In case you havent heard, Apples new iPhone 4S was released today. The phone is powered by Apples new dual-core A5 chip, which Apple claims can deliver up to two times more power and seven times faster graphics performance than the iPhone 4.

Well have a full review of the phone up shortly, but first we wanted to put the 4S through a series of benchmark tests to see how it stacks up against the competition. Take a look at the charts below, which illustrate how the iPhone 4S compares to previous generations of the iPhone, as well as some head-to-head Web performance benchmarks, against current PCMag Editors Choice smartphones on ATamp;T, Sprint, and Verizon.

In short, these benchmarks tell us that the iPhone 4S is the fastest iPhone so far, and the fastest smartphone in general for Web browsing.

Looking at the system performance benchmarks, the iPhone 4 tops out at just over half the performance level of the new 4S. GeekBench, an overall system performance benchmark, shows the iPhone 4 running iOS 5 scoring 383, as compared to 617 on the 4S. GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt High, a graphics benchmark, shows an even greater difference, with the iPhone 4S besting the iPhone 4 by more than 500 percent.

While the iPhone 3GS shows a higher number for graphics performance than the iPhone 4, thats because the screen resolution on the 3GS is significantly lower than the screen resolution on the iPhone 4. Taking that into account, graphics performance on the iPhone 4 is still twice as fast as the 3GS, though both are easily eclipsed by the 4S.

The 4S wins out on Web performance as well, but theres something interesting happening here if you look closely. An iPhone 3GS running iOS 5 scored significantly better on the Web benchmarks than an iPhone 4 running iOS 4. Even though the iPhone 4 is the more powerful of the two devices, this difference shows us that iOS 5 delivers a significant boost to Javascript performance. So if youre using an iPhone 4 or an iPhone 3GS, make sure to update your device to iOS 5.

Compared to the latest and greatest Android devices, the iPhone 4S is still tops for Web browsing. It scored significantly better than the Motorola Droid Bionic on Verizon, the Motorola Photon on Sprint, and the Samsung Galaxy S II on ATamp;T. But again, these benchmarks arent completely what they seem.

Honeycomb-based tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9, for instance, score Web performance benchmarks very much similar to the iPhone 4S. And hardware-wise, the Galaxy Tab is using a processor similar to the Samsung Galaxy S II on ATamp;T. This shows us that Honeycomb is better-optimized for Web performance than Gingerbread, the latest version of Android available for smartphones.

All of this is likely to change next week, when Google unveils Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android for smartphones and tablets. This update will likely include the Web performance improvements in Honeycomb and bring them to smartphones, which will result in better scores.

But whether or not that happens remains to be seen, and Ice Cream Sandwich will likely not be available as an update for most Android phones for a while. So for now, if youre looking for the best iPhone, or the fastest Web browsing experience on a smartphone, the iPhone 4S is the phone to get.

For more, see PCMags full review of the iPhone 4S and the slideshow below.

Verizon starts tracking (and sharing) phone activity

Changes to its privacy policy will allow Verizon Wireless to record – and sell – information on users Web browsing, location, and app usage. What does Verizon plan to do with that data?

By

Jeff Ward-Bailey /
October 14, 2011

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US operator Verizon Wireless is to log, and sell, customers browsing and location history, unless the customers specifically opt out of being tracked at every turn.

Only anonymised data will be sold, according to an email sent out to customers and an update of the telcos privacy policy, but internally Verizon will use profiles of its customers based on the URLs visited, the handset and features they use, as well as their physical location. Personal data will be used for accurate delivery of advertisements, while anonymous statistics will be sold to analysts and other interested parties.

A Mississippi woman has accused Facebook of violating federal wiretap statutes by tracking her internet browsing history even when she wasnt logged onto the social networking site.

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in federal court in the northern district of Mississippi, Brooke Rutledge of Lafayette County, Mississippi, also asserted claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespassing, and invasion of privacy.

Open-source software development initiative Mozilla will build future versions of its Firefox browser optimized for Googles (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android mobile operating system with a native user interface replacing the current UI, which is based on the XML-based coding language XUL.

Writing on the mozilla.dev.platforms.mobile Google Groups forum, Mozilla Director of Firefox Engineering Johnathan Nightingale explains the decision will accelerate and improve the Android user experience. A native UI can be presented much faster than a XUL based UI, since it can happen in parallel with Gecko startup, Nightingale explains. This means startup times in fractions of a second, versus several seconds for a XUL UI on some phones. The native UI also promises a substantial reduction in memory usage and improved panning and zooming performance.

Nightingale adds the native Android UI is still in the planning stages and the timetable for its official release is unknown. We are certain that it will not impact the versions currently on the Beta and Aurora channels, he states. Firefox 8 and 9 will ship with the XUL UI, including the new UI for tablets, while we build the native UI.

In mid-September, Mozilla issued an early preview build of its forthcoming Firefox for Tablets web browser, currently in development for devices running Android 3.0. Firefox for Tablets touts both tabbed browsing as well as Mozillas Awesome Bar, which offers access to recent browsing history, bookmarks and tabs. In addition, the browser features a persistent tab bar on the left of the screen in landscape mode–when the user shifts the device orientation to portrait mode, the tab bar disappears up into a menu item at the top of the screen, opening up more room for web content.

For more:
- read this mozilla.dev.platforms.mobile thread

Related articles:
Mozilla building open-source mobile OS to rival Googles Android
Mozilla finalizes Firefox 4 for Android
Mozilla touts enhanced speeds with Firefox 4 Beta for Android update
Mozilla launches Firefox 4 beta for Android, Maemo
Mozilla unveils Fennec Alpha web browser for Android

Amazons new Silk browser, which uses the power of the cloud for an optimized split browsing experience, has come under fire recently from privacy advocates, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation said yesterday that after talking with Amazon, they are generally satisfied with the privacy design of Silk.

Our conversation with Amazon allayed many of our major concerns, the EFF said in a Tuesday blog post.

The report from the San Francisco-based organization comes several days after Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, asked Amazon for more details about how data is collected via its Silk browser. He pointed to media reports that suggested Amazon might be able to track the activities of Kindle Fire tablet users via Silk.

Consumers may buy the new Kindle Fire to read 1984, but they may not realize that the tablets Big Browser may watching their every keystroke when they are online, Markey said in a statement.

An Amazon spokesperson said last week that users can completely turn off the split-browsing mode and use Amazon Silk like a conventional Web browsera point it also made to the EFF.

Cloud acceleration mode is the default setting, but Amazon has assured us it will be easy to turn off on the first page of the browser settings menu, the EFF said. When turned off, Silk operates as a normal Web browser, sending the requests directly to the web sites you are visiting.

Silk is a split browser that partially lives on the Fire tablet and partially lives in the cloud, producing a faster browsing experience. Basically, most of the heavy lifting is handled by Amazons EC2 and C3 services. As PCMags ExtremeTech described it, Amazon sucks down the target Web site, lays it out, renders itand then ships it off as a much smaller, condensed package to the Kindle Fire tablet.

But as the EFF found out, Amazon does not intercept encrypted traffic. Given the prevalence of Web pages served over HTTPS, this gives Amazon good incentive to make Silk fast and usable even when cloud acceleration is off. Turning it off completely should be a viable option for users, the group said.

Indeed, Google yesterday said it will encrypt the search queries and results of signed-in users, and always provide the option for users to go directly to the encrypted https://www.google.com. Last year, Google announced that it would encrypt Gmail at all times, not just during sign-on, and make the process an opt-out feature rather than opt-in. Facebook introduced a similar option in January and Twitter did the same in March.

What is Amazon tracking? The company said the only data that is regularly logged is: URL of the resource being requested; timestamp; and token identifying a session. Amazon keeps that data for 30 days, and said there is no way to identify the information with a particular user or Amazon account.

Individual identifiers like IP and MAC addresses are not associated with browsing history, and are only collected for technical troubleshooting, Jon Jenkins, director of Silk development, told the EFF.

Still, the EFF had a few remaining concerns. Those URLs stored by Amazon could, in fact, include identifying information. There is always a chance that search querieseven if they are unlinkable to otherwise uniquely identifying datacan effectively identify individuals, the group said.

The EFF was also concerned that Amazon is sitting atop a ripe source of users collective browsing habits, which could be an attractive target for law enforcement. If youre worried, however, EFF suggested turning off cloud acceleration.

Overall, the situation highlights the need for better online privacy protections, the EFF concluded. The group reiterated its call for an update to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which is currently working its way through Congress via a bill from Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the EFFs assessment. A Markey spokeswoman said the congressman has not yet received an official response from Amazon, but his office has been in contact with the company. We appreciate the companys responsiveness and are looking forward to receiving the written answers to our questions, she said.

Amazon unveiled the Kindle Fire tablet in late September; it will start shipping on November 15. The Android-based device features a 7-inch screen and costs $199. For more, see PCMags first look at the Fire and the slideshow below.

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

Try clearing your cache:
In Firefox, go to Tools / Clear Recent History. Check the Cache box and uncheck all other boxes. Click Clear now.
In Internet Explorer, go to Tools / Internet Options. Check the Delete browsing history on exit box. Select OK.

Web-spying technologies like FaceNiff, Firesheep and Newstweek are out there showing the world just how easy it is to see what youre doing online, but theyre amateurish in comparison to what real hackers could do to you if they catch you browsing unsecured websites.

Luckily, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Tor Project have just launched an official 1.0 version of their HTTPS Everywhere extension for the Firefox web browser, which forces encrypted connections to more than 1,000 websites that support the option.

HTTPS encryption makes sure that your online activities are protected from eavesdropping, and helps keep your accounts from getting hijacked by encrypting both requests from your browser to websites and the resulting displayed webpages. But a lot of times, you dont even know you have the option to browse securely, or its confusing and difficult to use. HTTPS Everywhere helps you out by automatically encrypting the connections, making it easier to keep your user names, passwords and browsing histories secure and private.

HTTPS Everywhere 1.0 encrypts connections to Google Image Search, Flickr, Netflix, Apple, and news sites like NPR and the Economist, as well as dozens of banks. HTTPS Everywhere also includes support for Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Wikipedia, the New York Times, and hundreds of other popular websites.

Right now, HTTPS Everywhere is only available for Firefox, but they are interested in developing it for other browsers like Chrome, once the option arises. Until then, Chrome users can use KB SSL Enforcer to protect their web browsing, though its not as reliable as HTTPS Everywhere would be.

You can download HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox here.

Photo by BlogSaays

Via Keep Your Web Browsing Secure with HTTPS Everywhere for Firefox on WonderHowTo.

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