Browser developers offer new tools to Internet users

Browser developers offer new tools to Internet users

Category

Internet

Browser war is intensifying with competitors trying innovations which they think will inspire users to go for their version.

Browser developer Mozilla, which rose from ashes of Netscape, will release next month Firefox 3.0 that could change the way people organise and find sites they most frequently visit.

With tasks like e-mail and word processing now migrating from the PC to the Internet, analysts and industry players think the browser will soon become even more valuable and strategically important, according to The New York Times.

Firefox 3.0 runs more than twice as fast as the previous version while using less memory, Mozilla is quoted as saying by the daily.

The browser is also smarter and maintains three months of a user's browsing history to try to predict what site he or she may want to visit.

Typing the word "football" into the browser, for example, quickly generates a list of all the sites visited with "football" in the name or description, the daily said.

Firefox has named this new tool the "awesome bar" and says it could replace the need for people to maintain long and messy lists of bookmarks. It will also personalise the browser for an individual user.

Internet Explorer 8, from Microsoft, promises its own set of tricks. One new tool, Web slices, allows a user to bookmark a dynamic piece of a Web site, like an on-line auction or a sports score, and save it in the margin of the browser, where the user can watch as it changes, the report added.

Another new feature, called activities, allows users to highlight text on a page, click on it, then instantly send it to another site, like a mapping, e-mail or blogging service.

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