Consumer: News

Web sites saw visitors deserting Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser in favor of Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome in December, according to Web analytics company Net Applications.

A "clerical error" by Mozilla Corp. omitted one of the security patches that was supposed to be included in the Windows version of yesterday's Firefox 2.0.0.19 release, a company executive said today.

Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers could do a better job of protecting passwords, according to a security researcher who released a study of browser password managers Friday.

Window Snyder, the head of security at Mozilla Corp., will resign her position at the end of the year, she said in a blog post Wednesday.

Mozilla Monday released Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, the first version of its flagship browser to turn on a much faster JavaScript engine and sport a working privacy mode.

Hackers have managed to load Linux on to Apple's iPhone.

The market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) dropped under the 70 percent mark last month for the first time since Web metrics vendor Net Applications started keeping tabs on browsers, the company said Monday.

Mozilla will probably add a third beta to the development schedule for Firefox 3.1 to get a better handle on remaining bugs and give several new features, including a faster JavaScript engine and a private browsing mode, more testing time, the company's browser director said Tuesday.

Supercomputers from IBM are more energy efficient than supercomputing iron from rival vendors, according to latest research from The Green500.org.

Three of the biggest laptop computer makers are recalling certain batteries because of a risk they may overheat and catch fire. Sony made the batteries and the recall mirrors -- yet appears a lot smaller than -- a similar one that occurred two years ago.

Google this week unveiled gadgets created by its Google Labs project that allow Gmail users to look at Google Calendar and Google Docs data without having to open the hosted applications.