Looks like this season you can expect a lot more from the web browser Firefox, with the version 4.2 released days after the Firefox 4 beta 1 was made available. You get support for 23 new languages and a lot more app tabs than the earlier version.

Firefox has cemented its place among the top web browsers along with the Internet Explorer and the Google Chrome. So this spate of new and improved versions of the browser is really no surprise. But the surprise lies in discovering what’s new each time!

What’s new in Firefox 4 Beta 2 browser

All the 23 languages are available for Windows, Mac and Linux OS users. Other than the new languages this time Mac users can use tabs on top of the browser. This feature was available for Windows users only, in the previous beta release. What’s more, Windows 7 and Vista users can enjoy the entire menu bar function in one Firefox button!

Then there are ‘app tabs’, which provide one click access to the sites you visit most throughout the day. You can easily convert your favorite sites into tabs for quick browsing. The benefit of converting websites into tabs is that a lot of space is saved on the tabs bar, which can then hold only sites you open occasionally.

If you like to know what’s under the hood of a new browser, well there’s plenty to look forward to. The beta 2 has support for CSS3 features such as transitions and transformations, which can aid website animations.

You can also add retained layers on the beta version to increase the speed of scrolling on complex websites on firefox 4 beta 2, by quite a lot. Even some XPCOM change shave been made to reduce the loading times when you start up Firefox.

Mozilla is also seeking your feedback on the beta 2 version. This feedback will then be evaluated and possibly worked upon to make the browser better before the commercial rollout.

If you take a look at how the browser landscape is shaping up, you will understand that the main battles lie ahead between Chrome, IE 9 and of course, Firefox. And Firefox sure is gearing up well!

I convinced myself to try out the latest Firefox 4 browser, although in beta phase, the browser comes with modest features and an intuitive interface that looks good so far.

The interface, with stylized Google chrome like tabs, is sleek. The revamped looks and HTML5 support are some significant features added along with the improved performance into the beta version of Firefox 4. Apart from 3D rendering is the addition of crash protection as well.

Download Firefox 4 Beta 1 [Windows]

For curious minds who are wanting to try out this new browser can click on the download link given below. There’s a add-on manager, privacy control and a well thought out bookmark toolbar, and some more nifty features that you’ll explore while browsing around.

As expected, the Firefox 4 beta browser tries to speed up things and load the webpages faster than before. Have to say, it does handles the pages very well. By the way, you can also try out the speedy fox tool to optimize you Firefox browser. Learn about Speedy fox.

Download link For Firefox 4 Beta Browser

Click here to download Firefox 4.0 beta 1 (For Windows)

I upgraded my Firefox browser to 3.6.6 and met with issues that has left me disappointed. Lamenting over the problems, I decided to make a move and picked Google chrome that loads webpages faster, though, having all my bookmarks and history on firefox browser, I was pushed to find out a solution to fix the issue of warning: unresponsive script on firefox.

The problem: There were two issues – first was the unresponsive script warning (screenshot below) which I believe was due to the stumbleupon addon, and the second issue was of address bar not loading any of the website even after viciously hitting the enter button.

The solution: I played around a bit in the ‘application data’ folder of Firefox with hopes of finding a fix to the address bar issue. And then lurked in Mozilla forums – and found it funny reading the response of people whimpering over the exact same issue.

I did a lot of tweaks, but the best possible fix is to download a fresh Mozilla Firefox setup from Mozilla website and do a standard installation once again.

Silly? Well this worked for me. Both of the issues of warning unresponsive script and the annoying location bar that doesn’t work, were fixed. So there’s no reason why this shouldn’t work for you.

Sometimes the solution for complex issues are really simple. Go ahead and give it a try!

Yay! Well finally after many revisions and and ‘leaks’ on the upcoming digg, the digg preview is here! The new digg is out, and I’ve been playing around for a while with this new product.

Is it good? Let’s hear that from our diggers, though, right now I’d like to talk about the new features that are in digg.

Find Profiles to Follow

As in twitter, the users having the access to new digg can now ‘follow’ big brands and companies. As I don’t use feed reader, and been active on digg recently this is one good feature worth liking.

Most of the diggers are crazy about Kevin rose — and that gives him 43000+ followers in a couple of hours. Nice!

The next up was: connect with my friends options wherein you can use Google, Facebook and twitter to connect. Skipped this as I was excited to see digg front page. Meh!

And so the real talk is of the digg Homepage. The front page stories. First of all, the interface is pretty neat. I like the top navigation part that comes with ‘My news’, ‘Top news’ and the no. of people I’ve been following.

Discovering content, as mentioned in the previous update, gets easier now. The three column interface does prove to be useful and fits in top news, recently active friends.

Looking into the front page activities  I’ve to say it does get a bit confusing. I am unsure of how to look into my friends recent activity. I believe they have removed this part completely.

Say digg blends in key features of both twitter and Facebook. I actually loved the new digg. Maybe that’s because I am easily impressed with altered products. But there are diggers who have been with digg since its inception, and of course, they can answer it better.

Active diggers take on the new digg:

Drew Chinesefood: Its a little like twitter, I guess. You can ‘follow’ people. There are different sections like offbeat,technology, etc in which you can follow companies like mashable.com or time.com.

And then there are some individuals there but not as much it seems like fans and friends are still transferred from old digg to new version. No word on if there’s going to be a front page for non members, like if popping is possible. But I don’t see why they would take that away would be pretty dumb many site browsers are not members. So I am pretty sure that will stay

Also not sure how getting to the front page works. No more icons or usernames next to articles – just sometimes you can see a quote from a friend commenting that shows up. I cant like or dislike it yet!

Brian Howard: So far I do not like the auto-submit feature, or the loss of the upcoming questions. Also I like the fact that it is faster and the buttons load faster.  But overall I am disappointed.

nmffffd9: I find the new Digg to be a bit confusing with A LOT of missing features. With the missing recommendation engine, and the lack of the story’s submitter clearly showing along with several other stuffs.

Alecb: It’s so clunky — They didn’t fix the categories, you can’t tell who submitted what or when a story was submitted. My first impression is they basically fixed none of the problems of old digg and implemented features that they didn’t need. An update 3 years too long with features 3 years too late.

[---]: I personally think it diverts from the digg we know and love, however, its more social. So I’m guessing that, that’s good. I like it — but it’s just too confusing.

Adeel: I think it’s cool, early to really have a view on it. can’t really make a call until you really test it out and with digg still in alpha you really can’t test it out completely.

Nikhil: Well, I did try new digg, but I used fb connect to log in — so it isn’t working’

Yudi: They copied reddit, and now the new digg sucks.

Ritup2: Hate it. Totally.

A big thanks for the contribution. Over to you — do you have access to the new digg? Hate it or love it? Eager to hear from you.

Youku.com is one of the finest video sharing community that lets user and media partner upload a tad bit longer video clips than YouTube. Of course, the ability to watch whole episodes or clips entices us to download Youku videos onto our desktop.

So how to download YouKu videos? First and foremost — you should know that Youku videos are split in segment i.e., the .FLV files you see on YouKu are actually split into 7 minute video that can get tricky to download. However, I will try my best to list out the best possible ways to save YouKu videos instantly onto your computer. Feel free to share any other methods you are aware of..

Method 1 – Use Internet download manager and Clipnabber

Visit Youku and click on the video you’d like to download. Copy the url of the video (from the browser address bar) and paste it onto Clipnabber (its a online tool to download videos. Check out clipnabber.com). You can instantly download any Youku video now!

Like I said, the videos maybe divided into segment depending on the file size, clip nabber will show all the parts of the video which can be downloaded using any download manager such as Internet download manager. If you’re on firefox, you can download and install add-ons as well.

Method 2 – Download YouKu downloader

If the first method doesn’t work (why wouldn’t it work? Seriously, it does!), or if you want to use the alternate method then download YouKu downloader.

Thankfully, YouKu has their own download manager that can be used for downloading videos right off from their website. All you have to do is visit the video and click on the green downward arrow button to download the Youku download manager.

Although I had a hard time figuring it out on how to download this Youku download manager, but I’d rather suggest trying out the first method which seems pretty easy if you are unable to use the download manager as its in Chinese.

To create a new account on Demonoid, you either need to wait for open registration or get demonoid invitation code, which, of course is hard to find. However, once you have account you up and running, you still won’t be able to generate any invitation code though.

There are reasons why demonoid limits the code invitation creation process and by now, if you’ve a demonoid account, you’d have notice a message appears on your demonoid panel:

Invitation code list:

No invitation codes found. You can not create more invitations at the moment Invitation codes are limited based on time since last creation and other factors. Please check back this space, you’ll be notified here when you are able to create an invitation again.

Why can’t I generate Demonoid Invitation Code?

While checking out the private demonoid forum, one of the member had this question on why was he unable to Create a New Invitation Code from his account. The reasons stated by one of the senior member are here:

Firstly, it is because a demonoid account needs to be at least 30 days old before creating a code. This holds true for any user who has a working demonoid account.

Also, the created demonoid code will be expired within 7 days. The generation of invitation code are randomly done and doesn’t depend on the users seeding or leeching ratio. However, if you play by the rules and escape any warnings then you do get the option to invite from your demonoid control panel in every 30 days.

Thought I’d pass this info here as I see many (including myself) who are still exploring the world of demonoid

One of the latest versions of Opera browser, 10.53, is offering a faster browsing experience to web surfers. This is due to the Turbo feature alongside with many innovative additions to the functionalities.

With the current trend of exploring other browsers apart from Internet Explorer, users of Windows can now actually have many options available in relation to other browsers already existing out there.

Opera browser has already existed for quite some time and is never left behind by its counterparts in terms of speed and power. It even has features that cannot be found in other browsers.

With the proliferation of internet access for mobile phones, Opera browser was made available in two variations. One is for the traditional PC and the other is for mobile devices. Opera for mobile devices is still subdivided into two: Opera Mini and Mobile. However, we will focus our product review more on the version that is intended for PC only.

Let us begin by comparing Opera browser to the traditional Internet Explorer. Opera contains pages that are strictly compliant to the current industry features. IE pages often make the user feel that something is missing. The current version of Opera contains page parts that are fully functional and will not make the user feel any difference in comparison to using other browsers out there.

When Acid3 test was made on the latest versions of browsers available on the industry today, the scores are astounding. Firefox got 94% while Googgle Chrome, Opera, and Safari all got 100%. On the other hand, the IE of Microsoft remained trailing behind by scoring only 20%.

Speed test using Sun Spider also revealed very clear results. Opera is the fastest at 410 milliseconds followed by Safari at 487 milliseconds. Firefox is at the bottom with 1005 milliseconds.

Interface and Layout Aspects

The latest version of Opera comes with a really neat and smooth looking interface. Tabs are arranged at the top of the page as a default setting. These tabs are seen differently in translucent forms on Windows 7. Current developments in page design and layouting makes it possible for tabs to be put on one side. This provides more space for content.

Icons which are hidden from sight can be accessed by clicking a button at the lower part of the browser page. This part is where features such as logs, bookmarking and downloading can be found. Customization is available here too. There is an “add feature” button which allows you to create extra icons for additional functionalities you want.

Opera’s Turbo Mode feature allows a user to enjoy his browsing experience even though the internet connection speed is slow. This is made possible by compressing the value of the webpages even before they are displayed on the screen.

General Notes

In terms of speed, security, and compliance with browser standards, nothing can beat Opera. Many users may still find its power too great to be controlled due to the vast number of features that are included in it. However, in the present technological age, Opera is still a browser type that is should be watched by users. Its functionality and speed may just be the solution that every web surfer is dreaming of.

Digsby used to be one of my favorite multi chat protocol client. But one of my friend recommend me to use Pidgin as it is supposed to be simple, easy to configure IM client. The plugins and less memory consumption, compared to digsby, made me switch to Pidgin.

Okay, Pidgin is definitely lite, but the default smileys are horrible. And then I couldn’t find a option to add facebook account on Pidgin. However, I was able to find out ways to configure the smileys and also add facebook account on Pidgin using a plugin.

Configure Pidgin to Add Facebook Chat

The trick of using XMPP and adding your facebook profile name doesn’t work anymore and throws in 503 error. The simplest solution, I’d say, is to download this file (Homepage). The file — Pidgin Facebook Chat is the only way to instantly add and chat with your facebook friends through Pidgin.

Once you execute the file, the plugin will automatically integrate facebook into your Pidgin. Make sure Pidgin is closed during this process. To add facebook chat feature: visit Manage account option from Pidgin panel – click on ‘Add’ and enter your facebook login details. That’s it. No need to configure again!

Did I just fail to notice before or was it really a new thing? Have you tried visiting the home page of Google on your MacBook’s Safari? Coz I just noticed that there is a little if not small advertisement found on the homepage that promotes Chrome, Google’s very own web browser.

At first I assumed that this is just a tech war between Google and Apple, but when I opened Google in Firefox, same ad appeared.

In Internet Explorer, however, the ad is not visible. I assumed again that this luring ad has already been done in Windows. I came to know that since December, there has only been a single certified version of Google Chrome for Mac utilities. The reason for hanging in line by Google is that they maybe waiting for any reported flaws or defects. Should Google prefer to make that small message in bold, they could have placed it in a more strategic location and not just in the top right corner only.

Chrome is advertised by Google as a better and faster alternative in finding one’s way through the Web. This would probably confuse some Mac users as the Safari is still described and touted by Apple as the fastest web browser in the world.

Today, this version is only comparable with an outdated Firefox and still no Chrome as reference. Browser speed tests showed that Chrome is superior over Safari and Opera no wonder Google really has the rights to be proud, although credits may still be given to Safari as the test was performed using Windows Internet Explorer.

In a few formal speed tests for browsing speed, some details have yet to be disclosed. If Chrome for OS X is claimed by Google to be superior in speed compared to the Firefox and Safari, the details must be revealed especially when the downloading feature is not dedicated and focused on a fancy new video.

I think I would really want to see Chrome’s performance on Mac. The competition may be tough and the luring may even be tougher for Google. Apparently users of Safari browser (default browser in Mac) have not at all reported of any incident of dissatisfaction. If figures may help and if you may want to know, 11% of the users of Mac and 18% of Windows browse the web via Chrome.

The Mozilla team have been putting a lot of efforts for the development of the upcoming Firefox 4 browser, which seems to be one of the trending topic now!

Firefox 4 browser promises a friendly, secure, faster web browsing experience for users, and for developers: Firefox 4 will be one of the easiest tool with optimized, stable by design browser. In short, Firefox 4 is a browser you should try it out, without a miss.

The focus of this huge upgrade has been mainly on performance with sleek, cleaner navigational features as a added bonus. A lot more is to be changed with Firefox 4 when compared with the current Firefox 3.x version we are using.

Here is the screen shot of this upcoming neat browser:

With Chrome 5 browser underway, Firefox 4 seems to be yet another, a highly preferred, browser choice for faster web browsing.

I assume there will be another record of downloads when Firefox 4 will be available for download. But it’d take some time for the launch of stable Firefox 4 browser. The wait is definitely worth it!