browse

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--When it comes to bookmarks, most browsers use the same system for organization: folders and tags. A new Xerox-incubated company called Trailmeme is taking a different approach by putting Web pages in a nested hierarchy that can show how they're related. The goal is to create a browsing experience with context, and one that can be shared with others.

Trailmeme, which launches as part of the Demo conference taking place here this week, is not a replacement for your browser's bookmarking system though. It's more of a tool for creating self-guided trips of Web … Read more

The private browsing options provided by the four major Web browser publishers aren't as anonymous and secure as most users might think, researchers at Stanford University's Computer Science Security Lab said in a new paper (PDF) to be published next week at the Usenix Security Symposium.

In tests comparing the anonymity and security of the private browsing modes in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari, the paper concludes that "current private browsing implementations provide privacy against some local and Web attackers, but can be defeated by determined attackers."

When activated, the private … Read more

TheWorld 3.1 is a Web browser based on the engine that powers Microsoft Internet Explorer. Like Internet Explorer 7 and 8, TheWorld has a multithreaded frame that is supposed to prevent window freezing.

The browser's default appearance is simple, yet it feels cluttered because its toolbar is packed with icons. Its user interface is similar to that of Internet Explorer 7 and 8 except for a few minor details. The icons are bubble-like and the top toolbar is on the right-hand side of the screen next to an extra option that lets users hide it. TheWorld also supports … Read more

Safari has always felt more finished on its native Mac home than its Windows port, and version 5 is no different. Though the improvements made in Safari 5 lack the visual pop of the biggest changes in Safari 4, such as the Cover Flow-inspired Top Sites and history browsing and the interface refresh, Safari 5 contains just about the same level and quality of changes--with one caveat.

The biggest new feature that comes in Safari 5 hasn't been fully implemented yet. A new add-on network won't be officially available until later this summer according to Apple, but Safari'… Read more

As digital photography has grown in popularity, so, too, have digital means of displaying photographs. Bix Photo Book is an easy way to duplicate the experience of flipping through a physical photo album without having to print and mount your photos.

The program's interface consists of an animated photo album displayed on what looks like a hardwood floor. To populate the album with images, simply select any image in the desired folder, and all images in the folder will be included. From there, the album is fairly customizable; users can specify the color of the pages and the background … Read more

If you can't view Flash sites directly through your iPhone, why not connect to a remote PC where you can?

That's the idea behind the free Cloud Browse app from a company called AlwaysOn Technologies run by developer Lida Tang.

Through Cloud Browse, you can connect your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad to a remote computer running in one of AlwaysOn's data centers. Instead of surfing sites directly, you control your own browsing session on the remote PC, which can pull up just about any Web site content, including Flash. Those pages are then streamed to your iPhone.

The Cloud Browse app works pretty much the same as other mobile browsers such as Safari and Opera. You swipe and tap your finger to move around the screen, select a keyboard icon to type a URL or other text, and tap on a page icon to open up more than one page at a time.

Like many app developers, AlwaysOn offers both a free and paid version of the app.

The free version naturally comes with certain limitations. You're stuck viewing videos at a slow frame rate--a way for the company to cut down on bandwidth costs. Only a certain number of free users are allowed to connect at one time, so you may not get access if the remote PC is too busy. Free users can also get bumped off if a paying customer needs to jump on board.

A premium or paid account grants you a full 30 frames per second of video streaming and 1GB of storage to save bookmarks and other data. The service also tries to direct you to the closest data center to beef up performance. A premium account is currently available as an invitation-only beta but should open to the public soon, according to the company. An article about Cloud Browse in USAToday says that a paid account would run $9.99 a month.… Read more

We all have reasons for craving our privacy, some more socially questionable than others. No matter. As a computer user, it's within your power (and your rights, darnit!) to keep your browsing from others' eyes, be they actively prying or innocently perusing.

Here's the good news. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all contain a private browsing mode that won't leave tracks as you intrepidly explore the Web. That's excellent if you're trying to keep your activities under wraps, but unfortunate if you accidentally forget to switch back and forth as you transition from your … Read more

We're always a little skeptical of programs that promise to enhance Internet speed, because a lot of the time they just don't work, at least not in any noticeable way. Though we can't promise that Network Mechanic lives up to its claim of increasing network speed by up to 300 percent, we can say that it provided us with an impressively faster connection.

The program is easy to install and configure. Users simply choose which type of Internet service they have from among four choices and click Optimize Now. Windows has to be restarted in order for … Read more

A rise in fake antivirus offerings on Web sites around the globe shows that scammers are increasingly turning to social engineering to get malware on computers rather than exploiting holes in software, a Google study to be released on Tuesday indicates.

Fake antivirus--false pop-up warnings designed to scare money out of computer users--represents 15 percent of all malware that Google detects on Web sites, according to 13-month analysis the company conducted between January 2009 and February 2010.

That's a five-fold increase from when the company first started its analysis, Niels Provos, a principal software engineer at Google, said in … Read more