Even though Firefox 3 holds the record for most downloads in a day, it still holds a fraction of the browser market that number one Internet Explorer has. According to The Wall Street Journal Firefox held 19.03% of the browser market in June while Internet Explorer captured 73% of the total browser market.

Mozilla announced its record setting attempt with much pomp and fanfare on June 17 and to commemorate the occasion the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft even sent over a cake.

Apple touts that improvements coming in Snow Leopard will include better support for multiple processors, better GPU support, better use of large amounts of RAM, and support for Apple’s new QuickTime® X platform. The OS will ship in about a year and will come packaged with support for Microsoft Exchange 2007.

Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering describes the new OS stating, “We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more. In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Apple says that integral to its plans is the new technology “Grand Central”, which will help developers design more efficient multi-core programs for Macs. The new OS will also allow use of Open Computing Language (OpenCL) to use GPUs for non-graphics applications. And the sky’s the limit for memory with 16TB of RAM, theoretically, at the new operating system’s disposal (of course such levels are impossible with current chipsets and DIMM densities).

According to the associated advisory, Mozilla patched the bug primarily for stability reasons, but said that attackers might leverage crashes in JavaScript’s garbage collector. “We have no demonstration that this particular crash is exploitable but are issuing this advisory because some crashes of this type have been shown to be exploitable in the past,” the advisory read.

JavaScript’s garbage collector reclaims memory and returns it to the system; its efficiency is an important factor in the performance of JavaScript specifically and Firefox in general.

Firefox 2.0.0.14 can be downloaded from the Mozilla site in versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Users running Firefox can call up the browser’s built-in updater or wait for the automatic update notification, which typically appears within 24 to 48 hours after Mozilla posts a new version.

By TechARP’s account, Microsoft will first finish work on the Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish versions of the service pack.

Microsoft declined comment, other than to repeat an earlier statement about the service pack’s timing. “We are targeting 1H [first half] 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM, though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

The last time Microsoft made a public move with Windows XP SP3 was a little over a month ago, when it posted a second release candidate to Windows Update.

About two weeks ago, however, XP SP3 caused a minor stir when what was purportedly the newest build leaked to the Internet and hit BitTorrent search sites such as The Pirate Bay. Although Microsoft initially refused comment, last week it acknowledged that the build — designated 5503 — was real and had been released to a portion of the invitation-only beta test group.

The beta version of IE8 includes better predictability when designing sites, full support for cascading style sheet (CSS) 2.1 at release to manufacturing, and integrated developer tools to quickly debug HTML, CSS and scripts in a visual environment, Microsoft said.

“A lot of the end user or consumer features are not featured on this build because it really is targeted at the developers and the designers,” Matthew Lepsen from the Microsoft IE development team, said on a video produced by Microsoft’s Channel 9 site.

While the consumer version of IE8 will differ somewhat from this first beta, it will not be a dramatic change, Lepsen said. “There are not going to be huge landmark changes,” Lepsen said. “We want to have continuity with the new functionality, so we don’t want to shock our viewers with a whole bunch of changes.”

The software giant again stressed the browser’s interoperability. Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it will make IE8 standards compliant. The browser will render the Acid2 browser test correctly, and fully supports CSS 2.1, Microsoft said. In addition, it fixes “many cross-browser inconsistencies such as get/set/removeAttribute, default attributes, Attribute object and the < Q > tag.”

In an apparent coincidence, the Web Standards Group announced the release of the next-generation Acid3 test on Wednesday. The beta will also include two new features, dubbed Activities and WebSlices.

Activities is intended to provide quick access to services from any Web site, Microsoft said. Once downloaded through the IE8 service guide, users can look up or send certain information from the Web. Those on a restaurant Web site, for example, can click within the page to get maps, look up news on the restaurant, blog about it, or share on Facebook.

Activities will also feature partnerships with companies like eBay and Stumbleupon, which eBay acquired in May. Highlight something on a Web site, right click it, and see if that item is available on eBay without ever leaving the original Web site, Lepsen said.

“We’re always going to love control-v, control-c, but right now we’re trying to shorten up the steps,” Lepsen said. “The whole idea of tab proliferation? You don’t always have to have that. Access to what you want to do most often is going to be a lot easier.”

“We’ve been working on memory [leaks] for years,” said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla’s vice president of engineering. “But it really started to come together in the last six months.”

Another milestone, however, might have been three months ago, when a member of the Mozilla board of directors said attention had to be paid to Firefox’s memory allocation if the browser was going to compete in the RAM-tight mobile market.

No matter the reason or the timing, Mozilla claims progress on the memory front. In its release notes, the company trumpeted the fact that the just-released Beta 3 plugged more than 350 leaks, with over 50 stopped in the last eight weeks alone.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” said Schroepfer. “Our memory usage is significantly improved, and dramatically better than [Microsoft’s] Internet Explorer 7.”

But the work’s not finished. “Most of the big memory issues are resolved, and we’re seeing some pretty good numbers [on memory consumption], but some additional [work] is one reason why we felt we needed Beta 4.”

In the run-up to releasing Beta 4, Mozilla acknowledged that it would take the time to do at least one more beta build. According to Schroepfer, Beta 4’s code freeze date — when all work stops in preparation for the build to enter final testing before release — has been set as Feb. 26.

“It looks pretty good” for a March delivery of the next beta, he added.

On the other side of the field stands browser industry leader Microsoft, whose current offering is Internet Explorer 7, released in October of last year. IE7 represented a marked improvement for the Internet Explorer series, adding features like tabbed browsing and shoring up security. However, faced with a hungry new ‘Fox, Microsoft is hard at work preparing the next iteration of its IE line.

Now major news is coming from Microsoft as it speaks publicly for the first time about IE8 on its development blog. It says the first beta candidate would be delivered in the first half of 2008. Microsoft has announced that it will focus its efforts on multi-platform support and compatibility. It also says it will fix the Cascading Style-Sheet (CSS) issues that crept up due to improvements to CSS in the IE7 release.

This is a little faster than Apple moved ahead with the first update for Tiger, which launched in April 2005. The Leopard launch went smoothly for most of the 2 million Mac OS X users that upgraded over the first weekend, but the first release of any operating system is usually problematic for some. And Apple was under the gun to deliver Leopard in October, after missing its first deadline in order to make sure that the iPhone shipped on time.

Time Machine was probably the most hyped feature of Leopard prior to its release, but a number of problems cropped up with formatting and restoring files. Those are now a thing of the past, according to Apple, as the new software fixes issues related to backing up on MBR (master boot record) hard drives greater than 512GBs and drives that use the NTFS file system. The update also fixes a problem where some files that have been restored did not appear in their designated folders… (read more)

 “Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.”

Leopard’s new desktop includes the redesigned 3D Dock with Stacks, a new way to organize files for quick and easy access with just one click. Leopard automatically places web, email and other downloads in a Downloads stack to maintain a clutter-free desktop, and users can instantly fan the contents of this and other Stacks into an elegant arc right from the Dock. Users can also create their own Stacks for quick access to folders, documents or applications. Leopard’s gorgeous new look extends to all applications, with every window on the desktop offering a consistent design theme and active windows outlined by deeper shadows that make them stand out.

The updated Finder includes Cover Flow® and a new sidebar with a dramatically simplified way to search for, browse and copy content from any PC or Mac on a local network. Content on any computer on a local network can now be searched using Spotlight™, browsed using Cover Flow or copied across the network with a simple drag and drop. .Mac members can use the new Back to My Mac feature to browse and access files on their remote Macs over the Internet.

Quick Look is the fastest and easiest way for users to look inside files without launching them or even having the application that created them. With Quick Look, users can instantly view full-screen, high-resolution files of virtually anything, even media files, from any view in the Finder.

Spaces gives users a powerful new way to organize their work by creating customized desktops which can contain only those applications or documents needed for each project, with the ability to quickly switch between Spaces with the mouse or keyboard.

Time Machine lets users easily back up all of the data on their Mac, find lost files and even restore all of the software on their Mac. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac.* In the event a file is lost, users can search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it’s ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine data on an external drive.

Mail has been updated in Leopard and features more than 30 stationery designs and layouts that look great on a Windows PC or Mac so users can easily send stylish, personalized emails with beautiful graphics and photos. Notes and To Dos help users stay organized by acting just like emails that can be easily created, saved as drafts, synced across multiple Macs and stored in Smart Mailboxes. Data detectors automatically sense phone numbers, addresses and events so they can be added to Address Book or iCal® with just a few clicks, and users can keep up-to-date by getting the latest news and blog feeds delivered directly to their mailboxes with a built-in RSS reader.

Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard will be available on October 26 at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $129 (US) for a single user license, and online pre-orders can be made through Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) starting today. The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-household, five-user license that will be available for a suggested retail price of $199 (US). Volume and maintenance pricing is available from Apple. The standard Mac OS Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after October 1, 2007 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Leopard requires a minimum of 512MB of RAM and is designed to run on any Macintosh® computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5 or G4 (867 Mhz or faster) processor. Full system requirements can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs.

As expected from Mandriva, Mandriva Linux 2008 of its operating system tries to cater to both new and experienced Linux users. The operating system comes bundled with KDE 3.5.7 and GNOME 2.20, version 2.6.22.9 Linux kernel, OpenOffice 2.2.1, Compiz Fusion 0.5.2 3D-accelerated desktop and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6.