The Eclipse Foundation for open source development tools is eyeing July as the release date for the 1.0 version of its Orion browser-based IDE for building Web applications, which will be discussed at this week's EclipseCon 2012 conference in Reston, Va.

What a difference a year makes. A year ago, I was intrigued by Motorola Mobility's Lapdock, a laptop without a brain into which you plugged a Motorola Android smartphone to run it on a full-size screen, with full-size keyboard, trackpad, SD card slot, and USB and HDMI ports for access to USB peripherals and mirrored screen display to a TV or monitor. A year ago, I saw the Lapdock as a wonderful innovation that presaged an era in which a smartphone is your main -- and perhaps only -- computing device, plugging into resources when needed to scale up to a desktop PC.

Once upon a time there was a browser named Firefox -- an open source project that many people happily picked up and spun off into their own versions with names like Iceweasel and Pale Moon. Now the same thing has happened with Google Chrome. Its open source incarnation, Chromium, has become the basis for a slew of spinoffs, remixes, and alternative versions.

When was the last time you even noticed which browser you used, and frankly why would you care? They all will pretty much get you from 01000001 to 01000010 on the Web as quick as you click.

Google is offering a new incremental garbage collector for its Chrome browser to "dramatically" improve the interactive performance of Web applications, the company said on Monday.

Thanks to online video, Web apps, social networking, and so on, the humble Web browser is being pushed to do more and to do it faster. With a few simple tweaks and tools, you can improve your browsing experience and save yourself some time in the process.

IE 9's main browser window takes minimalism to a new level.

Of all the software on your PC, the Web browser may be the most important tool you use each day--but you may not give it much thought.

According to recent market share data, Apple's iPhone is now being used to access the Internet a third as much as desktop Linux.