Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests

Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem.

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/adblock-plus-developer-pokes-holes-in-mozillas-new-add-on-perfo/

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iPod, Meet Spotify; iTunes, Say Hello To Your Future Rival

Spotify, the music service Americans don't get to enjoy, announced several very cool new features today. The European music service is rolling out new versions of its desktop and mobile apps today, which will allow all users (even those pesky ad-supported freeloaders) to sync Spotify desktop tracks with mobile devices, be they iPods, iPhones or Androids. And just in case it wasn't clear whether or not Spotify intends to compete directly with iTunes, Spotify is also introducing its own music store, or "download service", in which users can buy a range of MP3 "bundles" at 10 songs for roughly 8 pounds. Or 100 songs for 50 pounds. (Roughly the equivalent of $13 and $82, respectively.)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7dtch2o5s7o/

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Speedtest.net overhauled with new look, new features

Speedtest.net is pretty much the go-to site for quickly figuring out how fast (or slow) your connection really is and comparing the numbers your ISP boasts with what it actually delivers. And now it's got a new coat of paint and a couple of neat features. In brief:

• New UI: The map widget is much improved; it actually looks like a map now, and it's easy to see where you are.
• Smart server selection: If there are several test servers nearby, Speedtest will now ping each to see which has the least latency and use that for the test. You can still specify servers manually, too.
• User accounts: You can sign up for a free account and aggregate results from several computers/connections.
• Speed Wave: This new feature lets you add your test results to the results of many other users, and get a nice composite view.

All in all, you get some nice, new functionality and a snazzier interface to boot. Nice!

Speedtest.net overhauled with new look, new features originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/07/speedtest-net-overhauled-with-new-look-new-features/

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Three Laptop Parts You Can Replace Cheaply on eBay

Laptop repairs don't have to cost a fortune. Very often you can get parts for a fraction of what the manufacturer charges.

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=c1ae4a2698375178a9f787e1df1fff4d

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A Woman Stole a SIM Card and Racked Up $200,000 Worth of Data Fees [Wtf]

Kylie Monks, a 33-year-old Tasmanian woman, has been jailed for stealing a SIM card and using the hell out of it. How intense was it? Over a 3-month period, she racked up $193,187.43 (AUD) worth of data fees. Monks, to her credit, said she only used the SIM card to check Facebook and download a dozen movies. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/NZdhKe_Zo5U/a-woman-stole-a-sim-card-and-racked-up-200000-worth-of-data-fees

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Twitter buys TweetDeck - what's the fate of the Android clients?

According to reports from Tech Crunch, Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, at a cost of about $50 million.  Congrats go out to the TweetDeck team for the know-how and ability to create such a lucrative piece of work, and we all look forward to your next project.  But after all the back-patting and opening of the bubbly, how will this affect us as Android users?

TweetDeck is a really popular cross platform application, using Adobe Air on the desktop as well as having Android and iOS apps.  It's touted as posting over 1 million tweets per day on Android alone, so a lot of users seem to like it just the way it is.  The native Twitter client for Android, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired in many folks eyes.  Will we see a mash-up of the two?  Will one or the other get dropped?  And what about TweetDeck's support for other networks like Google Buzz or Facebook?  There's a lot of what-ifs to be considered, but in the end the question is simple -- will this make TweetDeck for Android better, or worse?  Vote away!

Source: Tech Crunch

 

Twitter buys TweetDeck - what's the fate of the Android clients? posted originally by Android Central

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/k4iE70ZbqjU/twitter-buys-tweetdeck-whats-fate-android-clients

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iOS 4.3.3 rumored to be coming within next two weeks with fix for location tracking issue

Apple promised last week that it would address the iPhone tracking issue in a software update in the "next few weeks," and BGR is now reporting that the update is coming within the next two weeks, or "possibly sooner." What's more, the site says that it's actually been sent an early version of the iOS update, and that it does indeed no longer back up the location database to iTunes -- the size of the database is also said to be reduced, and it's apparently deleted altogether when Location Services are turned off. Somewhat notably, BGR says that the update includes some further battery life improvements as well, although it also notes that it hasn't actually tried it out just yet -- it is promising additional details, though.

iOS 4.3.3 rumored to be coming within next two weeks with fix for location tracking issue originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 15:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/ios-4-3-3-rumored-to-be-coming-within-next-two-weeks-with-fix-for-location/

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