Both Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have continued their upward trends through April, increasing their market share. Firefox increased it’s share to 22.5%, up half a percent on last month, while Google Chrome was up around a quarter of a percent to 1.4% share.

Internet Explorer on the other hand continued to bleed users, slumping for another month. Despite the release of Internet Explorer 8, the browser lost almost three quarters of a percent to finish of the month with 66.1% market share.

Both Apple’s Safari and Opera stayed steady for the month, with 8.2% and 0.7% market shares respectively.

More detailed results can be seen using Market Share by Net Applications.

Mozilla over the weekend has released Firefox 3.0.8. The new release fixes two critical security vulnerabilities.

The browser should automatically be sent out to existing Firefox 3 users or can be downloaded from the Firefox website.

More details regarding the security vulnerabilities can be found in the release notes.

Mozilla is on a role. It wants you to be able to browse and play the web in 3D.

Teaming up with Khronos, the developers of OpenGL, the group aims to create an open standard for 3D acceleration on the web.

“Accelerated 3D graphics with the super-fast next-generation JavaScript engines from nearly every Web browser vendor means that we’re going to be able to start to see more and more advanced applications written using open Web technologies,” said Mozilla’s Chris Blizzard.

Being an open standard, it is expected other browsers will jump on board.

Mozilla plans to release early versions of this technology as a plug-in for Firefox shortly after it releases Firefox 3.5.

The mobile version of Firefox, Fennec has now hit it’s first beta. It currently only works on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, but it also installs on computers for the aid of developers.

There have been many improvements since it’s early public alpha release, including TraceMonkey, Mozilla’s new JavaScript powerhouse.

This release also includes the Smart URL bar (also known as the “awesome bar”), and now supports tagging for bookmarks.

A full list of changes and features can be found in the Fennec release notes. Installation instructions for the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet are available.

Mozilla has just released Firefox for Windows Mobile. Under the name of Fennec, which is the very first public release of the browser.

You can install Fennec on an HTC Touch Pro by navigating to the installation cab file in your exsisting browser. This will then start the installation of the browser.

Early reports vary, with some users unable to open any web pages using Fennec. Mozilla is sure to fix bugs and add new features at the browser progresses.

Happy browsing!

Mozilla has been granted permission by the European Commission to join the suit with Opera against Microsoft for bundeling Internet Explorers with Windows.

Microsoft has been accused with distorting competition in the market for web browsers. If found guilty, Microsoft could be forced to offer other browser upon Windows installation.

Mozilla’s chairperson Mitchell Baker said that Microsoft is harming “competition between web browsers,” and undermining “product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.”

Opera’s chief executive Jon von Tetzchner said “the only way to give users a genuine choice is to strip out IE from Windows and either replace it with a rival browser or offer users a list of browsers to choose from.”

The case is still only in its early stages.

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?

Mozilla has just released Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 to the web. The new browser includes numerous improvements including:

• Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine
• Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
• A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to
• Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search
• Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio> elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.

You can download the Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 from the Firefox beta page. Currently the beta is available in over 35 languages.

I hope to put the browser through a few tests to see how it benchmarks in both Acid3 and JavaScript tests shortly. Stay tuned…

Fennec Acid3 Results

Mozilla has been working hard on it’s mobile version of Firefox dubbed Fennec. Building on top of Firefox 3’s reduced memory footprint, Mozilla is aiming to bring the desktop browsing experience to your mobile.

With the hastened development, the latest version of Fennec scores a very impressive 88/100 in the Acid3 test on Windows Mobile. In comparison Firefox 3 only scores 71/100, while Opera 9.6 scores 85/100.

Once released, Fennec is sure to set the mobile browser market on fire, giving stiff competition to already established browsers such as Opera Mobile. It’s sure to be an interesting year ahead for the mobile browser market.