Crenk » Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Early Beta

Augusto Alvarez — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:03:58 +0000

Even though all the rumors said that we were going to have an official beta of Firefox 3.6, as we’ve discussed earlier, Mozilla will be releasing a 3.6 build, but as an early beta.

This “test build”, that should contain several bugs, will be a small preview of the real 3.6 beta that will be available to the public on October 21^st (yes, one day before Windows 7 official release to the public). To take a nice preview of what’s coming in 3.6, you can access Mozilla FTP and download the build.

As we’ve said earlier, Firefox 3.6 (codename Namoroka) won’t bring us big changes, the features that you’ll find here:

Lightweight themes with Vista-like interface.
Improvements in TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
Bookmark synchronization
Optimized session restore feature.
Enhanced page rendering.
New additions for CSS.
Previews of tabs

We’ll have to wait for 3.7 to expect major differences.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 Expected for Next Week

Augusto Alvarez — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:30:16 +0000

Mozilla team it’s working really hard on another release, the 3.6. And they are expecting to make public the first Beta on October 13, according to The Register. But the date it is just an estimative, so don’t be surprised if they postpone it for a few days more.

We’ve been talking about the incoming versions of Firefox, especially Firefox 3.7. And using some official statements from Mozilla, the main idea of that version is to remove the menu bar and introduce a very similar look-n-feel of the Office 2007/2010 ribbon (but later, other statements tried to dismiss this article by saying that they are not considering a ribbon, just hiding the menu bar).

Glassy look for Mozilla Firefox 3.7 (no preview of that on 3.6, too bad)

On the other hand Firefox 3.6 seems that is only going to take minor tweaks, here are some of them:

Lightweight themes
Improvements in TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
Optimized session restore feature.
Enhanced page rendering.
New additions for CSS.

Firefox 3.7 with Office-like Ribbon?

Augusto Alvarez — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:52:03 +0000

Mozilla team is working really hard on brainstorming the idea and design of Firefox 3.7 (currently in 3.5, 3.6 it’s just around the corner). What’s the main idea? Hide the Menu bar and use a very similar look-n-feel of Office 2007/Office 2010 Ribbon.

They are using their Wiki to give us some of the advances made so far, the ideas floating in the air and of course receive feedback from most of the Mozilla lovers (and non-lovers as well, why not?). And here are the ideas that they have so far:

Embracing Glass: Toolbar and Tabs using Glass. Raised translucent buttons that are slightly glossy to meld with the toolbar. Raised 3D look to achieve tactile “feel”.
Neutral Tones: Overall neutral color scheme that can transition among platforms. Can remain attractive and slick without fighting for focus from web content.
Hiding the Menu Bar: Hiding the menubar by default (on Vista/7) allows us to use Glass, free up vertical space and retain platform consistency.
Page and Tools Buttons: Condense and trim existing menu structure into two buttons “Page” and “Tools”. Similar to Safari and Chrome.
Combine Stop/Reload: Combine Stop and Reload into one button. Reduces visual “clutter” and combines two buttons that have mutually exclusive functionality.
Home Button/Tab: Remove “Home” Button from default toolbar. Move functionality to a “Home Tab” containing your homepage.

More info: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Sprints/Windows_Theme_Revamp/Direction_and_Feedback

Personally I think those are very nice and significant changes. Office, Vista and 7 seems that they are setting the standards of any UI (no surprise there, Windows will still be the world’s main OS for a few years more). But the good news is that Mozilla it is also trying to establish browsers standards, like the “Page and Tools Buttons” that is a common feature in Safari and Chrome.

And also the “Combine Stop/Reload” feature it is something that I’ve been waiting to see in Firefox for a long time. I know, it’s a very tiny thing, but don’t you love having the same functionality in different browsers?

And what are the other changes that you would include?

Firefox 3.5 Available June 30th

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:36:44 +0000

Finally after a lot of expectation and three release candidates (all were published within less that two weeks) Mozilla announced that the the final version for Firefox 3.5 will be available to the public on the morning of Tuesday, June 30.

Seems that development team is running against the clock, considering that on June 24 they’ve released the RC3 version for Firefox 3.5 and originally the announcement about the final version stated that “end of June” will be the date. Well they sure are keeping the promise, taking the last day of the month to release it.

Since RC1, the two other versions that were public basically focused in bug fixing, so if you installed were using any of these versions you shouldn’t expect greatest differences with the final one.

Download Firefox 3.5 RC3.

Looking for more Firefox Add-Ons?

Augusto Alvarez — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:01:21 +0000

Besides the Firefox Add-On official site, where anyone can download/upload the add-ons and share it with the community; you can also find Mozdev.org where there are over 250 projects related to Mozilla that are actively in motion by several developers in the mission to “establish Mozilla as a viable application development platform”.

Within the site, you will find several very interesting add-ons and plug-ins to use with Mozilla Firefox. Including the Top-50 most viewed and downloaded projects.

On this list you’ll find very, very useful tools that you can install to improve your browsing experience: Integration with Thunderbird, FTP client, autocopy highlighted text, proxy configurations, RSS reader, etc etc.

Again, another open source project that shows a lot of maturity, adding value and constant improvement. Cheers to that

Firefox 3.5 RC2

Augusto Alvarez — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:49:10 +0000

We’ve announced earlier the release for Firefox 3.5 RC1, but the Mozilla development team already prepared a new build: Firefox 3.5 RC2. This new version has no bigger differences with the RC1, mostly fixing some bugs before making it the final version.

Company’s strategy it is quite interesting actually, releasing two RC versions in one week. They sure are very confident about the beta and RC stability, I can’t imagine Microsoft releasing release candidates versions of the same product in such short period of time.

That definitive version for Mozilla Firefox 3.5 it is expected in a few days more, ending June. You can check the release notes and improvements about the RC2 version here.

And you can download it from here.

Worio: Social Search with A Hint of Intelligence

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:44:27 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

With updates to Flock, Firefox, Opera, and even IE, browsers are becoming key factors in how we choose to integrate our online experiences with our daily lives. Each of the above mentioned browsers have key factors that stand out and make them useful to someone, all depending on our tastes. What if you could find a search engine that learned, adapted, and showed you extra content that you would not have found otherwise?

Worio is the social search that has somehow found a way to intelligently learn from your search habits and adapt itself to your likes and dislikes. Worio creator Ali Davar focuses on the search as a form of discovery. He comments that Worio will show you things that you perhaps never even thought of, but are related to your initial search.

The idea of discovery is key to Worio, and information is collected and saved on your habits. The mechanism can be turned off and it will simply function like any other search engine, but the uniqueness also comes in being able to share your favorite links and sites right from the search, without having to rely on social bookmarketing efforts or emailing people. Anyone within your network can see your habits and you can see theirs. Taking this concept a step further, Worio now supports Facebook connect. Now you can directly share your passion, your searches with friends in Facebook and open people up to a whole new world of discovery.

The search looks very promising and has a bright future, we’d love to hear what you think.

Zemanta Now Available on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and ScribeFire

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:19:52 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

In less than a year, Zemanta has made a name for itself in the blogosphere. By becoming the premier add-on to the FireFox browser, bloggers now had access to an amazing set of tools to provide further depth to their posts. With hundreds of thousands of downloads, it seemed like a surefire winner, and there was little doubt that Zemanta has room to expand, but where and when?

Zemanta late last year supported another FireFox add-on called ScribeFire, a simple blogging tool that opened up in your browser without having to log into any other site or leave the page you are on. This allowed for amazingly quick posting to the blog of your choice, but also provided the same depth that you had available to you from within most popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad.

Recently it was announced that Zemanta has made another move towards mass market exposure, it has integrated with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, offering users of those mail clients the ability to attached related articles, pictures, and keywords to their emails that the recipients might need to fully understand the topic. I personally can’t imagine a better mass exposure opportunity than attaching yourself to two of the largest mail clients on the internet today.

Zemanta is a key tool that I recommend all bloggers install, but now with mail enhancements, I’m happy to see them growing. I’ve always been a big supporter of their efforts as it’s nice to see innovative ways to breathe life into a long standing medium like blogging.

It’s apparent that Zemanta will continue to offer what it always has; by offering photo suggestions, article suggestions, and keyword suggestions, as you type, updating every 300 words, there is bound to be another leap into further integration.

Perhaps a jump into an office platform for document and presentation creation, like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. Only time will tell!

Is YouTube Infected?

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:24:41 +0000

: Image by via CrunchBase

It was reported over on Techcrunch and Crunchgear that there wa a virus that was running rampant across the YouTube network with the certain embedded videos. It was reported that Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox were targeted, later reports said it was just IE.

The virus was reportedly named Actns/Swif.T and contains a phishing scam that directs uses to a website with an embedded .SWF and then installs a program called “Antivirus 2009.” Users were warned of this potentially damaging malware by avoiding weird pop-ups, requests for personal information, or re-direction to unknown sites.

The story was later recanted as it appeared to be a YouTube specific situation. On the back end the virus protection service being used was returning false positives identifying code within certain embedded videos as malware. The entire incident is harmless, and there is no security breach on the YouTube network. Spokesperons from YouTube are handling the situation and ensure us that YouTube is currently safe and free of any malware problems.

Actns/Swif.T virus affecting embedded YouTube vids?

5 Firefox To-Do Plug-ins

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:38:40 +0000

ReminderFox

This neat little plug-in goes for simplicity. While not necessarily an official “to-do” application, I find it almost necessary for those that seem to forget the important dates. People that forget birthdays, anniversaries, parties, and other date based events, ReminderFox will send out an alarm or an alert to remind you of what’s coming up. This plug-in has no aspirations to be a full calendar application, but rather makes its home at the bottom right of your browser ready to announce the days you NEED to remember!

ToDo Cue (experimental)
ToDo Cue unfortunately was very buggy in my use of this plug-in. It relies on the user creating simple, let me stress that again…simple, to-do lists. Once installed a side bar will appear in both your Gmail and Gcal accounts with the lists of things to-do in priority order. I was only able to get sustainable functionality with the older version of Gmail, which did me little good as I have updated it. There are a lot of other tools that do the same with better results. This plug-in needs more work, but remember, it is still labeled experimental, just not sure if it will ever be ready.

Todo Reminder
I found this to be the plug-in with the most potential. Currently the plug-in is very effective with event reminders. Things like parties, birthdays, get togethers, anniversaries, etc. What I loved about it is that alerts not only come via email, but you can set yourself up with SMS alerts. If more than one person is involved, take it further by setting up group alerts. This will make sure everyone is on task and aware of what is coming up. I especially found the one mouse click addition through emails and pages very effective when needing to list something quickly. The site says further development is needed, but I think this little plug-in has a great future in the productivity field.

Delegate to Remember the Milk
A lot of you have heard of Remember the Milk. If you’ve not, no worries, Remember the Milk (RtM) is simply another way to create your to-do lists with functionality with both web apps and mobile apps. There are a great number of power users for RtM, and as such, this plug-in is very popular. For starters, if you follow the GTD (Getting Things Done) philosophy, then this plug-in will be very effective. A “remember” button is added to all of your emails for quick task managing directly from you email. No bothering with cut and paste, simply click and the message is tasked into your RtM account. Yes, it’s that simple!

GTD Inbox
GTD Inbox is a plug-in that tries to do a whole lot. Unfortunately in this endeavor it tends to fail on a lot of fronts. This plug-in completely changes the face of your Gmail inbox by adding the functionality of GTD (mentioned above). For hardcore GTD’ers, the layout will be very familiar with intuitive clicks to productively manage all of your information. Similar to the RtM plug-in, you have a button that will take your emails and place them into your task list. You have the ability to create labels, ticklers, and build the productivity method that best suits your needs. This productivity juggaurnaut is definitely not an entry level “to-do” plug-in and may confuse first time users of GTD. A little buggy with newer versions of Gmail, but useful if you can understand it.

There are more I am sure, and even more being created for Firefox 3, but share your favorite To-Do Plug-ins here and let’s all get more done.