Opera confirms downsizing of developer team as it readies for newly adopted WebKit era

Posted on 18/02/2013 by Edgar Alvarez

Opera's been making quite a few notable changes lately, and now we're finding out it won't be without any repercussions to some of its staff. Earlier today, Opera CEO Lars Boilsen's confirmed to our friends over at TechCrunch that the browser's developer team is indeed downsizing, confirming previous reports about the company having to make changes as part of its recently announced WebKit adoption. Just how many Core positions will be lost in the process is still unclear, however, with Mr. Boilsen only going as far as telling TechCrunch the number of developers working on the overall project is now at "around 600." What's more, Opera's CEO says it's all part of a belief that "WebKit's good enough, to switch, and by doing that we free up a lot of resources," adding that Opera "will still have a Core team but it will be less people going forward."

Filed under: Internet, Software

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Source: TechCrunch

Opera hits 300 million users, promptly moves to WebKit

Posted on 13/02/2013 by Daniel Cooper

Opera is celebrating the news that it's hit the 300 million monthly user milestone with a big announcement. It's going to dump Presto, the current Opera rendering engine, in favor of WebKit. The company gave the impression that it's exhausted after swimming against the tide of an internet designed to work for Chrome and Safari for so long. Instead, the firm will devote its considerable resources toward "innovation and polish" on its browser products. Opera's already hinted at its future by demonstrating Ice, its WebKit-based experiment for iOS and Android devices, which it'll be showing off in more detail at MWC later this month.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile

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Source: Opera, (2)

Opera’s WebKit-based Ice web browser coming to Android and iOS in February

Posted on 18/01/2013 by Donald Melanson

Opera has been in the mobile web browser game for some time now, but it looks like it's set to soon shake things up considerably. As detailed in an internal video obtained by Pocket-lint, the company has been working on an all-new mobile browser dubbed "Ice," which ditches the company's own Presto engine in favor of WebKit (bringing it in line with the likes of Safari and Chrome). What's more, Ice looks to fully embrace a touch interface optimized for smartphones and tablets, with gestures replacing buttons and icons on a central home screen replacing tabs. You can apparently look for it to land on both Android and iOS sometime in February, with a new desktop version of Opera set to follow in March (details on it are comparatively light). Head on past the break for some highlights from the video.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Pocket-lint

Apple Safari marks its 10th birthday as part of a much wider web

Posted on 07/01/2013 by Jon Fingas

While most of us think of the web browser landscape as a fierce battle between Google, Microsoft and Mozilla, the situation was very different a decade ago. Internet Explorer still dominated the market, Firefox's precursor Phoenix was months away and Chrome wasn't even a twinkle in Google's eye. That makes today's 10th anniversary of Apple's Safari a significant milestone: the public beta released on January 7th, 2003 represented the first major new competitor to Internet Explorer in years, especially for the initial Mac users who hadn't seen many alternatives. The desktop browser has just a small slice of the market today, but it arguably played an important part in shaping the current market. Safari launched the first practical instance of the now-ubiquitous, KHTML-based WebKit rendering engine that made iOS stand out in 2007 and whose variants power some competing browsers, including Chrome.

As project originator Don Melton notes, however, Safari came close to having a different name at one stage. Among other suggestions, the late Steve Jobs was intrigued by the name "Freedom" and spent substantial time exploring its prospects before dropping it and ultimately settling on the Safari label. Such naming debates are common in technology, but they show just how important it was for Apple to make a good first impression; given that Safari is still in healthy use today, we'd say the deliberation paid off.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Apple

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Source: Don Melton

Yandex launches its own browser targeting Russian market

Posted on 02/10/2012 by Terrence O'Brien

How many browsers is enough? Between Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer, (not to mention, Baidu, Amazon, Maxthon, Dolphin, etc...) you'd think we'd have plenty ways to surf the web. Not according to Yandex. The Russian search company has just released its own branded browser built around a Webkit base using Chromium as a starting point. This isn't its first foray into the world of software though, it's been offering a customized version of Firefox for some time, with Yandex as the default search engine. The new entry into the crowded browser market also borrows threat scanning technology from Kaspersky and Opera's Turbo for quickly loading content on slow connections. Tigran Khudaverdyan, head of mobile services at the company, even suggested to Business Week that a mobile version was in the works. For now it's only available for OS X and Windows, however. Check out the PR after the break and hit up the source link to download it now.

Continue reading Yandex launches its own browser targeting Russian market

Filed under: Internet, Software

Yandex launches its own browser targeting Russian market originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 02:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uber Gizmo | source

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HP takes Open webOS 1.0 live, shows it supersized on a TouchSmart (video)

Posted on 28/09/2012 by Jon Fingas

WebOS loyalists have been waiting a long, long time for HP's September launch of Open webOS, but the company has made good on its promise with not a moment to spare. Open webOS 1.0 is now available with core browser and e-mail apps, the Enyo 2.0 framework and enough hooks to allow porting to a platform of choice. To prove this last point, HP has gone so far as to port the software to a TouchSmart all-in-one -- a device just a tad larger than a Veer 4G. Lest anyone be hasty and get visions of developing a custom build for the TouchPad, though, they'd do well to remember both HP's disclaimer ruling out legacy support as well as word of the holes that exist in the current Open webOS release. The company needs time to offer open-sourced media support, a Bluetooth stack, advanced network management, faster rendering and newer versions of both Qt and WebKit. The curious can nonetheless try the OS in an emulator today, and intrepid developers can start building their own projects with the code and tools found at the source link.

Continue reading HP takes Open webOS 1.0 live, shows it supersized on a TouchSmart (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Tablets, Mobile, HP

HP takes Open webOS 1.0 live, shows it supersized on a TouchSmart (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WebOS Nation | source

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Is Samsung working on its own mobile browser?

Posted on 25/09/2012 by Mat Smith

Samsung's Android customers get their pick of a pretty broad selection of smartphone web browsers and soon, at least according to ETNews, Samsung is looking to follow up on its own Android UI additions with its own fully-fledged mobile browser. The company is reportedly seeking out WebKit engineers to work on the project at Samsung's Silicon Valley R&D center -- where work is already underway on the Chrome mobile rival. The open-source WebKit engine already underpins not only Google's own browser, but also its pre-ICS Android web browser -- and Apple's Safari. We've got in touch with Samsung who politely told us that it "doesn't comment on rumor or speculation."

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

Is Samsung working on its own mobile browser? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CNET UK | source

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OLPC delivers big OS update with text-to-speech, DisplayLink and WebKit

Posted on 02/09/2012 by Jon Fingas

While most of its energy is focused on the XO-4 Touch, the One Laptop Per Child project is swinging into full gear for software, too. The project team has just posted an OS 12.1.0 update that sweetens the Sugar for at least present-day XO units. As of this latest revamp, text-to-speech is woven into the interface and vocalizes any selectable text -- a big help for students that are more comfortable speaking their language than reading it. USB video output has been given its own lift through support for more ubiquitous DisplayLink adapters. If you're looking for the majority of changes, however, they're under-the-hood tweaks to bring the OLPC architecture up to snuff. Upgrades to GTK3+ and GNOME 3.4 help, but we're primarily noticing a shift from Mozilla's web engine to WebKit for browsing: although the OLPC crew may have been forced to swap code because of Mozilla's policies on third-party apps, it's promising a much faster and more Sugar-tinged web experience as part of the switch. While they're not the same as getting an XO-3 tablet, the upgrades found at the source link are big enough that classrooms (and the occasional individual) will be glad they held on to that early XO model.

Filed under: Laptops, Software

OLPC delivers big OS update with text-to-speech, DisplayLink and WebKit originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Sep 2012 02:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Phoronix | source

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Maxthon web browser arrives in bite-sized form for iPhone

Posted on 21/08/2012 by Jon Fingas

Maxthon has long since escaped the days when it was chiefly a customized version of Internet Explorer on the desktop, and nowhere is that more apparent than its just-launched version of the normally WebKit-based browser for the iPhone and iPod touch. All the core features of the app carry over from earlier Android and iPad versions, such as an Opera-like grid of favorite pages, a download manager and a unified address bar, but it's arguably more useful than the iPad edition: conventional browser tabs aren't coming to smaller-screened iOS devices in a future mobile Safari build anytime soon. Bookmark syncing and an optimized reading mode also persist to reduce the chance that Maxthon users drift back towards the official Apple browser, even after iOS 6 rolls around. With that all-important "free" price tag, there's every reason to give it a try -- let others know in the comments if Maxthon is enough to take precedence over comparable iOS alternatives like Chrome.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Maxthon web browser arrives in bite-sized form for iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CNET |

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Google puts Chrome on iPhone and iPad (update 2: it’s out!)

Posted on 28/06/2012 by Jon Fingas

Google puts Chrome on iPhone and iPad

Google just did what many thought wasn't possible -- it just put mobile Chrome on iOS. Both iPad and iPhone users will get the app, either with incognito browsing, syncing and that unique tabbed browsing interface intact. The company hasn't said what's changed versus the Android build, but it's likely the main differences are matters of integration -- Apple's app rules won't let Google bring in its own WebKit rendering engine tweaks or change the default browser. Whether or not that switch is a dealbreaker, Chrome should be available later today in the App Store for those who want a break from the Safari norm.

Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012's developer conference at our event hub!

Update: No download just yet, but Google is teasing us with a video that you can find after the break. The iOS port shows up at the 43-second mark.

Update 2: It's available! Hit the source link to get your copy.

Gallery: Google Chrome for iOS