Mozilla released Firefox 9 on Tuesday, the latest version of its popular web browser. Firefox 9 adds several enhancements, but perhaps the most notable is its improved JavaScript engine that reportedly offers up to a 30% performance boost (in Kraken and V8 benchmarks) on Javascript-heavy sites. The browser also adds OS X Lion optimizations that should improve two-finger swipe navigation and theme support. Other features include support for font-stretch, improved support for text-overflow, improved support for HTML5, MathML and CSS, and stability fixes. Firefox 9 is available for free now and builds are available for Mac, Linux and Windows.

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Earlier today, we told you about a study conducted by Blaze Software comparing the native browser speeds in Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The results of over 45,000 tests were published, and the firm concluded that Android was roughly 52% faster than iOS in terms of browser performance. Not so fast, says Apple. In a statement to blog The Loop, an Apple spokesperson pointed out a perceived flaw in Blaze Software’s methodology. “Their testing is flawed because they didn’t actually test the Safari web browser on the iPhone,” wrote Apple’s spokesperson. “Instead they only tested their own proprietary app which uses an embedded web viewer that doesn’t take advantage of Safari’s web performance optimizations. Despite this fundamental testing flaw, they still only found an average of a second difference in loading web pages.” The UIWebView framework, which was used to run Blaze’s “proprietary app” in an “embedded web viewer,” does not leverage Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine — the part of mobile Safari that Apple claims is nearly 2x faster than its predecessor. Tests that leverage the enhanced JavaScript engine would, according to Apple, have improved Safari’s performance. Blaze Software has yet to publicly comment on Apple’s rebuttal.

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RIM just let us know that they have put together a three minute video pitting the unreleased and unfinished Playbook tablet against Apple’s iPad. The Canadian tech giant boasts of its device’s superior web-page rendering speed, super Flash performance, a perfect score on the Acid 3 browser test with no rendering artifacts, and JavaScript fluidity. But hey, don’t listen to us break it out, check out the full video after the break and let us know what you think. Our quick feedback? It’s mighty impressive. Though we have to wonder, by the time the Playbook is released, there will most likely be an iPad 2 out, and we know Apple isn’t just going to sit still.

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Well that didn’t take long. Twitter hath just tweeted that they have identified and patched the JavaScript, onMouseOver, cross-site-scripting vulnerability that had been running amuck on its website this morning. It is once again safe to use twitter.com to let your fake friends know what you are eating, thinking, and doing.

UPDATE: Bob Lord, Twitter’s security chief, has put up an official blog post explaining exactly what happened this morning. You can read that article here.

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If you happen to be in your browser looking at twitter.com you may notice that the site is somewhat useless at the moment. Thanks to a JavaScript onMouseOver exploit, a nasty little bug is spreading through the micro-blogging site like wildfire. Simply mousing-over a carefully crafted tweet can redirect your browser to a website with malicious code or, in the case of Sarah Brown (wife of the former British Prime Minister), hardcore porn. The exploit is only affecting twitter.com when viewed in the browser and not third party clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic, or m.twitter.com. If you’re out there and tweeting, be careful.

UPDATE: Bob Lord, Twitter’s security chief, has put up an official blog post explaining exactly what happened this morning. You can read that article here. 

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If you like to be on the bleeding edge of browser releases you’ll be happy to know that Mozilla has released a third beta of its Firefox 4 browser. The update includes improvements to the JavaScript processing engine, built-in multitouch support for Windows 7, as well as a handful of bug fixes. Mozilla is due to release two more beta versions of Firefox, and a feature-freeze is scheduled for Monday, August 16th. You can grab the new version from here. Enjoy!

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Employing a play-on-words from Wednesday’s Ars Technica article – titled “Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks” — blog Carrypad has put MeeGo through the same Sunpsider JavaScript tests both iOS 4 and Android 2.2 were subjected to. The results? iOS 4 – 10.9 seconds, Android 2.2 – 5.8 second, MeeGo – 4.2 seconds. Now, to be fair, the Aava phone being used to conduct these tests packs a 1.5 GHz Intel Moorestown processor (the Sunspider JS tests really lean heavily on a mobile processor) and is not, repeat not, a production phone. Also of note, the phone was tested using Firefox Mobile and not a MeeGo manufactured browser. Regardless, the speed tests are impressive…now all we need is a production MeeGo handset!

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Ars Technica just pitted Google’s Android 2.2 against Apple’s iOS 4 in a JavaScript benchmark test…and Ars isn’t mincing words with their results. In a post titled ,”Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks,” Ars quipped: “The results show that the Android device delivers significantly faster JavaScript execution than the iPhone, scoring over three times better on V8 and almost twice as fast on SunSpider.” If you’re an Android fan you can go ahead and gloat, but this is exactly why a health mobile ecosystem is good for everyone. When companies — especially two with the resources of Google and Apple — compete, the consumers win.

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Did you think Apple was going to sit around and do nothing while Adobe runs its We <3 Flash ad campaign? Then clearly you don’t know Apple. A few moments ago the company launched a new website that touts the benefits of hopping aboard the HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript express as it barrels towards the front lines of the war between Apple and Adobe. We actually think the site isn’t all that bad and will show a lot of people things that they’d never have guessed HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript were capable of doing, but… Well, we don’t want to ruin the surprise for you. Click on through to find out what happens why you try to play around with the demos while using a browser other than one thats name starts with the letter “S”.

UPDATE: Because you asked, here’s what the pages look like in Safari.

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MIX10 is going strong and this year, the Microsoft conference has been filled with big announcements. Yesterday, we learned about Windows Phone 7 Series development and today, we get a glimpse of what is coming in Internet Explorer 9. The latest web browser from Microsoft stays competitive by supporting several HTML 5 specifications including CSS3, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), XHTML parsing, and both embedded H.264/MPEG4 video and MP3/AAC audio. Microsoft’s latest web browser also includes a new and improved JavaScript engine that combined with its GPU-accelerated graphics promises to deliver a rich browsing experience. You can test drive the latest browser via an online demo over at Microsoft’s new IE9 website or, if you enjoy living life on the edge of a system collapse, you can download and install the Internet Explorer 9 platform preview.

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It was pretty clear from the start that Palm has big plans for webOS — despite blogger excitement when the company confirmed more webOS handsets would be coming, Palm obviously didn’t build a new OS from the ground up for one device. What has been and is still up in the air however, is how developers will respond to webOS and its development environment, the Mojo SDK. Palm, like other smartphone companies, will be relying heavily on third parties to enhance its platform by introducing exciting, innovative and useful applications. We know the Pre is sexy and we know the webOS UI is sexy, but what about the guts? According to Network World, developers who have been checking out the SDK so far seem to feel that Mojo is both very inviting and easy to work with. Score. Palm chose JavaScript, HTML and CSS the foundation for apps and as such, there is nothing new for developers to learn. If they can build a web page, they can build a webOS app. Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs is quoted as saying, “It’s a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices.” He’s right of course — Palm has taken old and familiar technology accessible to just about any dev out there, and hidden it beneath a stunning UI and UX. We don’t know about you, but we can’t wait to see what devs can do with this killer combo.

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Thanks to one of our ninjas, we’ve got some shots of the inner-workings of the webOS SDK. For starters, everything is tested and previewed in the web browser (our shots are of the Mac version, so Safari), which bodes well for Palm’s “anyone who knows how to program in Javascrizzy can write an application”, line. We’re told that even in Safari, apps work just like they would on the actual device, and much like the iPhone Simulator, just in the web browser. This means scrolling and rubberband-man bouncing. Very cool and very sneaky. The SDK operates as a local server that serves up the web pages (applications), and you can hook into it from your local browser. We’re not going to lie — SDKs for the most part aren’t really our cup of tea — this whole thing reminds us of the iPhone web apps era. But, if you do seek more information, our ninja was gracious enough to field questions. So if you’re really interested in this, drop some comments, and we’ll pass them over and get them answered. Screenshots are in the gallery!

Click on over to our Palm webOS Mojo SDK

Update: Our ninja answered some of you questions below!