|
|
Browsering A blog about browsers. Mozilla is considering just two more security updates for Firefox 2.0 before it retires the browser at the end of this year. "We're starting to consult the [development] community for feedback," said Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox, prior to setting a final 'end-of-life' date. If all goes according to plan, the last update for the older browser will be Firefox 2.0.0.19. The current build of Firefox 2.0 is 2.0.0.17, which was released last month to patch 14 vulnerabilities. Mozilla's policy is to support a browser for six months after it's been superseded by a new version. The company unveiled Firefox 3.0 in mid-June; shortly after that, Mozilla announced that it would stop patching Firefox 2.0 later in the year. Beltzner confirmed Wednesday that Firefox 2.0 remains on track for retirement by the end of December. He also noted that a majority of Firefox 2.0 users have taken advantage of an upgrade offer to Firefox 3.0 that Mozilla triggered two months ago. "Presently two-thirds of our users are using Firefox 3, with more than 50% accepting the first major upgrade offer back in late August," said Beltzner in message posted early Wednesday to the Mozilla site. One user on the mozilla.dev.planning message forum asked Beltzner how the end-of-life for Firefox would affect Thunderbird 2.0, the e-mail client that's built on the same Gecko foundation as Firefox 2.0, or other applications, such as SeaMonkey or Camino, also based on Gecko 1.8.1. "Based on the current [Thunderbird 3] release planning, [Thunderbird 3] will be released 3-4 months after the Gecko 1.8 [end-of-life], when [Thunderbird 2] is still the stable release," said Simon Paquet. Thunderbird, which is developed and maintained by Mozilla Messaging Inc., a Mozilla Corp. spin-off, is considerably behind Firefox in its shift toward version 3.0, which is based on the Gecko 1.9 tree. Earlier this month, for example, Mozilla Messaging renamed what had originally been Beta 1 of Thunderbird 3.0 as, in fact, a third alpha. Previously, Mozilla Messaging had said the first release candidate for Thunderbird 3.0 would likely ship in late January, with a final some time after that. Currently, the Thunderbird timetable omits any dates after Nov. 18, when Beta 1 is to enter "code freeze" status. But the demise of Firefox 2.0 support doesn't mean that Thunderbird 2.0 users will be left out to dry, Beltzner said today, making an effort to differentiate work on Firefox from the underlying Gecko engine. "The end of support for Firefox 2.0 doesn't mean that [developers] won't be able to work on the Gecko code," he said. "It just means that our focus won't be on actively maintaining that [1.8] branch [of Gecko]." Other Mozilla developers had responded previously to Paquet's concern about a lack of patches for Thunderbird, noting that during earlier end-of-life moves, programmers continued to support the e-mail client. "Mozilla, in some form, will provide support for Thunderbird based on the official lifecycle policy, like we did for 1.0 and 1.5," said Michael Conner, of Mozilla, in a message posted in late September. "Even after we did the end-of-life for Firefox 1.5 [in May], developers who were employed by Mozilla Corp., and members of the Gecko community would respond to patch request from the Thunderbird team," added Beltzner. Other updates include fixes to scrolling with laptop touchpads and better reliability for those users who access the web through a proxy server. If you are using Chrome, your browser will update itself in the next few days, or, if you are impatient, you can also just download the new version directly or go to "About Google Chrome" and see if the update is already available for you. Earlier this month, we also wondered if Google was positioning Chrome as a Trojan horse for indexing password protected sites. Earlier versions of Chrome would take a snapshot of every site you visited, whether it was password protected or not, which gave rise to some speculations about Google's motivations beyond creating a searchable index of those sites on a user's desktop. Now, Google explicitly states that Chrome no longer stores data from secure sites that use https: and show a lock in the address bar. Google also addressed a serious security flaw that was discovered just after the first release of Chrome in September. This flaw had the potential to trick users into opening potentially malevolent files, but now, Google will ask users for permission to open these files. Chrome now also saves every executable file with a .download extension and only converts them to their real file names after you confirm that you want to save them. Speed We also tested this new version of Chrome with the SunSpider and Dromaeo benchmarks. In both cases, Chrome showed a clear improvement in performance over the first beta version, even though Google did not mention any performance improvements in the release notes.
A short time after we knew that Mozilla is willing to launch a mobile phone version, The version has been released and named “Fennec” additionally runs on PCs too ! For testing mobile Firefox you can use Nokia’s N810 which is an MID tablet, Don’t have a N810 ? take it easy, Mozilla is going to release other versions for Mac, Windows, Linux to get the max users test . Code Base Fennec Features . The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately. One of the bad sides of Chorme is that you can't block the ads. Flash advertisments that cover the whole page are a big pain for anyone. However there is a solution for this. It's called BFilter (click on the link for download) and it acts as a local proxy. Very configurable it can work for any brwser installed on your system. It can even import the AdBlock filter lists database. BFilter is a filtering web proxy. It was originally intended for removing banner ads only, but since then its capabilities have been greatly extended. Unlike most of the similar tools, it doesn't rely on blacklists (although it does support them). The problem with blacklists is that advertisers are always one step ahead. You see an ad slip through, you update your blacklist, and in case it didn't help, you add a new entry yourself.
The result? A much nicer browsing. Have fun ! P.S. It filters the Yahoo Mess adverts (no matter the version) Firefox is impressive but how can you make it more useable? Try some of these addons that help improve the browsers ability to handle the most demanding users. 1. Text Link
This addon does a real simple job. It makes any non-HTML formatted URI like say “oxyweb.co.uk” into a clickable link so that anything that looks like a link can be double-clicked to open it up on the same page, new tab or new window. It’s clever, it does it across many lines and when an accidental space has been put into the link. I used to use Linkification but this alternative covers more bases. 2. ScreenGrab! (& ScreenGrab! with Online Upload)
A saviour for bloggers, web designers and anyone who needs to prove a point. ScreenGrab! screenshots whole pages aswell as selections and the visible portion. It also has a “Copy” only option so rather than save a screenshot, it copies to the clipboard which makes it great for pasting into other apps like Photoshop (for doing mock ups). The even more useful ScreenGrab! with Online Upload, an experimental addon created by imagebam.com which will take your screenshot and upload it to it’s free image hosting website. Cool enhancement. 3. Add Bookmark Here ²
Although I love the idea of pressing a little star on the Awesome bar to bookmark a URL, but i’m not a huge fan of Firefoxs bookmarks implementation. I tend to stay more organised with the use of this addon which puts a “Add Bookmark Here” option in every folder so you can bookmark quickly and stay organised.
4. Stealther
We won’t go into reasons but sometimes you do wish that there was no history of you visiting to certain websites. We’ll just say you have to. Press the Stealthier button and from then on anything you do will not be logged so no URLs in the address bar, no cache, no cookies, nothing. I This is the best implementation of a privacy browsing mode - better than Google Chromes implementation because it’s just a button click away as opposed to a new window appearing. Alternatively try Distrust.
5. Foxmarks Bookmark and Password Synchronize
If you use more than one computer with Firefox you’ll love this tool, heck if you use Firefox you’ll love this addon. It makes a secure online backup of your bookmarks and synchronizes them across many computers. Since version 2.5 it can optionally synchronise your Firefox passwords too. - securely of course (You’ve probably heard of this addon). 6. Shareoholic
If you’re a fan of user submitted content sites like Digg and Reddit or some of the lesser known ones like Ma.gnolia or Simpy then you’ll love Shareholic. It’s a button and context menu submission tool that can submit to a plethora of different sites with just a couple of clicks.
7. Video DownloadHelper This really is the best addon for downloading videos it works with dozens and dozens of video websites and most importantly it does it seamlessly.
8. Morning Coffee
Perhaps everyday, like m,e you visit digg.com and every Monday and Friday you have a look at your Google Analytics account oh and every Wednesday you need a failblog pickup then this addon takes the incessant clicking out of the equation. Just select the day and it opens up the URLS for that day. I’m sure you can use this for much more productive uses but it suits me fine. Alternatively Speed Dial and Fast Dial are both popular but no where near as good as Google Chrome’s implementaion which picks the websites automatically. Firefox camp is sussing things out. 9. PermaTab Mod (& PermaTab Beta)
This little addon makes a tab sticky so you can’t accidentally close it. I find this invaluable when watching videos online at BBC iPlayer or having music playing via last.fm. It’s an experimental addon so you have to log in or visit the Permatabs support page for the latest beta I hope you like the list of firefox addons that I can’t do without. If there’s another addon which you can’t do with or have something to say, leave a comment below.
|