Microsoft has revealed that it will charge €4 for a copy on Internet Explorer 8 on CD, after announcing that Windows 7 will ship in the European Union without Internet Explorer.

The move to remove the browser from the operating system is a direct result of action taking against Microsoft by the European Union with companies such as Opera and Mozilla.

Internet Explorer 8 will however remain free for users to download, along with competing browsers. The biggest issue that most will face is the inability to browse to websites on a fresh install of Windows 7 to download a browser of their choice.

This is not expected to be a problem for those who buy their PC’s from manufactures such as Dell and HP, as they are still expected to bundle browsers with new systems.

With Firefox 3.5 barely out the door, the Mozilla team is already working on Firefox 3.7, which is expected to have a brand new user interface, tweaked for Vista and Windows 7 Aero.

Below is an initial mockup of Firefox 3.7 running in Windows Vista, with features including:

1. Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Buttons translucent and slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D look achieve tactile “feel”.
2. Page Button: Connect the Page button to the left side of the tab area. Directly connected to the Page.
3. Tools/Bookmark Bar: Connecting the Tools button to the side of the Window to emphasize the fact that it is used for customizing and changing the UI. Adding a button next to that to toggle the Bookmarks Bar which is turned off by default.

More screenshots are after the break.

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Opera have released the beta 2 of their 10th generation web browser.

Opera 10 Beta 2 has had a slew of changes, including security, interface and stability changes. A full list is available in the change log.

New features in Opera 10 included an inline spell-checker, auto-update, and Opera Turbo for faster browsing on slower connections.

The new beta version can be downloaded Opera Next website.

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5.1 which fix several security and stability issues.

One security vulnerability is rated as critical, and could allow a remote attacker to gain control of a users PC.

Firefox 3.5.1 can be downloaded from the Firefox website, and will automatically be pushed out to existing Firefox 3.5 users. A full list of changes can be found in the release notes.

Security firm Secunia are warning of a zero-day securty exploit which has been discovered in Firefox 3.5 allowing a milicious site to execute arbituary code.

“The vulnerability is caused due to an error when processing JavaScript code handling e.g. ‘font’ HTML tags and can be exploited to cause a memory corruption” said a spokesperson from Secunia.

No word from Mozilla on a fix yet, but Firefox 3.5.1 will likely be released in the coming days to address the issue.

Nightly Mac builds of WebKit, the basis of which Safari and Google Chrome are built on, now include 3D CSS transforms.

3D CSS transforms allow web developers to manipulate objects in the third dimension with simple CSS rules. Current CSS3 standards do not include these 3D transforms, but Apple has submitted 3D CSS transforms to the W3C for consideration as an official CSS standard.

The 3D transforms are already available in iPhone OS 2.0 and up.

Users or developers wanting to check out this new feature can download the latest nightly build from WebKit. The following 3D transform demos are available:

• Charles Ying’s Snow Stack photo browser
• Peter Zich’s 3D Van “model” rotating in space
• Peter Zich’s 3D Image Fly, another image browser (hint: click and drag to rotate)

Microsoft has released Silverlight 3, after being in beta testing since March 2009.

Silverlight 3.0 includes over 50 new features, including graphic processing unit (GPU) acceleration, 3D support, H.264 video support and out-of-the-browser capabilities to Silverlight.

A full list of features can be read on the Silverlight website. Silverlight 3 is available for Windows and Mac OS X today.

Apple has released Safari 4.0.2 for both Mac and Windows, which is available through either software update or through the Safari website.

The update addresses two security vulnerabilities and improves the stability of the Nitro JavaScript engine used by Safari and are described below:

• An issue in WebKit’s handling of the parent and top objects may result in a cross-site scripting attack when visiting a maliciously crafted website. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of parent and top objects.
• A memory corruption issue exists in WebKit’s handling of numeric character references. Visiting a maliciously crafted website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved handling of numeric character references. Credit to Chris Evans for reporting this issue.

The update is recommended for all Safari users.

More news has surfaced about multi-process support for Firefox, with a prototype now completed.

Multi-process support gives each tabs, window, and plugins its own process. Browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 already support this feature.

Benjamin Smedberg has blogged about the benefits of multi-processes:

• Increased stability: if a plugin or webpage tries to use all the processor, memory, or even crashes, a process can isolate that bad behavior from the rest of the browser.
• Performance: By splitting work up among multiple processes, the browser can make use of multiple processor cores available on modern desktop computers and the next generation of mobile processors. The user interface can also be more responsive because it doesn’t need to block on long-running web page activities.
• Security: If the operating system can run a process with lower privileges, the browser can isolate web pages from the rest of the computer, making it harder for attackers to infect a computer.

Firefox developer Chris Jones has posted a screencast demoing the new technology.

No word on a final release date yet, but we may see this technology in production version some time in late 2010. Currently the team are focusing on Windows and Linux versions.

Microsoft has announced that a serious exploit in Microsoft’s Video ActiveX Control can allow hijackers complete access to a remote system.

The zero day exploit affects Internet Explorer 6 and 7 users when they visit an infected web site if they are using either Windows XP or Windows 2003.

Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 users are safe for now. No patch is currently available but Microsoft has posted a workaround for the exploit.

A patch is in the works, but no details on when it will be released have been announced.

Links:

• Enable workaround
• Disable workaround