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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."
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Firefox 5 To Integrate Tab Web Apps

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  • Browser vs OS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fri13 ( 963421 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @11:52AM (#35222128)

    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).

    • by tokul ( 682258 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:31PM (#35222622)

      Please, stop adding features to the browser what makes it more and more like a OS

      We already have emacs for that.

    • There are plenty of Windows alternatives for those tired of this mad decline of quality in light of FF's success. The problem is that newbies have hardly a clue about what they are in Linux. In 15 years of dealing with newbies anyone will see that "what browser?" and "what Operating System do you use?" come back with blank stares even when the splash screens are displaying.

      To even find an alternative like Midori, "A Web browser" (brand-free FF), Seamonkey, Konqueror* in the package managers, but they need

    • by syousef ( 465911 )

      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).

      Mozilla worked hard to produce a brilliant little browser - it had it's flaws, but it made it possible to do lots of cool things - but ever since 3.0 they've been working hard to DESTROY what they've done. Forcing changes on the users, adding bloat instead of fixing bugs. They've just lost their way. Within 5 years I'd say we'll be talking about Firefox the way we now talk about Netscape. IDIOTS.

      • No, Mozilla worked hard to create a sprawling, all-in-one 'application suite' encompassing web, mail, news, etc. They got 8/10ths of the way there - then noticed that interest was dropping off, captured by a 'brilliant little browser' called Phoenix, a slimmed-down version of the Mozilla codebase initially developed by 3 guys

        Mozilla eventually decided to ditch - but not really, because that would be admitting that Mozilla made a mistake, and ever since admitting that Mozilla made a huge mistake by trying to

        • Everything you say may be true. Regardless, I have found only two things not to like about Firefox 4 besides its current lack of stability. One is that the RSS icon seems to have moved into the bookmarks interface. If you're going to take it away from the immediate user interface, then just move it to a damned extension. The other is that I can't seem to get a new tab button where it was in 3.6. I have always been able to get a new tab by middle-clicking the home button, but I got used to being able to clic

      • by mcvos ( 645701 )

        Mozilla worked hard to produce a brilliant little browser - it had it's flaws, but it made it possible to do lots of cool things - but ever since 3.0 they've been working hard to DESTROY what they've done.

        On the other hand, ever since 3.0 it's not a slow-as-molasses memory hog anymore. Firefox is pretty quick nowadays and doesn't need a restart every few days. I still remember the 1.5 days.

    • by Burz ( 138833 )

      I agree wholeheartedly. Creating an environment where users can't casually tell the difference between a local program and a website is just evil. It robs users of what little cluefulness they can already grab onto in modern systems, and the resulting confusion can be used to shift control of users' applications away from them without them realizing it.

    • by mrmeval ( 662166 )

      I tried Firefox 4 and it's excrement. It's feature reduced and no easy way to bring back what I wanted. It had the look and feel of I.E 8. I ripped it off my system as bad juju.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You have to wonder about the utility of having a few bookmarks on the tab menu. Any half-way well designed site should have them instantly accessible from any page so they are only two clicks away. The menu is two clicks as well so the saving is minuscule.

      Sounds a lot like a glorified toolbar, the scourge of any browser. There is a reason there is no official Twitter toolbar - they are shit. The menus don't work well with tabs either because if you have more than one open you really need to see what is in t

  • App-ification (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stan Vassilev ( 939229 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @11:54AM (#35222160)

    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.

    • app wasn't solely developer lingo -- dating back to NeXTStep, .app was the suffix for application bundles, like .exe/.com for MS-DOS.
      • by Intron ( 870560 )

        app wasn't solely developer lingo -- dating back to NeXTStep, .app was the suffix for application bundles, like .exe/.com for MS-DOS.

        I didn't think anyone other than developers ever used NeXTSTEP.

        • Back in college, not that long ago, my roomates managed to score some nextstep gear. A couple of cubes, monitors and whatever that other box was, it was really nice stuff, assuming you could handle the monitor being black and white.

        • NeXTStep is now Mac OS X, and .app is still the extension for application bundles.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RL78 ( 1968236 )
      If a software application is a tool used to help users do one or more related tasks, then even a browser tab could be considered in app running inside the browser. More so if you were to be running a web app like google docs or online banking as opposed to reading an article somewhere. These added app tabs in Firefox and app shortcuts in Chrome just go one step further in treating the tab as its own app environment, giving the look and feel of a stand a lone program. Isn't the web itself an app? The web t
      • by jp10558 ( 748604 )

        Isn't this basically a Widget, that flopped hard for Opera, Yahoo et al?

        I don't see why I would want a web page outside of my browser really.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The point was that there needs to be differentiation between the browser and the website. Users already have a great deal of difficulty understanding this concept, which is why there are so many fake antivirus-scan sites and browser plug-ins that add a "dislike" button to Facebook. How many people type "facebook.com" into Google, not realising that Google is not the web browser?

        The browser needs to be visible and kept separate from the web site it is displaying for security reasons. The address bar is a goo

    • ...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.

      So, with more OS's sandboxing local apps and more apps sandboxing themselves, combined with the nearly universal network features of desktop apps, I'm just not seeing the important differences of which you speak. From an end user perspective, most Web apps tend to be more reliant upon network services than desktop apps, but then some desktop apps don't work at all without a specific network service either. The move to Web apps makes a lot of sense to me. I don't like it as an architectural choice, but give

    • 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.

      Here is small sampling from Vizio's Internet Apps [vizio.com] for the HDTV:

      Amazon Video
      Facebook
      Flickr
      Hulu Plus
      Netflix
      Pandora
      Rhapsody
      Twitter
      WikiTV (The Wikipedia)

      and (Coming Soon) OnLive gaming.

      Add Skype to the list and support for the Kinect controller and you are in Hog Heaven.

      The suite of apps for the Internet-enabled HDTV, Blu-Ray player, home theater receiver, video game console and mobile device is growing ever larger and more ambitious.

      The OS is invisible - and the browser - and the ideologies and the

    • If Apple, Google, Mozilla, or anybody else thinks I'm going to upload my Porn fiction and store then as "web docs" online, they can just think again. The last thing I need is to have that crap out in the open where any FBI agent or Employer Detective can find them.

      I want my Docs on my computer in the privacy of my home. I want to stick with either Microsoft or Libre Office.

      BTW the FF5 mockup looks like shit. It looks like they are trying to copy Opera (again), and failing miserably. Or possibly creating

      • by lennier ( 44736 )

        If Apple, Google, Mozilla, or anybody else thinks I'm going to upload my Porn fiction and store then as "web docs" online, they can just think again. The last thing I need is to have that crap out in the open where any FBI agent or Employer Detective can find them.

        "Take me, Employer Detective Magnum Chandler!" whispered FBI Special Agent Scully Pandora huskily from her C3P0 bedsheets to the unshaven silhouette lounging moodily in the doorway of the cheap New Mexico motel room, backlit by flashes of desert lightning and the headlights of cars - OR WERE THEY??? - passing along the Extraterrestrial Expressway. "Take me like you captured those illegal Martian H-1B immigrants restocking the photocopiers in Accounting! Take me like a cheap 1970s reprint of a 1926 Hugo Gern

    • Mozilla may not be the driving force of it, mind you, but it's a real phenomenon. Places like, oh, Facebook? with monolithic application-like interfaces are really taking over the original notion of a "world wide web" of hyperlinked documents. That philosophy has been seriously undermined. Not that you need to be stupidly ideological about it, but we'll pay the price sooner or later.
      • It was seriously undermined over a decade ago when the first studies on navigation showed that people navigated linearly through a website. Hence why breadcrumbs became so popular. The idea of hyperlinking for most of the web is pretty much dead the exception being Wikipedia. That is the closest thing to the concept of hypertext that exists today.

    • by smartr ( 1035324 )
      I think the article is kind of misses the target a bit, and completely fails to mention Mozilla Labs Chromeless, which is how it will be done. Maybe you've never looked at what Adobe Air or applications like Steam or LoL, but there's a demand and need for the app-ification in terms of web development, including both consumer ended applications I have mentioned and business solutions such as Zimbra or in-house applications. Tabbed browsing is great and all, but I'm glad Mozilla is once again pushing the enve
    • Those are bookmarks.

      No. Bookmarks are defined by the user, these are defined by the current webpage.

      Personally, while Firefox idea may be bad, it pushes websites for a more structured markup of navigation, which is good. It means that an automatic system or a screen reader will have less problems identifying such information.

  • by thsths ( 31372 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @11:55AM (#35222172)

    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: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Firefox has had plugin sandboxing for a year now (is in FF3.6).

      They are working on tab sandboxing concurrent with other development.

      • by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:07PM (#35222316)

        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.

        • I imagine apps in their own tabs would require a new way of processing the tabs so you may get your issue fixed while providing new features.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Different teams are working on both; here's a link to Mozilla's one-process-per-tab feature, I believe there are some downloadable builds to try: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

        • by maxume ( 22995 )

          I don't know what the progress is, but they do have a goal of moving IO out of the main thread (which should help with the UI locking up).

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Ok. Admittedly that isn't plugin *sandboxing* just process isolation.
        But then, sandboxing of flash is very new, and no other plugins in any other browser are sandboxed either.
        That's why Microsoft's H.264 "fix" for chrome is so broken (breaks API and styling, but also introduces windows media player plugin bugs)

        • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          Ok. Admittedly that isn't plugin *sandboxing* just process isolation.

          Once the plugin is in a separate process it can easily be sandboxed with Apparmor or SELinux.

    • by Lennie ( 16154 )

      It is already in Firefox Mobile, it was planned to be completed for normal/desktop firefox 4.1. But I guess that will be called Firefox 5 now ?

    • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:12PM (#35222374)

      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?

      They are doing as part of the electrolysyis project [mozilla.org], though I can't see how this fits in with their release roadmap.

    • I'm sure people have heard of teams?
      They have a GUI team/people, and that's all they're going to work on.
      They security team/people will worry about security and they'll meld them as needed.

      These just mock-ups and ideas - not everyone from mozilla is working on the interface, chillax

    • by BZ ( 40346 )

      That's being done. Firefox 4 Mobile will be shipping with out-of-process tabs. Firefox 4 for all versions has out-of-process plug-ins. Desktop Firefox will be getting out-of-process tabs as soon as the UI is fixed to work with them (the back end is all done, since it's shared with Firefox Mobile).

  • Will they make the updates mandatory, or will we have the option of staying with the version that we like?
    • by Lennie ( 16154 )

      Only change I know of in that regard is that in Firefox 4 minor updates are planned to be automatic, similair to Chrome. But I don't know if they completed that yet.

      • by Lennie ( 16154 )

        Also they made it easier to make addons which don't break at upgrades, because they use a different API. It also allows for installing addons without restarting the browser.

    • As with all previous FF updates, it should be optional. You can turn off auto update with Tools->Opitons->Advanced->Update.
    • Will they make the updates mandatory, or will we have the option of staying with the version that we like?

      You mean, like we could for Slashdot?

  • by FuckingNickName ( 1362625 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:04PM (#35222276) Journal

    world-wide web = global interconnected information resource - like a spider's web with vertices representing information resources and edges representing explicitly defined links between those resources

    application = self-contained software for fulfilling some well-defined task

    web browser = browser for the world-wide web

    HTH, all web browser writers.

    • application = self-contained software for fulfilling some well-defined task

      Your definition is too vague. What does "self-contained" mean? Do server apps count? Web apps? Picasa? What about Skype; without a remote service it is useless. Is it self contained and thus an app? If not, what is it it? If so, how is it qualitatively different from Google Docs?

      • Your definition is too vague. What does "self-contained" mean?

        It means that the software requires no external processing support to fulfil its particular purpose.

        N.B. This includes software such as the Skype client, since its purpose is to be a client for voice/video communication and it does so on its own.

        Do server apps count?

        What's a server app, exactly?

        Web apps?

        No. That's just an abuse of HTML to make a document of information look like the UI of a software application.

        Picasa?

        Not used it. Never managed to see the value in any of Google's offerings beyond its straight web search.

        • Your definition is too vague. What does "self-contained" mean?

          It means that the software requires no external processing support to fulfil its particular purpose. N.B. This includes software such as the Skype client, since its purpose is to be a client for voice/video communication and it does so on its own.

          But it does nothing at all without Skype run servers to connect to. If there is not a service running on the internet or if that service is unreachable, even if you can get to other parts of the internet, you can do nothing with the client software. Another good example would be an AIM application.

          What's a server app, exactly?

          A server app is an app that runs on a remote machine, but that you connect to via a client. E.g. MS Word running on a server connected via Citrix.

          Web apps?

          No. That's just an abuse of HTML to make a document of information look like the UI of a software application.

          What about local apps that use HTML as the display format? Are they

          • But it does nothing at all without Skype run servers to connect to. If there is not a service running on the internet or if that service is unreachable, even if you can get to other parts of the internet, you can do nothing with the client software. Another good example would be an AIM application.

            You're not thinking hard enough. The purpose of the Skype client is to act as a client to the Skype system, not to act as the whole Skype system. It fulfils that role using only the workstation in front of you. Thus it is self-contained in the sense described.

            There is no such notion as absolute self-containment - almost everything relies on the Sun and you could argue that the solar system's behaviour in some way depends on the rest of the galaxy/universe. But that's the kind of silly, self-diagnosed-Asperg

            • But it does nothing at all without Skype run servers to connect to. If there is not a service running on the internet or if that service is unreachable, even if you can get to other parts of the internet, you can do nothing with the client software. Another good example would be an AIM application.

              You're not thinking hard enough. The purpose of the Skype client is to act as a client to the Skype system, not to act as the whole Skype system. It fulfils that role using only the workstation in front of you. Thus it is self-contained in the sense described.

              It is self contained in a useless sense completely invisible to users. Skype advertises their service as being able to "call other people around the world for free", not "connect to Skype".

              That's just an application having its UI displayed somewhere distant. There's no inherent reason it cannot be run locally.

              That doesn't answer the question.

              Well, it makes for a slow, bloated choice, but there's nothing about choosing it which makes it not an application. It stops becoming an application when it is no longer self-contained, i.e. you lose the ability to execute the software's functionality.

              So you think a Skype client doesn't lose it's functionality when it can't connect to the Skype network, but GoogleDocs loses it's functionality, when you can't connect to Google? Either way the end user can do jack and shit.

              Since you are having difficulty understanding, how about the following question for classification: ask, "What am I running?" In the case of Skype, you are running the Skype client. In the case of Office over Citrix, you are running Office on a remote machine. In the case of Google "Apps"... you are running nothing.

              In the case of Google Apps I'm running an app on Google's servers

              • It is self contained in a useless sense completely invisible to users.

                I'm not sure what's wrong with your machine, but there's nothing more visible to me than the difference between a slow, unresponsive "web app" and something running locally.

                Skype advertises their service as being able to "call other people around the world for free", not "connect to Skype".

                We're discussing what the Skype client does, not what the whole Skype service does.

                So you think a Skype client doesn't lose it's functionality when it can't connect to the Skype network,

                No, it doesn't. All Skype client features remain available even if they're not all usable - surely the difference isn't that hard to understand. Any offline storage/logging is still accessible; modifications could be applied to connect to alternative servi

                • No, it isn't. Google isn't giving you the CPU time to run your word processor remotely and just view it on your local screen. They're just serving up a load of web pages which simulate a word processing application for lots of people at once.

                  Your distinctions, as always, are irrelevant. They don't really exist. The processes are running and HTML is part of the display format. I can run a word processing program locally and use PDF as the display format (OS X native display) and guess what, multiple users can log in simultaneously and use it. Heck, I even have a word processor that supports multiple simultaneous users on my system right now.

                  You can buy a box to run it on your own machine? Que? While you're discussing a completely different thing, it'd help if it made sense :-).

                  I don't know about you, but when I buy a new box from a vendor, it becomes my own machine.

                  This is all po

                  • Your distinctions, as always, are irrelevant.

                    What you mean is, "The distinctions are irrelevant to me." Your mistake is to want everyone to be like you. You try to define words so that any distinctions which are irrelevant to you become irrelevant to everyone.

                    Unfortunately for you, language only conveys a particular sentiment. No matter how awkward you make it to highlight the crucial difference between the freedom of local software and the lack of control offered by of "web apps", where the only app actually running is a web browser, the distinction

        • by xero314 ( 722674 )

          It means that the software requires no external processing support to fulfil its particular purpose.

          Can you provide an example of this mythical "application" you speak of. Last time I looked there was little if any software that did not require an operating system (which is also software) for it operate. Most software won't even start without an OS that knows how to handle the file format and how load load and begin execution. Last time I worked on or with any software that ran without processing by other software was when Commodore was at their peak (When I worked on software that ran on the bare metal

  • you mean just pulling parts of the content that is served by the remote webserver, and presenting it as if it was something separate from a website ? the fact that i can push a few form buttons there does not make it any different from a website.

    basically you separate widgets and page-specific functions from a website, and call that an app.

    oh boy go fuck off. in an 'app' fashion if you will - piecemeal.
    • From the mockup, it looks like they're going to scrape a few functions from the website's interface and add them to a site-specific menu in the Firefox menu bar.

      While I wouldn't call this terrible so long as it would actually work, it seems like something that would break at the slightest change to the websites it's designed to support, which ranks it up there somewhere near "worst idea ever" in my estimation. They're basically assuming that Facebook isn't going to change their javascript, and/or putting up

      • by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        While I wouldn't call this terrible so long as it would actually work, it seems like something that would break at the slightest change to the websites it's designed to support, which ranks it up there somewhere near "worst idea ever" in my estimation.

        They'll do it anyway. From my interactions with Mozilla in the last year or so, the UX/UI team do what the hell they want now and some people check it in. And if you dare to question it they tell you to piss off.

      • I doubt they scrape. If implemented, it'll probably be something in RDFa or microformats: clear, structured information.
        And it'll only work in websites that support it.

        RDFa, while invisible to the common user, is being adopted by many websites and data fetchers. For example Google will read structured recipe data [google.com] and present it in a specific way.
        It helps both Google, the website and the user.

  • Can I be the first person to actually like this feature idea? I may not be interested in using it, but I can see the appeal for sure. And I don't see why websites like Facebook and Twitter wouldn't try to take the most advantage of this as they could.

    It's innovation, guys. Sometimes we have to change our rigid world view to get something we never thought we would like. Even if this feature doesn't become well loved, it doesn't mean that it can't evolve into or inspire another one that will. Firefox is i
    • Re:Positivism (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:17PM (#35222428)

      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.

      • The way you described it reminds me of how Windows 7 lets you pin applications to your start bar. I like this. I don't know if it's really necessary over the bookmark toolbar, but if they're trying to move away from that like Chrome has, then it's certainly a neat idea.

        • I like to think of it as a permanently bound shortcut to a bookmark, even though its really a permanently loaded tab with a website in it.

          The concept might have come from Win7s taskbar shortcuts (not that I ever use them, except to open a new innstance of a running app - which is bloody confusing and un-intuitive: if you want a new app, you do not go to a running one and ask for it to start a new version of itself again!)

          But adding a few commands to some sites does seems like a good thing: new bug, new twee

    • by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:17PM (#35222430) Homepage

      > It's innovation, guys.

      "Innovation" is not a synonym for "gimmick".

      > ...this feature...

      "Feature", unfortunately, is.

    • No, no, no. Innovation is when you look at interesting things in academia, learn from the mistakes of early commercial ventures, build your own version, and market like buggery. You take A's work, previously accessible only to B, and make it available to C to Z, and you're sorta heavily rewarded for it.

      Well, that's what innovation was up to the mid '80s or so.

      Now, innovation is the religious basis for deregulation. If you wonder, for example, why banks or telecoms providers can get away with so many things,

  • "Do not want" seems like the most appropriate response here. Sheesh.
  • I am really tired of browsers transforming themselves into operating systems. This is worst than emacs (by the way, I am an emacs user)
  • that sites won't be able to access each other's cookies? That I can easily segregate certain misbehaving sites privacy-wise (I'm looking at you Facebook) in their own tab so they don't clutter up my other sites with social crap [if I don't want it]?

    I currently use separate profiles but that's cumbersome.

    • Or you could use a browser that has this feature built in. Strange though it sounds, IE8 has a feature which basically reads "No other site on the web can see you on this site." It works great - I'm almsot always signed in to Facebook, but third party sites have absolutely no way to tell because the browser doesn't allow anything from Facebook to run while I'm not actually on Facebook.com.

      That said, the IE8 version has issues. Try the IE9 RC, and its Tracking Protection feature. It also makes a great ad blo

  • I am running FF4b10 right now, and as far as I can tell, "App tabs" have been a feature since the onset of FF4.

    See screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/ZkZVF.png [imgur.com]

  • Web sites would rather control what is presented to you totally so that they could pelt you with ads all the time.The content is the lure, you are the catch and smothering you with ads is the raison d'être for these web sites. With browsers under the control of visitors, who might install no script and ad block they are seen by the web sites as sneaky thieves who pilfer "content" without paying for it. Making it all an app, and delivering it in apps with lots of quirks prevents the users from developin
  • i can just hear it now 'So, lets add in more 'features' instead of making it an option " well, maybe not, but i would think nowadays security should be paramount, and *then* arrange a nice UI, surely ? but hey, what do i know, not much. Sadly i'm seeing some unpleasant design ideas creeping into my open source world.. like every Gnome desktop using the largely crap pulseaudio, or my fave KDE assuming you're some sort of calender watching office droid needing PIM Akonadi or Nepomuk - we don't all live in t
  • Version 6 will inlcude a monkey butler and your own fucking jetpack!
    Meanwhile, we're still all still running 3.x and it's about as vulnerable as IE. How about just getting a final, secure version 4 to market?
    • by Reapman ( 740286 )

      I don't get this Firefox isn't secure line.. the last time I was infected was because I decided to try Chrome out, and thanks to not having a NoScript like addon available some stupid Java based virus BSOD'd my Win7 64bit box. Visiting that same site in Firefox did nothing since nothing was allowed to load until I told it to.

      Frankly the only reason I stick with Firefox right now IS security...

      And ya, the exploit was Java, but that exploit was only reachable in Chrome, not Firefox (with NoScript).

      Feel free

  • This would be REALLY cool if I could trust most or even the small portion of websites I visit regularly to refrain from making obnoxiously long page and sections titles or just finding ways to exploit my browser so that I have to view their content so they can get more ad revenue.

    Note that I love and support the free internet by means of advertising revenue. I don't even mind my browser sessions being tracked so long as they're not connected together to create a profile of me. But this seems like yet anothe

  • Is it just me, or does this site kinda completely fail on the current stable version of Firefox?

    In fact, I've tried all these (on WinXP):

    Chrome 9
    Firefox 3.6
    IE8
    Opera 11
    Safari 5

    And only Chrome actually works (Opera gets a bit nearer to actually working, the menu appears, but the boxes with links to Bugzilla just have a spinning blue thing in them). I'm sure FF4 beta works, but really, did the site have to be so HTML5ish that most of the stable browsers out there can't actually use it?

  • is it just me? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    • The problem isn't money. The problem is that Firefox's developers suffer from a combination of arrogance and gross incompetence.
      Incompetence? How about constantly adding new features to beta software. Even the greenest rookie developer knows you don't add new features to Beta 11. How about (by their own admission) spending more time fixing non-blocking bugs than blocking bugs?

      Arrogance? How about constantly ignoring requests for things people want while constantly filling FF with crap nobody cares abou

      • Some examples:

        - Constantly adding features to beta software. Example: Tab Candy/Panorama was added late in the game and it caused *lots* of bugs and regressions. Tabs on the Title bar was also added late in the game.

        - Not fixing old bugs. Some of them are really, really old and affect performance and standards compliance. Pair the not fixing of bugs with adding features, which, in turn add more bugs and you get mayhem.

        - Mozilla devs constantly refuse to respond to users' fair requests. For example: Users
  • Let's have a browser that supports add-ons to allow customization, but keep the browser itself from adding "social" features or any other use specific crap (aside from accessing the web). And if this fork was run by a non-profit, they might realize that Firefox doesn't need to compete with other browsers at whatever game those developers are doing. Make a solid, bug-free browser and damn the noise.
  • Mozilla was at it's best with FF2-2.5; simple layout, highly customizable, and easy to use. Since the introduction of FF3, I've seen more bloated memory use, more complexity added to the browser, and an overall less simple layout .Mozilla has lost it and this just further shows how out of touch the Mozilla folks are. The only reason I keep using Firefox is the customizations, but now Chrome is nearly as customizable as Firefox.
    • Right on. I was one of those people who was yelling and screaming for a lightweight browser when Mozilla 0.95 was in its "about:kitchen_sink" stage. Pheonix seemed like the answer. Then it gradually got bigger and more bloated. I feel betrayed.

      Obligatory car analogy... in the early 1960's, the first Beetles and the first Japanese imports were starting to take away market share from Detroit manufacturers. So they introduced smaller cars. GM intoduced the Chevelle Malibu as a smaller alternative to the

  • So in other words they incorporated Prism technology into the browser? Sounds pretty good actually - I've been using Prism for a little bit now and as long as the apps don't need OAuth or some other ridiculous technology they work great.
  • That just complicates web sites, which should be as intuitive as possible. It might be good for some intranet apps, or perhaps for quick login/logout functions, but other than that keep it off the public web.
  • Finally, here we have a standardised way of attaching menu items to a web page. No more JS or Flash "menus" inside a page, but something that can be made to have a consistent look and feel, and something that can be scripted from the OS.
    Until now we've had to make do with one macro language for the OS and its apps (QuicKeys) and another for use within the browser.
    Bring it on!

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