is a simple solution for managing ad networks that allows publishers to make more money from their websites.

Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.

The Defrag conference is focused on the tools and technologies that accelerate the "aha" moment. It is being held November 3-4 in Denver, Colorado.

EditMe lets you make a web site in minutes and edit the content with a single click.

Quintura is a visual-based search engine, which we are now using to power ReadWriteWeb's main search. Check it out here.

Eurekster is developer of the swicki that we use on RWW, a custom social search portal on the topic of your choice (in our case web tech).

MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW and SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

Benchmarks

We used the SunSpider benchmark to test the latest version of WebKit against Google's Chrome. The results are quite impressive. WebKit with SquirrelFish Extreme finished the benchmark in 1235ms while Chrome needed 1598ms. The latest production version of FireFox took 3424ms to complete the benchmark. We were not able to test FireFox with TraceMonkey enabled (running the benchmark crashed the browser), but judging from these results, it is clearly a lot slower than both ScquirrelFish Extreme and Chrome.

We also ran the Mozilla affiliated Dromaeo benchmark, which takes a more holistic approach and does not just look at the JavaScript engine. Here, too, SquirrelFish Extreme outperformed Chrome's V8 (4522ms vs. 5206ms).

In case you want to try these benchmarks for yourself, you can download the latest version of WebKit with SquirrelFish Extreme from here.

Competition at Work

When Google launched Chrome, it emphasized that it wanted to bring more competition into this market and to push the development of faster and better browsers. The fact that both the Mozilla and WebKit teams are working so hard to beat Google definitely proves that there is still a lot of room for improvement and that Google's plan is working.

This week, Fairtilizer has launched the first part of their new distribution platform: an embeddable player which allows indie artists to share their music anywhere on the net from web sites to blogs to social networks.

We told you about Fairitlizer over a year ago, when the company was still in private alpha. The easiest way to describe the site is to say that it combines the discovery aspects of Hype Machine with the distribution model of Tunecore. At the time of our initial writing, the company let artists upload tracks which visitors could browse through to find music they liked. Now Fairtilizer has opened its doors and is launching the next phase of their service: distribution.

Artists can now use one unified interface provided by Fairtilizer to distribute songs to blogs, web sites, social networks, and digital music stores...yes, even iTunes (The digital stores piece is coming soon, the others are available now). The distribution is aided by an embeddable player which can be added to any web site. The player comes in four different sizes and has shuffle and autoplay options as well as the ability to stream a customizable playlist. Once embedded, artists can then easily track analytics like downloads and plays per country.

The Fairtilzer Player:

Additionally, on the Fairtilizer web site itself, each track page comes with customizable URL, artwork, space for description and links (like to artist web sites, stores, and booking contacts, etc.), and a comment board for listeners. Tracks can be set to streaming only or made available for download, and soon artists will be able to mark them for sale, too, if they so desire. The tracks can also be set to public or private.

That private setting is designed to help artists in the initial phases before the launch of a new tune. Traditionally, launching a new track involves three steps: production, promotion, and distribution. With record companies today, leaks can occur in both the production and promotion phases as tracks are sent back and forth between artists, producers, DJs, journalists, and other taste makers who receive a first look before the track becomes publicly available. To combat those leaks, Fairtilizer provides these "private streams" instead. Artists will be able to send the track to specific people just as they did before, but the track will be protected from piracy and leaks.

The Future of Music

Although Fairtilizer will provide tools for artists wishing to sell their music, the focus isn't just on music sales. Instead, it focuses on providing all the tools an artist would need to get their music discovered, downloaded, shared, and distributed.

In the future, says Olivier Rosset, a former music exec and co-founder of Fairtilizer, it won't be about who owns the rights to a recording anymore. Music will instead center around the URL. And at Fairtilizer, they want to be the company that best helps an artist get that URL, that single track, onto the most sites across the internet.

Usually team collaboration tools are separated into distinct categories. You have tools for presentations like GoToMeeting, WebEx, or BudgetConferencing; you have whiteboarding applications like Twiddla's team brainstorming solution and sometimes you have combo solutions like Adobe's Connect Now which lets you whiteboard and web conference at the same time. Or there's Vyew which lets you whiteboard and screen share. Then you have your project or task management tool set which can be anything from Basecamp to Clever Tools to Google Docs or it can even be an enterprise 2.0 app like the newly launched Qtask. Finally, if you just want to share screens live, you have to turn to solutions like Yugma (review), Yuuguu (review), or DimDim.(This isn't an extensive list by any means, FYI).

There aren't many apps that combine all these functions into one. OpenACircle, however, makes a good effort at doing so. The only feature they're lacking is a dedicated whiteboarding tool, but considering the support for everything else from file sharing to screen sharing, it's not worth dismissing the app solely due to that one missing feature. Besides, they're looking into adding that in a later release, if there is enough demand.

OpenACircle Dashboard

OpenACircle's Feature Set

What OpenACircle does provide is an extensive feature set that works well for distributed teams that still need to meet up regularly and share what they're working on with each other. To accomplish this, the app provides the following features, as detailed below.

Collaborate

The core feature to OpenACircle is the concept of the circles themselves. Essentially, a circle is a virtual team collaboration space where everyone can share information and work with each other in an environment focused on one particular area of a task or project.

If you have documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, PowerPoints, or any other type of file, you can upload it to the circle. You can import contacts from your email program and you can invite other members to join the circle. From within the circle, you can quickly launch the other conferencing aspects of the program like web conferencing which is done using web cams or screen-sharing. Every action taken within a circle is meant to be fast and easy, often only one or two clicks away. In a circle, no one person is tasked with being the admin or organizer - everyone can upload files, start chats, or host a meeting.

A Live Room

Presentations and Web Conferencing

Whether you need to share your desktop for a presentation or just have an online meeting with other team members, you can accomplish this from OpenACircle. Anyone can schedule the meeting and invite members to attend. Although a dozen members can participate in a live audio or video conference at one time, OpenACircle limits you to viewing three web cams and one desktop at a time. They claim this to be an intentional design choice because "people talk in same clusters," but the reality is that the system might not be able to support a dozen live cam streams at once. That's not really a big deal for smaller teams, but those teams with more members might wish to see all the faces of the meeting attendees.

Meeting Participants

For anyone who missed the meeting, the recordings are made available for later viewing. What's interesting is that multiple recordings from each member's viewpoint are archived. This means that you could have Bob, who was watching Sue's desktop, saved in one stream and John, who was watching Bob's desktop, saved in another. That's a feature you don't see elsewhere.

Chats

While attending a meeting, you have the opportunity to chat with other members through an integrated text chatting feature. You can even privately chat ("whisper") to each other. Those public chats are later archived within the circle. They could be used for side discussions or even as real-time meeting minutes.

Conclusion

OpenACircle represents an innovative all-in-one solution for small teams. They could be teams in a traditional enterprise or SMB environment who are just looking for a better way to work together or they could also be distributed teams for whom geography is a challenge. Mobile professionals will like it too, as it allows them to attend meetings and have the benefit of team collaboration even when they're on the road alone.

Users today receive 25 circles with as many as 50 people in each circle with unlimited storage. OpenACircle.com will begin charging in January. Anyone who signs up now will receive 90 days free even if they exceed what is currently being provided for free. Pricing is $9.95 for a premium account that incorporates additional circles and additional storage. OpenACircle.com will always have a free version. A fully operable version will be free up to a certain memory limitation (1GB) and over that will be $9.95 per month per user.

You can now join the OpenACircle beta program from the company homepage.

UPDATE: In light of the comments below, it's worth noting that OpenACircle has initially launched Windows-only, but support for other platforms (like Mac) and browsers (including a mobile version) are coming in the future. More specifically, Firefox support is only 30-45 days out.

Even if it was accidental, the timing of Chrome's release could have hardly been any better. As the news leaked during Labor Day, which, by all measures, is traditionally a very slow news day, anticipation built quickly in the blogosphere and Chrome easily dominated the tech news cycle for the coming days. Also, the fact that Google streamed the announcement live and had the browser ready for download even before the announcement had finished surely helped to keep the momentum going.

What About the Rest?

In this short time, Chrome managed to become the 4th most used browser on the net after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. As Chrome only runs on Windows so far and given that Safari has a far smaller user base on Windows, Chrome is now the third most used browser for Windows users.

Here at RWW, we have been seeing the percentage of Chrome users rise steadily over the last few days. As of this morning, about 3.3% of RWW readers were using Chrome. UPDATE: later in the day, Chrome is 8.95% in our browser stats over the past two days!

This quick ascent for Chrome is even more astonishing, given that Apple had to resort to all kinds of tricks to even get to 0.2% of the market.

Firefox and Safari Lose

Clearly, there is a demand for a better browsers. According to StatCounter, Chrome's users have been coming from Firefox and Safari, while IE actually gained market share. Most of current Chrome users are still early adopters, but over time, we think that Chrome will mostly drain users away from Opera and IE, as its simplicity and ease of use would most probably appeal most to these two groups, while a lot of advanced Firefox users won't be able to switch until Chrome supports extensions.

One of the primary reasons that Firefox users prefer that browser of Safari is its extensibility. Couldn't Safari do something crazy to foster a revolution in Webkit extensions? I'm imagining free, unlimited iTunes downloads for a year for anyone who develops a free Safari extension downloaded by more than 100k users.

How about something exciting with offline syncing? Google Gears built in. Maybe a Safari version of Greasemonkey built in. Perhaps some particularly magical syncing between iPhones and desktop Safari installations would be a big hit.

It's not my job to think of these things, that's something Apple does better than almost anyone. Why would a company so capable of designing and marketing must-have products resort to this kind of slimy distribution tactic?

So what is it that Safari is missing? For one, unlike the other browsers, Safari has no built-in phishing filter which warns web surfers when they visit suspicious web sites.

The other issue is that Safari doesn't support EV (Extended Validation) certificates. This secure web browsing technology turns the address bar green when visiting a legitimate web site.
Currently only IE supports EV certificates, but upcoming versions of Opera and Firefox will be supporting them as well.

"Safari has got nothing in terms of security support, only SSL (Secure Sockets Layer encryption), that's it," Barrett said.

But are these technologies really having an effect? Barrett thinks so. For example, with EV's, he is basing this decision on data compiled on PayPal's web site that show that IE 7 users are more likely to sign on to PayPal. He makes the leap to presume that this is because they are more confident that the site is legit.

But to the contrary, a study (PDF) on the effectiveness of EV shows that EV certificates aren't that useful unless someone is specifically trained to notice the green address bar and what it means.

So, is Barrett being overly cautious? Or is Safari really insecure?