Mozilla - Tag Archive

Why not try Lightbeam?

4 Replies Jonny Hankins

I have just downloaded and taken a quick look at the new Mozilla add-on called Lightbeam.

I am an UBUNTU user myself, so I don’t know if this will work for other systems, but I would like you to help me decide if it’s an interesting tool either way.

I have always heard that companies share your information. So you go on one site and they share your habits with other organizations. Well Lightbeam shows you who they are sharing your information with.

One thing that I should say is that I do not know what the information they are sharing actually is. If anyone does know I would love to hear. So that is job number one for you down in the comments below.

The actual view that you are presented with when you open this program is very nice. A series of connected triangles that drift around the screen, all tied together like one of those kinnect toys that my kids play with. Some of the triangles have website logos on them, others are blank. It’s almost a snowdrop kind of effect.

Mozilla Lightbeam

Mozilla Lightbeam screenshot

The lines are either white or blue, the blue depicting that the sites use cookies. Probably half of them do.

And it makes a nice little educational game. As you visit another site it joins the page with its connections, the entity wobbles and bounces before coming static. Many of these connections are the same, creating a central mass, but some sites do not share with anyone that the others do, and live in their own little detached bubble.

I was surprised to find that ebay UK is not connected to any of the other sites. It has 3 satellite sites but they are all ebay subsections. I would have to draw the conclusion that ebay do not share your information. Job number 2, correct me in the comments below please.

The Weather channel divulge to another weather channel and 3 or 4 others, CNN and the BBC are about the same. TECHNOLOGY BLOGGERS DOES NOT SHARE WITH ANYONE! Read it and weep and respect where it is due Christopher. My employer the Bassetti Foundation are linked to Twitter, and nobody else.

Oh and guess who is in the middle of the blob, tentacles everywhere, yes of course, Facebook. I have not visited the site but they appear through the mist to take centre stage. No wonder profits are up!

Without understanding more this add on is just a toy to me, but I am sure if I was a bit more savvy it could give me a lot of insight into the dark and murky workings of the web. I think it might also present an opportunity, as we can now see who is prostituting our information and who is not, and maybe we should put more trust in those that keep our data in their own hands, and some others a little less.

Definitely worth a look I would say.

Oh on a final note, I went to Microsoft, Ubuntu and Mozilla. Microsoft share with 10 satellites, 5 of which use cookies. Ubuntu and Mozilla do not share with anyone. I visited 15 sites in total during my research, and that meant that I unwittingly connected to 76 third party sites.

Google Chrome Browser Set to Overtake Firefox

37 Replies AlexS

A recent study of online browsing habits in the UK revealed that Google Chrome is now the browser of choice for more than 23% of British internet users. More surprising still was the fact that it is now more popular than Mozilla’s Firefox and is even gaining ground on the current and ever-present browser bruiser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Currently Internet Explorer has a whopping 45% of the market share in the UK but that figure is down from the year before and the use of IE seems to be constantly declining.

This loss of popularity for the ubiquitous Internet Explorer is even more depressing for Microsoft when you weigh up the fact that the browser comes pre-installed on nearly all UK computers at the moment. Google Chrome’s figures and market share are all the more impressive when you consider that it was only released three years ago.

Commenting on the UK figures Google put Chrome’s increasing popularity down to two things – firstly that they had promoted it with a blitz of advertising across the billboards and televisions of the United Kingdom (Chrome was the only time they have ever put an advert on British television); and secondly that they believed it was the best browser in terms of security and speed.

The Googles Chrome LogoLars Bak, Google’s chief designer on the Chrome browser commented recently that their aim when designing and building Chrome had been to make it the fastest browser possible whilst maintaining maximum security within a minimal design. Bak argued that once people have started using Chrome they will never want to go back to any of the other browsers:

“If a user tries a webpage using Chrome and suddenly it feels really fast and snappy, it’s naturally going to be really hard to go back wards (to a previously used browser).”

Certainly the numbers for the uptake of Google Chrome are astonishing. At the current rate Google Chrome’s success in the UK will be replicated worldwide very shortly. It is already in third place with a market share of 21% across the globe and is expected to overtake Firefox in the next year or so. Similarly it is predicted that it will be challenging IE within two or three years.

Google are banking on Chrome becoming so popular that it will offer a similar kind of ‘Halo Effect’ as the iPod did with Mac computers, and lead them to purchase the new Google Chromebook laptops. The Chromebook will be cloud based, with the Chrome browser being central to a different kind of operating system. Instead of taking up memory storage, data will be cloud based so as to make the Chromebooks as fast and clutter free as possible.