Apple has released a new version of Safari, taking the browser to version 4.0.5.

According to Apple, the release fixes several issues:

This update is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to performance, stability, and security including:

• Performance improvements for Top Sites
• Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins
• Stability improvements for websites with online forms and Scalable Vector Graphics
• Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from changing settings on some Linksys routers

Mac and Windows users can download the update from the Safari website, or it will be pushed out via Apple’s Software Update tool.

Private browsing will now extend to the Flash plug-in with Flash Player 10.1 Adobe have announced.

“Integrating with your web browser, Flash Player 10.1 will automatically clear stored data in accordance with your browser’s private browsing settings” said Adobe Engineer Jimson Xu.

Flash Player 10.1 supports private browsing with Internet Explorer 8+, Mozilla Firefox 3.5+, and Google Chrome 1.0+, with Apple’s Safari 2.0+support coming soon.

Missing from this list is Opera, which has only recently included private browsing in the latest 10.50 alpha release.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is currently in Beta and is expected in the first half of this year. Beta 2 can be downloaded from Adobe Labs.

Apple have pushed out an update for Safari users, taking the browser to version 4.04.

The update improves JavaScript and History performance, while also fixing 6 security holes.

This update is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to performance, stability, and security including:

• Improved JavaScript performance
• Improved Full History Search performance for users with a large number of history items
• Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins, the search field and Yahoo! Mail

For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

The update will pushed out to existing Safari 4 users, or can be downloaded from Apple’s Safari website.

Browser market share stats are out for October 2009 thanks to Market Share by Net Applications.

As usual, Internet Explorer was down for the month, dropping from 65.71% to 64.64%, while Opera had a surprise loss, albeit only small,  from 2.19% to 2.17%.

Firefox had a small gain, jumping from 23.75% to 24.07%. Safari was also up 4.24% to 4.42%.

Google Chrome share was the biggest winner for October, jumping from 3.17% to 3.58%.

Opera’s drop off is likely from users who were testing Opera 10 and have gone back to their original browser. The jump for Safari suggests strong sales for Apple Mac’s, confirming the bumper year the Cupertino based company has been having.

Web browser market share results are out for September 2009 thanks to Market Share by Net Applications.

Internet Explorer has had more than a 1% drop this month, falling from 66.97% to 65.71%, it’s biggest single month drop since November 2008.

Other browser have had a good month, with Firefox moving from 22.98% to 23.75%.

Safari has moved from 4.07% to 4.24%, while Google Chrome has passed the 3% mark moving to 3.17% – up from 2.84%.

Opera has also had a good month, most likely helped by the release of Opera 10, hitting a share of 2.19%, up from 2.04%.

The browser wars seem to be slowly eroding Microsoft’s dominance, which can only lead to greater innovation and better browsers for consumers.

This months browser share statistics are out thanks to Market Share by Net Applications.

August has panned out like another typical month, with Internet Explorer dropping to 66.97% in August, from 67.68% in July.

Firefox jumped slightly to 22.98% from 22.47%, while Safari remained the same at 4.07%.

Google Chrome also increased its share from 2.59% to 2.84%, while Opera was also up from 1.97% to 2.04%.

Apple has released a new version of Safari, fixing several security and stability issues.

The update according to Apple includes the following changes:

• Stability improvements for webpages that use the HTML 5 video tag
• Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins
• Stability improvements for Top Sites
• Fixes an issue that prevented some users from logging into iWork.com
• Fixes an issue that could cause web content to be displayed in greyscale instead of color

The update is available for both Mac and Windows and can be downloaded from the Safari website.

Web browser market share results for July 2009 have been released thanks to Market Share by Net Applications, and for another month Microsoft Internet Explorer is down again.

Internet Explorer dropped almost half a percent to 67.68%, while Firefox was up 0.04% to 22.47%.

Other winners for the month were were Safari up from 3.79% to 4.07%, and Google Chrome up from 2.40% to 2.59%.

Opera had another bad month falling from 2.03% to 1.97%.

Interesting results for Firefox, with the release of 3.5 seems to have failed at attracting any more market share. Full results for June and July 2009 are available online.

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)

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.