As you should be aware, Windows XP and Vista are now considered obsolete operating systems. They are no longer supported or maintained by Microsoft.

As a result, over the past few years major browser vendors have been slowly dropping support and updates for their products in these operating systems.

For instance, the most “recent” version of Internet Explorer that can be run on Windows XP is IE8 (MIDAS requires at least IE9). For a while this wasn’t a major issue as XP/Vista users could simply switch to either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox instead. Both of which were still being actively updated by the respective vendors on these operating systems.

However, Google announced back in November 2015 that Chrome would no longer be supported or receive updates on Windows XP or Windows Vista after April 2016.

Since then, Firefox has been the only major browser to continue supporting and providing updates on Windows XP and Vista.

This week, Mozilla have now announced that Firefox 52 (due for release in March 2017) will be the last version of their browser to receive updates on Windows XP and Vista.

Whilst Firefox 52 will still work on XP/Vista after March 2017, it will no longer receive updates. At this point, none of the modern major web browsers that are supported in MIDAS will continue to be updated on these operating systems.

We are therefore advising any MIDAS users who still access their scheduling systems via Windows XP or Vista to upgrade their operating systems as soon as possible. This will ensure their web browser(s) are kept up-to-date and they’re able to continue using MIDAS in the future.

The post Firefox: The last browser to drop Windows XP/Vista support appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

You’ve probably heard of Mozilla – they’re the folks behind the well known and popular Firefox web browser. As you may also know, we develop a leading Room and Resource Scheduling System, MIDAS, which we support in all major browsers. This includes Firefox.

In fact, ever since we first began development of MIDAS back in 2005, the primary browser we do the bulk of our development and debugging in has been Firefox! It’s been our browser of choice for many years. We’ve long been admirers of Mozilla’s open and inclusive approach to the development of Firefox and the web. In fact, their company ethos states that:

“Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality”

However, today Mozilla have demonstrated that this ethos is in fact untrue. Mozilla sadly no longer believe in equality and freedom of speech for ALL.

What happened at Mozilla?

In March 2014, Mozilla appointed a new CEO, Brendan Eich. Eich was the inventor of Javascript (one of the programming languages that our software utilizes!) and co-founder of mozilla.org.

Six years earlier, in 2008, long before he became CEO, Eich made a personal donation to a campaign for “California Proposition 8“. This was a bill which opposed same-sex marriage taking place in the state of California.

Who is Brendan Eich?

Following his appointment to CEO of Mozilla last month, a number of Mozilla employees, board members, and members of the global L.G.B.T community expressed their unhappiness with Eich’s appointment to the role of CEO. They felt that because he’d previously supported a campaign opposing same-sex marriage this made him unsuitable to be CEO of a company that had equality and freedom of speech at the very heart of its core values.

For the past several weeks, since Eich’s appointment, there has been a sustained and vicious campaign targeted against Mozilla, Firefox, and Eich himself, with pressure from all sides for Eich to stand down or be removed from his role as CEO.

Today, following this sustained pressure, Eich has stepped down as CEO.

Brendan Eich bows to pressure

Many are celebrating Eich’s departure, however, regardless of your view of Brendan Eich or your position on same-sex marriage, Mozilla as a company promoted “equality and freedom of speech” for ALL.

By this token, Eich (along with every other Mozilla employee, regardless of position, gender, religion, or sexual orientation) has the same right to express his views without fear of censorship or persecution – whether you agree with his views or not.

No one should be denied the right to express their PERSONAL opinion or view on any subject, and remember, this was only a personal view of Eich, not an official Mozilla/Firefox view/policy/position.

Mozilla’s Contradictory Position

In pressuring and forcing their CEO to step down because of his *personal* view on a subject, Mozilla have denied Eich his right to equality and demonstrated that they no longer stand for true equality and freedom of speech for everyone.

We used to believe that Mozilla were promoting an “open web for all” – we are now struggling to reconcile this ethos with Mozilla’s actions and stance today.

Backlash against Mozilla

Many Firefox users have since taken to Twitter to vent their anger & disappointment at @Mozilla and @Firefox‘s stance on this matter. Many previously loyal users are now uninstalling and boycotting their products in protest.

Our web based Room and Resource Scheduling Software MIDAS is supported in Firefox, but also supported in Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera browsers as well. That’s because we believe in giving you the choice over which browser (and company) you choose.

UPDATE 6th April:
Two days later, and Mozilla’s own customer feedback site (https://input.mozilla.org) now clearly shows a significant amount of negative feeling towards the company as a whole following this episode:

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We put the latest web browsers head-to-head to try to find out which one is best!

In developing a powerful and feature-rich browser based room booking and resource scheduling system that’s supported in all five major browsers, we often get asked “So, which is the best web browser?”.

This time last year we put Chrome 23, Firefox 16, Internet Explorer 9 & 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5 head-to-head

Now, twelve months on, and less than a week since Internet Explorer 11 became available for Windows 7, Firefox celebrated its ninth birthday, and just a day after Google Chrome 31 is released, we decided it was high time to once again put the latest web browsers offerings “head-to-head” and independently, rigorously test and benchmark them to find out which one of the five major browsers is currently “the best”….

Browsers Tested

Google Chrome 31	Mozilla Firefox 25	Internet Explorer 11	Opera 17	Apple Safari 5

The Tests

We broadly tested four key areas of browser performance: Speed, Memory Usage, Compliance with standards, and Javascript Performance.

1. Speed

The “Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser upon its first run after a computer reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which its user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.

The “Non-Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser on second and subsequent runs after its first run after a reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which the user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.

With the browser open, an empty cache, and showing a blank page (about:blank), the “Page Load Time (No-Cached Load)” test measures the time taken to completely load a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the “Enter” key is pressed on the URL in the browser’s address bar until the point at which the test web page has fully loaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).

With the browser open, and the test web page already loaded in a single tab, the “Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)” test measures the time taken to reload a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the F5 key (refresh) is pressed until the point at which the test web page has fully reloaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).

2. Memory Usage

The “Base Memory Usage (Blank Tab)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with just a single blank (about:blank) tab open.

The “Memory Usage (10 open tabs)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with 10 tabs open, each displaying the home page of a popular website.

3. Compliance

The “HTML5 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the HTML5 specification.

The “CSS3 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the CSS3 specification.

4. Javascript Performance

There are a number of different Javascript Performance Benchmark tests available today, all of which give quite different results. We’ve analyzed results from 6 of the most popular Benchmarking Tests and aggregated the results below:

Individual details of each of the 6 individual Javascript benchmark test suits used to arrived at these aggregated scores may be found in our full test report, available to view/download at the end of this page.

Summary

Category	Test	Winner	Runner-Up
Speed	Cold Start
	Non-Cold Start
	Page Load Time (Non-Cached Load)
	Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)
Memory Usage	Base Memory
	10 Open Tabs
Compliance	HTML5
	CSS3
Performance	Javascript Performance (Aggregate)

Results

1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place	5th Place
Google Chrome 31	Opera 17	Internet Explorer 11	Mozilla Firefox 25	Apple Safari 5

The above overall positions were derived based upon the sum of the positions that each browser finished in, in each of our tests. For example, in our HTML 5 compliance test, Chrome came first and so was assigned 1 point, Safari came 5th and so was assigned 5 points. Browsers were then ranked according to the lowest number of points to give the 1st-5th places above (1st being the best)

Analysis

Google Chrome
When we last tested the five major browsers back in November 2012, Chrome came first in 8 out of 13 our tests, making it a clear winner!
A year later, and Chrome is still going strong, coming top in 8 out of 15 tests, and second in a further two tests.
Where Chrome still doesn’t perform quite as well is when it comes to its memory usage, using well over 3 times as much memory with a single blank tab open than Internet Explorer 11.

Mozilla Firefox
We were a little surprised that Firefox only came top in 3 out of 15 tests, and only once came runner-up. To Firefox’s credit, its main strength still seems to be in its memory usage. With 10 websites open in separate tabs, the amount of memory used was less than half that of Chrome with the same ten sites open.

Internet Explorer
We were pleasantly surprised by the improvement of Internet Explorer 11 over previous versions as well as other browsers.
IE11 came top in a couple of our tests, and runner-up in a further three.
Where IE11 appears to have improved most over earlier versions of Microsoft’s browser in is the length of time taken to load and pages (either from a server, or from the cache) as well as start/restart the browser itself. In our tests, starting IE11 took just 0.01463 seconds! – some 280x quicker than Opera started.
That said, in general Internet Explorer 11 still has a way to go to come up to par with the other major browsers in terms of HTML 5 compliance.

Opera
A lot has changed with Opera since we last tested browsers twelve months ago. Since then, Opera have switched from using their own “Presto” layout rendering engine to instead using the same engine as Chrome.
Whilst this change has been received with mixed reviews by Opera users, with some unhappy that many of Opera’s original features were dropped, our test results actually show that the “new” Opera is a browser to be reckoned with, out performing Internet Explorer 11, Firefox 25 and Safari 5 in our tests.
Opera 17 came top in 3 out of our 15 tests, and runner-up in 6.
The browser also scored highly on HTML5/CSS3 compliance and in our aggregated Javascript performance tests, however, Opera’s memory usage was fairly high, second only to Chrome. Opera 17 was slow to start, however, once running it loaded and rendered web pages swiftly.

Safari
Our browsers tests were performed on a Windows machine (test specifics are included at the end of this report). Whilst the latest version of Safari is 7, Apple took the decision after the release of Safari 5.1 to no longer continue developing Safari for Windows users – a mistake in our view! Therefore, the most recent version of Safari available to Windows users is 5.1.7, which was used in our testing.
Given that Safari 5.1.7 is now the oldest of the 5 browsers tested, it follows that is doesn’t perform as well as its peers.
However, surprisingly, it did come runner-up in both our memory tests as well as our non-cold start test.

Conclusions – From a Developers Perspective

From our perspective, as developers of a leading web-based room booking and resource scheduling solution, perhaps the most important factors in determining which browser is “best” are compliance with the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards. As we work hard to ensure our software works well in all the major browsers, this is where having universal standards between browsers becomes so important. In theory, a website (or in our case, a web app), should look and behave the same regardless of the browser being used, which should in theory happen if all browsers complied 100% with standards! Chrome 31 currently comes the closest to the HTML 5 standard with 93% compliance, but as can be seen, CSS3 compliance still has a long way to go for all browsers, with the winning browser in the CSS3 compliance test (Opera 17) only achieving 58% compliance.

Speed (page load time) and Javascript Performance are also important factors for us, as we want our web app to be as fast and responsive as possible. Opera 17 and Chrome 25 loaded pages faster in our tests, with Internet Explorer 11 following close behind. As for performance, both Chrome 25 and Opera 17 outperformed other browsers in our aggregated Javascript performance test scores.

A few surprising finds:

• Microsoft have made some significant steps forward with Internet Explorer 11 over earlier incarnations of their browser.
• Opera 17 performed better than expected
• Firefox 25 performed worse than expected, finishing an overall 4th place in our tests.

MIDAS, our popular Browser-Based Room & Resource Scheduling Software is currently supported in all browser versions we’ve tested here. Find out more at https://mid.as

Conclusions – So which browser should I use then!?

• If you work with lots of browser tabs open at once, and/or the amount of available memory on your system is limited, Firefox 25 would seem a good choice of browser to use, as this used the less memory than other browsers under the same conditions.

• If you regularly open and close your browser, Internet Explorer 11 or Firefox 25 would seem a good choice as these browsers start up quickly. If, however, you tend to keep your browser running most of the time, Opera 17 would be a better choice, as even though its start-up time is considerably longer, initial page load times are the quickest of all the browsers we tested

• If you’re still using an earlier version of Internet Explorer – it’s certainly worth upgrading to IE11, or if that’s not possible (for example, if you’re using Windows XP, you won’t be able to update your Internet Explorer past version 8!), maybe it’s time to try a different browser!?

• At the end of the day, use the browser that you feel most comfortable with! …BUT make sure you keep it up-to-date, and don’t ignore the competition – if you do, you risk being left behind as other browsers overtake yours in terms of their speed, security, memory usage, standard compliance, and performance!

• In recent years, browsers such as Internet Explorer and Opera have been somewhat overlooked by many regular internet users – but if you’ve not used these browsers for years having previously dismissed them – a lot has changed, and it’s certainly worth giving them a second look again now!

View/Download The Complete Web Browser Test Report HERE

Test Specifics

Browsers Tested: Chrome 31.0.1650.48 m | Firefox 25.0 | Internet Explorer 11.0.9600.16428 | Opera 17 (Build 1652) | Safari 5.1.7 (7534.57.2)

Browser tests were performed on an Intel® Atom™ CPU D525 @ 1.80GHz system, with 4GB Ram, running Windows Home Server 2011 SP1 (Windows Server 2008 R2) 64-bit. Each browser was a clean install, using default install and browsers settings, and with no extensions/addons installed or enabled.

Speed tests were measured using Rob Keir’s millisecond timer and PassMark AppTimer v1.0. Each speed test was performed 10 times for each browser, and the results averaged to provide the data presented in this report.

Compliance Tests: HTML5 | CSS3

Javascript Performance Tests: Dromaeo | Speed-Battle | Sunspider | Peacekeeper | Octane | BrowserMark

Memory usage was measured 60 seconds after tabs had finished loading and was measured through the Windows Task Manager. Memory usage includes all associated processes running with the browser (for example, running Safari spawns both “Safari.exe” and “WebKit2WebProcess.exe” processes, the memory usage of both is taken into account)

The 10 sites open in tabs when measuring memory usage (10 open tabs) were:
https//mid.as | http://news.bbc.co.uk | http://facebook.com | https://twitter.com | http://google.co.uk | https://youtube.com | http://wikipedia.org | http://linkedin.com | http://bing.com | http://amazon.co.uk

Test Date: 13 November 2013

The post Best Browser: IE11, Chrome 31, Firefox 25, Opera 17, or Safari 5? appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – IE11 coming later this year? / IE10 available for Windows 7 / Farewell IE8
• Firefox – v20 now available… and a new rendering engine on the horizon?
• Chrome – v26 out now… and ANOTHER new rendering engine on the horizon?!
• Opera – 12.15 now available… and a change in rendering engine to.. WebKit? no wait.. Blink?
• Safari – What will all these rendering engine changes to other browsers mean for Safari?

Internet Explorer

Microsoft are busy working on their next update for Windows 8, currently billed as being “Windows 8.1”. It’s expected to be available in the latter half of this year. Windows 8.1 will almost be a kind of “service pack” for Windows 8, but will also contain a number of improvements and updates to apps & software. Perhaps the most exciting updating coming with Windows 8.1 will be Internet Explorer 11.

Yes, that’s right, no sooner is IE10 out of the door, and Microsoft are following it up with IE11 in a relatively short space of time (well, for them anyway!). We think this is great to see from Microsoft! In the past, updates to their flagship browser have been few and far between. Compare that with Mozilla’s current release cycle for Firefox, churning out a new version of Firefox every 6 weeks!

MIDAS will be supported in IE11 when it becomes available. It remains presently unknown as to whether IE11 will be “exclusive” to Windows 8.1, or if like IE10, it will also be made available for Windows 7 users as well.

…and yes, you did read that right – Internet Explorer 10 is available for Windows 7 right now! (and has been for over a month). If you’re a Windows 7 and Internet Explorer user, we strongly recommend that you update to IE10 get the best out of MIDAS.

Finally, if you’re still an Internet Explorer 8 user please read our “Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8” post. Essentially, please upgrade your browser… as we won’t be supporting MIDAS in IE8 indefinitely!

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla’s rapid release cycle means that we’re now up to Firefox version 20! In a tweet yesterday, the Firefox team claim that with their latest version of Firefox “you can get the web up to 7 times faster than older versions”.

Mozilla also announced last week that they were collaborating with Samsung on a new rendering engine, named “Servo”. A “rendering engine” is essentially what converts raw web page code into what you actually see on your browser screen. Mozilla’s long standing rendering engine has been “Gecko”, but according to Mozilla;

“Servo is a research project to develop a new web browser engine. Our goal is to create an architecture that takes advantage of parallelism at many levels, both on the CPU and GPU, while eliminating common sources of bugs and security vulnerabilities associated with incorrect memory management and data races. With Servo, we aim to take the kinds of fluid, richer multimedia experiences expected in today’s smart phone and tablet applications to the next level on tomorrow’s web and tomorrow’s hardware.”

“Servo” is still in its early days and according to Mozilla;

“It’s too early to say how [Servo] will be adopted going forward. No decision has been made as to whether Servo will replace Gecko. Gecko remains the ‘productised’ web engine for Mozilla.“

So it may be that Servo ends up being a rendering engine for Mozilla’s smartphone/tablet browsers, and Gecko remains for desktop Firefox editions. This could get confusing, but it’s more likely over time that Mozilla will standardize their rendering engine across all platforms.

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v20+ recommended)

Google Chrome

The current version of Google’s Chrome browser is v26. Ever since its first release – which was only 4 years ago! – Chrome has always used the WebKit rendering engine, most notably used by Apple’s Safari web browser. Chrome’s subsequent input into the WebKit project has really driven WebKit development forward in the last four years. WebKit is now arguably the most standards-compliant of all the rendering engines currently used by the major browsers.

However, Google recently announced that they would be developing a new rendering engine for Chrome, called “Blink”. Blink is expected to make it into builds of Chrome within just 10 weeks! Unlike Mozilla’s “Servo” engine, which is being built from the ground up, Blink is heavily based on the WebKit project.

Google have released a Blink Q&A video if you’re interested in learning more about this new rendering engine and its implementation

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v26+ recommended)

Opera

Opera are having a bit of a turbulent time of late, and in some respects appear to be loosing a sense of focus and direction!
The Opera browser was first released in late 1994. This makes it the longest running browser that’s still in active development and current use today.

Apart from its longevity, what also makes Opera unique is their own “Presto” rendering engine.

Now, you may remember that back in January, we reported that Opera were making a switch from Presto to WebKit. Well, at least for their mobile browser offerings.

Then in February, it was confirmed that Opera would drop Presto for their entire range on browsers (not just mobile).

This was a move that surprised a lot of analysts, and received a mixed response from Opera’s loyal user base.

Whilst it would have been sad to see a very mature rendering engine being put out to pasture, it would have meant that with Google and Opera both contributing to WebKit (along with Safari). This would provide more continuity between browsing experiences on the three browsers. Also with three major organizations contributing to the development of WebKit, it would have become very powerful. It would certainly have Mozilla and Internet Explorer (who don’t use WebKit) quaking in their boots!

…but this was before Google announced Blink… and shortly afterwards, Opera changed their minds. Opera decided to jump on the Blink band-wagon too, after having gone all out and confirming they were moving to WebKit!!

So it’s a little confusing at the moment as to the direction that Opera are going down! ..but as things stand, here are the list of rendering engines that the five major browsers are using/will be using in the near future:

Browser	Current Rending Engine	Future Rendering Engine
Internet Explorer	Trident	Trident
Mozilla Firefox	Gecko	Servo?
Google Chrome	WebKit	Blink
Opera	Presto	Blink?
Apple Safari	WebKit	WebKit

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

Safari

As you’ll know from our previous Web Browser Roundups – it’s been pretty quiet on the Safari development front in recent months. There’s not much happening on the face of it!

Safari’s rendering engine is WebKit, and last month it looked like both Google and Opera would begin contributing code to the WebKit project. In fact, Opera even began contributing code to WebKit.

This was before Google announced it was moving away from WebKit in favor of a new rendering engine, Blink. Then Opera followed suit and announced it was also teaming up with Google for the new Blink rendering engine.

So what will this mean for WebKit and the Safari browser that will soon be the sole user and primary contributor to the WebKit project?

Well, it remains to be seen! WebKit was successfully developed without Google’s input in the days before Chrome. It may well survive without Google’s input in the future. But with Google and Opera pooling resources into Blink, and Firefox potentially introducing a new rendering engine too, the WebKit team (and Safari) are going to be facing a tough challenge to keep up!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

The post Web Browser Roundup – April 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – Speculation continues over the IE10 release date for Windows 7
• Chrome – The most actively developed browser?
• Firefox – 18.0.2 now available.. development slowing down?
• Safari – Are its days numbered?
• Opera – 300 million active users and a full move to WebKit confirmed!

Internet Explorer

At the very end of last month, Microsoft released an IE10 Update Blocker Toolkit. This led to speculation that IE10 for Windows 7 may be just around the corner!

There was some speculation that IE10 may have been pushed through Windows Update on 12th February to coincide with Microsoft’s monthly “Patch Tuesday”, when they were already planning on releasing some “critical updates” to Internet Explorer.

Whilst the critical updates for IE were included in this month’s Patch Tuesday, IE10 itself wasn’t. This isn’t entirely surprising, given that the update blocker (which prevents IE10 from being downloaded/installed via Windows Update) was only made available 13 days earlier. 13 days is hardly enough time for corporate environments (for which the blocker is aimed) to deploy the blocker throughout their IT infrastructure.

It’s instead more likely that IE10 will make a proper appearance for Windows 7 users at the end of the month, or in early March. This is based on when previous “IE blockers” were released. That’s assuming of course the IE team can be dragged away from devoting their time/energy/resources to developing endless web-based games, such as Contre Jour, to showcase how “great” Internet Explorer is. Instead, we think they really should focus instead on developing their actual web browser!

Anyway, you can read more about our predictions for when IE10 will likely be fully available in our blog post, “…and the final release date for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 is…“

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Google Chrome

Chrome continues to receive regular updates – in fact the Stable channel was updated only yesterday for Linux users to fix *another* Flash vulnerability!

These frequently discovered Flash vulnerabilities are not confined to Chrome. They can affect any browser on a computer with Flash installed. This is also why Microsoft pushed a couple of “critical updates” to Internet Explorer yesterday.

In our opinion, the sooner Flash is killed off the better! For today’s modern web browser, it serves no real purpose! Everything that Flash can do can these days be accomplished through a use of HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript.

You won’t find any Flash on our website, or within our scheduling web app.

Anyway, back to Chrome; So far this month, there have been no fewer than 3 updates to the “Stable” channel. If you’re a normal Chrome user, you’ll automatically receive updates from the “Stable” channel. Two updates were made to the Chrome Beta for Android, two to the “Dev” channel, and one update to the “Beta” channel… and we’re only halfway through the month!

Google Chrome is arguably the most “actively” developed web browser at the present time.

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v24+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

At the start of the month, Mozilla, released Firefox 18.0.2.

Primarily a security & stability update, 18.0.2 does have a handful of new features/improvements, most notably:

• Faster JavaScript performance
• Better image quality when scaling
• Improved browser start-up time. (Chrome already has the fastest start-up times out of all the major browsers we tested a couple of months back to determine “Which Browser is Best?“)
• Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up

In recent times, Mozilla have been releasing a “major” update to Firefox every six weeks or so. However, we wonder if this release cycle may now start to slow down whilst the Mozilla team focus more of their attention on their upcoming “Firefox OS” project.

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v18+ recommended)

Safari

Sadly, once again, there’s no new Safari news to report! As you’ll know from our November update, Safari development has taken back seat over at Apple in recent times. Apple instead have been seemingly more focused on their hardware offerings, than on their web browser. As we reported at the end of last year, they’ve currently ceased development on the Windows version of Safari.

And with other browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox available (and soon to become available) for iPad and iOS users, you do have to wonder whether Safari’s days are numbered? Will it be long before Apple take the decision to cease Safari development completely?!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera

Last month we reported that Opera were dropping their own rendering engine, “Presto”, in favor of “WebKit” for a new mobile browser “Ice”. WebKit is the rendering engine already used by the likes of Safari and Chrome.

At the time, there was no word as to whether this move would mean that “Presto” was to also be ultimately phased out of their desktop browser offering as well.

Well, now this has been confirmed in an official Opera Press Release. The primary reason for the press release was to mark the fact that Opera now has an impressive 300 million monthly users across its various browser products. In the release CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie, also writes:

“The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need. It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine [Presto] further.”

No timescale has been given for this transition. It’s likely though to be a gradual progression over to WebKit rather than a sudden overnight switch.

In some respects it will be sad to see the “Presto” engine go. The more different browser rendering engines there are, the more competition there is to be the “best” and most up-to-date standards compliant browser. But in many other respects, this could actually be a very good move!

WebKit is actively in development by both Apple and Google, and is what powers their respective browsers. Add to this mix the extensive development expertise that the Opera team have. We do mean extensive too! Opera has been in constant development since 1994!). It will likely have Firefox (which uses its own “Gecko” engine), and Internet Explorer (which uses its own “Trident” engine) pretty worried!

Because Chrome, Safari, and soon Opera too, will use the same rendering engine, in theory web pages (and apps) should look identical in which ever of these browsers you use. This should make life easier for web developers! (In practice this isn’t quite true, as each browser has a different release cycle, so new features in the WebKit engine itself make it into one browser weeks, if not months, before another).

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

The post Web Browser Roundup – February 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – Microsoft’s self-proclaimed comeback – has IE really “grown up”?
• Chrome – v24 out now, v25 around the corner – with voice control!?
• Firefox – 64-bit development fiasco, but “Junior” for iPad and Firefox OS on their way!
• Safari – It’s oh so quiet! Shhhh…
• Opera – Continuing to improve stability and security… plus a new Android and iOS browser coming, and a possible move to WebKit?

Internet Explorer:

At the tail end of 2012, Microsoft released a video on YouTube touting the comeback of its Internet Explorer browser. The video focuses on how people “love to hate” Internet Explorer. In the video, an individual is depicted trolling news stories, videos and Twitter accounts about how much Microsoft’s browser “sucks”.

The video ends by the troll typing “IE sucks… less,” after which Microsoft proclaims “progress” is being made and that “comebacks come in many shapes and sizes.”

Following that, the video mentions Microsoft’s new website to promote the campaign, TheBrowserYouLovedToHate.com.

Now, Microsoft’s IE “comeback” campaign is gathering more pace. By specifically targeting those who grew up in the 1990’s, and using the Twitter hashtag “#childofthe90s”, Microsoft are flooding the social network with a host of photographs of 90’s children’s toys with the tag line “You grew up. So did we. Reconnect with the new IE“

It’s all well and good Microsoft promoting that IE has made a “comeback”… but has IE really grown up?

Their latest incarnation is Internet Explorer 10. This is available for Windows 8, and currently as a IE 10 “Preview” for Windows 7. Back in November, we put IE10 “head-to-head” with the other current browser offerings from Mozilla, Google, Apple, and Opera software. You can read our full test report and conclusions here, and you’ll see that IE10 performance was rather disappointing!

So has Internet Explorer “grown up”? Well, in comparison to earlier versions of IE – yes. Yet in comparison to the latest offerings from the other major browser vendors, Internet Explorer still has a LOT of growing up to do!

For us to be convinced that their flagship browser has truly “made a comeback”, Microsoft’s will need to ensure that they now maintain and update IE on a more frequent basis, as all the other major browsers do! …otherwise this self-proclaimed “comeback” will be short-lived!

Months, or in IE’s case – years – between major browser updates really doesn’t cut it in the highly competitive – and ever evolving – browser market we’re in today!

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Google Chrome:

Earlier this month, Google pushed an update to their Chrome browser, bringing the version number up to 24. Google’s main claim with this new version is that performance has improved “26.3% since Chrome 15”.

Now, Chrome 15 may seem like seem it was released a long time ago. In actual fact it was less than a year ago that Chrome 15 was the “latest” offering of Chrome!

If you’re a regular follower of our blog, you’ll know there’s been a whole version number supremacy battle going on between browser vendors in recent times! In a blog post, Google justify their “rapid release schedule” and lack of noticeable “new features” in Chrome 24 by saying “What you may not know is that things are changing under the hood every six weeks, thanks to auto-update. It’s like a mechanic stopping by every six weeks to give your car a new engine”

So whilst v24 may have lacked in the way of “new features”, v25 promises to have support for the new and emerging “Web Speech API”. This may ultimately allow websites, and web apps – such as our own Room Scheduling System – to be voice controlled! …which is quite exciting, and ever so slightly reminiscent of this scene from Star Trek IV…

In other Chrome news; if you’ve got an Android smartphone, did you know that you can get the Google Chrome browser for your mobile device?! …well, only if your device runs Android 4.0+, which is a shame, given that mobile versions of both Opera and Firefox are currently available for earlier Android devices.

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v24+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox:

Mozilla seem to be loosing a bit of direction of late! Back in November, we reported on a number of setbacks for Firefox. Including a major update that was subsequently withdrawn, a large fine imposed by the EU, and a drop in market share.

Well, since then, there’s been more controversy! Mozilla announced that they would no longer be developing a 64-bit Windows version of Firefox.

Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg made the decision to kill off development. He outlined his view on the matter in a post titled “Turn off win64 builds” on a Google Groups development board. Smedberg blames the decision partly due to 3rd party plugins, commenting “Many plugins are not available in 64-bit versions.”

However, following a backlash by users, his decision was subsequently reversed.

In a later post on the Mozilla Google Groups support page, Smedberg admitted that “there was significant negative feedback” on the move to cancel 64-bit development of Firefox. After his change of heart, he then claimed “I believe that we can keep a set of users happy by making a modification to the original plan“. This plan essentially involved moving all users of 64-bit builds of Firefox back to the 32-bit channel, and then having those users manually download a new 64-bit build.

Aside from the 64-bit Firefox fiasco, Mozilla have recently announced a number of other projects they have in the pipeline. Namely, a new web browser “built from the ground up” for the iPad, called “Junior” (expected in the first half of 2013). Interestingly, Junior will use WebKit layout rendering (also used by Chrome & Safari), rather than Mozilla’s own “Gecko” rendering. This may however be a restriction imposed by Apple, rather than by choice.

Plus, Mozilla have been working on their own mobile operating system, “Firefox OS”, with developer preview phones now available!

Will Firefox OS have any impact on the mobile os market?

With iOS, Android, and Windows Phone being the key players, Firefox OS will have a hard job taking a significant market share! Many mobile phone providers have tried to launch their own proprietary operating systems before and failed. So it remains to be seen exactly what impact Firefox OS will have!

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v18+ recommended)

Safari:

Sadly, there’s just no new Safari news to report this time! As you’ll know from our last update, Safari development seems to have taken a back seat at Apple in recent times. Apple are seemingly more focused on their hardware offerings, than on their web browser. In fact, as we reported, they’ve ceased development on the Windows version of Safari. Perhaps they feel they can no longer compete with the likes of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome and prefer to stick with an operating system where Safari has the monopoly.

However, with a version of Firefox soon to become available to iPad users, Safari’s dominance on iOS may soon be in jeopardy. This might actually be a good thing, as it may drive Apple to further develop Safari!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera:

Whilst the other major browser vendors had a bit of a break over Christmas, it seems like development over at Opera continued at a pace! Since we last reported on Opera, version 12.11 was released in late November. 12.12 was released just a few days before Christmas, and now 12.13 looks set for imminent release in the next couple of days.

There’s nothing major to report on these releases. They primarily just contain “stability and security improvements”. But it’s good that Opera are commitment to the continued improvement of their desktop browser even during the festive period.

It doesn’t end there though. Opera are pushing forward with their various other browser offerings. Their latest project, “Ice”, will see a minimalist browser being introduced for both Android and iOS devices.

According to Opera’s CEO, “Ice” is “a reboot of your average web browser, it has no buttons, no menus, and all you see is content … Everything is gesture based and that’s what Opera is all about.“

What’s interesting is that Opera will drop their own “Presto” layout rendering engine, and instead use WebKit rendering for “Ice”. There’s no word yet whether this move will ultimately mean that “Presto” is also phased out of their desktop browser as well.

In many respects, this would be a good move from our point of view. As a developer, as it would certainly simplify development somewhat!

We always ensure that our browser based scheduling solution runs smoothly in the 5 major browsers. This means we have to make sure that MIDAS looks as close to identical as possible regardless of which browser you use. At present, different browsers use different “rendering” (or “layout”) engines. This is how a browser interprets the code that goes to make up a web page (or web app) and subsequently displays (“renders”) it to your screen.

At present there are 4 main browser layout/rendering engines:

• “Trident” – Used by Internet Explorer
• “Gecko” – Used by Firefox
• “WebKit” – Used by Chrome and Safari
• “Presto” – Used by Opera

Both Chrome and Safari use the same rendering engine. In theory web pages (and apps) should look identical in both browser. In practice this isn’t quite true, as each browser is updated on a different release cycle. As such, new features of the WebKit engine make it into sooner into one browser than the other. But if Opera also make the switch to WebKit at some point, in theory, sites/apps should look identical in Chrome, Safari AND Opera.

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

As a New Year is an ideal time to make a fresh start with your room bookings. To celebrate the start 2013 we’re offering 13% off new purchases of our web based software throughout January! – simply use Promo Code “NEWYEAR13” on our website when making your purchase.

The post Web Browser Roundup – January 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

Browsers Tested

The Tests

13 different tests were performed on each browser, covering four key areas in Speed, Memory Usage, Compliance with standards, and Javascript Performance.

The results revealed some varied and rather interesting findings – We even found to our surprise that Internet Explorer 9 out performed Internet Explorer 10 in two of the tests!

Results Summary

Read the full test report, with explanations and our conclusions here

The post Which Is The Best Web Browser? – We put the top 6 “head-to-head” appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – IE10 for Windows 7 coming this month… sort of!
• Chrome – v23 out now, and can increase your battery life by 25%?!
• Firefox – Market share drops below 20% – tough times ahead!
• Safari – Download links for Windows users buried
• Opera – 12.10 out now.. and Opera Mobile 12.1 also available

Internet Explorer

The buzz with Internet Explorer revolves right now revolves around IE10. More specifically, the growing anticipation for the eagerly awaited release for Windows 7. Microsoft stated in a recent blog post that this will be available “mid-November“.

In fact, for a short period just before the launch of Windows 8, the download page for Internet Explorer 10 actually went live (although the download links contained therein were not live). Microsoft quickly pulled the download page within a matter of hours. At time of writing the link returns a “Page not found” error. However, we understand that when IE10 does become available for download it will be at this link

Great, you might think… however, there’s a catch… the upcoming release in “mid-November” is only going to be yet another “preview” version of IE10 with “final availability to follow as [they] collect developer and customer feedback”.

Why they can’t just fully launch IE10 for Windows 7 users outright we don’t know!

As there have already been several “developer preview” releases of IE10 for Windows 7 users going back more than a year.

Remember too that IE10 is already included as standard in Windows 8. You’d think that if there were any “issues” with IE10 these would have been identified and addressed by now!

You’d also think there would be a real desire from the Internet Explorer team to get IE10 out. Given that Internet Explorer 9 is now quite literally years behind the current offerings from the other main browser developers (Mozilla, Google, Apple, and Opera Software). Come on Microsoft! Get your act together!

We’re keeping our eye on the wires, and as soon as IE10 is available for you Windows 7 users, we’ll let you know!

UPDATE: 12th November: We understand from Roger Capriotti, Product Marketing Director for IE that the “Preview” build of IE10 for Windows will be available from tomorrow (Tuesday 13th November) – Watch this space!!

UPDATE: 13th November: As predicted, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is now available

MIDAS is supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Google Chrome

Today, Google have released the latest update to their Chrome browser, which has now reached v23 (v23.0.1271.64 to be precise!). According to their blog, one of the noticeable features is v23 offers longer battery life when running on your tablet/laptop. They claim it can extend your device’s battery life by up to 25%! If these claims prove true, that’s some noticeable improvement! Thanks to Google Chrome’s auto-update feature, if you’re an existing Chrome user, your browser should silently automatically update to v23 shortly!

Also, Google Chrome’s share of the browser market continues to grow at almost the same rate as Internet Explorer’s share declines. It remains to be seen what affect the wider availability of IE10 will have on this…

MIDAS is supported in Chrome 9+ (v23+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

Just after last month’s Web Browser Roundup, Mozilla released Firefox 16… only to withdraw it the following day due to a security vulnerability. This was promptly fixed, and Firefox 16.0.1 was released in its place.

Mozilla seem to be having a tough time of late, and their troubles continue…

Due to supposed “glitch” in the Browser Ballot screen that the EU forced Microsoft to show to users in the European Union in order to offer them a choice of browsers, it emerged that this screen wasn’t in fact shown to a large number of users.

This “glitch” had subsequently been fixed. However the EU are set to fine Microsoft for their mistake. Harvey Anderson, the Vice President of Business Affairs at Mozilla, has commented that “Firefox downloads saw a decrease of 63% to as low as 20,000 per day and increased by 150% to 50,000 per day after the fix was issued.“. In addition, he claims that Mozilla lost 6-9 million Firefox downloads during the 15 month period.

If that wasn’t bad enough for Mozilla, Back in 2007 they decided that they didn’t need to pay taxes for revenue that comes from their partnership with Google search. Why? Because according to Mozilla, $66 million (out of $77 million) dollars were a form of “contributions” and therefore, should not be taxable.

Unfortunately for Mozilla, the US government took a different view. As a result, Mozilla will now be paying a total of $1.5 million dollars. Mind you, this is considerably less than they were expecting, having set aside $15 million over this matter.

But the bad news still keeps coming for Mozilla! A report from NetApplications for October 2012 now puts Firefox at less than a 20% share of the browser market. The small, but ongoing, decline in Firefox’s user base is due mainly to its users switching to Google Chrome. Chrome has enjoyed a steady increase in market share since its launch in 2008. Many users feel that Chrome is faster and lighter on memory than Firefox. Certainly some recent builds of Firefox have been pretty memory intensive. However, Mozilla have made significant improvements in this area. Firefox v16 onwards has a much smaller memory footprint that earlier versions.

MIDAS is supported in Firefox 4+ (v16+ recommended)

Safari

It’s all quiet on the Safari front at the moment! Development on Apple’s web browser seems to take more a back seat to their hardware development. So when there’s an upcoming product launch, such as the new iPad mini, other Apple-related news is harder to come by!

There’s still no news as to whether Apple will ever release another update for Safari for Windows. Currently Safari 6 is only available to iOS users, with 5.1.7 being the highest version of Safari that Windows users can update to. Although, Apple have somewhat buried the download links for new Safari Windows installs deep within a KB article on their site! So, if you wish to download Safari 5.1.7 for Windows, here is the link.

MIDAS is supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera

Development over at Opera Software continues at pace! Following 4 “release candidates” within just about as many days, today, Opera announced the release of Opera 12.10. In their own words, 12.10 contains “many updates and more bugfixes than I can count“. They also state that “This release is a recommended security update.“. The Opera browser is now quite impressive! It’s always had a small, but dedicated following, that’s never really grown much. But at the same time has also never shrunk. It’s also been around for a very long time. In fact, it was first released 18 years ago in late 1994! So over the years, many people have tried it, and not really liked it for whatever reason. However, today, the Opera browser is fast, sleek, and modern. It can easily give the other major browsers a run for their money!

One notable new feature in Opera 12.10 is support for a new “Fullscreen API” support. Previously the “Fullscreen API” has only been supported in Firefox 15+, Chrome 22+, Safari 5.1+. Now it comes to Opera 12.1+ too! (There’s still no support in IE10 though at time of writing!). So what is this “Fullscreen API” and why bother mentioning it?

Basically, the “Fullscreen API” allows developers to make elements in a web page, such as a video, go completely “full screen” without having to use Flash or some other means. Whilst most browser can go a sort of “full screen” (usually by pressing F11), the address bar and some navigation buttons are usually still present. The relatively new “Fullscreen API” allows web pages to completely fill your screen with no toolbars/navigation buttons etc. We are currently implementing this API to allow you to use future versions of MIDAS in true “full screen” mode. This means more screen space for displaying bookings! …watch this space!

Did you know that Opera 12.10 is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux? So if you’ve never tried Opera before, you’ve really no excuse!

Opera Mobile 12.1 for Android Phones is now also available. If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know that our website is now “tailored” to viewing on mobile devices. Currently, only Opera and Firefox offer mobile versions of their browsers. So if you have an Android phone with an outdated browser, be sure to download Firefox or Opera Mobile for the best possible viewing experience!

MIDAS is supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

The post Web Browser Roundup – November 2012 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

Now when you visit https://mid.as on your smartphone or similar mobile device, the content will be “tailored” to give you a better viewing experience on a smaller screen.

Less than 4% of visitors to our site in the last three months did so using their smartphones, but this is still a 1% increase on the previous three month period, and we expect this trend to continue to grow as more and more smartphones are released, and the lines between laptops, tablets, and mobile phones become ever more blurred!

For the best viewing experience of our site on your smartphone, make sure you have an up-to-date mobile browser installed on your smartphone – We recommend Opera Mobile or Firefox Mobile which are regularly updated, and both capable of using the latest web technologies/standards.

So, what about our MIDAS room scheduling software itself? Whilst this is supported on all of the 5 major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari), and so you can use it on your smartphone with a compatible browser, we have been – and continue to work – on making our app more “mobile friendly”. For example, when we released MIDAS v4 a couple of months ago, this featured a new visual “theme” with larger icons and buttons, making it easier to use on touch-enabled devices.

Over the coming months we’ll be making further improvements to MIDAS for users of smartphones, tablets, and other touch-enabled devices… so watch this space!

The post Our new mobile site is here! appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – Google Apps dropping IE8 support.. and still no word IE10 for Win7?
• Chrome – More popular than IE? Depends on who you talk to!
• Firefox – 10 years old.. and Windows 8 “modern” app round the corner
• Safari – No further updates for Windows users?
• Opera – Development continuing at pace!

Internet Explorer

Google have announced that starting from November 15, their suite of “Google Apps”, which includes services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, will no longer be officially supported Internet Explorer 8. We predict that it won’t be long before other major sites begin to drop support for IE8.

Internet Explorer 8 is now nearly 4 years old – a long time in today’s fast changing browser landscape. Consequently, it now offers poor support for today’s web technology standards.

So why are people still using Internet Explorer?

Well, one of the main problems is that if you’re still running Windows XP (which many people still are!), you can’t install Internet Explorer 9 on it! This is a bad decision on Microsoft’s part we feel. In fact, they’ve pretty much shot themselves in the foot by not allowing Windows XP users to upgrade their browser past IE8!

By not allowing Windows XP users to upgrade past IE8, it’s allowed other browsers (such as Firefox and Chrome) – which can run on Windows XP, to steal a lot of the market share that Internet Explorer has. This is simply because end-users want to use a fast, up-to-date, modern browser – something which IE8 isn’t by today’s standards.

Sadly, at the moment, this could be a trend that Microsoft continues with their upcoming Internet Explorer 10. Internet Explorer is currently only available to users of Windows 8. Windows 8 sees its full release later this month on October 26. Users of Windows 7 are presently unable to update from Internet Explorer 9 to Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft have said that IE10 will become available for Windows 7. Yet they’ve been very vague and noncommittal about exactly when this will happen.

If you’ve used IE10, you’ll know how much better it is than IE9. Not least in terms of speed/performance, but also compliance with the latest web standards. We hope Microsoft make IE10 available to users of Windows 7 as soon as possible!

MIDAS, our web based scheduling software, is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8,9, and 10! However, for the best experience, we recommend IE9/10. We have no immediate plans to drop support for IE8, as Google Apps are doing. However, there will come a time when we no longer support such an old version of a web browser.

Therefore, you should always keep your browser up-to-date with the most recent version available to you. If you’re still using Windows XP, and have no plans to upgrade to Windows 7/8 in the near future, you may wish to consider installing one of the other modern browsers that will work on your system.

Google Chrome

Still somewhat on the subject of Internet Explorer – opinion continues to be divided as to which browser – Internet Explorer or Google Chrome is currently the most widely used browser in the world. It all depends on who you talk to!

Last month’s figures from one leading company, Net Applications, show that IE 8 is the most popular web browser for PC’s, with 24.09% of the market share, followed by IE 9 with 19.45%. Chrome 21 (which was updated to Chrome 22 last week), has a 14.32% shared of the web browser market.

However, StatCounter, another leading company, have very different numbers for September. They show Chrome 21 in a clear lead with 27.34%. IE9 comes second with 17.93%, followed by IE8 at 13.06%.

Why such a difference between the two sets of statistics? Well, both companies use very different ways for assessing browser usage. Net Applications only counts “unique visitors”. StatCounter however counts browser hits, regardless of whether they are unique. For example, if someone views the same page 10 times, Net Applications would count that once, StatCounter would count that ten times.

It’s also worth noting that the Google Chrome browser has a “pre-fetch” function. This can silently fetch web pages in the background that it thinks you’re going to visit – so this has the potential for skewing the data slightly.

That said, if there is one thing that both Stat Counter and Net Applications are in close agreement on, its Mozilla’s Firefox place in the web browser standings. Firefox 15 comes 4th on both lists. Net Applications shows a market share of 10.91% and StatCounter fractionally more at 13.01%.

MIDAS is supported in Chrome 9+ (v22+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox celebrated it 10th birthday a couple of weeks ago! Firefox has come a long way in its 10 year history, although it wasn’t actually called “Firefox” until 2004. Originally, it was called “Phoenix” in 2002. Several months later, after complaints from BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies, that name was dropped in favor of Firebird. The community didn’t like “Firebird” either as there was – and still – a database server carrying the same name. Instead, the name “Firefox” was adopted in early 2004.

Firefox became quite popular thanks to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6, which didn’t receive significant updates for many years. Firefox however introduced a lot of people to tabs, RSS-feeds in the bookmarks bar, themes and extensions. In February 2008, Firefox had been downloaded 500 million times. It established a record with version 3.0 several months later, with the “Most Downloads of a Software Application in 24 Hours,” according to Guinness World Records.

Today, Mozilla are busy on developing a special Windows 8 “modern” version of their popular browser in time for the launch of Windows 8 later this month.

MIDAS is supported in Firefox 4+ (v16+ recommended)

Apple Safari

Apple’s Safari browser was recently updated to version 6. However, if you’re a Windows user, Safari 6 isn’t available to you. Safari 6 has only been made available to iOS users. The most recent version of Safari available to Windows users if 5.1.7. Yet even this has now been quietly removed from the Safari download page. (at time of writing 5.1.7 is still available to Windows users with an earlier version of Safari already installed via their “Apple Software Update” application).

No reason has been given by Apple as to why Safari 6 hasn’t been made available to Windows users. The speculation is that the move was made because Safari 6 is more tightly integrated with features only found in iOS6. We hope that this is only temporary, and Apple will make Safari 6 available to Windows. However, as Safari has the smallest market share of Windows-based browsers, they may now just be focusing on their own operating systems.

MIDAS is supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera

The Opera name has been with the browser since the very beginning. In fact, Opera v1 was first released back in 1994. Often overlooked, this well established browser has retained a small, but loyal following over the years. Although historically not enjoying the same user growth as other browsers have, for the last year or so, development work on Opera has really gathered pace! Opera software have been regularly putting out developer snapshots and beta builds – sometimes several times a week! All this work culminated with the major release of Opera 12 back in June.

We’ve been quite impressed with Opera 12’s speed and compatibility with the latest web technologies and standards. Plus the work the Opera team are putting into their software shows no signs of slowing down any time soon! Opera 12.10 was released as a beta last week, so expect a public update to Opera very soon.

There were also rumors earlier in the year that Facebook may be gearing up to purchase Opera in the not too distant future. Whilst unsubstantiated, if true, Opera’s market share may see a significant increase as a result of an acquisition of Facebook. So if Opera’s slipped under your radar, or you’ve perhaps dismissed it in the past – maybe it’s worth taking another look!?

MIDAS is supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

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