What the Internet knows about you. "This project was started by a small group of Web developers and security researchers in order to highlight the problem of Web browser history detection -- a problem which can dramatically affect the Web and hurt many people, if not solved quickly. Our direct goal is to educate the mainstream public and show them the direct consequences of allowing this aspect of Web browser behavior, as well as provide some solutions which mitigate the problem. However, since there are no existing satisfactory solutions, our other objective is to point the attention of browser developers to this issue and strongly encourage them to implement the necessary and long-overdue fixes." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Sep 3, 2009 - 45 comments

Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer in Europe "Microsoft said it made it’s decision following an anti-trust investigation by the European Union." [more inside]
posted by sloe on Jun 12, 2009 - 84 comments

Metaplace Raph Koster's customisable, isometric, browser-based 3d environment has now entered open beta. caveats: Registration required, some Beta flakiness (previously)
posted by Sparx on May 17, 2009 - 16 comments

The maker of popular plugin Adblock Plus has issued a proposal for a solution that would allow publishers to unblock their ads in certain circumstances. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on May 11, 2009 - 193 comments

Prepare to feel old: Quake III Arena came out nearly ten years ago. Prepare to feel young again: Quake Live can be played in your browser for free. The long-anticipated beta opened to the public yesterday. John Carmack says that they hope to be improving and polishing the game for the next decade. [more inside]
posted by Plutor on Feb 25, 2009 - 50 comments

SumoPaint is an impressive little flash applet that mimics Photoshop in your browser, complete with layers and filters. See it in action.
posted by spiderskull on Jan 24, 2009 - 18 comments

Blackbird. Are you reading this page on Firefox, Opera, or IE? More importantly, are you black? Then you might want to check out Blackbird: "a web browser designed for the African-American community."
posted by zardoz on Dec 8, 2008 - 84 comments

Plainview is a free full-screen web browser for your mac. Until now, you had two options for showing Internet work: capture it all to Quicktime and throw it into Powerpoint or Keynote (looks nice but no interactivity as everything has to be canned) or show it in your browser (interactive but with ugly chrome distracting people from your beautiful sites). So here's a third option. Fire up your full-screen browser and let your audience focus on the work. [more inside]
posted by krautland on Oct 27, 2008 - 52 comments

You may have heard about Google's new Chrome browser (previously). Did you know that where it really shines right now is on speed, especially with rendering JavaScript? vs Firefox, IE, Safari. vs Opera. video vs Firefox. and also vs IE, Firefox on tests other than JS handling. Not bad for being in beta, at version 0.2.
posted by tybeet on Sep 11, 2008 - 73 comments

History of the browser user-agent string
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Sep 9, 2008 - 29 comments

Google Chrome Google, faced with concerns over Microsoft using it's browser marketshare to marginalize the search engine, have decided to take the fight directly to them. Google Chrome is an open sourced browser based on the Webkit HTML engine, but adds a new Javascript engine, and some UI changes. To advertise it, they've enlisted Scott McCloud to make a comic showing the browser's features. The release date is Wednesday, but watch this space.
posted by zabuni on Sep 1, 2008 - 301 comments

goatse hijacked my bank account
posted by quonsar on Aug 1, 2008 - 53 comments

303, 909, FX, MIXER = ACID VARSITY. In other words, two virtual 303s, a 909, effects and a mixer running for free right in your browser.
posted by 6am on Apr 4, 2008 - 41 comments

WebKit, the rendering engine of Apple's increasingly popular Safari web browser becomes the first "publicly available rendering engine to achieve 100/100" on the Acid3 web standards test. The Opera browser is expected to have an experimental build that passes soon, as well.
posted by aletheia on Mar 26, 2008 - 72 comments

RIP Netscape browser, 1994-2007. AOL, who acquired the groundbreaking browser as part of a $4.2 billion deal in 1998, announced the end today. Good-bye or good riddance?
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Dec 28, 2007 - 99 comments

Flock 1.0 is finally out.
posted by chunking express on Nov 10, 2007 - 47 comments

"Web History helps deliver more personalized search results based on what you've searched for on Google and which sites you've visited." Google unveils Web History, a new feature to help you "view and manage your web activity." You can also get an idea of what sites you visit frequently, broken down by time of day, and search across the full text of pages you've visited. "If you remember seeing something online, you'll be able to find it faster and from any computer with Web History. " What could possibly go wrong?
posted by jbickers on Apr 25, 2007 - 26 comments

?Let today - the eleventh day of the twelfth month - henceforth and forever be Backwards Day! ?Fun with Unicode
Via the wonderfully nerdy 74 68 65 20 64 69 67 69 74 61 6C 20 6D 65.??‭
posted by loquacious on Dec 11, 2006 - 115 comments

Opera version 9 - "The browser that everyone forgets about .. " has just been released - and it's good. Why should you care? Two suggested reasons [+ inside]
posted by grahamwell on Jun 22, 2006 - 79 comments

Revamping the browser Browser add ons such as Browster for IE and Firefox or entirely new browsers such as Flock (limited info) promise to rework the way browsing has been done during the IE only years from 1997 to 2004. More inside...
posted by hockeyman on Jun 12, 2006 - 38 comments

iRider. Is it more than just an IE shell? Could it possibly be worth paying for? Can it really do anything that Firefox can't? Discuss.
posted by bingo on Apr 5, 2006 - 49 comments

Camino goes 1.0 As if us Mac users weren't smug enough, now we have a Mac OS only stable release browser built on Mozilla. Don't forget to install camitools. [via laughingsquid]
posted by MiltonRandKalman on Mar 24, 2006 - 49 comments

You can't just give away free software! Or can you? Firefox's copyleft premise destroys U.K. anti-piracy laws. Gervase Markham takes on a U.K. official who wants to arrest pirates for distributing firefox.
posted by FeldBum on Feb 23, 2006 - 14 comments

Opera Mini is now available worldwide, for free. A quality web browser for your Java enabled cellphone.
posted by mr.marx on Jan 24, 2006 - 35 comments

The wait is over : Firefox 1.5 is out, to be found on the brand spanking new mozilla.com.
posted by XiBe on Nov 29, 2005 - 88 comments

Flock is a being called a 'social browser'. It's been available to a select group of beta testers for a while, but today a developer preview of Flock was released to the public. Based on the open source Mozilla codebase, Flock integrates and synchronises with del.icio.us, Flickr and various blogging tools such as Blogger and Wordpress. Amongst other features, tags can be added to favourites and aggregated RSS feeds can be built and viewed from within the browser. There's been a mixed, if somewhat encouraging reception from the Web 2.0 crowd. Is this the future of browsing, or a plaything for early adopter geeks?
posted by davem on Oct 21, 2005 - 50 comments

Opera is free. If Opera isn't the best browser, then it's a very close second. They hope to make money through ad revenue generated by search engines instead of banners.
posted by raaka on Sep 20, 2005 - 77 comments

Maxthon website Internet Explorer has not been updated for some time and competing browsers have improved on its ageing feature-set. But there's no need to ditch IE. Maxthon provides tabbed functionality and a lots more besides to give you a taste of what is likely to be included in IE7.
posted by bobbyelliott on Jun 5, 2005 - 60 comments

Internet Explorer - We discovered the web. Check out this humorous parody site created for Microsoft's browser Internet Explorer. Something tells me this won't be up for too much longer though.
posted by sjvilla79 on May 28, 2005 - 37 comments

Internet Explorer 7 announced We've heard about it for a while and it's been discussed here before. Will the new version of I.E. be able to hold its own against open source browsers like Firefox?
posted by j.p. Hung on Feb 15, 2005 - 48 comments

Heard about the IDN browser hack? Try out this test page which should open your eyes (the hack is blocked in IE, ironically enough). Here's a list of all affected browsers, ways to fix this in mozilla inside.
posted by mathowie on Feb 7, 2005 - 64 comments

Forget about P&G and Gilette, how 'bout Google & Firefox? Is Google developing their own browser? They appear to be hiring Firefox developers. Can Googzilla be far behind?
posted by fixedgear on Jan 29, 2005 - 25 comments

Firefox ad on the NY Times. The long-awaited 2-page ad for the open source browser is finally out, complete with the 10,000 names of donors.
posted by arrowhead on Dec 16, 2004 - 79 comments

Firefox 1.0 Preview Release is now available. The Spread Firefox site hopes to see a million downloads, and they've already passed the halfway mark. The advantages of Firefox have been previously discussed on MeFi, but this version includes an interesting new feature - Live Bookmarks, which allow you to view RSS news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks menu. Obsessively checking MetaFilter is now easier than ever.
posted by Stuart_R on Sep 17, 2004 - 51 comments

Mark Cuban, who obviously just has too much time on his hands, is teaming up with Icerocket in an attempt to thwart Google for search engine dominance.
posted by Ufez Jones on Aug 3, 2004 - 22 comments

What the heck? Now even Slate is saying that you should ditch IE and switch to Firefox. But, as they say in the article, Slate is owned by Microsoft...
posted by reklaw on Jul 1, 2004 - 62 comments

"It's time to tell our users, our clients, our associates, our families, and our friends to abandon Internet Explorer". Mozilla Firefox 0.9 and Thunderbird 0.7 are out, and today is a great day to make the switch from Internet Explorer and Outlook Express once and for all. Microsoft's own Set Program Access and Defaults feature makes it easy to set everything to use Firefox/Thunderbird and hide IE/OE completely.
posted by reklaw on Jun 18, 2004 - 86 comments

Eolas® Technologies Inc. owns the plugin concept. Meet US Patent 5,838,906: "The patent claims to cover mechanisms for embedding objects within distributed hypermedia documents, where at least some of the object's data is located external to the document, and there is a control path to the object's implementation to support user interaction with the object." Eolas sued Microsoft, was awarded $521 million, Microsoft is appealing, and the W3C held (Macromedia hosted) an ad hoc meeting on the recent court decision and launched a discussion list. Microsoft plans to promptly make changes to Internet Explorer. If this follows through, what are the negative and positive implications?
posted by aaronshaf on Sep 2, 2003 - 29 comments

IE in bug fix mode? Then fix the bugs! As was mentioned here before, MS is discontinuing the free version of IE for Mac, and offering it only as part of the MSN service instead. They also appear to be doing the same with IE for Windows. The Web Standards Project is demanding that they include standards bugs in the list they are going to fix, because MS has always advertised IE as standards-compliant.
posted by setmajer on Jun 27, 2003 - 32 comments

"Bastarda"! What is it? Well, silly, it's a style of Gothic script, of course, used chiefly in the 14th and 15th centuries and so-called because it combines characteristics of the Gothic cursive style with the more formal "textura". Why do I know this? Because I've been surfing the mighty-wonderful Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus. More...
posted by taz on Feb 11, 2003 - 9 comments

boxplorer
one of the most interesting website interpreters i've ever seen. i'll just quote the site: The Internet BOXPLORER browser offers a rectangular view of the World Wide Web. It abstracts web page layouts to produce what are frequently rather colorful compositions. BOXPLORER purifies the Web, making it safe for children of all ages -- free from controversy and advertising. Translation - very interesting graphic renditions of any site you enter.
posted by tatochip on Nov 26, 2002 - 25 comments

Zoë is Google for your inbox (and outbox, too). It's written in Java and actually works on a number of platforms, using a browser-based interface. Jon Udell describes the way he uses Zoë in this O'reilly article.

But be warned: navigating through archived email from five years ago is as humbling as it is addictive.
posted by gdog on Oct 9, 2002 - 12 comments

One browser to rule them all... Looks like IE's win in the browser wars is strengthening its position as the de facto browser as more and more developers code to IE and IE only. I know a lot of MeFiers are developers. What do you do when you develop your sites?
posted by TNLNYC on Jul 8, 2002 - 47 comments

The company that brought full screen flash ads that overtake the browser is cooking up something new, which could quite possibly be worse: reskinning your browser and replacing toolbar buttons with advertisements. Although they don't state the limitations, I would assume it works in windows IE and possibly Netscape/Mozilla (through XUL). Perhaps it's time to switch to Opera once and for all.
posted by mathowie on Apr 2, 2002 - 25 comments

Heres one for the Opera (the browser not the singy thing) snobs out there.
posted by zeoslap on Nov 20, 2001 - 11 comments

While the father of Visual Basic tells Microsoft to: "abandon the browser", a multitude of researchers are looking into next-generation interfaces (links via Joel on Software and Wired respectively). Is the software industry even close to moving on to a new paradigm?
posted by costas on Nov 20, 2001 - 26 comments

Java is alive and kicking, and this guy knows what to do with it. Check out his sexy alife experiments (art? science?) and this goofy game. (Warning: his stuff crashed my browser a couple of times, but was worth it. Most applets are available for download.)
posted by grumblebee on Nov 5, 2001 - 14 comments

Fight the browser with .movTV [Quicktime required.]
posted by riffola on Oct 19, 2001 - 16 comments

SynchIt is a bookmark manager that allows you to access your favorites list from multiple machines. However, their server does not seem to be responding.

Since I was out of town (and away from my machine) for all of last week, can anyone tell me what the deal is?
posted by Irontom on Jul 17, 2001 - 12 comments

Netscape 4.77??? Apparently someone at Netscape/AOL thinks they can polish a turd. KILL IT ALREADY, and end this sham. NS4.x just isn't viable anymore, and continually repackaging it fools no one.
posted by darukaru on Apr 2, 2001 - 62 comments