Firefox 5 To Integrate Tab Web Apps 129
An anonymous reader writes "We are hearing that Firefox 4 is now scheduled for a late March release and that the company has some issues fixing the right bugs as more non-blocking than blocking bugs are patched. However, on a positive note, the UI design team has posted some intriguing mockups of partial Firefox 5 interfaces. The big change will be the creation of a site-specific browser, which turns websites into tab apps within Firefox 5. This is the first time we are seeing Mozilla's ideas on how to deal with the app-ification of the Internet and a strategy to keep the web browser relevant."
Browser vs OS (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, stop adding features to the browser what makes it more and more like a OS. (Firefox without a microkernel, or Firefox as monolithic OS without monolithic architecture).
App-ification (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no "app-ification of the web", there's just a rush to cash in on the "app" and "appstore" buzzwords that Apple pushed from solely developer lingo into the mainstream.
Those are bookmarks. But with their secondary menus and new, more confusing ways to do the same old stuff they try to blur boundaries between web and apps. Boundaries, which people need, as a sandboxed browser site and an app is not the same thing by a long shot.
In the end, this will only push users away and to whoever offers the simplest experience.
How about some security? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the other browsers are adopting a decent security model with process separation and enforced sand boxing of plugins and tabs. How about catching up with some decent engineering, instead of another GUI mock up?
Re:How about some security? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they ever going to make the entire browser not lock up when one tab is doing something that requires starting Flash or gets stuck downloading data from a server?
I'd much rather they fix that than add 'apps' to the browser.
Re:Positivism (Score:4, Insightful)
yep, that's true. As long as I can still do the boring old stuff I used to do in a fast way.. then I'm more than happy for this kind of experimentation to appear. Otherwise, FF is doomed to be just another IE clone :)
I saw the "app tabs" in the current beta, which basically puts a miniature tab (of the favicon) on the browser tab bar. Currently this is little more than a different way of having favourite bookmarks always loaded, but I now see the direction they're taking them. I like it - for the couple of sites I always seem to have open, and I guess if you don't, then you just don't set the 'make app tag' flag and you keep the old website as it was.
In other words - everyone's happy and FF pushes the boundaries of computer GUIs. The next generation of GUIs has got to be cross-platform, HTML is almost certainly what's its going to be like.
Appification is a run around ad block (Score:2, Insightful)
is it just me? (Score:2, Insightful)
or has firefox completely lost track of what made it interesting? small and fast? there is so much unused crap in firefox its incredible. they are in the regrettable situation of having way more income than they can spend. so they blow it on features that nobody wants or needs.