Mozilla has finally released the first beta for Firefox 4, you can now download and test this beta release, the very first of a series of betas that bring many improvements to the popular brown browser. As already reported, Firefox 4 that will be officially released at the end of the year is a major update, much of the Firefox of this browser depends on this release.

Some of the new features and the redesigned user interface have been presented here at kabatology, you should have seen them elsewhere too. Talking about the redesigned interface, Firefox beta for Linux and Firefox beta for Windows are slightly different on the surface. The Linux build as shown on the screenshot above doesn’t yet have the Opera-style menu button that reads ‘Firefox’. You can bring it up by hiding the Menu Bar; View -> Toolbars ->untick Menu Bar.
On both Windows and Linux you can can send “Tabs on Top” and even move the Navigation toolbar to the Tabbar.

Mozilla is particular interested in knowing what you thing of what is supposed to be their best browser so far, so they placed that big ‘Feedback’ button on the top right of the browser so you can tell them whats in Firefox 4 that makes you happy or sad.

What you (Firefox user) certainly expected in Firefox 4 is that it includes uninterrupted browsing, the Crash Protection technology (OOPP) now present in Firefox 3.6.6, native support for Google’s open WebM format for watching “hardware-accelerated, super-smooth, HD-quality HTML5 video on YouTube”.

Other features you should be testing in this beta include; new Add-Ons Manager (about:addons) that opens in a tab and not a window, it will soon be coming to Thunderbird email client. Do you expect a major release without performance improvements? Nay. This version also focuses “on improving responsiveness at start-up and during page loads”.

Web Developers aren’t left out; HTML5 Parser, WebSockets, IndexedDB, Web Console (experimental “Heads Up Display”) and Simpler Add-On Development via Jetpack are some of the goodies packed in Firefox 4 for you. Don’t forget to check-out the full list of Web technologies supported by Firefox 4 beta.

Mozilla via its blog reports that not all of what you find in this beta and in future betas (cause more is still to) is guaranteed to be in Firefox 4. If you want to join the testing community then download the very first beta at Mozilla.com. You can find more information on this release in the Release Notes. What do you think of the new features? Let us know in the comments.
via [Mozilla Blog]

Web Apps have landed on Google Chrome Dev Channel and Chromium, recent Chrome Dev channel that you can download here ships three Chrome Web Apps for the curious and for testing purposes. Google Mail (GMail), Google Doc, and Google Calender functionalities can be enabled in Google Chrome Dev and Chromium browsers in the mean time, while waiting for the Chrome Web Store later this year, that will include both free and paid web apps.

To enable Chrome-Web-Apps starters in Linux, Ubuntu;
Add the flag --enable-apps before launching Chrome from the command-line, that is, google-chrome --enable-apps

Type in chrome:extension or simply Wrench menu -> Tools -> Extensions, therein select ‘Load unpacked extensions’ and navigate to the web apps resources location at /opt/google/chrome/resources/ (Windows users will find it at %localappdata%\Chromium\Application\6.0.428.0\Resources) and install Chrome Web Apps, one at a time.

Now every New Tab opens with your newly installed web apps right there where your speed dials used to be for easy accessibility.

Chrome Web Store for Chrome and Chrome OS as presented in Google I/O 2010 is much more than three built-in web apps, it will have games and lots more. Now just get started, if you have a word, drop it in the comments.
via [DownloadSquad]

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Google Chrome Dev Channel has been updated to version 6.0.453.1 for all platforms. This release also features sync enhancements by default; new options have been added, you can in sync independently Bookmarks, Preferences, Autofill, Extension (now by default) and Themes.

In Windows the so-called ‘Unified Menu’ is enabled by default. In Linux you can opt in via the command line flag google-chrome --new-wrench-menu

This build also includes many fixes, it goes without saying, for all platforms; In Windows “printing from the built-in PDF plug-in now prints vectors instead of pixels”, also fixed: shows preview images when dragging images.

In Linux the PDF plug-in is now available but not enabled. Turn it on in about:plugins.

Also available in Google Chrome Dev Channel Linux v.6.0.453.1 is the new experimental support for Gnome (gnome-keyring) and KDE (kwallet) for encrypted password storage. Turned off by default, use these a command line flags to enable and test them;
google-chrome --password-store=gnome google-chrome --password-store=kwallet google-chrome --password-store=detect (this will eventually be the default)

Without flags, Chrome will continue to use the built-in unencrypted store. With flags Chrome will try to use the requested store (or autodetect one, and use that) to store passwords. “This requires GNOME Keyring > 2.22 (which rules out Ubuntu 8.04) or KDE 4.

You can download cutting-edge Chrome Dev build here. File in new issues at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/entry

After the ‘Bookmark Restore’ feature in my.xmarks.com Tools menu here comes Password Restore, a new Xmarks feature. ‘Bookmark Restore’ is a great way go back in time, and explore your old bookmarks backed-up in Xmarks servers, and even restore them too. ‘Password Restore’ is capable of restoring your synced passwords to Firefox password manager in case you accidentally delete them or if Firefox gets corrupted and looses your saved passwords. To retrieve your saved and synced passwords visit My.Xmarks, Tools menu and hit ‘Restore Old Passwords’.

You’ll need to provide your PIN to access your old passwords.

Other features in this release include;
Improved Xmarks (add-on) Authentication method: If you have enabled built-in Firefox Master Password or don’t let Firefox store your passwords you can prevent Firefox or Xmarks from prompting (nagging) you to enter your password every time you (re)start the browser by checking “Remember Me” box.

Suspend: Press the ‘Log Out’ button on Xmarks extension ‘Settings’ dialog to automatically suspend sync until you log-in again or restart your browser. “This can be handy when you’re working on something else and don’t want Xmarks to get in your way.”

Xmarks now detects the absence of a network connection and defers automatic sync requests until a network becomes available again. No more sync errors in the status bar due to lack of a network connection.

Sync on Shutdown: To avoid longer Firefox browser shutdowns, Xmarks 3.7 and above will sync only the necessary datatype unlike before when if it had any changes to sync, it synced every enabled datatype: bookmarks, passwords, and tabs.

via [Xmarks Blog]

Firefox for Maemo 1.1 is now available to download for Maemo devices (Nokia N900, N810). Users of Maemo devices with Firefox Mobile, Fennec installed will shortly receive updates.

I have been following the development Firefox Mobile 1.1 from its early stages right up to the release candidate and final release and can say that Firefox mobile is getting more and more closer to the desktop version given the already excellent base v1.1 is built on. Version 1.0 introduced add-ons, such as AdBlock Plus, Firefox Sync and version 1.1 adds stuff such as built-in Crash Reporter, automatically updated add-ons, redesigned start page, improved Site Menu – all for better browsing.

Firefox for Maemo 1.1 also features support for Portrait mode upon rotate, also known as Portrait Browsing that is the browser switches orientations automatically as you reposition the phone.

Fennec 2.0 is going to introduce out-of-process web content (Project Electrolysis) and accelerated rendering (Project Layers). Electrolysis has already been used in Firefox 3.6.4 to protect against plug-in crashes

Nokia Maemo users can download it from Firefox for Maemo download page.

Opera 10.60 is finally out there for Linux, Windows and Mac computers, the last stable release of the Opera browser for Linux desktops was Opera 10.10, it was released back in November 2009. This release includes a faster Carakan JavaScript engine with reduced memory usage, WebM video support, better HTML5 compatibility, and incorporates AVG malware protection.

Right from the beta it was already evident that much of the uncompleted work in Opera 10.50 Linux, that never had a stable release, was brought forward to Opera 10.60. For example, Widgets runs in a separate process was already present in 10.5, if you often pass around here you should have seen this.

So widgets are now separated from the Opera desktop browser, you can launch them when the browser is down – you can also create desktop and application (widget) shortcuts, its like running lighter Adobe Air applications, though real complex Opera widgets are not available Unite Media Player apart. Installed Widgets in Ubuntu can be launched from Applications -> Other or with Alt +F2 + name of widget. In System -> Preferences menu you’ll find Opera Widget Manager.

Other improvements and features include;

• Native integration with GTK and KDE4 – o longer uses Qt
• Private browsing
• Geolocation support
• Support for Offline Web Applications
• Non-modal notification messages e.g tab switching is permitted while dialogs are displayed.
• Tweaks to the user interface

You can enabled or disabled AVG powered ‘Opera Fraud Protection’ from Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Security by checking or unchecking the box marked “Enable Fraud Protection.”

So what is faster than the fastest? If you can’t beat them join them, at least for now, while waiting that your preferred browser regains momentum. Complete release notes Opera 10.60 for Linux – Download your .Deb package here

The K3b team is proud to announce the release of version 2.0 of their popular open source CD and DVD authoring tool, K3b. Its a fully-featured CD/DVD burner that supports common tasks like burning audio CDs, disc images, data discs, disc copying and can rip your DVDs to your hard drive in the DivX or Xvid formats.

Code named “Komeback”, K3b 2.0 stable (final) has been available (for a while now) to the general public as a pre-release. It has been ported to the current KDE 4 platform but on the skin nothing has really changed, though it has gained modern widgets, and it takes advantage of Dolphin’s breadcrumb bar. Dolphin is the default file manager in KDE 4.

K3b 2.0 features support for DVD and Blu-ray writing via cdrecord, RTL languages and support for files bigger than 4GB (via mkisofs 2.01.01a32 and above). With over 250 bugs fixes during the pre-release period, the team hopes to have archived maximum stability in this release.

Other features in Komeback include;

• Always allow manual writing speed selection
• Use proper toolbars instead of the toolboxes -> nicer laying out with different styles
• Merged CD and DVD copy dialogs
• Merged CD and DVD image burning dialogs
• Merged CD-RW erasing and DVD formatting dialogs
• Merged Data CD and Data DVD projects into one plain data project with Blu-ray support
• Merged eMovix CD and eMovix DVD projects
• Removed CD copy option “prefer CD-Text”. K3b will now ask individually (there is no need to do this if no mounting is involved)
• Allow importing of arbitrary sessions into a data project, thus continuing other than the last session
• “Clear project” now only clears the added data but leaves the settings as they were (bug 147838)
• New audio ripping pattern %e which is replaced by the file extension

K3b alias Burn Baby Burn is a free download for Linux desktops. The last stable release, version 1.05 was out in May 27, 2008.

You can install it on your Ubuntu Lucid by via the Software Center. If you get this notice “MP3 Audio Decoder plugin not found”,

then close K3b, install libk3b6-extracodecs – sudo apt-get install libk3b6-extracodecs and relaunch K3b.