Google’s Chrome web browser is now within 4 percentage points of Firefox’s No. 2 position in global usage, according to Net Applications' November browser usage measurements.

With improved privacy and increased speed as its two main highlights, Microsoft claims the latest version of its Internet Explorer web browser moves ahead of competitors like Google and Firefox.

By Steve Lohr Microsoft's new Web browser, Internet Explorer 8, is now available in a beta version meant for ordinary users, and it is a pretty good piece of software. Besides the private browsing mode, called InPrivate, which Microsoft has already announced, there are other nifty features.

By GILES TURNBULL Remember Netscape? The very mention of that name brings some internet old-timers out in flustered waves of "them were the days". But now Netscape is doomed. Netscape, you see, started it all. It was an early version of the same code that kick-started the World Wide Web.

The 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show gets under way a week from today in Las Vegas . Last week, the Consumer Electronics Association primed the high-tech pump a bit by revealing the celebrities who would be on hand during the four-day gala.