Last week rumors began to circulate that Facebook was interested in acquiring Opera Software, the makers of the Opera Web browser. The social networking giant recently removed Google’s Chrome Web browser, which is the most popular in the world, from its recommendation list and replaced it with Opera, further fueling the speculation of a potential buyout. While both Chrome and Apple’s Safari Web browsers are supported by Facebook, the Menlo Park-based company is recommending users to use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera for a better experience. 

[Via FavBrowser]

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On Wednesday, a Russian hacker discovered a vulnerability in Google’s Chrome web browser during CanSecWest’s Pwnium hacker contest. It was the first time in four years at the competition that Chrome was hacked, and for his efforts, Sergey Glazunov was rewarded with $60,000. Less than 24 hours after the exploit was brought to Google’s attention, the search giant released an update fixing the vulnerability. “The Chrome Stable channel has been updated to 17.0.963.78 on Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame,” Google wrote on its Chrome update blog. “This release fixes issues with Flash games and videos, along with the security fix listed below.” Glazunov’s vulnerability is described as an “UXSS and bad history navigation” issue, however no other details were given.

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Research firm Net Applications released its most recent browser share trend report on Monday. The latest information suggests that adoption of the Chrome web browser slowed slightly, possibly due to an increase in Safari’s popularity. Chrome had a 13.45% market share during the month of July, up .34 percentage points from the 13.11% share it had in June. Between May and June, however, Chrome’s market share increased .59 percentage points. Apple’s Safari web browser had a 8.05% share of the web browser market during July, up .57 percentage points from June. Despite declines in market share, Internet Explorer and Firefox remain the two most popular browser options with a 52.81% and 21.48% share of the market, respectively. Opera has a 1.65% grip on the market and other browser options are responsible for 2.56% collectively.

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Mac users have long felt shafted when it comes to Google’s increasingly popular web browser. Sure, Google made it known that Chrome would be arriving on Macs at some point but the time frame is a bit of a mystery. While the when is still anyone’s guess, Google has at least provided confirmation that it is actively working on bringing the Chrome browser to OS X in the form of the first official screen shot, pictured above. Posted last night by Googler Avi Dressman under the heading “Now we can call it Chrome!”, little can be ascertained from the image other than the fact that, well, it looks like Chrome. As cute as the error message is, we’ll presume it is an indication that things are still early going and we still have a bit of a wait before any kind of alpha or beta release finds its way out to testers. In the meantime, if Safari and FireFox simply don’t get the job done for you – at least you can rest assured that Chrome is still on its way.

[Via Silicon Alley Insider]

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After single-handedly winning the online search wars, Google appears to be poised to now enter the browser wars. A comic book fashioned document has appeared online at the unofficial Google Blog, Blogoscoped. The 38 page scanned document details on open source browser project called, Google Chrome. It apparently will have many features of the most recent versions of Firefox, Opera, and even IE 8, including an incognito mode similar to IE 8′s InPrivate mode, tabbed browsing, and awesome Javascript support. Google confirmed the beta project on its blog and announced that it will launch the Windows XP version tomorrow in 100 countries. The whole comic book approach to introducing features is novel and throwing a new browser into the mix is just plain exciting; as long as Google remembers these three words, “No World Domination”. Look for a Mac OS X and Linux version in the near future.

UPDATE: It’s available today.

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