Split and Merge PDF Files with ArduoPdfMerger

We have already seen some free tools to merge PDF files. ArduoPdfMerger is a freeware tool which can be used to split or merge multiple PDF files. The tool is very simple and easy to use with good interface. The advantage of using this tool is that you can split the PDF based on the pages and you can remove any particular page from the original PDF and then merge the new files into one. This can be done for multiple PDF files.

 

 

The interface is pretty self explanatory, you need to click on the add button and select the PDF files. You can either chose to split the selected PDF or add the PDF as one file.

 

 

The splitting is done based on the number of pages in the original PDF file. Once you have added the PDF files, you can remove any particular page from any PDF, provided you have split based on pages.

Features of PDFMerger;

• Split a PDF file into many PDF files
• Extract pages form a PDF file
• Merge multiple PDF (or only a part) into a new PDF

This application requires .NET Framework 2.0. The application installer check its presence. If it is not installed, installer try to download and install it. Vista user have to run it as administrator to  handle protected files.

 

Download ArduoPdfMerger

 

Source: Life Rocks 2.0

Top 4 Sites To Add Special Effects To Your Images

‘A Picture Speaks a Thousand Words,’ so goes the famous saying. Images bring the creativity of its authors out in the open. Artists use many image editors, one famous example being Adobe Photoshop. But editing images and adding special effects to images is not that simple thing to do. So here are the top 4 sites to add effects to images and get stunning results.

 

 

 

 

1. MagMyPic

How can anyone not include this? One of the earliest sites to offer custom image effects on your own images. This site allows your images to appear as if it was the on the cover of any magazine or comic book. The magazine templates though do not many include famous ones, but there are some like vague. Visit it at http://www.magmypic.com/

 

 

 

 

2. PhotoFunia

Another wonderful site that allows your images to appear on tea-cups, bill-boards, magazine, art galleries…there are so many effects! The site currently boasts of more than  100 designs or ready-made templates. One special feature of this site is that some effects require your face to appear properly. For this the site has implemented face recognition technology. Pretty neat! Visit it at http://www.photofunia.com/

 

 

 

 

 

3. BeFunky

Originally started as a site to cartoonize your image, or add a cartoonish effect to your pictures, it now has 9 effects that include the cartoonizer (cartoon effect), inkify (drawn with ink), scribbler (pencil effect) and many more.  The most special feature of this site is that all of the image editing happens inside a flash application. Visit it at http://www.befunky.com/

 

 

 

 

 

4. WriteOnIt

A relatively new entrant into the field of image editing, this site offers the option of putting our slogans on pre-taken images. That is you get the template wherein a person is holding a placard. In this placard you can fill the slogan of your choice. Other effects include  magazine covers, background-images and putting your face on a celebrity’s body (Face in Hole mode.) Visit it at http://www.writeonit.org/

 

 

These four are my personal best’s. I’ve used it over and over and it still amazes me. Do you know of any more such sites?

Five Best Free System Restore Tools

 

Backing up data is a great way to minimize losses after a computing catastrophe. But what about restoring your actual system right away? Here are the five most popular options for our readers.

 

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite free system restoration tools for saving working computer states and bringing them back to life. You responded and we rounded up the top five free system restoration tools favored by Lifehacker readers for your consideration.

 

 

Macrium Reflect Free (Windows, Free)

 

Macrium Reflect Free is a no-cost but capable version of the popular Macrium Reflect disk imaging tool. With it you can back up your disk to network locations, optical and removable media, and other hard drives. A built-in scheduler and CD/DVD writing software make maintenance easy, and Macrium Reflect Free supports Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Service, allowing for real-time, multi-version disc images. One of the strong selling points of Macrium Reflect Free is its compatibility with BartPE, as well as offering a free Linux-based recovery boot disc.

 

 

DriveImageXML (Windows, Free)

 

 

DriveImageXML creates thorough hard disk images, copies them from disk to disk, and offers browsing of backed-up disk images just like regular directories. That means if there are just a few files to grab from a previous image, there's no need for whole-cloth restorations, just a quick point-and-grab operation. Like Macrium Reflect Free, DriveImageXML supports Volume Shadow Copy, and is a free for personal use copy of the company's commercial software.

 

 

 

Paragon Drive Backup Free (Windows, Free)

 

 

Paragon Drive Backup is the free personal edition of Paragon's commercial disk imaging software, but supports a wider variety of disks and file systems than comparable backup tools. Paragon supports Microsoft Volume Shadow Services for real-time backup, and it can restore multiple partitions and disks in one shot following colossal hard drive failure. Restorations can be made from flash drives and CDs/DVDs created by the app. The user interface, as seen in the screenshot, is almost entirely wizard driven, making the sometimes arcane world of disk imaging more accessible to newcomers.

 

 

 

 

 

ImageX (Windows, Free)

 

ImageX was created as a tool for computer manufacturers and other large organizations with a need for imaging and deploying large numbers of computers. So it's primarily a command line tool, but because of its popularity with imaging geeks, a GUI, GImageX, was created for it seen in the screenshot here. Despite having several key limitations, most notably that it only works with modern Windows file systems, ImageX has quite a few excellent features if you're already rocking a Windows-centric house. Image sizes are smaller thanks to "single instancing," where a file appearing in multiple locations within the hard disk you're imaging is only stored once in the disk image. ImageX can also perform selective overwrites of your disk, allowing you to partially restore the contents of a disk image. The link provided above is to the information about ImageX on Microsoft Technet; to jump right to the download for ImageX use this link.

 

 

 

 

 

Clonezilla (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)

 

 

Clonezilla is a powerful open-source disk imaging tool easy enough for new users to jump into. The deep-down features, though, may keep users around as their needs grow. The server edition allows for network-based bulk disk imaging, and Clonezilla itself supports over a half-dozen file systems covering Windows, Linux, and Mac-based machines. Even if you're using an obscure file system that isn't supported, you can still use Clonezilla, but you'll need to do a sector-to-sector copy instead of taking advantage of the efficiency and compression it applies when backing up a supported file system. The personal version of Clonezilla is a Live CD and customizable by the end user to meet a variety of needs in a variety of situations, with more than adequate documentation on the Clonezilla site to help you do so.

KnowEm : Checks the availability of user name on 120 popular Social Media websites

 

KnowEm is the latest in services that check for unclaimed user names at multiple social sites. This is helpful if you're interested in retaining the same user name at sites you haven't yet signed up for, or if you're on the verge of launching a new site or service and want to lock down that brand name before someone else does.

 

Most recently we checked out Namechk, which does the same thing for 84 different sites. KnowEm steps it up by searching in 120 places, as well as offering a premium service which will actually go to each site and sign you up. This doesn't come cheap though; it's $64.95, and it only goes to the sites where the user name is still available. It then sends the log-in information back to you so you can do things like change the password and where it's sending confirmation e-mails.

 

What's more, is that for $10 a month it can keep signing you up for any new services it adds to its search engine. It promises anywhere from 6 to 10 per month, but that can change depending on what new sites are introduced during that time.

 

Is it worth it to place your money, and trust in a service like this? It depends on how fast the providers are at adding the new sites and registering for you. If you've got an eccentric, or otherwise uncommon user name then yes, it will probably still be available. However, for more common names, you're better off keeping an eagle eye on your RSS reader and signing up for new services as soon as they're announced.

 

 

KnowEm checks 120 different sites to find you open user names, and for a price can sign you up to all the places where that name is still available.

List of Essential Free Windows Downloads 2009

We feature downloads of all kinds every day at IndyaOn. Today,I  am bundling all the best free downloads for new computer owners, re-installers, would-be geeks, or anyone who wants to save time installing the best stuff out there. This is my 2009 IndyaOn Pack for Windows computers.

Onto the list!

---

Productivity

• Foxit Reader - Opens, save, and prints PDFs much faster and lighter than Adobe's official reader, whether on your desktop or through your browser, and it won't nag you every two hours to update it or its "components." There are some down-sides, like how it asks to install a browser toolbar during installation, and some reported difficulties with multiple monitors. But if a document absolutely won't work with anything but Adobe-sanctioned Reader, try Adobe Reader Lite, which cuts out all the "Maybe You'll Also Like" add-ons and extras out of Adobe's product and leaves just its basic rendering intact. [Download]

 

• Notepad++ - If you just want to write, save, and edit text, it's hard to go wrong with Notepad++. This freebie offers tabbed file views, syntax coloring for those working in HTML or other code, and, as the name implies, does a whole lot of what most people wish Notepad did. If you want a free office suite that offers most of what Microsoft's Office suite does, try OpenOffice.org. If you love working in the constantly-backed-up cloud, try the Zoho or Google Docs suites. [Download]  [Portable]

 

• Texter - Whether you write code, write out the same address repeatedly, or constantly misspell a certain word, Lifehacker's own text replacement app wakes up whenever you type certain phrases and then springs into action, saving you serious time and helping you avoid burdensome busy work. [Download (+Portable)]

 

 

 

Internet/Communication

• Firefox - All debates about security, memory use, or compatibility amongst the web browsers aside, Firefox can adapt to nearly anyone's browsing habits through a range of adaptations. Whether that's an extension/add-on , a Greasemonkey script , or some deep-down about:config tweaks, Firefox can probably be what you want it to be. Put down the Internet Explorer and slowly back away into a better web life. [Download]  [Portable]

 

 

 

• Pidgin - Do you ever use AOL/AIM, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, or even old-school IRC to chat online? Pidgin has you covered, and it's got plenty of recommendable plug-ins. It can tab your chats in a single window, update you on new emails, and work inside most any smiley system out there (which has, oddly enough, become a notable issue). And while the up-and-coming IM app and-then-some Digsby has garnered a lot of users, its large footprint and questionable installation choices (it's got a really unfriendly installer that tries installing a lot of adware) keep us firmly in the Pidgin camp for now. [Download] [Portable]

 

 

 

• Postbox - If you're not using your email's web interface, use this. It's basically Thunderbird, the open-source email client we'd previously included in our Lifehacker pack, but remixed with stronger, almost Gmail-like powers. It finds and indexes all the attachments in your email account, groups together conversations with similar subject chains with the "Gather" command (like Gmail's conversations), offers tabbed inbox and message views, and lets you organize emails under your own chosen "Topics." It's also got built-in easy setup steps for Gmail and other webmail systems—in other words, everything we're waiting to see Thunderbird implement. [Download]

 

 

 

Utilities

• 7-Zip - The fix-all archiving/un-zipping program. It basically fills in all the gaps in your system's compression abilities. Multi-file RAR packages, Mac-formatted archives, and even ISO images can all be opened, and the right-click integration makes it all too easy to do so. [Download]  [Portable]

 

 

 

• Everything - Does what you really want when you hit "Search" in Windows. It's really tiny, doesn't need to be installed if you don't want, and searches for files across your system with the speed of a jackrabbit gone rogue on old-school cold medicine. Faster than that, really, and it makes finding and deleting file types, digging through your browser cache, and any other file search task far faster. We used to recommend Google Desktop for a system-wide search tool, and it certainly has its merits—including some neat gadgets for Gmail and Google Calendar—but, in most cases, you're not going to need to find a single word out of every single document on your system. You just want that apples.doc thing, wherever it is, and Everything finds it as fast as you can type it. [Download (+Portable)]

 

 

 

• µTorrent - Also known as uTorrent. If you're a complete newcomer to BitTorrent, uTorrent makes it easy. Install it, and any torrent file you click on is automatically handled and grabbed by uTorrent, and saved in your Downloads folder, making a seemingly nerd-core activity as easy as opening an MP3.If you're a BitTorrent pro, you should know that uTorrent's features—remote control and download starting from the web, a phone, or using Dropbox—truly set it apart. [Download]

 

 

• Revo Uninstaller - Windows doesn't always remove everything that a program leaves behind—file folders, Start menu items, menu entries, you name it. Revo Uninstaller does. It runs a standard uninstaller, then it searches your system for everything the program changed or touched while it was installing. If you don't know the name of a program you want to kill off, or don't see it offered when Revo starts up, choose "Hunter Mode" and click on a window or message from that program. Got annoying programs that start up with your computer without permission? Yeah, Revo handles them too. It's like the software equivalent of bleach. [Download (+Portable)]

 

 

 

 

• TeraCopy - Windows is slow, and occasionally fails, at copying large files, or just big batches of them. TeraCopy copies things between destinations faster, with more options on what to replace or skip based on file dates, and can actually be (gasp!) paused if you need to do something else while The Complete Works of Woody Allen are being transferred. [Download (+Portable)]

 

 

 

• ImgBurn - It does just about everything you can possibly do with a CD, DVD, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disc, and the image files that make them. Use this instead of the software that came with your system or add-on disc drive, because it can make music discs, data backups, video DVDs, and other projects with grace and speed, and all for free. [Download]

Photos & Video

• Picasa - One of the few software recommendations that this editor's wife, parents, and other relatives actually stick with after installation. Google's free software indexes your computer's pictures and makes them a snap to flick through, lightly edit without a Photoshop degree, and share through email or uploading to Picasa Web Albums (or an add-on button). Most important of all, it makes importing pictures from any digital camera a lot more intuitive than Windows' own process. [Download]

 

 

 

• VLC - Got a video or audio file to play? VLC probably plays it. Don't like how naggy and heavy-running Windows Media Player is? VLC is lighter. Want it free, working on any system, and have it show album art from your tracks? Done and done. [Download]  [Portable]

 

 

 

Music

• If you own an iPod or iPhone—iTunes - For seamless syncing between your iPhone or iPod devices and your music collection, it's hard to beat iTunes—which is, of course, Apple's intended outcome. There are other iPod-to-computer solutions, but none are really worry-free and seamlessly integrated with everything an iPod can do, including updates, album art transfers, and, in the case of iPhones and iPod touch models, backups. It's not that bad a music manager, either, especially if you've got a huge collection or compatible Apple devices, like AirTunes-capable speakers.  [Download]

 

 

 

• No iPhone or iPod—Songbird - Like iTunes, except open-source, open to killer add-ons, and much more web-savvy—point it at a web page full of music, and it plays it like it's just really fancy playlist. It can, in fact, play Apple-formatted tracks with a (default) add-on, including any older, copy-protected songs you bought from iTunes, and manages non-iPhone/touch iPods fairly well, but you'll still need iTunes for restoring, upgrading, and backing up your device. For music in general, though, Songbird is a nice midway point between iTunes' big, big tent and a tight little open-source player. [Download]

 

 

 

 

File Backups/Syncing

• Dropbox - Put simply, Dropbox makes synchronizing your files across Windows, Mac, or Linux systems a very simple, almost magical process. Put a copy of what you're working on or want saved in your Dropbox folder, and it's synchronized to your account, which has 2GB to start with, and gets bigger if you recommend friends. When you're at another one of your own computers, your Dropbox updates and grabs those files. If you're at someone else's system or on a smartphone, head to Dropbox's mobile-friendly site and grab what you need. It's not quite a backup tool, but it is one of those utilities that makes a lot of old habits—thumb drive copying, CD burning, multi-email self-mailing—seem unnecessary. [Download]

 

 

 

• Mozy - If Dropbox is where you stash the stuff you're working on or enjoying at the moment, Mozy is the backup service that saves everything for when your system goes black on bootup. The free accounts for PCs (and Macs) offer 2GB of free online space, and with the really smart filtering tools, you can have Mozy crawl your whole system and back up financial documents, Excel sheets, and any file with "Rick" in it. If you spring for a monthly unlimited plan, Mozy is a smart whole-system saver, one that doesn't eat bandwidth when you're using it, and works when you're not working. [Download]

 

 

 

 

Security

• KeePass - It's where you keep your passwords, and create one password to track them all. It has lots of great plug-ins for your browser, other programs, and cool functionality. And it's available for every platform, so you never have to fear losing all the secrecy you pour into its secure little well. [Download]  [Portable]

 

 

 

• AVG Free - We actually prefer versions of this free anti-virus app earlier than 8.0 for their, shall we say, more quiet and subtle operation. But it still does a good job of keeping up to date on the latest virus threats and protecting against them, when needed. [Download]

 

 

 

• Spybot Search & Destroy - Just read through the list of what Spybot protects against—trackerware, info-tracking cookies, homepage hijackers, trojans, pop-up producers, keyloggers, advertising controllers—and you'll want to stop thinking about what a trip around the net leaves inside your system. Spybot is a tested and true veteran of the net annoyance wars, and has a support network of enthusiastic updaters. [Download]

 

• Ad-Aware - It somewhat crosses over with Spybot's protection, but if you (or a friend/relative) have a system that's regularly filled with mysterious, malicious stuff, it's never a bad idea to let Ad-Aware comb through and safely clean the cruft out. [Download]

 

---

Google Releasing Chrome Operating System

 

In a sudden, if not unexpected, announcement this morning, Google said it would release an open-source operating system based on its Chrome browser. The OS will be free, geared (at first) toward netbooks, and focused on "speed, simplicity, and security."

 

Google executives told the New York Times that Google Chrome OS would be available online "later this year" as a free, open-source download, while specially tailored netbooks running the operating system are targeted for the second half of 2010. The release will not be a remixed version of the Android phone platform, but a "minimalist user interface," with more screen space and computer power given over to web applications.

 

Google's official blog post lays out some basic but intriguing details on Chrome OS' goals:

 

We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

 

More specifically, Chrome OS is planned to run on x86 and ARM-based processors, and its architecture is described as "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel." Developers looking to specifically target the Chrome OS need not apply, as Google says "the web is the platform"—the system will, in other words, run web applications online and offline, and those applications should also work on any standards-based browser on any system (read: most anything, except Internet Explorer, sometimes).

 

Many who closely watch the search company have predicted a similar move for some time now. To say the Chrome OS will face stiff competition is quite an understatement, with Intel developing its own lightweight, Linux-based netbook platform, Windows XP emerging as a force in netbook OS share, and Microsoft itself likely to fight tooth and nail to keep yet another upstart from encroaching on the one area of PC sales that is still seeing significant growth.

 

It's easy to assume Chrome OS is a strong push to get users familiar with using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other web suites, both online and off. It's harder to figure out the specifics of how Google's platform will overcome the deeply entrenched Windows familiarity that has kept other Linux-based netbook upstarts mostly in check, and how it will accommodate the vast array of x86 hardware compatibility quirks that plagues Linux distributions to this day. More details and discussions to come, certainly.

 

Introducing the Google Chrome OS [Official Google Blog]

Google Plans a PC Operating System [NYTimes.com]

3D Analyzer:Play Games without graphics card (or low configured cards)

 

"Graphics card must have pixel shader ability of 1.1 or greater for program to run."

or

The brand new game you just bought launches,but gives you a black screen and nothing else ? Or maybe you can hear some sounds but no video ?

Have this ever happened to You ? Ah Well If Yes,then you are stuck like me (period) ,just like you I too don't have a proper graphics solution (read:onboard graphics) or if you do have,you are having a primitive card. Well,here comes our savior from Tommti systems - The 3D Analyzer Tool. 3D analyzer was created and refined to overcome limitations posed by modern 3D Games and other Applications on several current mainstream 3D Cards.

3D Analyzer sort of "Tricks" your system into thinking it has a Nvidia, or even ATI graphics card! Of course, your games and applications will run in the mode they usually will (with the default graphics and such). If you have an Intel like me, you can now play games like "Devil May Cry 3", “The Witcher”, “Resident Evil 4” and or any new gen games which earlier demanded of graphics card.I played my Favorites using it and I m thoroughly satisfied with this tool. You can fiddle with various options to mess with it,and get different games to work with.

I played "Prince Of Persia-Sands of Time" which earlier never ran on my PC,and thrashed some demons in "Devil may Cry 3",killed ganados in RE4 and even ran Hitman Blood and money with it. In all forms, I m thoroughly satisfied with it and recommended it to you,If you are low on money like me (sarcasm again..).

So..you can download 3D ANALYZER

Download Firefox 3.5

Mozilla has released the final version of Firefox 3.5 and it is now available for download. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 comes with lots of improvements and new features like private browsing. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use, and adding new features for users. Apart from this, it also has the ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for Geo location.

Firefox 3.5 also sports a new logo which has more 3-D look than the previous one.

What’s new in Firefox 3.5 (video)?

New Firefox 3.5 also has support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

Download Firefox 3.5

Browser battle gets fierce: IE 8 vs Chrome vs Firefox

What’s already in Chrome and Firefox, that’s also included in IE?

 

• Website address highlighting- Similar to the brand new style in Chrome to make the web address more easily readable.
• Addons- More than half of the Firefox users are still stuck to it because of the addons feature. Now IE 8 has 1700+ Addons available from the official website and more from others.
• InPrivate Browsing- The name of Incognito browsing (Google Chrome) in IE.

What’s not in Firefox and Chrome but is in IE 8?

• Similar Tab highlighting
• Tab Crash Recovery(It’s needed a lot if you are running flash games etc. in your browser)
• Compatibility view (to fit websites designed for older browsers in it)

What’s in Chrome and Firefox but NOT in IE 8?

• One tab may lead to hang the whole browser. Unlike Google Chrome, if a ‘bad’ script runs in a tab of IE, the whole browser will hang. But the good news is, 90% of the times, it is recovered by Tab Crash Recovery(controlled by process named IEmonitor.exe)
• If you’re on a slow connection, again, unlike most other browsers, IE may leave you with loading finished and Images not loaded. However, to show the images, you’ll have to right-click the frame and choose ‘Show Picture’.

Mozilla’s second alpha of Firefox 3.1 is upping the ante in the next-generation browser battle. So how do the main contenders stack up so far now? One thing’s for sure, the Firefox team has taken note of Google’s recent Chrome release and worked hard to make sure its offering can hold its own.

Mozilla had already claimed its 3.1 version could outperform Chrome when it comes to speed (and most independent tests show it at least tying). Now, the engineers have incorporated Chrome-initiated options such as the ability to drag and drop tabs in and out of browser windows. The second alpha release also adds support for the HTML 5 video tag , which gives Web developers expanded options for embedding video within a page. Don’t forget that Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 - released at the end of August and quickly eclipsed by Chrome’s introduction - is also vying for a piece of the pie.

Here’s a breakdown of the high and lowlights of each offering and where it stands as far as a full release.

 

 

Contender #1: Google Chrome

The status:

Windows beta released on September 2. Mac OS X and Linux versions still under development and said to be coming soon. No indication of targeted full release date.

The good:

• Reliability. Chrome’s multiprocess architecture makes a bad Web page less likely to take down the whole browser.
• Speed. Chrome loads fast and keeps your surfing super-fast.
• Simplicity. Its clean design wastes no screen space.
• Searching. The Omnibox lets you type search terms or URLs into a single spot and figures out what you want.
• Privacy. Chrome offers an “Incognito” mode that lets you easily leave no footprints from where you’ve been.

The bad:

• Privacy. Chrome’s taken a lot of heat for its monitoring and collection of user data, some of which happens before you even hit enter.
• Security. It didn’t take long for users to discover vulnerabilities

  in the beta browser. Several of these have already been patched.

• Reliability. Some sites and online services still don’t work with Chrome.
• Consistency. Because Chrome is build on the WebKit system, it differs from the dominant platforms that most designers focus on.
• Support. Chrome doesn’t yet have any add-ons or customization options available. It’s yet to be seen how these, once developed, will compare to the rich options available for Firefox.

Contender #2: Firefox 3.1

The status:

Second alpha build released on September 5. Beta expected in the next month. Full release targeted for end of 2008.

The good:

• Strong foundation. Mozilla’s already built a loyal following with Firefox, and it doesn’t intend on letting that go. With Firefox 3.1, you know you’ll have a powerful library of add-ons and support already at your fingertips, not to mention the slew of other assets unveiled in Firefox 3.0.
• Speed. Mozilla says its still-under-development TraceMonkey JavaScript platform will leave Google’s V8 in the dust. The second alpha build revs things up, too, with added support for “Web workers” — a system that lets multiple scripts run as background processes.
• Competitive edge. Mozilla’s developers have good reason to watch what Chrome is doing — and work to match it, if not one-up it.

The bad:

• Security questions. Some studies — albeit, Microsoft-funded ones — have suggested Firefox, with its frequent new versions, is more susceptible to threats than the other options.
• Crash potential. Unlike Chrome, Firefox does not have separate environments for each tab — so one rogue page can still take the whole program down.
• Support. Firefox has worked hard to snag a small portion of the browser market share, and most early predictions show Chrome taking away more of its userbase than IE’s.
• Google’s focus on Chrome will also take away some of its previous focus on Mozilla’s development efforts. Will Firefox be able to remain a key player in the browser war?

 

Contender #3: Internet Explorer 8

The status:

Second beta released on August 27. Full release expected before the end of 2008.

The good:

• Support. Love it or hate it, Internet Explorer is hanging on to about three-quarters of the browsing market with its default status in all Windows machines. You know developers and designers are going to cater to it.
• Security. With Microsoft at its helm, IE hangs on to a reputation of safe and reliable browsing.
• Privacy. IE 8 was the first to offer a no-record browsing mode, branded here as InPrivate Browsing.
• Searching. IE 8’s Smart Address Bar offers similar functionality to Chrome’s Omnibox, letting you type in URLs or search terms and taking you to the right place.
• Added add-ons. IE 8 finally catches up to Firefox with a new “Gallery” full of third-party add-on options.

The bad:

• Speed. Independent tests have found IE 8 to be significantly slower than the alternative choices. Resources. IE 8 uses a lot of memory compared to its competitors — a factor that could considerably slow down the rest of your system.
• Crash potential. While IE 8 does use separate processes for tabs, similar to Chrome’s approach, it does not do so to the same degree – still leaving room for a total meltdown.
• Competition questions. Can IE’s add-ons reach the level of Firefox’s? Already, some users are complaining of problems even getting them to work.

 

That’s the lowdown on the battle’s current status. Remember, all three of these programs are still early in their development, so many of the pluses and minuses could change as things move forward. One thing’s for sure, though: This battle is on, it’s growing fierce, and each of its contenders will do anything it can to win.

 

Browsers have arguably become more important than the underlying OS in the modern, connected world.

 

So, take note when Microsoft announces an update to the Web-dominating software favored by your IT department. Microsoft says it’ll release its much anticipated Internet Explorer 8 software to the world. Out of beta, Steve Ballmer claims that IE 8, “gets people to the information they need, fast, and provides protection that no other browser can match.” Time will tell, eh?

 

 

Opera stands nowhere between, though I’ve used all the four [IE8, Firefox 3.0, Chrome & Opera 10] and this is the ranking I give to these browsers on the basis of speed, performance, security and stability…

1. IE 10 beta(Tab recovery, more stable, draws with or beats firefox in speed, superb security)
2. Mozilla Firefox(less stable, consumes a large amount of RAM, yet on no. 2 because of wide range of Addons, highly customizability and enough security)
3. Opera 10(Opera turbo increasing speed upto 3x, but Opera 10 beta still with bugs and wont support CSS3)
4. Google Chrome( Clean stunning looks, No addons supported, not customizable, IE 10 beats Chrome in speed, not secure at all)

IE is one step ahead of firefox, though Firefox 3.1 will be far better than Firefox 3.0. That’s what Mozilla officials say. Again, time will tell!