NetMarketShare’s desktop Operating System Market Share metrics for December 2011 show the Mac OS slipping back another tenth of a point on the month, with Windows posting exactly the same share for two consecutive months. Linux made another proportionally significant gain, continuing its recent positive streak.

Opera Reader implements CSS3 extensions that allow content to be split into pages. These pages can be “turned” in a natural manner through gestures rather than point and click, with figures able to be floated to the top and bottom of pages, and the documents having a sense of themselves and their environment; “knowing” about documents above, below and on the sides. Learn how you can paginate common HTML files with just a few lines of CSS.

Many Internet users just use the default Web browser that came installed with their computer operating system. Others seem to spend a fair bit of time and mental effort deciding which alternative browser they’ll use instead. Personally, I can’t imagine limiting myself to just one, or even one primary web browser.

Today, Apple have updated their web browser Safari to version 4. It’s currently in beta testing stages, but is available to the public to download. On the face of it, Safari 4 looks brilliant. A full update that we’ve been waiting for is delivered with some new and interesting features.

Walt Mossberg, personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, believes Firefox is the “new champ in the browser wars.” Is Walt right? If so, will this worthy effort from Mozilla be enough to drag the Apple purists away from Safari?

From a Mac user’s perspective especially, Firefox 3 is a very significant upgrade that current users of the browser will surely enjoy. But for those like me who have been using Safari as our primary browser, this new version of Firefox may not be enough to wow us, especially for those of us who have never used the browser before.

See Walt’s video commentary after the break.

Firefox 3 may have beaten Apple’s Safari in several tests, but Safari is still the best browser in the market at JavaScript. Webkit recently adopted the SquirrelFish JavaScript interpreter, and we can definitely see a speed increase. The current build of Webkit and Safari 3.1.1 are ahead of both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7/8 more »