According to “Why Silent Updates Boost Security” (download PDF), 97% of Chrome users were running the latest version of the browser within 21 days of the last update’s release.

By comparison, 85% of Firefox users were up-to-date in the same span, while only 53% Safari users could say the same.

The Chrome browser is auto updated, with no option to stop this (apart from disabling the Google Auto-Update service). Firefox is hoping to add an auto/silent update feature to Firefox 4.0, which will be enabled by default, but can be turned off.

* Safari Reader: Click on the new Reader icon to view articles on the web in a single, clutter-free page.
* Improved Performance: Safari 5 executes JavaScript up to 25% faster than Safari 4. Better page caching and DNS prefetching speed up browsing.
* Bing Search Option: New Bing search option for Safari’s Search Field, in addition to Google and Yahoo!.
* Improved HTML5 support: Safari supports over a dozen new HTML5 features, including Geolocation, full screen for HTML5 video, closed captions for HTML5 video, new sectioning elements (article, aside, footer, header, hgroup, nav and section), HTML5 AJAX History, EventSource, WebSocket, HTML5 draggable attribute, HTML5 forms validation, and HTML5 Ruby.
* Safari Developer Tools: A new Timeline Panel in the Web Inspector shows how Safari interacts with a website and identifies areas for optimization. New keyboard shortcuts make it faster to switch between panels.

Other improvements include:

* Smarter Address Field: The Smart Address Field can now match text against the titles of webpages in History and Bookmarks, as well as any part of their URL.
* Tabs Setting: Automatically open new webpages in tabs instead of in separate windows.
* Hardware Acceleration for Windows: Use the power of the computer’s graphics processor to smoothly display media and effects on PC as well as Mac.
* Search History with Date: A new date indicator in Full History Search shows when webpages were viewed.
* Top Sites/History Button: Switch easily between Top Sites and Full History Search with a new button that appears at the top of each view.
* Private Browsing Icon: A “Private” icon appears in the Smart Address Field when Private Browsing is on. Click on the icon to turn off Private Browsing.
* DNS Prefetching: Safari looks up the addresses of links on webpages and can load those pages faster.
* Improved Page Caching: Safari can add additional types of webpages to the cache so they load quickly.
* XSS Auditor: Safari can filter potentially malicious scripts used in cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.
* Improved JavaScript Support: Safari allows web applications that use JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to run faster and more securely.

For more information about fixes that improve performance, stability and compatibility, please see: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4135.

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

Apple has released Safari 4.0.5 to address multiple vulnerabilities in ColorSync, ImageIO, PubSub, Safari, and WebKit. These vulnerabilities may allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code, cause a denial-of-service condition, obtain sensitive information, or bypass security restrictions.

US-CERT encourages users and administrators to review Apple article HT4070 and upgrade to Safari 4.0.5 to help mitigate the risks.

The Cloud Testing Agents have been updated to the latest release.

Users can view the results in the RSS reader of their choice, shown below are the same feed in Thunderbird 3 (RC2), Internet Explorer 7, and Safari 4.0.4. Unfortunately Google Chrome does not yet support RSS feeds natively.

Cloud Testing results RSS Feed in Thunderbird 3.0

Cloud Testing results RSS Feed in Internet Explorer 7

Cloud Testing results RSS Feed in Apple Safari 4.0.4

The Cloud Tesing ‘Live Demo’ account is available via the Online demo page, which will allow you to see how the RSS feed works in your chosen RSS reader.

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

Detailed information on the content of this update is available at the Apple Support Site.

Once you  have performed a test, you can view the thumbnails of the browser screenshots – in this caseIE8, Firefox 3.5.3, Safari 4.0.3 and Chrome 3.0:

Selecting the tick boxes next to Firefox 3.5.3 and Safari 4.0.3 then clicking the ‘Compare selected screenshots’.

We are now presented with the ‘Onion Skin’ tool, that allows you to view both full size screenshots with a slider across the top, initially set to 50%, meaning that both images are displayed with equal opacity.

The example below shows that the BBC News page is almost identical at the top, but the further down you go, they are not exactly aligned, causing a blurred effect.

You can move the slider left or right, to show you more and less of each screenshot – here we have moved it to 25% to show more of the Firefox version – you can still see the Safari version underneath.

Finally we have moved the slider fully to the left to show only Firefox.

In conjunction with the Cloud Testing service, we believe that this will become an invaluable tool in your arsenal to perform your cross browser testing.

See the Cloud Testing website for more information.

]]> http://www.cloudtesting.com/blog/2009/10/13/new-onion-skin-tool/feed/ 0 http://www.cloudtesting.com/blog/2009/10/09/new-cross-browser-compare-thumbnails-view/ http://www.cloudtesting.com/blog/2009/10/09/new-cross-browser-compare-thumbnails-view/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:48:00 +0000 Phil Smith - Cloud Testing http://blog.cloudtesting.com/?p=808 Cross Browser testing from Cloud Testing just got easier, with the new compare screenshot view.

The full detailed view is still only a mouse click away, and further enhancements are currently in beta – watch this space for updates.

Full details of Cloud Testing and how to perform Cross Browser tests of your user journeys (not just static pages) can be found at http://www.cloudtesting.com/serviceCrossBrowser.php

Details of all updates to the service are in the Updates Section.

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

* 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 security fixes in this release can be viewed at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3733

Cloud Testing has updated it’s cloud testing agents with this release.

For a full list of browsers supported by the Cloud Testing functional website testing service, visit the Cloud Testing website at www.cloudtesting.com.

The first cross platform update for Safari 4.0 (4.0.1 was a Mac OS/X release only) addresses two bugs in WebKit:

• “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.”

See the Apple Support Page

The Cloud Testing agents have already been updated with this release – subscribers to the Cloud Testing service can test their sites against this by logging into the Cloud Testing Portal.

For a full list of browsers supported by the Cloud Testing functional website testing service, visit the Cloud Testing website at www.cloudtesting.com.

Internet Explorer ( 6, 7 & 8 )
Firefox ( 2, 3 & 3.5)
Safari (3.2 & 4.0)
Opera (9.6 & 10.0)
Google Chrome (2.0 & 3.0)

Select script

First select the script you want to test from the list available in your project.

You can of course upload another one if you need one, directly from Selenium IDE.

Enter details of test

You can enter a name for the test, along with relevant notes such as which server it was run against, which release from SVN or CVS etc.

Select browsers

Next you need to select which browsers you want it run on.

If you have an Enterprise subscription, you will be able to choose from your own Private agents, otherwise you will be offered the currently available Public agents.

You can now schedule the test to be run. It will be run on our Cloud Testing agents – you don’t need to do anything more for now – you can check on the progress by looking at the Pending Runs tab.

Viewing the results

Once the tests have completed, you can view the overview of each of the script runs.

You can then choose to either view one step in all browsers (by clicking on the ‘Compare these Test Runs’ magnifier icon).

Alternatively you can choose to view a complete run in a single browser – in this case Google Chrome.

You can then either view the HTML, Components or a full size screenshot of the browser window (compared to the thumbnail).

Test results, screenshots, HTML and components will be stored in line with the package you purchased. Additional storage can always be added when required.

For full details of the services and features available from Cloud testing see www.cloudtesting.com

Update – 9th October 2009 – New Cross Browser compare thumbnails view