Tabbed browsing is one of the more useful features to make it to Web browsers. However, as with using single windows you might inadvertently close one and need to restore it. While you can create a new tab and then peruse the browser history to find a link to the content it contained, an easier option is to use the built-in tab restoration options in your browser.

To do this, there are two hotkeys to keep in mind. The first is the classic Command-Z for undoing an action, which in Safari will undo a recently closed tab in a specific window; however, this only pertains to the single most recent tab closed. While this allows you to restore separately closed tabs in different windows, for a given window you can only restore the last closed tab.

The Opera browser's tab options are organized in the Window menu, and provide quicker ways to reopen them than Apple's Safari.

(Credit: Screenshot by Topher Kessler/CNET)

On the other hand, alternative browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera use a common hotkey, Shift-Command-T, for undoing closed tabs, but unlike Command-Z in Safari, subsequent presses of this hotkey will continue restoring other closed tabs.

In addition to restoring tabs sequentially, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox all have options to browse through collections of recently... [Read more]

Microsoft's FishIE Tank benchmark test.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

The Web browser is the most-used kind of software in the world, having become the de facto way that people access the Internet. Today, virtually all computing tasks can be completed in the browser.

Testing browsers can veer from incredibly complex to shockingly simple, depending on what you're looking for and why. At CNET, we prefer a holistic approach to browser benchmarking, looking at a combination of tests that benchmark general browser behavior, as well as several "real-world" tests that look at browser performance in common scenarios.

Note about mobile testing: We are still finalizing our standards for mobile browser testing, and will update this post as soon as they're ready. For now, the following procedures apply only to desktop browsers.

Is your favorite browser on our test list?

Unless your favorite browser is some obscure remixed version of Netscape, chances are good we test it. However, browser testing is made even more complex than it would otherwise be by the fact that two of the five major browsers, Firefox and Chrome, update on a six-week release cycle. Sometimes those updates bring dramatic changes, but often they don't. Because of the sadly human limitations of your humble editors, CNET will not be testing all browsers simultaneously.

Instead, we will condu... [Read more]

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Despite Apple's best efforts to keep users from gaining deep access to its iOS software, it's proven to be a cat-and-mouse game that just won't quit.

The latest -- from the mouse front -- is a tool called evasi0n, which was released this morning. The software jailbreaks the most recent version of Apple's iOS 6 software, something that's already been accomplished. However this new, much-awaited tool continues to work even if you restart your iPhone or iPad, and also works with the iPhone 5.

The software itself runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux and can be used on "all iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and iPad mini models running iOS 6.0 through 6.1," its creators say. Once installed, users can install applications on their phone outside of Apple's App Store using tools like Cydia. Some of those same software tweaks can also be used to make major changes, like reskinning the operating system, or adding extra functionality.

The effort comes just a few days after Redsn0w, a similar jailbreak solution that worked on iOS 6.1, but was not compatible with Apple's newer chip architecture found on the iPhone 5, as well as the latest iPads and iPod ... [Read more]