Have you checked out Dromaeo.com?  It’s a Mozilla owned site that runs a set of JavaScripts and test out how fast your browser is.  I tried it on my iMac, 1.83 Intel Core Duo with 1.5 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, and found Firefox 3 beta 5 to be the fastest browser.  Oddly enough, Firefox 2 was the slowest, even behind SeaMonkey!

Granted, this is no professional test.  Firefox 2 has the  most extensions on my computer and that could cause slowness.  There are always a lot of factors to take into consideration, but this is what my tests show.

Dromaeo JavaScript Testing

2173.00ms - Firefox 3b5
3499.60ms - Safari 1.3
8193.20 - Camino 1.5.5
10798.20 - SeaMonkey 1.1.8
10859.20 - Flock 1.1
12161.40ms - Firefox 2

Did you run your own tests?  What did you find?

yExplore 1.6.1 has been updated and released!

The new version updates the domain URL structure to work correctly with the updated Yahoo Site Explorer. It also adds in support for newer versions of Flock and adds Netscape 9.0 support.

Enjoy!

I guess it all starts with Netscape back in 1998 and possibly even before that when Netscape decided to make a technology to power their browser. It’s come a long way and here are a few applications taking advantage of this open source technology.

1. Firefox* - The most popular and most wildly used Gecko application. It’s the little web browser that’s trying to change the world. With hundreds of extensions and themes, customizing it to fit your needs is one thing that makes it so popular.
2. Thunderbird* - Much like Firefox, Thunderbird is a very popular email client that’s trying to get into office places and computers everywhere. With hundreds of extensions and themes, customizing it to fit your needs is one thing that makes it so popular too.
3. Flock* - The social media browser that is really looking good. It a clone of Firefox that is integrated into services like Flickr and del.icio.us, has a built in blog editor, nice feed reader and works with most Firefox extensions. Really a cool up-and-coming browser.
4. Netscape* - Yep, Netscape is the latest Firefox clone. Seriously, it is. It’s got a different theme, a few Netscape services built in but other than that, it’s exactly the same. Great to see it still alive and kicking though.
5. Camino - Mac only browser that was built to be lightweight and look more like a Mac native application. It may not be a direct spinoff of Firefox, but it’s close. No extension support though which is a major downfall but the small application size and great graphics help make up for that loss.
6. K-Meleon - Windows only web browser. From the sounds of it, it’s like Camino for Windows maybe?
7. SeaMonkey* - The all in one browser/email client/web editor. Formally known as Mozilla. The browser functionality is pretty much the same as Firefox and email just like Thunderbird. It’s just in a bigger, and not as nice, package. Extensions are hit and miss when it comes to compatibility.
8. Correo - Mac email client that aims to bring the power and speed of Thunderbird in a more Mac like package. Think of it as Camino only for Email.
9. Eudora/Penelope (soon) - The popular email application is going to switch over to use Gecko in the next major version. Not sure if it’s going to be a Thunderbird spinoff, but it’s a great step forward.
10. Nvu* - HTML editor (like Frontpage or Dreamweaver) that was stripped out of Mozilla (SeaMonkey) long ago as a stand alone application. It has a lot of potential but the development has slowed to a crawl. I guess KompoZer would be a better download as it’s the development version of Nvu.
11. Epiphany - Web browser for the GNOME desktop environment.
12. Liaison* - Novelle Groupwise client.
13. SongBird* - Media player that’s kind of like iTunes with a built in web browser.
14. SunBird* - Desktop calendar application much like iCal. Works with Google Calendar too.
15. Minimo - A small, simple, powerful, innovative, web browser for mobile devices
16. FireFTP* - Not a stand alone application, but a Firefox extension that integrates an FTP client. Very impressive.
17. Extensions* - And then there are the extensions. All the little programs and scripts that really make Firefox and Thunderbird stand out. Need to block ads, investigate HTML issues or get the weather? These are just a few of the many many items extensions can provide.

Most, if not all, applications above are completely free to use. No strings attached. Those marked with a * should run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Talk about cross platform love.

I’m sure there are probably more applications that I’m missing, but those listed above are a great example of what the open source community is all about. It’s also a good indicator that the Gecko technology is going to be around for a long long time.

A master password will allow anyone to use your browser, but, if they came across a page that had a saved username/password, Firefox will ask for the master password before auto populating the username and password fields. If the user doesn’t know it, they can hit cancel and continue to use the site without access to any of your accounts.

It’s all built into Firefox already and all you have to do is activate it. Here is how:

Step 1 - Go into your Preferences (Mac) or Options (PC) and select the security tab. Then check the ‘Use a master password’ checkbox.

Step 2 - A sheet will drop down and you just enter in your new master password. It comes with a nice quality meter too so you can tell if it’s easy to hack or not.

And that’s it. Hit OK and you are done. Now next time someone comes along to a page that has your saved information, it’ll ask for the master password.

The one downside to this is it doesn’t protect sites that you’ve click the ‘remember me’ or ‘keep me logged in’ box. That username/password information is set in a cookie and not a part of the master password system. To stop that auto login, you’d need to change the ‘Accept cookies from sites’ dropdown to ‘Until I close Firefox’ in the Privacy tab.

By setting the master password in Firefox (or Flock and possible SeaMonkey too) you are making it harder for others to access your online accounts and making your web browsing a bit safer.

A new preview version of Flock, based on Firefox 2, is out with many additional features. Note, it didn’t import all my previous bookmarks.

Seamonkey 1.1 is also out. It’s also based off Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2 too. However, from the comments on Seamonkey 1.1, the real good stuff won’t appear until 1.5.

Outlook 2007 is taking HTML email back in time with horrible rendering. Thanks Microsoft for making things worse, again.

Check out this online image editors features list. Now you can easily find the best image editor for you.

American Idol, Karaoke Revolution is just like the show.

The Wii is the coolest game system ever!!

That’s it for now. I thought I had more but I’m not finding them at the moment.

1. No Cocoa Widgets on a Mac. (This one is a wish.)
2. MacUpdate listing description is awful.
3. When a feed is loaded from the sidebar and I close the feed sidebar, I can’t visit a bookmark in the bookmark bar.
4. No RSS synchronization with Google Reader (This one is a wish.)
5. No way to submit extensions or themes to Flock.com
6. No folders in the bookmark bar.
7. The search box doesn’t allow you to change the default engine without going into the preferences.
8. No spell check as you type.
9. Can’t easily access history.
10. Extensions don’t auto update & lots of Firefox extensions don’t work.

Just to let ya’ll know, I think Flock is great overall and one sweet browser. Nicer than Firefox 1.5 in most respects and this is constructive criticism.

Of course, if you are using Firefox, Opera, Flock, SeaMonkey, Safari or basically any non-IE browser, you have no idea what I’m talking about because your browser rocks.

Another thing I’d like to see are feed fav icons. Flock has them and it’s really nice.

Overall, the new Google Reader is quite nice. It has been upgraded and features have been added. It’s definitely worth a test run!

Plus, with the Flock photo bar, you can upload photos from your desktop, tag and organize them too. You never have to leave Flock or that blog post that you are in the middle of.

This is sweet, it’s better than Wordpress’ built in image manager and works very smoothly. I have to hand it to Flock, they are making blogging and the whole social interent more fun every day.

I guess the man has been interviewing around as I also spotted him at Yahoo!

Checking out Google, I found that they interviewed Jeeves but have gone with Mr. T. That’s right, only the best results fool!

By now, you may feel my exclusive pictures are, um, fake. Well, not everyone is happy to see Jeeves go. So, with a little bit of code, you can add Jeeves back into Ask.com. Or add Jeeves to Yahoo, Mr. T to MSN, Sponge Bob to Google or a banana to Ask. Whatever you’d like.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Get an addon so that you can create custom CSS styles for your browser. Stylish for Firefox, SafariStand for Safari, no idea for Internet Explorer. Note: Only tested in Firefox.

Step 2: Enter the code.
/* ask */
#ask {
background: no-repeat url(http://static.zooomr.com/images/9df93fa31f8819e0e19f178ad03ce5e59d6d8201.jpg);
padding-left:100px;
}
/* google */
form {
background: no-repeat
url(http://static.zooomr.com/images/9df93fa31f8819e0e19f178ad03ce5e59d6d8201.jpg) center top;
padding-top:100px;
}
/* msn */
#form {
background: no-repeat
url(http://static.zooomr.com/images/9df93fa31f8819e0e19f178ad03ce5e59d6d8201.jpg) right top;
padding-left:300px;
}
#hplogo {
padding-left:300px;
}
/* yahoo */
#yschdoc {
background: no-repeat
url(http://static.zooomr.com/images/9df93fa31f8819e0e19f178ad03ce5e59d6d8201.jpg) left top;
}

Note: You’ll need to change the image to point to one of your own.

Step 3: Test it out!

Now you can feel better when you search as Jeeves, or Mr. T or whatever, is watching over you.

The idea behind the desktop picture is to be clean and easy on the eyes. It also has a gray area at the bottom for those of you running a Mac and who have your dock at the bottom of the screen.

You can download Flock Dock at Flickr or Zooomr. Zooomr has the biggest version at 1440 x 900 where as Flickr maxes out at 1024 x 640.

Five Reasons To Use Flock
1) Nice Feed Reader - Granted, there are a few annoying bugs in Flocks feed reader, overall it’s nicely integrated into the browser and even shows favicons and has settings to save posts, or mark un-viewed, that you want to keep around.
2) The search box searches Yahoo live and your history. It’s true, start typing in the search box and it’ll search Yahoo as you type. It’ll also search your bookmarks and history. This is one of my favorite Flock features.
3) Spell check built in! No need to find extensions to do the work for you, Flock has a built in spell check.
4) Social integration ready to go. Del.icio.us, Flickr and blogging are right at your finger tips and integrated throughout the browser.
5) Separate bookmark bars. You can create different bookmark bar sets so that the favorites you want to see at the top of your browser can change from time to time.

Five Reasons Not To Use Flock
1) No folders in the bookmarks bar. I love the multiple bookmarks bars, but not having the ability to put folder in them drives me nuts. I feel so un-organized.
2) History is hidden. In Firefox you can easily navigate to the history and browse though it. In Flock, it’s not as accessible.
3) New bookmark system. There are bookmarks and stars and I think they are the same but it’s a little confusing. I also think the new bookmark system makes it harder to share you bookmarks on the net.
4) Feed reader opens and closes itself depending on what kind of page (or feed) you are reading. You can’t be reading a feed, then click on a post to go to the webpage and keep the feed reader open in the sidebar. It gets to be really annoying.
5) It’s in beta which means there are bugs and missing features.

Overall, I have been using Flock as my main browser for weeks and it works out quite nice. As it moves towards 1.0 it’ll get better I’m sure. I do miss Firefox at times but there are a few features that I think are just to nice to pass up. Flock is really just a fancier version of Firefox and we’ll see what I go for once Firefox 2.0 comes about.

Is there really no service to sync OPML files between browsers? I have Sage in Firefox and Flock has a nice built in feed reader and now I need them to sync automatically so that they both have the same feeds.

Anyone? Ideas?

FYI: OPML is a file that holds your list of feeds. By syncing OPML files across the internet, you could always make sure you’re browser had an up-to-date list.

Here is a quick preview of what’s new:

Now if you are on the cutting edge, like I am :), and are running Flock as your primary browser, you can install and run yExplore with no issues.

You can get yExplore for Firefox or Flock at Mozilla’s Add-ons site.

The yExplore 1.6 update brings updates to match updates to Yahoo Site Explorer, better Flock support and added Netscape 9 support.

The yExplore 1.5 update included two options. yExplore the domain or a single page.

I felt that one extension that I was missing in Firefox was one to let me quickly access Yahoo Site Explorer stats. So, I took it upon myself to do a little research and build my first Firefox extension.

yExplore is a pretty simple SEO tool. It adds two yExplore options when you right click. Select Domain and it’ll open Yahoo Site Explorer in a background tab with the domain of the site you were on already submitted. Select Page and it’ll find the indexed and backlinks stats for just that page.

Give it a go and see what you think. It works on Mac or Windows in Firefox 1.0 - 3.0a1, Flock 0.4 - 1.0 and Netscape 9.0.

Enjoy!. Ohh and don’t overlook my spiffy icon.

Big thanks to roachfiend.com for a great beginner tutorial.