As browser wars continue to heat up, Google Chrome finds itself trailing IE9 in one of its most compelling attributes – viewable web and application space. It’s a “less is more” world as speed and ease are replacing components and functionality for many (thus, the reduced market share for Firefox). To combat this, Google is considering several different options for a future Chrome browser that includes eliminating the URL bar altogether. This is currently the leading concept on the table, narrowly edging the sidebar design because of the incompatibilities with certain website types and hardware….

We were planning on writing about Rockmelt, a new social browser that is the modern-day Flock of Chromium, here on Techi today, but it appears that the browser is having a rocky start. After installing it, giving it access to Facebook, and finally starting the browser, the social magic that should have been has turned into disaster. Where there is originally supposed to be a bar on the left and right sides of the browser to show me my friends and social website connections, there is nothing. In fact, much of the browser, at this point is useless. All I am left with is a little swirly icon on the top-left…

It’s the year 1936. The first freely programmable computer — the Z1 — is being produced. With the ability to run programs from punched tape, the idea of desktop applications is forever solidified. This is now the stepping stone for all future computing, and nothing in the foreseeable future can stop it. Until now. It wasn’t too long ago when downloading applications for various operating systems was a daily occurrence for me (as was reinstalling operating systems to rid them of those applications). So imagine my surprise when I realized that I had not downloaded a Mac, Windows, or Linux…

Compared to Gmail, Chrome’s beta period seems like a blink of an eye. This morning Google’s Chrome browser obtained stable status on Windows, Mac and Linux, ending it’s beta run. Chrome has matured incredibly quickly, with Google pounding away at Firefox’s capability and share of the market. Speed has increased with each release, with rendering up 213%, and Javascript by 305%. Some other new features include more HTML5 capabilities, most notably geolocation, and synchronizing browser settings across computers. Google was hoping to include Adobe’s Flash Player built in to the stable version…

Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox, presented a slide show to the Mozilla community, outlining possible new features planned for Firefox 4, although he was careful to warn that the feature set was far from final. The slide show, which can be viewed here on SlideShare, starts with groundbreaking research questions, such as “who uses Firefox?” and “what are those people trying to do?”, leading to the revolutionary conclusions that “speed, power and control” should be central to the browsing experience. Insightful industry analysis aside, the Firefox team has broken down it’s key demographic…

Microsoft once dominated the world of internet browsing, but yesterday their market share dropped to below 60% for the first time. Internet Explorer became king of the browsers back in 1996 when Microsoft began bundling IE 2 with Windows 95, cutting off Netscape’s route to a viable market. Ironically, Internet Explorer began life beating out a technically superior product, and now it is ending it’s life being beaten out by a number of technically superior products. Firefox, the free browser from the Mozilla Foundation, has developed a reputation for being faster, more secure and more recently,…

In a big surprise for iPhone users in search of choice, Apple has approved the third-party Opera Mini app for the iPhone. This version of Opera Mini has been developed specifically for the iPhone and is impressively fast. This is because it compresses data by up to 90 percent before fetching that data to the device, which has the effect of greatly accelerating page load speed (that’s particularly good if you’re on a slower EDGE network). It took Apple – known to reject apps which emulate those it provides – just three weeks to approve Opera Mini for the iPhone. The free Safari replacement is now available…

There’s an iPhone browser break out beginning, with Opera Software submitting its Opera Mini 5 browser/app for the iPhone to the App Store. All that’s left is to wait and see if Apple will approve the Safari-competing browser….