After day 1 of Pwn2Own, web browsers appear to have taken a big hit, but Google’s Chrome appears to have come out unscathed.

It didn’t take long, with Safari 4 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard the first victim thanks to the work of Charlie Miller. Millers set up a remote exploit at a web site through which a conference organisers MacBook was taken control after surfing to it.

Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 was next, with a similar exploit allowing Peter Vreugdenhil to take control of an organisers laptop once they browsed to a website with the infected code.

Firefox 3 was also exploited on Windows 7 using a memory corruption vulnerability, with another exploit that allows a remote attacker access to a users PC.

Both Opera and Google Chrome were not hacked, with Charlie Miller stating “there are bugs in Chrome but they’re very hard to exploit. I have a Chrome vulnerability right now but I don’t know how to exploit it. It’s really hard. They’ve got that sandbox model that’s hard to get out of. With Chrome, it’s a combination of things — you can’t execute on the heap, the OS protections in Windows and the Sandbox.”

All systems were patched and updated to their latest versions, with the exploits used to remain a secret until browser makers can update their browsers.

Google has pushed out Chrome 4.1.249.1042 to Windows users.

Not much was changed in this release, with only one change solving an issue with some extensions not installing from the Google Chrome extensions gallery. This fixes issue 38220.

The update will be pushed out to all Chrome users, while new users can download the browser from the Google Chrome website.

Opera has bitten the bullet, and has submitted a version of Opera Mini suitable for the iPhone.

To celebrate the occasion, Opera has launched a timer to count how long it takes Apple to make a decision on the mobile browser.

It is still unknown however if Apple will accept the browser, despite Opera stating that the browser complies 100% with Apple’s App store policies. Apple has been known in the past to reject application that provide the same functionality as already found on the iPhone. Apple has however recently approved several web browser to the App store.

Opera announced the availability of Opera Mini for iPhone at the 2010 Mobile World Congress, which includes the use of  unlimited tabs, and the ability to search through web pages. The browser is missing pinch-to-zoom at this stage, but it is expected to be added in a future release if the browser is approved.

Time is now ticking Apple. Your move!

Not long after the release of Opera 10.50, Opera have released Opera 10.51 for Windows.

The release not only addresses several security and bug fixes, it is also up to 20% faster in JavaScript benchmarks than 10.50 was.

Opera 10.51 is now the fastest browser when it comes to running the Pacekeeper benchmarking tool.

A full list of changes for this release can be found in the changelog.

The update can be downloaded from the Opera website, while existing Opera 10.50 users will be automatically upgraded thanks to the browsers new auto-update technology.

Mozilla has announced that they are stopping development for Firefox on Windows Mobile devices.

The announcement is no surprise, with the announcement of Windows Phone 7 series expected to limit the device to just Internet Explorer on it’s mobile devices, much like Apple has done with it’s iPhone.

“We have been building a version of Firefox for Windows Mobile for quite a while, with the expectation that Microsoft would be doubling down in the mobile market and hoping that they would put out a great new mobile operating system” wrote Mozilla Mobile Team Technical Lead, Stuart Parmenter.

“While we think Windows Phone 7 looks interesting and has the potential to do well in the market, Microsoft has unfortunately decided to close off development to native applications.  Because of this, we won’t be able to provide Firefox for Windows Phone 7 at this time” continued Parmenter.

All hope isn’t totally lost, with Parmeter adding “while I hope that we do see Microsoft provide us with a way to build Firefox for Windows Phone 7, we will continue to focus on the things that we can control: building a great consumer product on both Android and Maemo.”

Mozilla have released an update for Firefox 3.6 users, taking the browser to version 3.6.2.

The latest update fixes several security issues, one of which is rated as critical, the highest on the Firefox security severity scale.

A full list of changes can be read in the release notes.

Existing users are strongly urged to accept the update when their browser prompts them in the next 2-3 days, or alternatively, Firefox 3.6.2 can be downloaded from the Firefox website.

Opera have announced that downloads of their browser are up a whopping 53% on average after the roll-out of the browser ballot screen for Windows users in the European Union.

The above numbers are a sample of the percentages of each country downloads of Opera 10.50 that originates from the Choice Screen, as part of the total Opera 10.50 numbers for desktop.

Full stats for European Union countries are available from the Choose Opera Blog.

A better idea of how the browser ballot screen in the European Union has affected worldwide market share will be known at the end of March.

Google has pushed out Chrome 4.1.249.1036 to Windows users, which adds several privacy features and closes several security holes.

Users now also have the option to translate pages using Google Translate if the page they are visiting isn’t in their native language. A great time saver for many.

This latest release closes 9 security holes, 5 of which are rated high, 3 medium, and one low. More details on these security issues can read on the Google Chrome Blog.

The update will automatically be pushed out for Windows users, while users can download the browser from the Google Chrome website.

Dear Mozilla and Opera,

Get with the <video> programme! Ogg Theora has lost the HTML5 video format war.

The evidence is all in front of us. The battle seems to have been won with the final move by Microsoft, who have announced that they will support the H.264 and MPEG-4 formats for Internet Explorer 9, completely ignoring the OGG video and audio formats.

In contrast, both Firefox and Opera only support the Ogg video, which is a free open source video format that is not covered by any known patents.

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Microsoft has clearly been heard at work, and announced today at MIX10 the availability of Internet Explorer 9 “test drive” (IE9) Developer Preview.

The browser, which is clearly still in its early stages, is missing the expected Internet Explorer interface such as tabs and address bar, but it does allow users to test and see the new JavaScript and rendering engine in action.

Available at ietestdrive.com, the browser includes support for some HTML5 and CSS3 features, including the new video element and CSS3 border radius tags.

Video tag support appears to be limited to the H.264 and MPEG4, while audio is limited to MP3 and AAC, totally ignoring the OGG format for both video and audio.

Microsoft really seems to be pushing standards compliance, and performance with this relase, and it shows. While not perfect, the browser is already leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor, IE8. With the aid of the new JavaScript engine (codenamed Chakra), the early release browser is able to complete the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test with a score of 598.80, slightly faster than Firefox 3.6. The browser also scores 55/100 in the ACID3 test, while IE8 only scores 20/100.

Internet Explorer 9 will be limited to only Windows Vista and Windows 7 users, while XP users will miss out on release.

All round, Microsoft really seem to be putting in a lot of effort with Internet Explorer 9, and it really shows. The Internet Explorer 9 “test drive” is available from the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive website.