Opera has announced that it's offering Opera Mobile to OEMs—the people who actually make your phones—to replace, or ship alongside, Android default browser. This is very different from Opera Mini, which has been in the Android Market for months now: Opera Mini is a Java-based browser originally intended for dumbphones, which isn't that great; Opera Mobile, on the other hand, is a full, extremely capable browser, which has long been Windows Mobile's answer to the likes of Mobile Safari and Mobile Chrome.

If the Android version is anything like the Windows Mobile versions of late—and it looks like it is—this is worth getting excited about. It's based on a completely different rendering engine than Android's default browser, supports server-side page compression for faster loading, and has too many useful small features to list, making it the first genuine competing browser on the platform—the others, like Steel and Dolphin, are just variations on the default browser.

The only hangup is that as of now the browser is only available to OEMs, meaning that it wil come with some new phones, but won't be listed in the Android Market, at least for now. We'll have to leave it up to the likes of XDA and Modaco to make it more broadly available, which, let's face it Opera, they totally will. [TechCrunch]

In some ways, Skyfire had gotten a little ahead of itself. It was based on a solid server-side optimization model, which compresses websites—including Flash and Flash video—to speed up loading over a mobile connection. As advanced as its rendering powers were, it had some glaring problems. One higher-resolution screens, which are common on Windows Mobile phones, the text looked fuzzy and pixelated. The interface was functional, but a bit small and convoluted in places, which made it a chore to use on some touchscreen phones. Scrolling was kludgy, and zooming was haphazard. Cue the version 1.5 changelog:

• Full VGA Support. Skyfire now provides native support for the VGA and wVGA resolutions as seen on many recent Windows Mobile phones.
Smooth Scrolling. Kinetic scrolling has been added to Skyfire. Flick and you will see that scrolling has become very smooth.

• Finger friendly UI. There are many UI updates to enable finger friendliness, increase the ease of use and add a bit of fun to the Skyfire experience. We updated as well the start page to be simpler-to-use with high-resolution devices.

• Full screen mode. For touch screens we have a mode that will completely remove all UI elements from the screen to provide maximum visibility onto the page. Tap the bottom right corner to bring back the toolbar.

• Auto-Move text entry. This keeps any text entry box visible when the virtual keyboard is used. This convenient feature assures that web site forms are easy to use, in case the SIP (i.e., virtual keyboard) covers it.

• Latest versions of Flash 10 and Silverlight. 1.5 has been updated to the newest and most stable versions of both rich-media formats.

• Performance enhancements. Both Skyfire's client and servers have been upgraded for faster, more responsive browsing.

The best thing about Skyfire hasn't changed: It's free. [Skyfire]

Alsooooo, the Chrome Extensions page is now open, so you can easily grab add-ons for the latest Chrome beta on Windows, just like Firefox. (So excited for these to take off.)

Finally, Google Bookmark Sync is also live—it stores your bookmarks in your Google account, so you can access them on any computer, though for now, Chrome's the only browser getting the seamless syncing love. [Google, Google via SAI, Lifehacker]

At first glance the browser is a bit of a mess: its Android Market listing is subliterate, and its interface—the tabs, specifically—look kind of assy on the Droid's higher-resolution screen. Beyond the glitches, though, it's a capable browser, with gesture support, RSS integration and yes, multitouch.

Dolphin's multitouch implementation works on a number of handsets aside from the Droid, from the Hero, which supports multitouch out of the box, to Cyanogen-modded G1s and MyTouch 3Gs, which don't. It works much better on faster hardware though: where it's a bit laggy on a stock Hero, it's surprisingly smooth on Motorola's speedier terminator phone. At any rate, it's free, and available now in the Market, so, go. [Dolphin via Engadget Mobile]

I've been running the nightly Chromium builds as our secondary browser to Firefox, and it's been spiffy, if you're particularly impatient. [Cnet]

The list includes tricks for assigning application shortcuts, search engine keywords, customizations, mouse and keyboard shortcuts as well as several tricks for people using dev builds. Hit the link for the full details. [Lifehacker]

Om Malik's got a little embryo of a theory, and it revolves around Mozilla's hosted services/browser sync service called Weave:

I sat around gabbing with Lilly and Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's VP of Mobile, talking about Weave and the Awesome Bar, which is a way to get access to all your browsing history and bookmarks by just typing them in the URL bar on your browser. And while we were talking about Weave, I asked them if it was going to be part of this new, mysterious iPhone app. Lilly and Sullivan smiled and remained silent. Interestingly, they didn't correct me.

It's a telling anecdote, and nearly enough to assume that Weave will be some part of the app, and if the alternative is a browser—which Apple probably wouldn't be too excited to approve—then maybe the whole app. But goddamnit, let's indulge our depressingly modest mobile Firefox fantasies anyway! Lifehacker flags a (cautious) thesis by Kevin Tofel at JKOnTheRun, who sees a Fennec hiding behind the smoke:

Apple did begin to approve third-party applications earlier this year, so a Mozilla browser does have a chance for approval. And that could open the door for the Weave service, as well. Apple's Mobile Me service doesn't sync bookmarks or web passwords over-the-air currently, although I suspect these functions could be added in the future. In light of that, I'm thinking we're about to see Fennec on the iPhone.

So in conclusion, Mozilla: ^This.^ [GigaOm and JKOnTheRun via Lifehacker]

Microsoft has deemed the hole to be a "critical" security threat, as it gives webmasters the ability to quietly install software on your PC. Last May, Microsoft released an update that made it possible to uninstall the .NET framework. They also released a patch earlier this week that supposedly fixes the problem. The vulnerability can also be exploited on users running any version of Internet Explorer. Needless to say, Firefox and IE users should employ one of those solutions ASAP. [Computer World Image via rootshell.be]

No, it's not Explorer. Originally, Microsoft wanted to order browsers from left to right in order of market share. That meant Explorer was going to go first, then Firefox, then Safari, Opera, and Google's Chrome. The EU objected, so Microsoft complied and offered a very reasonable solution: Alphabetical order.

That puts Apple Safari in the number one position, followed by Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Looks good enough to me, but Jenny Boriss—a Firefox user experience designer—disagrees:

This ordering is about the worst option possible. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that 'nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser,' but this is exactly what the current design does. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.

The disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor," she said, citing several studies that claim first position in a ballot gives an advantage, in part because Western voters scan from upper left to lower right when they read.

She goes on and on and on about this, but her basic message is: If Firefox is not first, this design is BAD. She timidly proposes a random order every time the selection screen opens, but she argues that this is bad because "unfortunately does not provide users with any information about what browsers are preferred" (according to who, Jenny? Maybe user would prefer Safari over Firefox—I know I do. Or maybe they would prefer Chrome if they could try it, as it seems to be a lot faster than Firefox).

Then she shows her true colors, proposing the order according to market share—what Microsoft proposed—but excluding Explorer from that ordering and leaving it to the last position. Wouldn't that be unfairly helping Firefox and putting Safari, Chrome, and Opera in a bad position? And why discriminate Microsoft Explorer too?

Finally, she also proposes probability ordering by market share excluding Internet Explorer, which again gives Firefox the advantage over the rest 50% of the time.

In other words, Microsoft and the EU should help Firefox to become the new monopolistic browser, no matter what. Jenny, please: Stop. Saying. Words. [Boriss' Blog via Computer World]

Apple and Lenovo generally include the sensors as data protection tools: using readings from an inbuilt accelerometer, a laptop can recognize when it's in freefall, and spin down, or even cushion, its hard drive to try to minimize platter death. It works, sometimes! But on a hardware level, these accelerometers are just like the ones in your cellphone, meaning they can track orientation finely enough to play simple physics games, which you'll evidently be able to do in the next version of Firefox:

Originally built as something that we would include for our upcoming mobile browser release, we've made it available on desktop systems as well. Many modern Macbooks and Thinkpads contain devices and drivers that expose this information. We've added support for Linux, Macs and some Thinkpads where drivers and devices are available.

So it was an afterthought for Firefox proper, and you'll have to code special games and sites for it, and it'll only work on a few major laptop models. It's not exactly The Future of Firefox, but it's a cool trick nonetheless.

You can try the feature out yourself if you want; just download a nightly Firefox build from here, and try a few of these test pages. (Not safe for seasick types.) [Mozilla via DeepTech]

Google warns that the early access developer release "still lacks certain privacy features, and is not appropriate for general consumer use." Fair enough, but if you're just dicking around and want to get a feel for the interface and speed (which we like), it's good enough now you can watch Hulu and do everyday without crashies (though you might see some weird drawing errors when there's Flash involved).

You can also try the nightly builds of Chromium (the open source part of Chrome, essentially). Just don't cry if you run into any bugs, 'cause we're not even talking beta here, k? [Direct Download (DMG file), Chrome Dev Channel, Chromium Builds]

Peter-Paul Koch at Quirksmode devised a battery of rendering tests to see how different WebKit browsers measure up, and ran everything from desktop Safari 4 to the Pre's browser to S60V5 through a CSS and Javascript compatibility course. Evidently, some WebKit browsers are barely WebKit browsers at all—especially on mobile. Some surprises? Android browsers aren't so hot, nor is the Pre's. And Nokia, which has had WebKit browsers forever, can't seem to make a good one.

There are really two culprits here: older versions of WebKit, which cripple browsers like S60v3's; and developers' need to pare their software down to make it run smoothly on mobile devices. In other words, some of these browsers have been stripped of HTML, CSS and Javascript rendering capabilities on purpose.

What'd be really interesting is if the above chart reflected speed and performance measurements too, because as (apparently) bad as the Android G1's browser is at rendering obscure CSS elements, actually using it is a far sight more enjoyable than struggling with the unconscionably slow Iris on Windows Mobile. Full methodology and test list at [Quirksmode via IntoMobile]

The idea is to mirror the desktop version as much as possible. Open a new tab and you'll see the visual speed dial thumbnails, which you can also customize based on your browsing history. The new version can also be set to store login details on your phone.

As with Opera 4.2, YouTube videos will play via your phone's native media player, and there's still no Flash support. What also sucks: This beta won't support Skins and Opera Link, though both should be reintroduced as development continues.
[Opera: Full Website | Mobile version]

Seeing as most of the time spent on a laptop is spent online, AnandTech ran exhuastive tests on Windows machines, Intel and AMD, netbook and notebook, to see if switching browsers makes any difference in battery life. And hey, it does! In some tests, there was a 30% advantage between the worst browser—always Safari—and the best—Internet Explorer 8. Seriously.

In fact, Microsoft's browser came in front across the board, even inching out Firefox with Adblock by a few percent. It's hard to say why IE8 is so power-thrifty, but the most processor-intensive operations a browser does outside of running Flash content are in rendering Javascript, which IE8 kind of sucks at. So, mystery solved, maybe! Firefox, Chrome and to a lesser extent Opera held up fine, but depending on what kind of laptop you're running, and how willing you are to ditch your browser, there are quite a few sweet battery minutes up for grabs here. Full breakdown at [AnandTech]