Web Browser Round Up

Seems to be a big week for news related to various web browsers.  Since there’s so much to talk about regarding browsers, we thought we’d do a little round-up here to keep you all in the know.

1. Google Chrome is now out of Beta Testing

Google’s Chrome browser has officially come out of beta and is now a stable release.  That doesn’t mean they’re done tweaking and improving Chrome, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a bug-free browsing experience–I still can’t get the thing to install right on my laptop.

So we’re still not exactly recommending you go out and switch from Internet Explorer to Chrome.  But Google releasing their own web browser in direct competition with Microsoft (who has long been the only dominant player in the browser wars) is big news in the world of tech and could shape the future of the web.

2. Microsoft’s IE8 to be more helpful to the disabled.

Microsoft has announced that they’re adding several new features to the next version of Internet Explorer  that are aimed at improving the browsing experience for disabled people.  It’s great to see them thinking along these lines, and it’s nice to know that they are still trying to innovate.

3. Mozilla’s Firefox browser gains market share.

For the past several years, the Firefox browser has been David to Internet Explorer’s Goliath.  Popular with a tiny sliver of the Internet browsing population, but nowhere near enough to be a serious competitor to Microsoft.

That’s all changing, however.  Slowly, over time, Firefox has crept up on IE, and recently past the 20% mark in market share for the first time.  That means that 20% of the people online are using Firefox.  Still not a large enough chunk to put Microsoft’s dominance in jeopardy, but probably making them begin to sweat a bit.

4. New browser causes controversy.

A company has released a new browser developed specifically for African Americans.  It’s called Blackbird, and it’s got features built in such as news feeds and social networking tools that are designed to help African Americans connect with each other through the Blackbird web browsing experience.  Oh, and it’s already terribly controversial, as you can probably imagine.