Microsoft sits on the edge of a product launch that is plainly among the most important in the company’s history. It comes at a time when the company’s traditional hardware partners are facing ferocious market pressure from the commoditization of their products, and of course, the juggernaut known as the iPad.

As can be expected, the company’s many cheerleaders and haters are out in full force. Pundits can and will pontificate on Windows 8’s chances. However, what might be more useful is looking at Microsoft’s other make or break moments. The upcoming launch is far from the first time that Redmond has fought with its back against a wall. A backward glance at these moments, and careful evaluation of them, may provide a better, ahem, window into the company’s chances this Winter.

In its continued effort to supply us with head-scratching headlines, Yahoo has unveiled a pseudo-Web browser. Dubbed "Axis," the HTML5-based software will be a standalone browser for mobile platforms including iOS and Android, while the desktop version installs as a plug-in...

Browsing the web on a typical day I tend to amass a ridiculous amount of open tabs, whether related to something I'm working on or interesting stuff that I want to check later but don't necessarily want to bookmark. How many tabs do you keep open on average and how many are open right now?

Internet Explorer isn't the fastest or most featured-packed browser around, but it might be the most power efficient. Hoping to determine which software would give his aging desktop replacement the longest battery life, Ciprian Adrian Rusen put IE9, IE10, Chrome, Firefox and Opera to the test...

At a Google-run competition in ­Vancouver last month, the search giant’s famously secure Chrome Web browser fell to hackers twice. Both of the new methods used a rigged ­website to bypass Chrome’s security protections and completely hijack a target computer. But while those two hacks...