Mobile Safari

Mozilla, the company synonymous with their free open-source web browser that's helping to take back the internet for desktop machines, has announced that Firefox will not be coming to the iPhone. Responding to questions from ElectricPig.co.uk, Mozilla's European president, Tristan Nitot, said that Firefox on the iPhone isn't an option with Apple's current restrictions on web browsers that would compete with Mobile Safari.

An Estonian website recently published an interesting bug with the iPhone's Mobile Safari web browser that could potentially use excess data and potentially run a hefty bill if their reasonable use limit is breached. The problem is that when you browse to a website with a Motion JPEG for streaming video over the internet, it continues to stream the video after you close the app.

After the Mac went down in 10 seconds using a Safari exploit at this year's Pwn2Own hacking competition, we figured the iPhone didn't stand a chance. Now we're pleasantly surprised to hear that the iPhone 3G survived the entire contest without being hacked. In fact, not a single one of the five smartphones entered were hacked in the alloted time.

In a sudden twist, Apple has allowed a slew of legitimate third party web browsers into the App Store. It appears that the apps were all queued into a single group awaiting approval from Apple, with original submission dates ranging all the way back to last October.

As we already know, the iPhone (and the iPod Touch even more so) were popular gifts this holiday season, causing a large influx of App Store sales and browsing. Likewise, Christmas day and the days following have seen a significant increase web browser market share for Mobile Safari.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has in the past expressed interest in getting Microsoft Silverlight, their own take on an Adobe Flash developing framework, on the iPhone, but at the time he said he hadn't discussed it with Apple so he didn't have many details to go in to. Now Microsoft is back and while they're making a concerted effort to get it on Google's Android platform, Silverlight on iPhone is becoming less and less likely.

According to a report from Net Applications, iPhone and iPod touch browser marketshare rose 58% from July to August to 0.48% in the market. While it's still got a long way to go before it becomes a major player, it has been growing extremely fast, with the exception of a plateau. As is common with Apple products, it is expected that for another mobile browser to catch up to the iPhone, it would mean a drastic change in the whole of the industry.

There's been a lot of talk about the Blackberry Bold and how it is one of the contenders some believe will be going head-to-head with the iPhone in the US and elsewhere as people chose which smartphone they're looking for. MobileComputer decided to test them head to head in a browser race, and record the results. Video after the break.

Security researcher Aviv Raff claims that the iPhone and iPod touch versions of Mail and Safari are both vulnerable to a URL Spoofing vulnerability that could allow attackers to conduct phishing attacks to iPhone users. According to Raff, a hacker could create a specially crafted URL that, when sent via an email, he could convince came from a trusted domain like a bank, PayPal, a social network, etc. Then, when clicked and opened in Safari, the URL showed in Safari's URL bar would still appear to the victim that it is from the trusted domain.

Those of you who haven't installed the 2.0 firmware on your iPod touch or first-gen iPhone will be interested to know that 3G connectivity isn't the only thing making the iPhone 3G faster than before. Despite being pretty buggy and prone to random crashes, the iPhone 2.0 software's new version of the Safari browser is significantly faster than 1.1.4 or 1.1.5.