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For some time, Mac fans have argued that, feature-for-feature, Apple's computers aren't really that much more expensive than their PC competitors. When the processors, memory, hard drive and screens are all matched up, the price premium on a Mac was negligible, they insist, and sometimes non-existent. But does that still hold true? read more | digg story

Mozilla Labs this week took steps to open up its idea factory to wider outside input, asking for community help to develop the next big ideas that might power future browsers. Like any good research lab, the goal is not an immediate product but a set of innovative ideas that can be played with and debated without the pressure of an immediate implementation.Mozilla Labs' "concepts" can consist of three parts: ideas, mockups, or prototypes. The idea of throwing open the lab to more voices was all about hearing from... new voices (surprise!), so Mozilla wants to make sure that plenty of people can contribute, even if they can't hack code."You don’t have to be a software engineer to get involved, and you don’t have to program," says the announcement. "Everyone is welcome to participate. We’re particularly interested in engaging with designers who have not typically been involved with open-source projects. And we’re biasing towards broad participation, not f...

Aurora is a concept video presenting one possible future user experience for the Web, created by Adaptive Path as part of the Mozilla Labs concept browser series. Aurora explores new ways people could interact with the Web in the future based on projected technological trends and real-world scenarios. read more | digg story

The days of purely desktop-based applications are clearly numbered, but so are the days of exclusively web-based apps... read more  |  digg story

Multiple security organizations warned Tuesday that Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, and SeaMonkey -- on Windows, Linux, and the Mac -- are vulnerable to a JavaScript bug that could allow a determined attacker to dupe users into giving up sensitive personal information such as credit card or bank account numbers and passwords. According to Symantec, which issued an alert late afternoon Tuesday, all versions of the Microsoft and Mozilla browsers could be used to harvest data through a JavaScript key-filtering vulnerability. 'This issue is triggered by utilizing JavaScript 'OnKeyDown' events to capture and duplicate keystrokes from users,' went the Symantec warning. The bug would let crafty criminals filter keystrokes entered into a form, say a credit card form to pay for online goods, to an invisible file upload dialog on the same Web page. Once the information's trapped in that hidden dialog -- the vulnerability discoverer used the analogy of the keystrokes ...

While Microsoft has become a favorite target of critics who say the company has dramatically scaled back expectations for Windows Vista, Mozilla's Firefox Web browser is about to join that crowd. Mozilla has decided to strip out a major new feature from Firefox 2.0 in order to ensure that the update meets a Q3 2006 release target, a post in the browser's developer forum indicated earlier this week. "Places," a complete rewrite of the browser's bookmarking system, will no longer be included in the release. While Places had made it into the first public alpha release of Firefox 2.0, codenamed "Bon Echo," it had been pulled previously. In announcing the decision, Mozilla's director of engineering Mike Schroepfer said the company wanted to ensure a quality release. "Rather than rush it to market - we'd prefer to spend the time it takes to get it right," he wrote . Schroepfer said that it was a difficult decision, but it would ensure that w...

A group of self-titled "political activists" in Massachusetts has started an aggressive campaign to get browser users to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's Firefox. Taking advantage of a new program by Google, the campaign, called Explorer Destroyer , pays users $1 for each referral to Firefox made through Google Toolbar, according to the group's Web site. "You already want people to switch to Firefox. Now's the time to get serious about it," according to the site. "Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer....Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money." Google did not return calls seeking comment for this story, but the search giant offers a standard $1 per user referral fee to Web sites that generate new downloads of Firefox with the Google Toolbar. How It Works According to the Explorer Destroyer Web site, the group offers Web-site owners scrip...

InformationSuite The Mountain View, Calif. company patched the Mozilla browser suite, then said the 1.7.13 version was the last it would produce, putting an end to Mozilla's development of a 12-year browser line that went back to the original Netscape. Mozilla also updated its same-named suite, which includes a browser, e-mail client, newsgroup reader, IRC client, and HTML editor, to version 1.7.13 by fixing 20 flaws, 12 of them critical. Version 1.7.13 of the suite will be the final version from Mozilla, as per its "sunset" announcement a week ago when it said it would close the books on Mozilla, Firefox 1.0.x, and Thunderbird 1.0.x. The end of the Mozilla suite puts a bookmark on the longest-running browser family, one that traces its genealogy to 1994, when Netscape Navigator was first released in beta (under the name Mosaic), through 1996-97's Netscape Communicator suite, and into the 1998 decision to take Netscape open-source. However, while Mozilla Corp...

By Gregg Keizer , TechWeb News Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser gained market share in the last two months, a Dutch Web metrics company announced Tuesday. While other measurement vendors said earlier this month that Internet Explorer (IE) continued its downward trend, Amsterdam-based OneStat's data had IE climbing by .37 percent since November 2005. According to OneStat, Microsoft's browser now accounts for 85.8 percent of all browsers used worldwide. In the U.S., IE's rise was half as much -- .18 percent -- with 80.9 percent of Americans using the browser. Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox , meanwhile, slipped .28 percent during the same period, ending up with 11.2 percent of the global market. "The global usage shares of Mozilla and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers remain stable, and it seems that people are not switching so often to Firefox as before," said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat, in a statement. But in the U.S., Firefox dro...