OStatic

Is innovation in browsers where it should be? We've reported before on how most of the innovation is going on in open source browsers, as Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to lose market share. This week, at two separate conferences, officials from Google and Mozilla have weighed in on how browsers need to improve. Notably, they primarily agree, and their focus doesn't seem matched by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.

There's a new version of Google's Chrome open source browser available, as the team behind it has announced. Google is citing up to 30 percent performance increases on JavaScript-heavy tasks. I've taken it for a spin, comparing it to Firefox 3.5 Beta 4, which also has very fast JavaScript performance thanks to its TraceMonkey technology. The new Chrome does work faster than the Firefox beta at this point, and the performance is another way that Google's browser is maturing and innovating.

While most Windows-based users of Beta 4 of Firefox 3.5 are finding it to be speedy and efficient, and benchmark tests back that up, some Mac-based users are finding it to be slower than previous versions of the browser. Charles Moore, writing on TheAppleBlog, found a speedy solution in the Shiretoko variant of the Firefox beta. He writes: Shiretoko (named after the Shiretoko National Park in northern Japan) transparently picked up where Firefox left off, even opening my saved browser session, and it runs the few Firefox add-on plugins I use as well. Aside from running faster and its distinctive application icon, it could just as well be Firefox 3.5b. Find out more here.?