• Download Manager Support
  I done this by settings my download manager to capture links from my clipboard so I just copy a link that I want and it sends it straight to my Download Manager
• Greasemonkey
  Unfortunately I did not get this to work, but I can live without it.

This test is basically going to show you the latest top rated internet browsers’ speed using Futuremark’s Peacekeeper, Peacekeeper basically renders different images and patterns etc. to your browser, and depending on how fast your browser can render them will determine how good the browser is.

Test Setup

OK not everyone has the same hardware and hardware does matter on benchmarks, so I will be posting my current hardware config so you can determine the speed where it comes from, mainly from the CPU though since rendering normally uses CPU power.

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 940 @ 3.726Ghz
RAM: Corsair Dominator 4GB Memory @ 1104Mhz
GPU: ATI Radeon 4890

Nothing else will really matter so I’m not going to list it, but obviously my CPU & RAM have been overclocked so there is a performance boost there.

Results

OK this test was done in one single browser window, with no tabs and the mouse nor keyboard were in action at the time of the test, this keeps it consistent.

The Browsers tested were:

• Mozilla Firefox 3.5
• Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 (Latest Nightly)
• Safari 4.0.2
• Google Chrome 3
• Opera 9.6
• Opera 10 Beta 3

I have made sure that latest Beta’s were included as some people are using them and want to know differences on that too.

OK well enough chat now and onto the results.

There are also more in depth things to discuss inside each browser benchmark, such as rendering, social networking and javascript dom operations.

Top 4 Browsers In depth

Safari 4

As you can see the rendering on Safari is not up to scratch compared to it’s data production, so it may not produce images and flashy content so quickly. Social Networking to my belief may be how useful the browser for facebook, twitter etc. Complex graphic production is above half seemingly the browser can handle production of images that may stress the browser.

Google Chrome 3

Rendering on Chrome seems to be that tad bit better but Data production and DOM operations seem to be more on the down slope for Chrome, maybe this is what is lacking. As you may have known Google have been talking about how they have improved their javascript engine. Maybe it looks as though Apple are doing better on their browser.

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1

Firefox, compared to Safari and Chrome seems to be better in Social Networking but that’s about it, it actually has lower scores than the other to upstairs. Maybe Mozilla need to do some more steps in their browser functionality.

Opera 10

Opera do have a great interface, I really like how they have designed everything, but it looks as though the benchmark information show that Opera’s DOM operations are it’s best feature and using it for a short time did show that javascript was processed very quickly.

Conclusion

As you can see Safari reigned supreme as the fastest browser getting a score of 5193, Google Chrome, not falling short of the top is second which shows only a mere 692 point difference.
Mozilla’s Firefox 3.6 Alpha seems to be on the right track in speed given that Firefox 3.5 was made to be a faster browser, so Firefox 3.6a1 made it to 3rd place. We don’t need to talk about firefox 3.5 as you can see it is 2nd to last and a quarter gap from the alpha version.
Opera, what can we say about Opera. Well quite a few people use it and believe it to be a very fast browser, well I’m not one to say it isn’t, it certainly is. According to benchmarks Opera’s current Beta is a very nice speed step up from it’s 9th version. So well done to them on increasing the rendering engine.

Of course what are benchmarks right?

Looking at these will determine javascript rendering which in today’s web, is something needed indeed.

Who’s the winner?

There is no winner, it’s just who’s on top, and I believe Apple have done it, since I use the browser for 24/7 use I do have to say it is an excellent browser and extremely speedy. Firefox is known to have the most feature’s due to it’s extensions list which are a lot.

I’m not going to give you a “Which browser is the best” answer you can determine that for yourself.

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What is Google Wave about?

Preview

1) Participating in a Wave is a little like an email chain, and a little like instant messaging; you can embed documents, Google Web Elements, photos and other multimedia, and the whole bailywick is presented as one stream of conversation. People can jump in or jump out at any time, and they can track back to see how a conversation got started.

The advantage, Google says, is “rich formatting.” But this “formatting” is also a lot like instant message formatting. We all know what that’ll mean: short, declarative sentences; loss of all punctuation, greetings, and email signatures (with important info like phone numbers); and conversations that are much longer than they should be. Dislike long billowy emails? You’ll despise the bizarre, choppy prolixity of long waves.

2) “With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.” That’s what Google says. Am I the only one who writes an email, then revises it for tone and clarity? It’s creepy enough that other people know when I’m typing on Gtalk. Now they can see what I’m thinking as I try out sentences?

3) Every college student is familiar with the next liability. Email chains–the closest thing to waves at this point–are all fun and games until someone CC’s the wrong person, like a parent, relative, boss or overly-sensitive co-worker. “Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process,” Google says. That’ll make keeping track of participants a lot harder. Subtract the aforementioned opportunities to self-edit, and you have a social trainwreck ready and waiting.

Dev Preview

4) Google Wave, like all fun new toys on the Web these days, has its own API, aspiring to be a platform as well as a tool. It has “robots” that enable live functions like searching, linking and translation, and a wave can be embedded in a site to make things more “collaborative,” according to Google.

Leaving aside spam for a second–which I realize is no trifle–what is it with platforms? How many of these things can we have before we all join hands across America? Any company with moderately ambitious developers is already trying to handle smartphone apps, Facebook’s API, Twitter, widgets, and who knows how many other endeavors. Do we really need to throw another silo of communication on the pile?

5) The worst thing about Wave: I’m going to try it anyway. Google’s apps are roundly excellent, with the exception of maybe Picasa, which is shamed by Flickr. Why? I’m curious how Wave survived amidst a new, post-recession Google that cuts funding for pie-in-the-sky projects; obviously, Google really believes in Wave, and the search engine giant is rarely wrong about these things.

Via: Stuff.tv & Fastcompany.com

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Kosmix was founded in 2005 by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman. Harinarayan and Rajaraman were co-founders of Junglee, the first shopping search engine which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. They later created Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk.

Kosmix is funded by Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Dag Ventures and Jeff Bezos’ personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions.

Kosmix began as a vertical search engine, initially introducing health site www.RightHealth.com as a proof-of-concept for the Kosmix approach to Web navigation. RightHealth is now the #2 health site on the Web, according to Hitwise. In June 2008, Kosmix expanded its focus from vertical to a complete horizontal play.

courtesy of: Kosmix

But as long as there have been viruses there have been companies who make their money by protecting computers from them.

This is very big business; $4bn (£2.97bn) was spent on virus protection last year. Given those figures people still leave their computers open to attack, in fact some 50% of PCs do not have protection.

Here’s a look at some FREE anti-virus software you can download, to protect your PC:

1. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

There are reports of it bringing up excessive false positives, that is, telling you a file is a virus when it is not, and the interface is not what you would call pretty, but it is free.

2. BitDefender Free Edition

The free version of BitDefender’s software can identify and remove most viruses without problems, but it does lack any form of real-time protection. This means that it can remove malware from your system after you’ve been infected, but it won’t stop it getting on to your computer in the first place. Go to http://www.bitdefender.com to download and find out more.

3. avast! Home Edition

Avast Home Edition guards your PC and the network with multiple shields that scan executables and files. You can select parameters for scanning, and even choose wildcards to exclude specific file types. You can adjust the sensitivity level for the program’s detectors when it comes to scanning downloaded files, instant messages, e-mails, and a host of P2Ps. Its efficient interface opens up window after window to tweak its settings to your liking, for novice to advanced level protection. Go to http://www.avast.com to download and find out more.

4. Avira AntiVir

Avira has versions for current Windows systems, as well as older ones like Windows 98. There is also a version for Linux as well. It comes with a free UnErase program, with which you can try to rescue files which have been deleted.

Free protection is better than none at all, but do give some thought to the benefits you will get from upgrading to a pay version. This includes faster protection from new threats because, in most cases, the virus definitions in free software will not be updated as often as pay versions. Upgrades can start from around £20. There are some good ones out there to consider, from Kaspersky, Eset, Norton, McAfee. A lot of these also come with bundled firewalls, anti spyware in security suites to totally protect your PC.

We will take a closer look at paid protection and security suites in a later post so keep checking back.

via: Rob Feeman @ BBC Click

Gmail in particular has carried its beta tag for more than five years, and it has been a bit of a head scratcher as to why seemingly finished programs have carried on as “betas” for so long.

While Google explains that the four applications have been running at or above the standards of other non-beta software for a while, they have never quite managed to drop their beta tag – until today.
Effective immediately, you will no longer see beta underneath any programs in the Apps Suite, after Google decided businesses didn’t like to run programs that still appeared to be in a trial phase.

To avoid deterring them further, the applications have all be checked to ensure they reach the standard needed to drop the beta name, and will now appear sans beta tag.

Of course, if you’ve grown rather fond of the little beta logo, you can get it back onto your Gmail from the Labs tab under Settings. You crazy lot.

Let us know below if the beta tag has ever worried you when using these programs.

Courtesy of: Stuff.tv

Google is set to release its own operating system – Google Chrome OS – a direct challenger to Microsoft Windows. The new operating system will build on the cloud computing smarts of Google Apps and is coming to desktops, laptops and netbooks in 2010.

While Google already has Android, its mobile operating system, the new product wil be based on its web browser, Chrome.

Google’s ambition is to create an OS for “people who spend most of their time on the web”. It’s already working with manufacturers to get Google Chrome OS toting netbooks with us by early 2010.

Bringing Google Chrome OS to netbooks will widen its battle with Microsoft which currently has a strangehold on the market thanks to the ubiquity of Windows XP. Steve Ballmer’s bunch also has big plans for Windows 7 to be the netbook OS of choice.

With a reliance on web apps and using a speedy underlying Linux architecture, Google Chrome OS could be the first truly cloud computing based operating system. Add Android’s growing appeal to mobile makers and it’s clear that Google’s dominance is growing.

In a statement on its blog, Google says “computers need to be better” which seems like a direct dig at Microsoft. But while Chrome OS is certain to feature the clean interfaces and web savvy features the company is famous for, will it cope with powerful programmes like Photoshop?

Will an OS that handles web apps speedily be the answer to your prayers? Or will you be throwing your lot in with Windows 7 or sticking with OS X? Google Chrome OS won’t be out until early next 2010.

Courtest of: Stuff.tv

A young man from China found a way to by pass the Tethering charges all phone companies are selling with a free profile download.

I have tried this, and works brilliantly, but I must warn you not to use this service with excessive youtube downloads or anything that you wouldn’t do on your iPhone as this will result in you being found out by your network company and result in disconnection of your contract and charges will be facing your way.

Please read through the easy step by step process to install and get tethering to work:

1. Go to Safari on your iPhone
2. Go to http://help.benm.at/help.php
3. Choose the country your network is located in.

Choose the Country you reside in

4. Using the United Kingdom as an example, select your Carrier

Select your carrier service

Please note: O2 iPhone Contact users use O2 Vertigo, Pay monthly (non-iPhone contract) users use O2 Contract

5. Once you select your profile, a page will show details about the internet connection and an install button
6. Click Install and wait for it to finish installing, a “Done” button will appear once it has installed.

Install the profile

6. After installing go to Settings > General > Network > Tethering.
7. If information regarding that you must contact your network provider appears move on then you will need to connect your iPhone up to your laptop/PC for it to activate.

Provider Message

8. Once you have done this then you can just go back to the internet tethering option and select on.
9. You will be asked to connect by USB or Bluetooth, it’s up to you.
10. If your iPhone is connected to your laptop/PC then you should see a network driver being installed on the system, this is the network driver from the phone.
11. Now when you look at your iPhone you should see that it is in Tethering mode, this means that your laptop/PC is using your iPhone to connect to the internet.

Tethering Mode

That’s it! You have tethering setup!

How to uninstall this Tethering Hack

1. Go to Settings > General > Profile
2. Select the Profile and click Remove

That’s it you’ve uninstall the hack

I hope this helped you out, remember to subscribe for more tips.

Let’s get to talking about the features of each one first:

• Supports Push IM
• Twitter
• Skype
• Facebook
• Yahoo
• MSN / Windows Live
• AIM / iChat / MobileME
• ICQ
• Google Talk
• MySpaceIM
• Jabber
• Built in web browser

With IM+ you can share phots, record and send voice messages which can be played on any mac, pc or mobile, send your location, and twitter functionality.

IM+ looks to have a lot of features of a cheaper price than Beejive, having the ability to Skype chat with push is another big benefit as if everyone will be able to talk for free without using any airtime.

Screenshots

• AIM / iChat / MobileME
• MSN / Windows Live
• Yahoo
• Google Talk
• Facebook
• MySpace
• ICQ
• Jabber

As you can see Beejive is missing out on Skype and Twitter connections, Looking at both the applications this is the only real difference, Oh and Beejive has a much more solid feeling interface, it doesn’t look too gimmicky, you’ll see these in the screenshots. Beejive also can send pictures but it is lacking in a built in browser, maybe we’ll see something along those lines in the next update or so.

Screenshots

Verdict

I know this was a brief investigation but out of my own personal experience using the two, I found that they both co-operated well, IM+ does have Twitter and Skype which I would use, but to be honest I like Beejive IM much more, it could be out of personal preference but as you can see the differences between interfaces you’ll know what I mean when I say that Beejive does have a much more solid interface, IM+ uses a lot of glassy effects which are really just eye candy, nothing special.

Concluding this entry, I think the better app to go for is Beejive IM.

Hope you all enjoyed this read.