Top Click Media Staff Blog » Internet Browsers

Censorship Programme to be required on Chinese Computers

Jenny Sanderson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:04:08 +0000

As of the first of next month, the Chinese Government will be requiring all new PCs to be loaded with state issued software, blocking certain websites considered inappropriate. The government is claiming that the move is aimed at protecting children and young people from some of the more harmful content available online, though many have suggested it might be more about controlling access to subversive sites not considered to be ‘in the public interest.’

The software, named ‘Green Dam Youth Escort’ works by accessing a central database of banned websites and then blocking internet users from accessing those sites. The programme’s aim is, according to a government notice issued in May, “Constructing a green, healthy, and harmonious Internet environment, and preventing harmful information on the Internet from influencing and poisoning young people.”

This news comes in the wake of last week’s anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, during which China was rumoured to have blocked access to sites like YouTube, Twitter, Flickr etc., to attempt to prevent any non stage-managed information about the event filtering through to the public.

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Security and ease of use: the twin Watchwords of IE8 (Part 2)

Matt Thomas — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:00:27 +0000

Yesterday I spoke about the the improvements that IE8 has made to its tab function. Well, I have one more improvement to tell you about. It seems that Microsoft have really gone for it with the tab stuff this time and in the process created what, for me at least, is perhaps the most interesting development in the whole of IE8.

it’s something Microsoft has named tab isolation. Tab isolation is a feature that’s intended to stop one poorly designed, bug filled website crashing the entire browser. Instead, only the affected tab will close. I, for one, applaud this. An unexplained crash is one of the most incredibly annoying things that can happen to you online, especially if you’re in the middle of writing a long email or uploading something complicated when it happens.

Another useful change is that IE8 will now give you searching suggestions as you type. In the same way that YouTube does, if you begin typing a word, IE8 will give you suggestions in a box below as it tries to guess what you are searching for based on other popular searches. It’s a small thing in many ways but it’s amazing how useful it actually is in day to day browsing.

(More tomorrow)

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Security and ease of use: the twin Watchwords of IE8 (Part 1)

Matt Thomas — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:15:12 +0000

If you were to ask Microsoft about the new version of their (for now) market leading web browser, they’d tell you without hesitation that it’s easier to use and safer than ever. Those are the key watchwords this time, safe and easy, but how close to the truth is the Microsoft hype?

When you run the first release candidate (RC1), which was unleashed on the public today, the first thing you notice is that very little seems to have changed – it looks very similar to Internet Explorer 7. However, Microsoft have made a number of changes to the nuts and bolts of the browser that should make life easier.

Many of these come as part of is IE8’s new tabbed browsing feature. The most obvious is that if you accidentally close IE8 you will be able to reopen all your closed tabs the next time you start it, much like Firefox.

However, when it comes to tabs, IE8 doesn’t just mimic Firefox, it also makes some significant improvements on it. The first one being, colour coding – all tabs originating from one particular site will now be the same colour. For example, if you were to go to topclickmedia.co.uk and then open another part of our site on a different tab, those two tabs would be the same colour. You can then move tabs from group to group to, for instance, differentiate your work-streams.

(More tomorrow)

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Google’s Chrome threatens IE

Jay Smith — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:07:33 +0000

Last month’s launch of Chrome is set to wake Microsoft’s bosses from slumber. They have feared this since 1990s. Chrome was very imposing. But its acceptability may take some time. Corporate houses may not switch over to Chrome just like that. They will need lots of convincing and for that Chrome has to be many times better than the IE and Fire Fox browsers. Even Microsoft had problems in convincing its IE users to switch over to newer versions. Along with Chrome, Google has packaged high performance Java-Script Engine with Google gears, a mechanism to store offline web applications.

Chrome may not be able to immediately threaten Microsoft’s 72% share in web browser market, but will definitely help Google to up the ante. IE has been the prominent web browser because it comes bundled with Windows OS. But the days are not far off when Chrome will be challenging the hegemony of IE. Chrome can scale the popularity charts only when Google finds a way out to distribute this along with other OS or web applications. Launch of Google docs and spreadsheets has made all software applications provider sit up and take note of these packages. The world is progressing in the right direction and days of licensed software are being numbered.

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