Wednesday, January 27, 2010
WebGL: 3D animation JavaScript graphics library for web browsers
A new 3D graphics library for World Wide Web browser programmers is emerging: WebGL.
WebGL is an open, industry-wide JavaScript API that looks like it will be appearing in the major web browsers soon. Perhaps as early as this year. So far, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have all endorsed it and already have it in their nightly builds.
Based on that, I think it would be very surprising if you did not see WebGL rolled out by all three leaders before the end of this year.
Internet Explorer, hardly a leader when it comes to web standards, still has not implemented the 2D graphics web standard approved back in the 1990's. However, nobody looks to Microsoft when they want open, interoperable standards.
Sure, in areas like SQL where everything is fragmented, basic standards are difficult because the standard seems to embrace incompatible dialects. Some say Microsoft had a hand in this a decade and a half ago. Could be.
Nowadays, the leading web browser makers are working together in two ways: defining open/interoperable standards and making products that follow those standards. That is the reason the web has been advancing so quickly lately.
The idea of cloud based computing depends on having very advanced, standards-based, web browsers that do not get hacked a lot. Since business, government sites, political, and scientific web sites are going to have a lot of statistics on them visualization is going to be a key ingredient for them to be effective at getting their message across. That is where WebGL will really let those sites shine.
If you are interested in doing fast 3D graphics on the web, take a look at the WebGL Tutorial.
WebGL is an open, industry-wide JavaScript API that looks like it will be appearing in the major web browsers soon. Perhaps as early as this year. So far, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome have all endorsed it and already have it in their nightly builds.
Based on that, I think it would be very surprising if you did not see WebGL rolled out by all three leaders before the end of this year.
Internet Explorer, hardly a leader when it comes to web standards, still has not implemented the 2D graphics web standard approved back in the 1990's. However, nobody looks to Microsoft when they want open, interoperable standards.
Sure, in areas like SQL where everything is fragmented, basic standards are difficult because the standard seems to embrace incompatible dialects. Some say Microsoft had a hand in this a decade and a half ago. Could be.
Nowadays, the leading web browser makers are working together in two ways: defining open/interoperable standards and making products that follow those standards. That is the reason the web has been advancing so quickly lately.
The idea of cloud based computing depends on having very advanced, standards-based, web browsers that do not get hacked a lot. Since business, government sites, political, and scientific web sites are going to have a lot of statistics on them visualization is going to be a key ingredient for them to be effective at getting their message across. That is where WebGL will really let those sites shine.
If you are interested in doing fast 3D graphics on the web, take a look at the WebGL Tutorial.
Labels: 3d, firefox, graphics, safari
Good news for Firefox users: Microsoft was wrong; hackers try to hack Firefox frequently, and fail
Brian Krebs, independent computer security blogger and former columnist at the Washington Post reported on a commercial web browser exploit toolkit for hackers. Note when I say commercial that does not in any way imply it is legal or anyone in there right minds endorses it.
What it does say is that hackers go after web users systematically and would like no marks to get away, regardless of the browser the user has chosen.
However, the statistics published in the screenshots of the article show that the user's choice of web browser has the most drastic choice on whether he gets successfully hacked or not.
In the statistics sampled, Firefox 3.5.6 registered several successful attacks against it, but others were left unscarred.
Internet Explorer, you ask? Oh, my god! It gets mauled when it shows up on an infected web site!! The article shows that IE is like some barroom brawler that cannot possibly walk away from a fight. Though the successful attack rate against Internet Explorer has been steadily decreasing since version 5.0 (about 2/3 successful attacks) the rate of successful attacks for IE 8.0 is a little over 1/10.
Another interesting thing is that Firefox 3.5.x was seen twice as much as Internet Explorer 8.0 by the toolkit.
To me, these statistic say when Microsoft has been saying for the past 6 years that Firefox was not getting infected a lot was because few people are using it is not just one lie but two. Apparently, Firefox is seen quite a bit by infected web sites. However, for the most part these sites can look but they cannot touch.
The other surprise is that plugins do get attacked and sometimes the attacks are successful: Java, Adobe plugins, etc. are attacked. Java attacks are rarely successful but you do see a grouping of some successful attacks against a recent but non-current version of Java 6. The lesson there is clear: keep your Java web browser plugin up to date in all of your web browsers!
Another interesting though perhaps malleable fact is that the Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Flash attacks that are wildly successful on Windows when running IE, just do not currently work against the Macintosh. Another case for the argument that a lot of people should have switched from Firefox to Macintosh years ago. If they had, then this web hacker industry would not be quite so large and wealthy as it is now. There is no question the minions and gangs in this industry are making quite a lot of money.
Perhaps, if IE users want to be slightly safer on the web, they will update their browsers and avoid installing plugins - like, say Silverlight. But if they want to cut there risk by another ten to hundredfold, they will install Firefox. At least then they will not be reeling around like a punch drunk barfly with a glass jaw.
Lesson learned: avoid Internet Exploder - run Firefox instead - beware Adobe plugins, and keep Java plugin up to date if you have it installed in your web browser.
What it does say is that hackers go after web users systematically and would like no marks to get away, regardless of the browser the user has chosen.
However, the statistics published in the screenshots of the article show that the user's choice of web browser has the most drastic choice on whether he gets successfully hacked or not.
In the statistics sampled, Firefox 3.5.6 registered several successful attacks against it, but others were left unscarred.
Internet Explorer, you ask? Oh, my god! It gets mauled when it shows up on an infected web site!! The article shows that IE is like some barroom brawler that cannot possibly walk away from a fight. Though the successful attack rate against Internet Explorer has been steadily decreasing since version 5.0 (about 2/3 successful attacks) the rate of successful attacks for IE 8.0 is a little over 1/10.
Another interesting thing is that Firefox 3.5.x was seen twice as much as Internet Explorer 8.0 by the toolkit.
To me, these statistic say when Microsoft has been saying for the past 6 years that Firefox was not getting infected a lot was because few people are using it is not just one lie but two. Apparently, Firefox is seen quite a bit by infected web sites. However, for the most part these sites can look but they cannot touch.
The other surprise is that plugins do get attacked and sometimes the attacks are successful: Java, Adobe plugins, etc. are attacked. Java attacks are rarely successful but you do see a grouping of some successful attacks against a recent but non-current version of Java 6. The lesson there is clear: keep your Java web browser plugin up to date in all of your web browsers!
Another interesting though perhaps malleable fact is that the Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Flash attacks that are wildly successful on Windows when running IE, just do not currently work against the Macintosh. Another case for the argument that a lot of people should have switched from Firefox to Macintosh years ago. If they had, then this web hacker industry would not be quite so large and wealthy as it is now. There is no question the minions and gangs in this industry are making quite a lot of money.
Perhaps, if IE users want to be slightly safer on the web, they will update their browsers and avoid installing plugins - like, say Silverlight. But if they want to cut there risk by another ten to hundredfold, they will install Firefox. At least then they will not be reeling around like a punch drunk barfly with a glass jaw.
Lesson learned: avoid Internet Exploder - run Firefox instead - beware Adobe plugins, and keep Java plugin up to date if you have it installed in your web browser.
Labels: browsing, snafus, statistics, web
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Firefox 3.6 is here!!
At last, Mozilla Firefox 3.6 has arrived. It got here a few weeks, well, exactly 3, after the end of 20009. Not bad though. The speed improvements from the newly improved JavaScript interpreter might make up for it.
Labels: browsing, firefox, update, web
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Firefox 3.6 could go final any week now
An article in IT online newspaper The Register says that Firefox 3.6 might go final next week.
I will not hold my breath, but with 3.6 RC1 having already come out earlier this month we really could see Firefox 3.6 go final soon.
I will not hold my breath, but with 3.6 RC1 having already come out earlier this month we really could see Firefox 3.6 go final soon.
Labels: firefox
Hopefully, someday I will get this page to validate!
