We first learned that Spotify was finally planning on launching a web player back in November of 2012. The player functions much like the desktop app, except it’s a bit more sparse, lacking app connections and some of the social features. It’s a barebones player that definitely gets the job done, however.

“We’re letting a number of users in the UK test out a beta version of our basic web player, which we’re gearing up to release later this year,” a Spotify spokesperson told The Next Web.

In January, Spotify axed music downloads in Europe.

The faster they roll out this web player around the world, the better Spotify is able to compete with the onslaught of streaming music competitors like Rdio, Rhapsody, and as we learned earlier this week, possibly some sort of big subscription service from Google’s YouTube. The beta expansion in the U.K. means we’re that much closer to a full launch in the U.K.

Although the web player is not technically available in the U.S. right now for most (accessing play.spotify.com simply redirects to the Spotify home page. But you can access it through what appears to be a loophole through a band’s Facebook page by clicking here.

According to the Mozilla Security Blog, Firefox 16 features a security vulnerability that allows “a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters.” Fortunately, Mozilla hasn’t seen the vulnerability being exploited in the wild by ne’er-do-wells.

In response, Mozilla has pulled from Firefox 16 from widespread release. The Firefox site now features a link to download Firefox 15.0.1. For now, Mozilla suggests that users downgrade to this version until they can get a fix up. The browser will be automatically updated with the fixed version of Firefox 16 once it becomes available later today.

The discovery of this vulnerability highlights the need for more beta testers of Firefox releases. You can download the beta here. If you’re feeling really adventurous, you can also try out the Nightly builds of Firefox to help test far off future versions of the browser.

Firefox 16 for Android was also affected by this vulnerability, but a patched version of the browser is already out.

We’ll update this story to let you know when the updated version of Firefox 16 is available. As stated, some users will be automatically updated. Others will have to download it manually. The vulnerability is unlikely to affect you, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

UDPATE: Mozilla just dropped us a line saying that Firefox 16.0.1 is now available. You can grab it here. Most Firefox users will have been automatically upgraded to the newest version already.

A report from the AFP says that the European Commission is going to go ahead with fining Microsoft. Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said that “the fault is there” when referring to what Microsoft called a “technical error.” He also said that Microsoft’s actions were a “distortion of competition.”

Microsoft announced in July that they were immediately going to push the browser choice screen to new and existing users. They also hired an outside company to investigate the cause of the slip up. Even with their efforts to remedy the issue, the Commission seems hellbent on punishing Microsoft.

It’s pointed out that Microsoft could face fines up to 10 percent of its annual turnover. In actual numbers, that would translate to about $7 billion. Needless to say, Microsoft doesn’t want to face another heavy fine from the Commission.

To make up for it, Microsoft agreed to extend the time period they were required to show the browser choice screen by the number of months it was missing. The original agreement would see Microsoft displaying a browser choice screen until 2014, but it could be pushed back even further as a result of this.

The Commission hasn’t announced the specifics yet, but we should know something soon. We’ll keep you updated on any changes. A large fine isn’t what Microsoft needs this year as they head into the holiday season with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

First up is the one and only change to the browser plug-in. Before, the Axis UI would pop up in your browser and just be a general nuisance during the browsing experience. Yahoo has finally added an exit button to the overlay so that users can get rid of Axis on the page for the time being. If you reload the page or navigate to a new one, it will reappear.

The aforementioned update is the only one for the browser plug-in. It’s obvious that Yahoo is focusing most of their attention on the much nicer iOS app. The updates that turn the iOS app into more of a full fledged mobile Web browser reflects that.

The first update is a simple, but much needed, one. Users can now open links in new tabs. It’s incredibly basic, but something that every browser should have. It’s surprising that it wasn’t in Yahoo Axis from the start, but that oversight has now been corrected.

Continuing the theme of keeping up with modern browsers, the Yahoo Axis iOS app now has a private browsing mode. When it’s turned on, Yahoo Axis won’t store cookies or save your browsing history. You can also choose to keep all your tabs open when entering or exiting private browsing mode.

The final addition to the iOS app improves the security of the Axis browser. The top of the browser will now display a lock icon when you’re on a secured Web site. This is especially useful when visiting Web sites for banks or other financial institutions. Doing business on an unsecured Web site is not only dangerous, but incredibly foolish. Avoid that scenario by looking for the lock icon.

To further enhance security, the Axis iOS app now locally encrypts all the data that Axis collects including search and browsing history. This makes it so that nobody can gain access to your browsing information unless they have direct access to your phone and encryption breaking tools.

This is a fairly large update and a much needed one for Yahoo’s search oriented browser. It would have been nice to see more updates to the browser plug-in, but Yahoo has their priorities. Now that Marissa Mayer is in charge of the company, her experience with Search at Google might help Yahoo climb back up to the number two spot where Bing currently resides.

If these updates have you clamoring for more search in your browser, you can grab Yahoo Axis from the App Store for the iPhone and iPad.

Junior is meant to provide a much more immersive web browsing experience. It replaces Safari’s tabs and toolbars with a full-screen browsing experience. Recognizing that most tablet users prefer to use apps, viewing browsing as a last resort, Mozilla designed Junior to make the web page feel more like “a native citizen of the tablet.” To that end, browsing in Junior is a full-screen experience. There are no tabs, URL box, search box, or other toolbar at the top. There are only two buttons, both translucent gray and situated about halfway up the iPad’s screen, one on the left and one on the right (think the page turning buttons on an e-reader). One is a back button, the other is a plus button. Tapping the plus button brings up a separate screen where you can see recent pages, currently open pages, type in URLs, and perform searches.

While Junior looks pretty slick, there are a couple of factors working against Mozilla – or any other third-party iOS browser. First, there’s the fact that browsers in the App Store aren’t allowed to use their own rendering engines. Every App Store browser has to be Webkit-based. That means that Safari will always perform at least a little better than any App Store browser at rendering web pages (even if the other browser’s user experience is better). Second, and perhaps most importantly, there is no way to change iOS’s default browser. While you can use any browser you want for your basic browsing needs, you can’t set it as the default browser. That means that home screen bookmarks as well as links in emails, SMS messages, and in other apps will only open in Safari.

For that reason, browsers in the App Store have consistently not performed all that well. While there are several quality alternatives out there, none has managed to enjoy more than modest success. Most iOS users default to Safari because doing otherwise is too difficult. Of course, that could well change in the future, if the government goes after Apple in the same way it went after Microsoft in the 1990s for doing something similar with Internet Explorer. For the moment, though, any browser is going to have a hard time gaining any real traction in the App Store.

Check out the video of Mozilla’s presentation. There’s an interesting little tidbit at the 1:25 mark where Mozilla’s Alex Limi says that “Chrome’s gonna ship Chrome for iOS very soon.” This would seem to confirm rumors that Google was working on a version of Chrome for iPhone. A request for comment from Google has not yet been answered, though something like “we do not comment on rumor or speculation” seems a likely answer.

“Chrome’s gonna ship Chrome for iOS very soon.” (1:25)

Nik Cubrilovic, an entrepreneur, hacker, and blogger at New Web Order, revealed Yahoo’s mistake in a blog post. There, he warned users of the danger the leak posed and demonstrated how the vulnerability could be exploited by creating his own, harmless, forged extension. From the blog post:

The clearest implication is that with the private certificate file and a fake extension you can create a spoofed package that captures all web traffic, including passwords, session cookies, etc. The easiest way to get this installed onto a victims machine would be to DNS spoof the update URL. The next time the extension attempts to update it will silently install and run the spoofed extension.

Cubrilovic, after realizing what dangers the leak posed, quickly reported the mistake to Yahoo. According to The Next Web, Yahoo responded by pulling down the Chrome extension and blacklisting the leaked certificate key. The Next Web quoted a Yahoo spokesperson as saying:

Since discovering this issue we have immediately pulled down the chrome extension. We have blacklisted the exposed cert key with Google which has resolved the vulnerability. An updated chrome extension should be available within the next 30 minutes with this issue completely resolved. We take issues like this very seriously and are dedicated to working around the clock to ensure resolution. We apologize for any inconvenience.

A new Chrome extension is already available for Axis. The mishap only slightly tarnishes what was otherwise a smooth launch for Yahoo’s new mobile browser. There have been no reports of any malicious software spread using the vulnerability, so score one for Cubrilovic and the rest of the white hat hackers of the world.

(New Web Order via The Next Web)

Mashable is reporting that Google has confirmed that a Metro version of Google Chrome is in development. Like Firefox for Metro, Chrome will be designed to run as both a Metro app and a traditional desktop application. The browser will be based on the current version of Chrome for desktop, rather than the recently-released Chrome for Android.

I contacted Google for more information on the Metro version of Chrome, and they responded with the following comment:

Our goal is to be able to offer our users a speedy, simple, secure Chrome experience across all platforms, which includes both the desktop and Metro versions of Windows 8. To that end we’re in the process of building a Metro version of Chrome along with improving desktop Chrome in Windows 8, such as adding enhanced touch support.

Windows is heavily favoring touch-based user interface with Windows 8. Metro is designed to provide a unified user experience across multiple Microsoft platforms, including Windows Phone, Windows 8-based tablets, and desktop and laptop computers running Windows 8. The fact that Google is working to enhance touch support as it works on the Metro version of Chrome suggests that we may be seeing Google Chrome on Windows 8 tablets in the not-so-distant future.

What do you think? Would you like to see Google Chrome on a Windows 8 tablet? Let us know in the comments.

Considering the new Firefox update, and its market share for browser users, compared to Bing’s market share in regards to search users, it’s hard not to wonder if there are more people using Firefox than there are Bing searchers. Whatever the case, Firefox users no longer have to navigate to a search engine to query Twitter’s never-ending amount of content.

With a quick drop-down menu selection, those who update to Firefox 8, according to the Firefox blog, will have the capability to:

Twitter search in Firefox makes it easier to discover new topics, #hashtags and @usernames. Twitter search is currently available in English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japanese versions of Firefox, with more languages to come in future releases.

The latest Firefox update is not just for Windows users either. The browser update has been made available to Mac users, Linux users and to Android owners. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t appear as if the Twitter search feature is available for Android owners, as, “Twitter is now included as a search option in Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux.”

Mozilla pioneered WebGL and introduced it in Firefox earlier this year. WebGL is a new Web standard that allows websites and Web apps to display hardware-accelerated 3D graphics without third-party software. Firefox adds support for Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), which lets developers load WebGL textures from other domains in a secure way.

As well as better third-party app control. No longer will these apps be able to install themselves without the user’s permission. While more security is always a good thing, the main feature of Firefox 8 is the inclusion of a functional Twitter search.

When a query is entered, in this case, “Joe Paterno,” users are taken to the Twitter search results page of the query that was entered. While this may not be exactly groundbreaking in terms of execution, the fact that this search feature is part of the new Firefox can only be considered a good thing.

You can get the newest version of Firefox here.

Another neat feature of this Beta release is that if you share a computer with family or friends you can now each have a personalized Chrome experience, by letting each user sign into Chrome sync.

If you wish to obtain the new Beta release, the official Google Chrome blog states:

“To try it out, go to Options (Preferences on Mac), click Personal Stuff, and click “Add new user.” A fresh instance of Chrome will open, ready to be customized with its own set of apps, bookmarks, extensions, and other settings. A badge in the upper corner lets you know at a glance that this new Chrome browser belongs to you, and you can customize the name and badge as you like. Clicking this badge drops down a menu of all the users on that computer, so you can easily switch between them. In addition, each user can sign in to Chrome to access their own personalized Chrome across all their computers.

One thing to keep in mind is that this feature isn’t intended to secure your data against other people using your computer, since all it takes is a couple of clicks to switch between users. We want to provide this functionality as a quick and simple user interface convenience for people who are already sharing Chrome on the same computer today. To truly protect your data from being seen by others, please use the built-in user accounts in your operating system of choice.”

Personally, this is a pretty great update for anyone who shares a computer with someone else. Well done Chrome team.

Are you downloading the Beta version? Let us know.

What makes Firefox 4 Beta so special, compared to its earlier editions? Not only did Mozilla redesign the user interface they’ve also incorporated a ton of new features. Check out the list below from Mozilla’s release notes.

It should be noted that this is just a Beta preview, and some bugs will happen… as Mozilla wants to catch all errors now before the final product is released.

If you’ve downloaded Firefox Beta 4 – Let us know what you think about it.