Beta

Over the weekend the folks at ZeeVee released a new beta of Zviewer, a PC-based browser for finding and watching web video. ZeeVee makes a set top box that’s designed to provide a similar service for $499. But the desktop software is free while in beta.

I first took the Zviewer software for a spin a few months ago. While the software showed promise, there were a few drawbacks. First there was no search bar, meaning you’d have to do a lot of browing to find the videos you were looking for if your using the software on your PC. And if your PC is plugged into a television set videos didn’t start in full screen mode which means that your remote control had better have a virtual mouse mode so you could hit the full screen button on sites like Hulu or YouTube.

Both of those issues have been addressed in Zviewer beta 2. There’s a new search bar and videos start in full screen by default. You can also change the size of the network and program icons on your screen using Firefox keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl and Ctrl-.

Zviewer is based on Firefox 3, which makes upgrading from Zviewer beta 1 to 2 a snap. When I started the Zviewer player this weekend it automatically downloaded and installed new versions of the plugins. I visited the Zviewer homepage to read the list of changes, and discovered that you can actually download these plugins as a package for Firefox 3 if you want. Instead of installing Zviewer as a standalone program, you can install the plugins and click a toolbar button to bring up the Zviewer interface from any web page.

There’s a new beta version of Skype available for Windows users. Skype 4 beta 3 looks a lot like Skype 4 beta 2, but it packs a few new features, including:

• Bandwidth manager that should improve call quality
• Full history feature that lets you search and browser past calls and conversations
• Abuse reporting feature that lets you report users you block to Skype
• Support for Microsoft Outlook contacts
• Return of the call quality feedback area

There have also been some visual tweaks. No word on when we’ll see these changes rolled out to the Linux or OS X versions of Skype.

Just in case you needed any proof that software version numbers are meaningless, Google has updated Google Chrome, it’s web browser to version 1.0 (or 1.0.154.36 to be exact). Yesterday the latest version of the software was version 0.4.154.29.

So why remove the beta label now, especially when the 4 year old Gmail service is still officially in beta? Well, the official explanation is because the company’s goals for stability and performance have been met. But it also likely has something to do with Google’s plans to convince hardware makers to preload the web browser on computers — something they may be reluctant to do with beta software.

So aside from the version number, what else is different in the latest build? Honestly, I’m not sure. Most of the items that Google showcases in its blog post about the new release are updates that we’ve already seen like the addition of a bookmark manager, and improved speed and performance.

More updates are still in the works. Google is promising support for plugins, RSS feeds, and form autofill features.

More than half a year since the folks at Mozilla Messaging released the first alpha version of Thunderbird, the team has released Thunderbird 3 Beta 1. The latest release features a bunch of bug fixes and some new features, including:

• A tabbed interface for mail
• Integration with Windows Vista Search
• Integration with the Mac OS X Address Book
• IMAP improvements for faster message viewing

You can also use the Add-ons Manager to search for, download, and install plugins and themes much the same way you can with the Firefox 3 Add-ons manager. You can find more improvements in the release notes.

Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Google is preparing to take the beta label off of a product in what must be record time. Google’s Marissa Mayer tells TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington that the Google Chrome web browser will come out of beta soon, just three months after the product was first released as a public beta. By contrast, Gmail, which was launched more than 4 years ago is still in beta.

So what’s behind the move? Does it mean that Google Chrome is a highly polished product that has been extensively tested? Well kind of. But the same is true of Gmail. No, the decision is apparently based on the fact that a number of hardware manufactures would like to preload the web browser on their systems and they don’t want to do that with a beta product.

In other words, the change is more about semantics than anything else. Google will continue releasing updates and improvements to Chrome after the first official relase. But you also might find the browser preinstalled on your next computer.

There’s still no word on when a version of Google Chrome will be available for Mac or Linux.

Mozilla is thinking about adding a third beta to the Firefox 3.1 development cycle. The original plan had been to release 2 betas and then move onto the release candidate phase. But Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner says a third beta would give the team time to work out some existing bugs while giving people more time to kick the tires on new features like the new private browsing mode which allows you to surf the web without saving any data to disk.

The new beta wouldn’t include any new features, but it will give the developers a chance to squash any major bugs before Firefox 3.1 is officially released early next year.

[via ComputerWorld]

Google Chrome 0.4.154.25 is now available. Aside from having a nearly impossible to remember version number, the latest version of Google’s web browser also has a few important updates, the most noticeable being the inclusion of a bookmark manager.

The bookmark manager allows you to import and export bookmarks in HTML format, which makes importing your bookmarks from Firefox or another web browser a snap. Of course, you run the risk of realizing just how out of date your bookmarks are when you do this, but that’s another story for another day.

Google has also changed the way its pop-up manager works, by displaying the number of pop ups minimized in the corner of your screen. Google Gears and the V8 JavaScript Engine have also been updated in this release.

[via WebWare]

Mozilla has added a tab tearing feature to Firefox 3.1 beta, which can best be explained by saying, “watch the video above.” But in a nutshell, what tab tearing lets you do is drag and drop tabs, not just within your browser window, but outside of it as well. For example, you can click and drag a tab outside of your Firefox window and it will open a new browser instance. Or you can grab a tab from one browser window into another browser instance.

Now before you say anything, yes, I know that the Opera web browser has been able to do this for ages, and Google Chrome has supported similar behavior since it was launched. But that doesn’t make mean it’s not nice to see the feature come to Firefox. It takes more than innovation to make a good web browser. You also have to be willing to recognize good ideas where you find them and be willing to implement them in your product.

[via Mozilla Links]

One of the things that makes Firefox one of the best web browsers around is its support for thousands of add-ons that extend the functionality of the browser. But since most of these plugins are developed by third parties, and not Mozilla, every time the developers behind the web browser prepare a major new release, they run the risk of breaking compatibility with many of those add-ons.

So before releasing Firefox 3.1, one of the things Mozilla wants to do is make sure that as many add-ons as possible that work with Firefox 3.0 will function properly with the new browser. And they want your help.

Here’s how it works. You download a beta version of Firefox 3.1 and see if your favorite add-ons work. If you run into a problem, you can leave a comment at the Mozilla Add-Ons blog.

As of today, about 28% of the most popular plugins are compatible with Firefox 3.1. And that’s about 8% more than a few weeks ago, so things are moving in the right direction.

Certified reverse engineer and rather impressive hacker (in the good sort of way) Rafael Rivera, of Uxtheme patching fame, announced on TWiT that he discovered our sneaky friends over in Redmond actually did enable that cool new “superbar” version of the taskbar in the version of Windows 7 that was handed out to guests at PDC (you know, that one that Lee showed off). The superbar was demoed during the various Windows 7 presentations, but the general consensus was that the feature hadn’t been completed by the time the PDC handout build was prepared.

However, Rafael simply couldn’t take no for an answer, and dug down into the innards of the pre-release version of Windows 7 to find that some rather sneaky developers at Microsoft simply rigged it to only appear for certain users with computers on Microsoft domains. Upon flipping a bit, he discovered that the superbar (albeit a slightly lesser version than demoed) could be enabled on the pre-beta build. He posted a very simple walkthrough guide and helper application for those of you that are graced with the PDC build of Windows 7, but still longing the shiny bits shown off by Steven Sinofsky at the Windows 7 keynote.