European Union regulators have laid down fresh claims that Microsoft is again in breach of its anti-trust laws.

The complaint is related to Internet Explorer being bundled with all new Windows installations.

Microsoft lost a similar case in 2004 and was forced to sell Windows versions without Windows Media Player.

This has potential repercussions across the market. Apple currently bundles Safari with every copy of Mac OS X, while most Linux distributions are bundled with Firefox.

“Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice” said a spokesman for the European Union.

Any final decision on the matter is likely to be years away.

Mozilla has pushed back the release of Firefox 3.1 beta 3 a week from January 26th to February 2nd.

After a developers meeting on Wednesday, notes reveal “due to the large number of outstanding P1 blockers, we are declaring a code slip”. This target may be optimistic however, as one developer hinted that it could be delayed by as much as three weeks.

A code freeze is now scheduled for January 25th, with QA starting on January 27th.

Pixel Labs has posted a rather amusing yet statistical poster of the browser wars. The cartoon depicts web browser and their market share over time.

Strangely absent from this cartoon is Google’s Chrome, which has a greater share than Opera.

Click on the cartoon to see the full version.

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.0.5. The latest version patches 8 security holes, 3 of which are rated as critical.

Two of these attacks allow malicious websites to run code on another website, potentially stealing your personal information. This is done using common cross-site scripting attacks.

Mozilla has also rolled out Firefox 2.0.0.19 with security patches. This will be the last update for Firefox 2.

“Mozilla is not planning any further security and stability updates for Firefox 2, and recommends that you upgrade to Firefox 3 as soon as possible” said Mozilla engineer Samuel Sidler.

Current Firefox users should automatically be updated in the next few days, or can use the links below to download the updates below:

Download Firefox 3.0.5
Download Firefox 2.0.0.19

Password management is a part of all major web browsers, and it just may be helping thieves steal your personal data, from banking logins to Facebook accounts.

Chapin Information Services conducted 21 security tests on Opera 9.62, Firefox 3.0.4, Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3.2, and Google Chrome 1.0. The results were not good.

Opera and Firefox fared the best, both passing 7 tests, with Internet Explorer 7 passing 5 tests. Both Safari and Google Chrome only passed 2 tests each.

It looks like browsers makers have a lot of work to do. Full results and details on each test can be found on the Chapin Information Services website.

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.1 Beta 2. The new version comes with plenty of bug fixes and a final set of features which are expected to be in the final release of Firefox 3.1.

New features include:

• Private browsing mode
• Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine
• Tear off tabs to new browser windows
• Support for HTML5 elements <video> and <audio>

A full list of features can be found in the Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 release notes. Users already using Beta 1 will be automatically updated, while new users can download Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 here.

It has been a good month for the ‘underdogs’ in the browser wars this month, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all gaining ground.

Firefox has hit a fantastic milestone, now with over 20% of the web browser market, up 4% from last month. Apple’s Safari has climbed to just over 7%, up 8.5% from last month.

Even Google’s Chrome has crawled back some ground, after a steady drop off rate from the browsers first month. Chrome gained around 12% during the month, taking it’s total share to just under 1%.

The losers this month were both Opera and Internet Explorer. Opera lost 5% of it’s market, and is now 5th in the race, behind Google Chrome. November also saw Internet Explorer’s market share plummet below 70% for the first time since 1999.

You can view the full report at the Market Share website. Historical data can be sourced from Wikipedia. The browser wars are really firing up.

Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker has revealed that revenue for Mozilla in 2007 was at USD $75 million. This is a 12% increase on last year which Baker believes is impressive, despite the world economic slowdown.

Most of Mozilla’s revenue comes from a search agreement with Google, but there other sources of income such as the Mozilla Store.

The relationship between Mozilla and Google is now under the microscope by the IRS (the “Internal Revenue Service,” the US national tax agency). Baker isn’t sure how long the investigation will last, but is confident that Mozilla hasn’t committed any wrong doings.

Mozilla also handed over $1 million in grants and donations to other non-profit organisations in 2007. GNOME project, Creative Commons, Oregon State University are just a few of the organisations to receive grants or donations in 2007.

The future sure is looking bright for Mozilla and Firefox. You can read Baker’s post in full for more details.

Mozilla, makers of the popular Firefox web browser, have passed a huge milestone, with over 1 billion add-ons downloaded.

This number is much likely larger, as Mozilla only started tracking downloads in 2005, with add-ons also available from other websites.

Justin Scott from Mozilla says there are about “1.5 million add-on downloads per day and increasing”.

Add-ons are currently available for a large range of Mozilla products including Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Sunbird, Komodo, Flock, and Songbird.

Have you fashioned your Firefox?

I’m sure some of you may be frustrated by Firefox 3.1’s new tab behaviour when pressing Ctrl + Tab. No longer does it just browse through the tabs, but instead it switches to the most recently viewed tab (much like Windows Alt + Tab.

Thankfully, you can turn the new Ctrl + Tab behaviour off, and return it old skool. Simply follow the steps below:

• Go to about:config in the URL bar
• Set browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed to false
• Set browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit to 0
• Restart Firefox

All done! Enjoy the old Ctrl + Tab behaviour.