Into Tech

pRegulator Ofcom was yesterday sent back to the drawing board to rework plans to reduce the time it takes for customers to switch mobile phone network while retaining their number, after losing a crucial court case./ppThe competition appeal tribunal (CAT) yesterday ruled that the regulator needed to rethink its plans after failing to provide sufficient evidence to back up its claim that changing the so-called number porting regime would cost the industry pound;5m./ppLast year, Ofcom announced plans to reduce the time it takes to switch from five days to two hours by September 2009. It has now come down to two days and a company called UK Porting has been formed to act as a central database for all phone numbers./ppBut Vodafone, which mounted a legal challenge against Ofcom’s plans in January, estimates the real cost of the regime will be closer to pound;37m per network, or a grand total of pound;185m. It was joined in its challenge by O2 and Orange./ppThe judgment was met with dismay by rival operator 3, which pointed out that the UK shares its “number porting” regime, in which customers must ask their old operator before they quit, with only one other country, the Dominican Republic. As the smallest of the five UK networks it is in the interests of 3, owned by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, to make it as easy as possible to leave the big four operators./pp”Vodafone and the other incumbents have fought this all the way,” said a spokesman. “Ofcom is trying to achieve fast, hassle-free mobile number porting to give UK consumers flexibility and choice, but the incumbents have consistently put up roadblocks./pp”UK consumers might well ask why are the incumbents going to such lengths? Consumers ought to be able to expect more competitive pricing and a painless process when they choose to move to a new operator.”/ppHe pointed out that customers of Vodafone and O2 - as well as 3 - in Ireland have been able to switch between operators in about 20 minutes for many years. The CAT, however, threw out 3’s argument that the number porting regime distorts competition./ppA spokesman for Vodafone stressed the company’s objections to the plan were over Ofcom’s bad maths. “We are fully behind number portability. What we object to is a costly and ill-conceived plan,” he said./ppThe CAT was particularly scathing about Ofcom’s lack of evidence to substantiate its calculations, saying: “At the hearing, counsel for Ofcom stated that the figure of pound;5m was adopted from internal working by Ofcom staff. The calculation did not appear in any documents before the tribunal.”/ppA spokeswoman for the regulator, whose plan included proposals for changing the way that numbers for fixed line phones are moved to other operators, said it will continue with attempts to simplify the porting process./pp”Following today’s judgment … Ofcom will reconsider its decision on telephone number portability for consumers switching suppliers … Ofcom is giving careful consideration to the CAT judgment and is considering next steps.”/pimg width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1eb7496/mf.gif’ border=’0′/div class=’mf-related’pRelated Stories/pullia href=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1ead98d/story01.htm’NHS staff will be required to seek patients’ consent before accessing electronic medical records/a/lilia href=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1eb3e89/story01.htm’Tech’s high rollers scoff at Wall Street/a/lilia href=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1eb7497/story01.htm’FBI on the trail of hackers after Palin’s emails made public/a/lilia href=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1eb7498/story01.htm’Missing link: creationist campaigner has Richard Dawkins’ official website banned in Turkey/a/lilia href=’http://www.guardianfeeds.co.uk/c/288/f/7511/s/1eb7499/story01.htm’Click to download: Oasis and Third Eye Blind/a/li/ul/divdiv class=’mf-viral’table border=’0′trtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/sendemail2.html?title=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/19/telecoms.regulators?gusrc=rssfeed=technologyfulllink=Ofcom forced to rethink number portability plan” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/emailthis2.gif” border=”0″ //a/tdtd valign=’middle’a href=”http://res.feedsportal.com/viral/bookmark.cfm?title=http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/19/telecoms.regulators?gusrc=rssfeed=technologyfulllink=Ofcom forced to rethink number portability plan” target=”_blank”img src=”http://rss.feedsportal.com/images/bookmark.gif” border=”0″ //a/td/tr/table/divbr/br/a href=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19345390108/f/7511/c/288/s/32208022/a2.htm”img src=”http://da.feedsportal.com/r/19345390108/f/7511/c/288/s/32208022/a2.img” border=”0″//a

SCi Entertainment, the troubled video games group, has reported a more than threefold jump in pre-tax loss to £136m after a year of costly software delays, a desperate rescue cash call and deep job cuts. The group reported turnover on continuing operations for the year to June 30 down £10m to £119m.

Much of the group’s hopes are now pinned on the delayed launch of the eighth game in the Lara Croft series, Tomb Raider: Underworld. The game will hit shop shelves on November 18 in the US and November 21 in Europe - five months behind the initial launch date.

In January SCi was plunged into turmoil after a shock announcement that it had ended takeover talks with potential bidders and that the release of Tomb Raider: Underworld would be delayed. Days later founder and chief executive Jane Cavanagh left the business.

The January update revealed an urgent need for a working capital injection if SCi was to survive. Since then the group has cut a quarter of its workforce and narrowed its operational focus, selling off or ending peripheral activities. In May SCi raised £60m through a share placing, largely with major shareholders Warner Brothers and property investor Robert Tchenguiz. As a result Kevin Tsujihara, of Warner Brothers, and Tchenguiz representative Aaron Brown took seats on the SCi board. At about the same time, SCi secured additional debt facilities of £25m.

Yesterday chief executive Phil Rogers, promoted from finance director to take over from Cavanagh in January, said: “The 2008 results reflect a year in which we took decisive action to transform our business. We have emerged from the past months of change as a stronger business and over the next year we will begin to see the results of our restructured and revitalised operation. We are focused on delivering higher quality games with our priorities clearly set on maximising the returns from our cornerstone franchises.”

Products for the current financial year include: Just Cause 2, Battlestations Pacific, Monster Lab, Championship Manager 09, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Tomb Raider: Underworld. The latter will be launched on the highly successful Nintendo Wii as well as PC, PlayStation and Xbox hardware. Aborted plans for Underworld to be launched in June did not include a version for the Wii. SCi sold 7.1m games in the year, more than half of them being shoot-em-up Kane & Lynch.

Shares in SCi last night closed down 0.5p at 33p - below the 35p of the rescue cash call in May.

Launching a classical music download store is a very brave, or perhaps foolhardy, thing to do. While kids shell out loadsamoney for ringtones, classical music buyers tend to be pernickety about recordings, and careful with their money, as Passionato may soon discover.

Passionato is a straightforward site offering classical music albums at decent quality but not at low prices. Typically, albums cost £7.99 for 320kbps MP3 versions and £8.99 for lossless Flac, though some cost £4/£5, and there are tracks at 79p/99p. Tracks are mercifully free of DRM (digital rights management) copy protection, so you can play them on anything, including iPods.

You can browse Passionato’s catalogue by Composers, Artists, Genres/Periods or Record Labels. The labels include EMI, Naxos, Chandos, and BBC Worldwide. Deutsche Grammophon isn’t listed, but there are lots of DG albums inexplicably hidden under Universal Classics & Jazz.

The navigation doesn’t always work. Looking for the sublime Alison Balsom, for example, I went to Artist, Instrumentalist, and clicked Trumpet, but she’s not in the 76 results or its alphabetical listing. A global search for Balsom finds three albums, which is OK, but searching for Lang Lang finds hundreds because the hits include the “Sung Language” subheading, Jean Langlais, Nadia Boulanger etc. “Lang Lang” in quotes gets no results. Did no one test this thing?

Really there should be an Advanced Search facility so you can specify composer, work, orchestra etc. It would be uniquely better if you could also specify things like modern or period instruments: we can dream!

The site also has sections for new releases (Critic’s Choice), a chart and special offers – sign on and you get 10 free tracks.

Currently, Passionato doesn’t have a deep enough catalogue or enough musical information. The catalogue ultimately depends on all the music majors signing up and making “out of print” recordings available. Ideally, for example, I want all four of Karajan’s great Beethoven cycles, a choice of the original or remastered versions, and a guide to the differences. Passionato just has the remastered 1961-62 set and a couple of quotes.

Full background information is probably not affordable unless you crowdsource it by providing a wiki or – as Amazon does – user reviews. Passionato has neither.

But the biggest problem is money: if you find something you want, will you buy it?

Take, for example, the Bach concertos played by Hilary Hahn. Passionato wants £7.99 for the 320kbps MP3 version. However, go to Amazon.co.uk and you can buy a new CD for less (£6.23 plus £1.24 shipping from Caiman USA) and rip it yourself. Which I did, ages ago.

At Amazon.com, the MP3 version (256kbps) costs $8.99, and individual tracks cost 89c instead of 99p. For those who enjoyed the controversial Russian site AllOfMP3.com, MP3sparks.com offers the same download for $2.38 at 192kbps, with tracks at between 14c and 28c. And, of course, popular stuff like this circulates for free on file-sharing networks.

Given the scale of the market challenge, one has to wish Passionato luck. It will need it.

The telecoms industry, not the government, will need to stump up the billions of pounds needed to introduce the next generation of super-fast broadband networks, according to the former boss of Cable & Wireless who was appointed by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform and the Treasury to look at the British broadband market.

But Francesco Caio said the government could help reduce the estimated £5.1bn to £28.8bn cost of installing super-fast broadband by coordinating the digging up of streets so that fibre optic lines can be installed, opening up national infrastructure such as sewers so cables can be installed and relaxing the rules on where overhead wires can be erected.

His recommendations, which the government has accepted, come ahead of the publication of Ofcom’s initial thoughts on next-generation broadband networks - which will allow consumers to download songs in seconds and movies in minutes - this month.

The regulator is expected to re-open its consultation with the industry by asking what sort of regulatory regime is required to ensure next-generation networks are built over the coming decade. Caio said there had yet to emerge a service that cannot be delivered over current broadband networks. But as more and more devices are produced that can access the internet, the need to install networks that can run at much faster speeds would increase. The government needed to keep a watchful eye to ensure investment was made but did not need to bankroll broadband.

“In my view the case for major intervention now is weak at best,” he said. “It is true that the UK has a lower number of homes connected through fibre than other countries, but I think we should take a rather more articulate view of how broadband is used, what there is today and how the system is evolving, as opposed to just counting the number of fibres there are in the ground.”

He said next-generation networks would be a mixture of fibre-optic cabling and wireless broadband. BT, which welcomed the review, has already said it plans to spend £1.5bn running fibre-optic cabling to the street-side cabinets that ultimately connect 40% - 10m - of homes.

This week the government’s independent advisory panel, the Broadband Stakeholder Group, estimated that linking such fibre-optic cabling to all Britain’s cabinets would cost £5.1bn, while laying cable all the way into every home would cost £28.8bn.

Virgin Media is already introducing broadband at up to 50Mb per second - 10 times faster than the average connection - across its cable network, which covers half the UK. Caio said such moves proved competition, not intervention, was the way to go.

The market was changing so fast - wireless networks today can offer faster broadband speeds than were possible over a fixed-line connection 10 years ago - that the government should keep an open mind on what technology is used.

“My recommendation to the government is don’t commit to anything today because the technology is changing,” he said. “You might find yourself having committed a lot for something that could have been done by the market.”

The telecoms industry, not the government, will need to stump up the billions of pounds needed to rollout the next generation of super-fast broadband networks across the UK, according to the former boss of Cable & Wireless, who was appointed earlier this year by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Treasury to look at the UK broadband market.

But Francesco Caio said the government can help reduce the estimated £5.1bn to £28.8bn cost of installing super-fast broadband, by coordinating the digging up of streets so that fibre optic lines can be installed, opening up national infrastructure such as sewers so cables can be laid and relaxing the rules on where overhead wires can be erected.

His recommendations, which the government welcomed, come ahead of the publication of regulator Ofcom’s initial thoughts on next generation broadband networks - which will allow consumers to download songs in seconds and movies in minutes - later this month. The regulator is expected to re-open its consultation with the industry by asking what sort of regulatory regime is required to ensure next generation networks are built over the coming decade.

Caio said there has yet to emerge a service that cannot be delivered over current broadband networks but as more and more devices are produced that can access the internet, the need to install networks that can run at much faster speeds will increase. The government needs to keep a watchful eye to ensure investment is made, but does not need to bankroll broadband.

“In my view the case for major intervention now is weak at best,” he said. “It is true that the UK has a lower number of homes connected through fibre (optic cables) than other countries, but I think we should take a rather more articulate view of how broadband is used, what there is today and how the system is evolving, as opposed to just counting the number of fibres there are in the ground.”

He said next generation networks will be a mixture of fibre-optic cabling, either to individual homes or street-side cabinets, and wireless broadband. BT, which welcomed the review, has already said it plans to spend £1.5bn running fibre optic cabling to the streetside cabinets that ultimately connect 40% - 10 million - of the UK’s homes.

Earlier this week, the government’s own independent advisory panel, the Broadband Stakeholders Group, estimated that rolling out such fibre optic cabling to all the UK’s cabinets would cost £5.1bn, while putting cabling all the way into every home in the UK would cost £28.8bn.

Virgin Media, meanwhile, is already rolling out broadband at up to 50Mb per second - 10 times faster than the average connection - across its cable network which covers half the UK.

Caio said such moves prove that competition, not intervention, is the way to go. The market is also changing so fast - wireless networks today can offer faster broadband speeds than were possible over a fixed-line connection a decade ago - that the government should keep an open mind on what technology gets used.

“My recommendation to the government is don’t commit to anything today because the technology is changing,” he said. “You might find yourself having committed a lot for something that could have been done by the market”.

As a result he said the government should not look to extend the universal service obligation, under which BT must to provide a basic phone line to every UK household, into the provision of fibre optic cabling.

He gave the current state of the broadband market - which covers 99.6% of UK households - a relatively clean bill of health. But he added that current ‘bottlenecks’ in the system, which reduce the speed of internet access, are appearing in the telecom companies’ backbone networks rather than in the ‘last mile’ connection between telephone exchanges and people’s homes, which is where next generation networks will be installed.

As a result he wants Ofcom to demand that the ISPs give their customers more detail of how they manage their internet traffic, especially at peak times. The regulator has already pushed for a voluntary industry code which gives customers more information about the average speed they can expect on their line. But Caio believes some customers may be willing to pay more in order to have dedicated bandwidth, once they fully understand how their line is managed, so they do not see their speed dip at any time of day.

Caio’s recommendation that telecoms companies be able to carpet the countryside with overhead cables is likely to alarm some rural communities. But Shriti Vadera, parliamentary under secretary of state for business and competitiveness, said local communities will have to weigh up the benefits of super-fast broadband against the impact of overhead cabling. “It is a matter of ensuring that people have a say,” she added.

Business secretary John Hutton added: “We want to create the right conditions for private sector investment and stand ready to play our part in ensuring the UK has a competitive infrastructure in the years to come.”

My laptop has started to show steady data input and output as soon as it connects to the web via a wireless router. This continues for as long as I leave the machine connected. AVG 8, Ad-Aware and Spybot have revealed nothing.
Robert Caldicott

You are right to be concerned because the unknown data traffic could be spam or worse, if your PC has been hacked. However, the most likely cause is Microsoft’s Windows Update, which dribbles away in the background so as not to interfere with normal usage. Otherwise, your firewall should tell you which applications have your permission to access the internet, and which ones are active. Active processes should also be visible in the Windows Task Manager or the superior Process Explorer, a free download. In your case, the culprit may be setupxv.exe, which could be malware or fake anti-spyware.

The web is another common source of unknown data traffic. Some pages refresh adverts or update their contents periodically without telling you, but this should stop if you close down all browsers.

If you can’t see what’s sending traffic, you can try using a packet sniffer to capture and examine the data being transferred. Sadly, I use Wireshark (wireshark.org), which is not a simple option for beginners. There are alternatives listed at sectools.org and SnapFiles. SmartSniff looks easier to use. Other suggestions welcome!

Is there an external hard drive that is really automatic?
Michael Abraham

Clickfree external hard drives are promoted as offering the “first out-of-the-box automatic backup” and can handle up to 10 PCs. I’ve not used one, but the 160GB model was warmly recommended by a reader who bought it from QVC.

Going on 64-bit

I recently bought a new quad-core desktop machine, but I am considering increasing the amount of Ram from the 3GB now installed. Would I have to upgrade to the 64-bit version to increase my memory? I want to use my PC for gaming, but I have a fondness for my back catalogue of games.

Jez Robinson

JS: As you know, 32-bit Windows can only use 4GB of memory, which means about 3.25GB after you’ve allowed for graphics and system use. The 64-bit versions can access more memory than your motherboard can support. However, the upgrade path from your 32-bit Packard Bell version is not smooth. Although Microsoft sells “in place upgrades” (hence the 15GB of disk space devoted to Vista), you can’t upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit Vista without reinstalling it as a new operating system.

Also, you will have to pay for your new operating system. If you buy a boxed copy of Vista, you can run either the 32-bit or the 64-bit version, so the upgrade is free. (There may be a charge for shipping you a new disc: only Vista Ultimate includes media for both.) But if you have a manufacturer’s pre-installed version, what you’ve bought is all you get. Unless Packard Bell can offer you a deal, you may have to pay £70 or more for a retail or upgrade version. See Microsoft’s guide at bit.ly/aj0023

Whether it’s worth it is a difficult question, but gamers were among the first to move to 64-bit Vista so you should be able to check for compatibility and performance of specific games online. In general, 64-bit Vista is faster and more secure, it runs 32-bit software, and cheap Ram means sales are now growing rapidly. However, it does not run old 16-bit software, and that unfortunately includes 32-bit programs with 16-bit installation routines. Two obvious solutions are to set up your PC as a dual-boot system, so you can switch between versions, or to install 32-bit Vista in a “virtual PC”. There are several free virtual PC programs including Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, VMware and VirtualBox (version 1.6.2 or later). There are lots of demos and tutorials on YouTube.

Office upgrade

I have Microsoft Office Professional 2000 and would like to know the cheapest legal way of upgrading to Office Professional 2007. I am not a student.

Bob Baker

JS: Microsoft’s website says you can upgrade to Office Pro from Microsoft Works 6.0-10 or any 2000-2007 Microsoft Office program or suite except Office XP Student and Teacher (bit.ly/aj0028). You could therefore shop around for the Microsoft Office 2007 Professional Edition (Upgrade), which you can install on two computers - normally your desktop and your laptop. A slightly cheaper option is the OEM version coded MSOEM162. This is designed for original equipment manufacturers and PC system builders to sell with machines, and can only be installed on one PC. It is not necessarily suitable for consumers, bearing in mind that the OEM (in this case, you) also has to provide the support. OEM versions of software may also come without boxes, manuals, or even discs.

Positively not Adobe

I need to update Adobe Acrobat/Reader to read bulletins, but my attempt to download version 9 has been blocked because AVG Anti-virus (Free Edition 8.0.169) has detected Trojan horse Generic11.PWW.

Cyril Braganza

JS: Adobe says AVG has acknowledged that this is a “false positive” and it will be fixed in an update: bit.ly/aj0027. Avast is also correcting a false positive.

Unknown data in and out

My laptop has started to show steady data input and output as soon as it connects to the web via a wireless router. This continues for as long as I leave the machine connected. AVG 8, Ad-Aware and Spybot have revealed nothing.

Robert Caldicott

JS: You are right to be concerned because the unknown data traffic could be spam or worse, if your PC has been hacked. However, the most likely cause is Microsoft’s Windows Update, which dribbles away in the background so as not to interfere with normal usage. Otherwise, your firewall should tell you which applications have your permission to access the internet, and which ones are active. Active processes should also be visible in the Windows Task Manager or the superior Process Explorer, a free download (bit.ly/aj0029). In your case, the culprit may be setupxv.exe, which could be malware or fake anti-spyware (bit.ly/aj0030).

The web is another common source of unknown data traffic. Some pages refresh adverts or update their contents periodically without telling you, but this should stop if you close down all browsers.

If you can’t see what’s sending traffic, you can try using a packet sniffer to capture and examine the data being transferred. Sadly, I use Wireshark (wireshark.org), which is not a simple option for beginners. There are alternatives listed at bit.ly/aj0031 and bit.ly/aj0032. SmartSniff looks easier to use (bit.ly/aj0033).

Automatic backup

Is there an external hard drive that is really automatic?

Michael Abraham

JS: Clickfree external hard drives are promoted as offering the “first out-of-the-box automatic backup” and can handle up to 10 PCs. I’ve not used one, but the 160GB model was warmly recommended by a reader who bought it from QVC.

Backchat

· Chris Berg wanted to help donate a computer to a village that has no electricity, and I suggested Aleutia (aleutia.com/). GreenNet, an ethical not-for-profit ISP based in London, says: “We work closely with Mike Rosenberg and are Aleutia’s official reseller to the charity and not-for-profit sector. If you could put Chris Berg in touch with us, we’d be happy to give him some more information and tailor a solution to his needs.” See gn.apc.org

Get your queries answered by Jack Schofield, our computer editor at jack.schofield@guardian.co.uk

Microsoft said it wanted its new advertising campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld to “spark a new conversation”. And it did, provoking hundreds of news stories and thousands of blog posts. Whether it was the kind of conversation Microsoft wanted is another matter. My own blog post began by asking: “On which planet does this advert make any sense?”

For the benefit of the handful of people who have inexplicably missed the viral, “Shoe Circus” features Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates buying a pair of shoes. Jerry Seinfeld is passing by the store and pops in to help. It’s not a “soft sell,” it’s a “no sell”: an ad that is, like the long-defunct Seinfeld TV comedy series, about nothing.

I watched the ad again, looking for subliminals, and noted the message repeated on signs and posters: Why pay more? Gates is famously tight with money, and perhaps this is a veiled response to Apple, which doesn’t even compete in the mainstream market for PCs costing £250 to £500. But if that’s all Microsoft wanted to say, it could have said it better for less.

Nonetheless, there are a few points to be made. The first is that “Shoe Circus” is just a teaser for a $300m campaign. There are more to come. After years watching wretched TV advertising, I have no trouble believing that the ad agency is screwing it up, but really it’s too soon to say.

The second point is that the campaign is not about selling Windows, or even Vista, which is is already at least four times bigger than anything else except Windows XP, which is actually its main competition.

It’s true that Vista wasn’t delivered on time or with many of the features that were promised. It’s also true that Microsoft was let down by driver writers and that some PC manufacturers sold Vista poorly set up on barely adequate hardware. (There’s a US class action lawsuit about Microsoft’s use of the “Windows Vista Capable” label.) But those things should no longer be problems. When correctly installed on suitable hardware, Vista is now very good indeed, and better than XP at a similar stage in its life.

Remember, Microsoft had to devote 18 months to fixing XP’s woeful security with the release of XP SP2. Vista doesn’t have that sort of problem, and Vista code will provide the bulk of the next version, Windows 7. Much still needs to be done, and Microsoft is running a programme to improve installations. Basically it runs PCs through hundreds of standardised tests that measure things like boot time, compatibility, reliability and security, to show manufacturers where their systems aren’t as good as they could be.

Microsoft has also experimented with a mocked-up retail outlet, and some of the $300m investment in “Shoe Circus” will be spent providing US dealers with more than 150 in-store assistants. These won’t be like Apple “geniuses” and will provide no support. It’s an attempt - perhaps a foolish one - to improve the sales process.

Ultimately, then, the Shoe Circus project isn’t about selling kit, it’s about improving infrastructure - drivers, software compatibility, installation and sales quality. Given Windows’ advantages in the range of PCs from handhelds to supercomputers, the massive volumes of hardware and software available, the peripheral support, ease of use and price/performance, more than 90% of people are probably going to buy Windows anyway. Microsoft just needs to make moving to Vista a feel-good experience instead of, for some, a slightly scary one.

I was looking for a handy place to put a bit of info from Nielsen Online: the UK’s Top 10 web browsers, according to their “unique audience” (online use). Market shares are also given as percentages:

1. Internet Explorer………. 25,169,576…..75%
2. Mozilla (Firefox)………… 4,014,924…..12%
3. AOL Explorer…………….2,554,037…….8%
4. Yahoo! Browser………….1,359,823……4%
5. Opera Browser……………..111,443…….0.33%
6. MSN Explorer Browser…….75,428…….0.22%
7. Flock…………………………..14,356…….0.04%
8. Avant Browser……………….10,765…….0.03%
9. Safari……………………………9,826…….0.03%
10. SlimBrowser…………………8,840……..0.03%

(I’ve asked why Safari gets such a low score. It looks very wrong.)

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Google’s Chrome will soon be in the top 5, but it will be interesting to see how it turns out.