Mozilla Labs: the URL Bar Has To Go 591
An anonymous reader writes with an editorial from ConceivableTech "Since Google's move to enable users to hide the URL bar, we have seen what could be the beginning of the end of one of the key features of the web browser. Mozilla has its own thoughts, but there is little doubt that Mozilla is reconsidering the purpose of the URL bar in future versions of its browsers. In a Mozilla Labs post today, David Regev suggests that the location bar should be replaced with a tool to support more than just one command."
Re:Following Google to Stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
the day chrome fixes it's theming colors, and print system I will switch back.
Seriously chrome is the only browser not to support page margins. So it is useless for printing out web forms.
As for theme's when a website requests a new window theme colors default to the original colors.
Two very simple things chrome does wrong.
now let me actually delete history on a regular basis and all will be good. I don't need 6 months of browser history saved.
Re:Following Google to Stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
Gah, what is with Mozilla following Google's every example, no matter how stupid or not?
Complacency followed by panic. Two years ago Firefox looked secure, according to statcounter IE had 62% marketshare, Firefox 29% and Opera/Safari/Chrome fought over the last 9% - Firefox was almost 10x bigger than than the third browser and everybody agreed nobody runs IE because it's better so in many ways they felt like #1. All they had to do was convert more IE users and world domination was at hand.
Then came Chrome:
May 2009: 2.45%
May 2010: 8.61%
May 2010 (est): 19.22%
Extrapolation is always a dangerous thing but Chrome has been eating almost one full percentage point per month now. One more year like this and Chrome would pass Firefox. And Mozilla's search engine agreement with Google ends in November this year, what's the deal going to be now that Chrome goes toe to toe with Firefox? I doubt they'll get as generous terms this time around. In short, they really feel the competition breathing down their necks now.
Re:Following Google to Stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
Tree-style tabs is what is keeping me on FF. Tabs are nested on the left side of the screen like split file manager window. Tabs opened from another get nested. For whatever reason, there is no such add-on for Chrome and it kills me to have my tabs listed across the top. You can get so many more tabs running vertically than you can horizontally.
Clarifications from the Author (Score:4, Informative)
I'm the author of the guest blog post. I have some clarifications that should clear things up a lot.
First, I'm just a member of the large community of Firefox users. I do not work for Mozilla (though that would be awesome), and I do not speak for Mozilla. As far as I know, no one within Mozilla is working on implementing any of my ideas at the moment. I simply had a concept and was offered the amazing opportunity to write some guest blog posts. The linked post is Part 1. Part 2 is coming.
Second, contrary to the article summary and to the many comments from people who clearly did not read the post, I am not proposing to hide the location. The location will be completely visible at the top of each page, with even more information. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that the location bar can do that is not possible in my concept.
Finally, the arguments behind each step are available in much more detail on the Mozilla Wiki [mozilla.org]. That should answer many questions.
if you want to contribute to the discussion in a substantive manner, please first read the article [mozillalabs.com] and then go to the discussion page [google.com]. I've already responded to a number of excellent comments there. Also, if anyone is interested in helping me implement some of these ideas, please let me know!
David