The United States Federal Trade Commission will fine Google for its breach of Apple’s Safari web browser security, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The Internet giant is currently negotiating with the Commission over an acceptable fine, which could amount to tens of millions of dollars. The fine would be the first time the FTC has ever punished a company for violating Internet privacy safeguards. Google in February was found to be bypassing the privacy settings of millions of unknowing Safari users by using a special code to install cookies on a user’s computer, even when such actions were supposed to be blocked by the browser.

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Internet monitoring firm Pingdom on Monday released a new report on global Web browser share by browser version. The company found Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 to be the most popular browser in North America with a 21.2% share, and it was closely followed by Google Chrome 18 at 20.2%. Internet Explorer, however, featured a combined total of 40.4% of the North American browser market. Globally, Pingdom found that Chrome 18 is the most popular browser with a 25.6% share, leading Firefox 11 with 15.8% and Internet Explorer 9 and 8 with 15.7% and 14.6%, respectively. Microsoft’s browser has the largest worldwide market share when all versions are combined, followed by Chrome and then Firefox.

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Russian university student Sergey Glazunov was able to hack into a secure Windows 7 machine using a remote code execution exploit in Google’s Chrome web browser in five minutes, ZDNet reported Wednesday. The exploit was found during CanSecWest’s Pwnium hacker contest, a competition similar to the popular Pwn2Own contest. Google offered a total of $1 million dollar in prize money to hackers who could exploit the company’s Chrome web browser. Glazunov was rewarded $60,000 for his exploit, which found a way around Chrome’s sandbox using vulnerabilities in the extension system. “It didn’t break out of the sandbox [but] it avoided the sandbox,” said Justin Schuh, a member of the Chrome security team. “It was an impressive exploit. It required a deep understanding of how Chrome works. This is not a trivial thing to do.” At Pwn2Own, the VUPEN team was able to hack all four major browsers — Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox — with Chrome, which was hacked within five minutes, being the first to fall. This is the first time in four years at the competition that Google’s web browser has been hacked. The company is already working on an update that will fix the vulnerabilities uncovered at Pwnium and Pwn2Own.

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Google and other leading advertising companies have been bypassing the privacy settings of millions of unknowing Safari users, reports the Wall Street Journal. Using “a special code,” the companies were able to bypass the browser’s privacy restrictions and install cookies on a user’s computer, even when such actions were supposed to be blocked. Companies such as Google use cookies to track browsing habits across websites that it places advertisements on. Apple’s Safari Web browser blocks these third-party cookies by default, only allowing them on a website that a user directly interacts with. Read on for more.

The Journal’s research found that this “special code” was present in 22 of the top 100 websites when browsing from a computer, and 23 sites when using the iPhone’s browser. The publication notes that “once the coding was activated, it could enable Google tracking across the vast majority of websites.”

The Mountain View-based company has maintained its innocence, claiming its advertising cookies do not collect personal information. “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information,” responded a Google representative.

Vibrant Media, Media Innovation Group and PointRoll all employed a similar code for tracking. Out of all the companies, Google has the largest market share, delivering Internet ads that were viewed at least once by 93% of all U.S. Web users in December. Apple reached out to The Journal and informed the publication that the company is “working to put a stop” to codes that bypass Safari’s privacy settings.

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A new research report from Chitika Insights suggests Chrome, Firefox and Safari are eating away at Microsoft’s dominant share of the web browser market. Internet Explorer’s overall share dropped from 56% in July to 54% in August while Firefox’s market share increased from 19% to 20% and Safari’s share grew one point to 9%. Between July 2010 and July 2011, however, Microsoft’s browser share remained steady at 56%. Google’s Chrome web browser saw its share increase from 9% to 16% year-over-year at the expense of Firefox and Safari, which lost 5% and 1% of the market, respectively. Chitika said it expects Firefox’s share to increase as Mozilla continues to release frequent updates to its web browser. In addition, Internet Explorer’s share will “stabilize from its recent losses” when Microsoft releases Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10.

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Amazon launched its new Kindle Cloud Reader service on Wednesday that provides users with access their Kindle library using Chrome or Safari on Mac, PC, Linux and the Chromebook. Kindle Cloud Reader is also optimized for the iPad and offers a caching feature for offline reading. To get started, simply navigate to http://read.amazon.com and install the small required plug-in. We gave the service a quick run this morning and were impressed by how fast it loaded our eBook library. We definitely still prefer the standalone app on the iPad, but we’re sure Amazon created this option as a loophole to get around Apple’s iTunes App Store rules. Don’t use Safari or Chrome? Amazon still has you covered with its Kindle for PC client. Read on for the full press release.

Introducing Kindle Cloud Reader

Read over 950,000 Kindle books in your web browser – no download or installation required

Based on HTML5, Kindle Cloud Reader optimizes for the platform you’re using and automatically stores your latest book locally for offline reading

Instant Books – no waiting for a download, start reading the book immediately, offline or online

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–(NASDAQ: AMZN) – For over two years, Amazon has been offering a wide selection of free Kindle reading apps that enable customers to “Buy Once, Read Everywhere.” Customers can already read Kindle books on the largest number of the most popular devices and platforms, including Kindles, iPads, iPhones, iPod touches, PCs, Macs, Android phones and tablets, and BlackBerrys. Today, Amazon.com announced Kindle Cloud Reader, its latest Kindle reading application that leverages HTML5 and enables customers to read Kindle books instantly using only their web browser – online or offline – with no downloading or installation required. As with all Kindle apps, Kindle Cloud Reader automatically synchronizes your Kindle library, as well as your last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights for all of your Kindle books, no matter how you choose to read them. Kindle Cloud Reader with its integrated touch optimized Kindle Store is available starting today for Safari on iPad, Safari on desktop and Chrome at www.amazon.com/cloudreader.

“We are excited to take this leap forward in our ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’ mission and help customers access their library instantly from anywhere”

“We are excited to take this leap forward in our ‘Buy Once, Read Everywhere’ mission and help customers access their library instantly from anywhere,” said Dorothy Nicholls, Director, Amazon Kindle. “We have written the application from the ground up in HTML5, so that customers can also access their content offline directly from their browser. The flexibility of HTML5 allows us to build one application that automatically adapts to the platform you’re using – from Chrome to iOS. To make it easy and seamless to discover new books, we’ve added an integrated, touch optimized store directly into Cloud Reader, allowing customers one click access to a vast selection of books.”

Features of Kindle Cloud Reader include:

• An immersive view of your entire Kindle library, with instant access to all of your books
• Start reading over 950,000 Kindle books instantly within your browser
• An embedded Kindle Store optimized for your web browser makes it seamless to discover new books and start reading them instantly
• New Kindle Store for iPad is built from the ground up for iPad’s touch interface
• Your current book is automatically made available for offline use, and you can choose to save a book for reading offline at any time
• Receive automatic software updates without the need to download new software
• Select any book to start reading, customize the page layout to your desired font size, text color, background color, and more
• View all of the notes, highlights, and bookmarks that you’ve made on other Kindle apps or on Kindle
• Sync your last page read across your Kindle and free Kindle apps so you can always pick up where you left off

Kindle Cloud Reader is available for Safari on iPad, Safari on desktop and Chrome starting today. Kindle Cloud Reader on the iPad is optimized for the size and unique touch interface of iPad. Without even leaving the app, customers can start shopping in the Kindle Store and will find a unique and immersive shopping experience built specifically for iPad’s Safari browser.

Kindle Cloud Reader will be available on additional web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, the BlackBerry PlayBook browser, and other mobile browsers, in the coming months.

Amazon.com customers can start reading their Kindle books immediately using Kindle Cloud Reader at www.amazon.com/cloudreader.

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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Moments ago Amazon announced that it has made a number of enhancements to its Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services. First — for a limited time — anyone who signs up will get unlimited space for music. That includes users who signs up for the minimum $20/year 20GB plan. Second, Amazon has announced that Cloud Drive customers can now store all MP3s purchased from the Amazon MP3 music store for free — that includes those that were bought before Amazon launched the Cloud Drive and Cloud Player services, and your tunes don’t count against the overall storage count. Finally, Amazon announced that its Cloud Player for Web is now available on the iPad, and that it’s been optimized for use with the Safari browser. Simply visit www.amazon.com/cloudplayer from your iPad to get started. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Amazon Announces Storage Plans for Amazon Cloud Drive with Unlimited Space for Music, Free Storage for all MP3s Purchased at Amazon MP3 and Cloud Player Support for iPad

SEATTLE – July 6, 2011 – Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced three enhancements to Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player: storage plans that include unlimited space for music, free storage for all Amazon MP3 purchases and Cloud Player for Web, now on iPad.

“Customers are already enjoying Cloud Drive and Cloud Player and now for just $20 a year, customers can get unlimited space for music,” said Craig Pape Director of Amazon Music. “Additionally, we are adding free storage for all MP3s purchased from Amazon MP3, and support for the iPad. Our customers love Cloud Drive and Cloud Player and we’re excited to innovate these services on their behalf.”

Unlimited Space for Music
Now, for a limited time, Amazon customers who purchase a Cloud Drive storage plan will receive unlimited space for their MP3 and AAC (.m4a) music files. This offer is available for even the lowest price plan: $20/year for 20 GB of file storage plus unlimited space for music. Customers can visit (www.amazon.com/clouddrive/manage) to purchase a Cloud Drive storage plan and receive unlimited space for music.

Store all Amazon MP3 Purchases for Free
Customers can now store all of their Amazon MP3 purchases for free in Cloud Drive, including future MP3 purchases as well as all purchases made before the launch of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. MP3s purchased from Amazon MP3 and stored in Amazon Cloud Drive will not count against a customer’s storage quota.

Cloud Player for Web on iPad
Also new, Cloud Player for Web on iPad. Cloud Player, combined with unlimited space for music in Cloud Drive, enables customers to play music stored in the cloud on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac, PC, and now on their iPad. Cloud Player for Web has been optimized to offer customers streaming playback of their Cloud Drive music using the Safari browser for iPad. To access Cloud Player for iPad, customers simply open their Safari browser and visit (www.amazon.com/cloudplayer) to start listening to their music.

Storage for Music and More
All customers automatically start with 5 GB of free Cloud Drive storage to begin uploading their digital music library, and for a limited time, those who purchase any Cloud Drive storage plan will receive unlimited space for music at no additional cost.  In addition to unlimited space for music, Cloud Drive allows customers to upload and store all kinds of digital files, including photos, videos and documents which are stored securely and available via web browser on any computer. Customers who qualified for 20 GB of free storage from earlier promotions will receive the unlimited space for music at no additional cost.

In March, Amazon launched Cloud Drive (www.amazon.com/clouddrive), Amazon Cloud Player for Web (www.amazon.com/cloudplayer), and Amazon Cloud Player for Android (www.amazon.com/cloudplayerandroid).

Together, these services enable customers to securely store music in the cloud and play it on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC, and now iPad, wherever they are.  Customers can easily upload their music library to Amazon Cloud Drive and can save any new Amazon MP3 purchases directly to their Amazon Cloud Drive for free.

Web-based jailbreak tool Jailbreakme.com is back, and jailbreaking your iPhone, iPad or iPad touch has never been easier. How easy is it, you ask? Simply navigate to jailbreakme.com in Safari on your iOS device and then follow the on-screen instructions. Within seconds, you’ll be on your way to sporting an open iDevice. What’s more, JailbreakMe 3.0 is the first widely available tool to feature support for the iPad 2 (running iOS 4.3.3), so tablet owners will undoubtedly be excited about that. The service also supports every other iOS device other than Apple TV: iPad (iOS 4.3+), iPhone 3GS (iOS 4.3+), GSM iPhone 4 (iOS 4.3+), CDMA iPhone 4 (iOS 4.2.6+) and third or fourth-gen iPod touch (iOS 4.3+). Developer betas of iOS 5 are not supported. Remember to back up with iTunes before jailbreaking and, of course, proceed at your own risk.

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Break out your tin foil hats, people — they’re out to get you. Apple finally issued a statement on Wednesday regarding the recent uproar over iOS devices tracking their owners’ locations, but a new report from The Wall Street Journal will ensure that consumers can continue to cry foul. According to the WSJ, Apple and Google both track users’ locations not only using mobile devices, but also using computers. Apple allegedly collects location information each time its Mac computers scan for wireless networks, and Google is said to collect location data from Wi-Fi connected computers that use its Chrome browser or its search toolbar plug-in with other browsers. The report notes that it is unclear how Apple and Google use this data, and it says in “most cases” the location tracking services are opt-in.

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During Microsoft’s MIX conference in Las Vegas, Windows Phone director Joe Belfiore took the stage to demonstrate how well Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9 mobile browser can render HTML5 websites. He fired up a device running Microsoft’s new Windows Phone “Mango” update with IE9 installed and hardware acceleration, and then started an HTML5 speed test pitting the Mango device against the iPhone 4 and the Google Nexus S. Belfiore was so confident in the new browser that he gave the iPhone 4 a head start. Nonetheless, IE9 loaded the demo faster and came out on top, having displayed the test at 20 frames per second. It was followed by the Android browser on the Nexus S, which rendered the same demo at 11 frames per second, and then the iPhone 4 at 2 frames per second. This wasn’t exactly an independent test given that it was preformed by Microsoft and likely under optimal conditions, but we are definitely still impressed with what we’ve seen so far — let’s just hope the update to Mango goes a bit smoother than NoDo. Hit the jump for the video comparison.

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A recent study performed by Ottowa-based Blaze Software reveals that Android’s mobile Web browser is significantly faster than the mobile Safari browser found on Apple’s iPhone. Blaze performed 45,000 separate tests using 1,000 different websites along with its mobile measurement service, and found that Android was 52% faster on average. The firm utilized the latest Android devices running Android 2.2 and Android 2.3 in the tests, and pitted them against iPhone 4 handsets running both iOS 4.2 and iOS 4.3. “We were very surprised by the results,” said Blaze CTO and Co-founder Guy Podjarnyin a statement. “We assumed that it would be closer race and that the latest JavaScript speed improvements would have a more material impact on performance. The fact that Android beat iPhone by such a large margin was not expected.” Hit the break for the full press release.

iPhone vs. Android – 45,000 Tests Prove Whose Browser is Faster

Ottawa, ON, March 17, 2011 – Blaze Software Inc released today the largest ever research study of smart phone browser performance. The purpose of the study was to determine once and for all which of the two leading smart phone vendors has the fastest browser.

Mobile Web browser usage is exploding. Emarketer estimates that 44.1% of US citizens will leverage mobile Internet by 2014. To capture market interest in mobile browsing, smart phone vendors have been aggressively touting the speed improvements in their products. However, due to the lack of mobile measurement tools, it has been difficult to measure which smart phone actually has the faster browser.

After taking over 45,000 measurements on the latest iPhone and Android devices, the study found that Android was 52% faster than iPhone on average. Android finished loading a Web page faster on 84% of the 1000 Websites tested. The study also found that the despite significant JavaScript performance gains in the latest Apple iOS 4.3 release and Google Android 2.3 releases, these improvement made no measurable improvement on the actual page load times of the sites tested.

“We were very surprised by the results”, said Guy Podjarny, Blaze CTO and Co-Founder. “We assumed that it would be closer race and that the latest JavaScript speed improvements would have a more material impact on performance. The fact that Android beat iPhone by such a large margin was not expected”.

What makes this study unique is the size of the study and the fact that it used real phones on real world websites to make the measurements. Past studies have often used fabricated benchmark sites or manual measurements on a small number of sites. This study was made possible through custom apps developed to measure page load time on mobile devices. These apps run on the actual devices, load a page on demand, and measure how long it took. These agents are available as a free service to measure any site with the Blaze Mobitest Tool.

Detailed blog post on the Blaze Mobile Measurement Study
For more information on the details results and methodology of the study, please see: www.blaze.io/blog

For more information on the Mobile measurement service
Blaze’s mobile measurement service can be found at: www.blaze.io/mobile

About Blaze
Blaze was founded in 2010 with a mission to help clients deliver better performing Web businesses by optimizing websites to increase website speed.  Blaze provides a hosted Web Performance Optimization service that improves frontend performance and reduces operational costs. For more information, see: www.blaze.io

According to reports from developers speaking to The Register, iOS web applications — when launched from the home screen of an iPhone or iPad — run 2 to 2.5 times slower than if launched directly from the Safari web browser. Right now it’s unclear if Apple is directly, or indirectly, causing this to happen. It’s possible that the speed cut is a result of a bug, but the developers have pointed out that it makes web apps less desirable than those that can be downloaded or purchased through the iTunes App Store. If Apple is doing this on purpose, it could be viewed as an attempt to force developers to publish content to the company’s mobile application store — where Apple takes a 30% cut of sales revenues. “Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear to be low quality—even when they claim HTML5 is a fully supported platform,” argued one developer. Another developer said that Apple is using an older JavaScript engine, which is causing some of the issues. Web sites that are saved to the homescreen as web apps cannot take advantage of HTML5′s application caching capabilities, which allows for offline viewing. Developers have filed bug reports with Apple, but have yet to receive any feedback.

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Apple’s iPad 2 just launched on Friday but you’d be hard-pressed to find a single iPad 2 in stores. Virtually every Apple store, AT&T store, Verizon Wireless store, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart are sold out, and Apple’s online store is showing shipping times of up to one month — but we have you covered! We have an iPad 2 we’re giving away in typical BGR fashion, so you can FaceTime, GarageBand-create, iMovie-edit, and Safari-surf to your heart’s content. The model that’s up for grabs is a 64GB AT&T (3G) black iPad 2. Here are the contest rules!

• To enter, drop a comment below letting us know why you should be the lucky winner of an iPad 2 that you can’t get anywhere else. Would it be your first Apple device? Did you get one of those $99 Android tablets and regret it ever since? Break it down for us!
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter if you have accounts
• The giveaway will run for one week until March 21st, at 11:59PM ET
• The contest is open to everyone 18 years of age or older, and it is in an international contest — that’s right — if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re eligible.

Good luck!

P.S. You can always follow our personal Twitter accounts, too! @boygenius, @andrewmunchbach, @zacharye, @robotodd.

Add Apple’s iOS and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS to the list of victims at this year’s Pwn2Own challenge. Conference veteran Charlie Miller, along with Dion Blazakis, deployed an exploit to iOS 4.2.1 through a vulnerability in Safari. By navigating to a custom-made webpage, the duo were able to execute remote code and gain access to the iOS address book. Vincenzo Iozzo, Willem Pinckaers, and Ralf Philipp Weinmann also utilized a WebKit-based vulnerability to take down a BlackBerry Torch running BlackBerry OS 6.0.0.246. The three researchers noted that the exploit used on the BlackBerry’s mobile OS was difficult to craft due to the lack of documentation, software tools, and resources available. They also noted that most of the operating systems security was achieved via obscurity, and stated that the company was “way behind the iPhone at the moment, from a security perspective.” No conference participants have yet to challenge Google’s Android or Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating systems.

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