Firefox 3 is scheduled to be finished in the next month or two, and with it users will begin seeing a completely redesigned interface that is tailored to the operating system that they are using. This version of Firefox has already made significant advances in terms of performance, and it seems as though the only thing people have been criticizing in Firefox 3 are the new themes.
Did ya miss us? We've been out of town since last Thursday, and since then there were some pretty big announcements that we wanted to be sure to cover. It appears as though the last few days before last weekend was the prime time for acquisitions. ;)
One of the things that Firefox 3 has really been pushing to do is make the browser more usable, and there are some nice things they've added to do just that. I'm not sure how often you deal with iCal calendars in your browser, but I come across them from time to time. Normally it's because of friends or family that want to share their schedules with me.
Development on the Firefox 3 browser is finally starting to wrap up. It's been a year and a half since Firefox 2 was released to the public, and by the end of May Firefox 3 will have entered the Release Candidate stages. This is all preparation for what looks to be a June 2008 launch of the long awaited Firefox 3 browser.
Win; Mac; Linux Opera is obviously not content with sitting on the sidelines when it comes to being the fastest browser out there. Back in February Mozilla decided that it was time to optimize it's JavaScript performance, and used a technique called Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) that gave it a nice boost.
One of my favorite additions to the Firefox 3 browser (currently in Beta) are Smart Bookmarks. There's a good chance that you've played with things in other applications that are similar to Smart Bookmarks.
We know that many of you who are long-time users of the del.icio.us extension for Firefox haven't made the upgrade to Firefox 3 yet because a compatible version of the extension hasn't been released. In fact, it was a few days ago that "jason" in the comments was wondering if we knew when del.icio.us would be upgrading their bookmarks extension.
Back in October 2007 we previewed a new feature in Firefox 3 called Smart Bookmarks. Firefox 3 has a more advanced bookmarking system, and keeps tabs (no pun intended) on the sites that you visit the most. When those two things collide they form what has come to be known as Smart Bookmarks.
I was starting to become skeptical as to whether it was possible to have an Aero Glass theme for Firefox much like that of Internet Explorer 7, but there is now proof that it can be done. One top-notch developer took it upon himself to create an extension that would create a fancy eye-catching interface . The result is the Glasser extension.
There's a new feature in Firefox 3 Beta 5 that I just came across yesterday when using the browser, and I'm not sure how long it has been there. What I did was I clicked on the icon for our site which brought up what would normally be security-related information for the page your viewing. Then I clicked the More Information button:
The robots have begun to invade the world, starting with Firefox 3! That's right, the next-generation browser may not be what we were expecting all along. They are trying to pose as friendly inhabitants of the browser, but don't get sucked into their evil spell. It's too late for me, but save yourselves by switching to Internet Explorer!
For about a month now browser developers have been eyeing the new Acid3 test to see how they can push to meet the standards it tests for. Shortly after the test was released we took a look at how the browsers stacked up to each other, but none of them passed the test. Then just last week both Opera and Safari released test builds that demonstrate their compliance.
One of the things that I've always enjoyed in Safari 3 is the inline search interface, and just the other day I thought I would peruse around the Internet trying to find a way to do the same thing in Firefox. Why is searching special in Safari? Because it dims the background of the page that you're on, and highlights the matching results as you type.
We've been asked for quite awhile to provide a performance comparison of the different mainstream browsers out there, and so today we are going to show you the stats from several different areas that users generally find to be the most important. Things like memory usage, page load time, and JavaScript performance will all be covered below.
There is a lot of talking going around the Internet about Firefox 3 Beta being ready for mass usage. It's because of an article by Reuters where the creators of Firefox supposedly told them that the Firefox 3 Beta is ready for everyone to use after months of being in development.
One of my favorite Firefox extensions, Locationbar², has finally been updated to work with the recently released Firefox 3 Beta 4. It can be used to make the domain that you're currently viewing stand out more than the rest of the URL, which makes users less susceptible to phishing attacks.
Earlier this month the Acid3 test was released to give browsers the push they need to stay on top of the constantly evolving web standards. Almost all of the mainstream browsers now support the Acid2 test, and so it only makes sense that a new one would be released to give developers something to shoot for.
With the release of Firefox 3 Beta 4 the other day it is good to see how many extension developers have been providing updates to prepare the launch of the Firefox 3 browser. The extensions that need the most love and care are those that deal with bookmarks, and that's because the backend of the bookmarking system in Firefox 3 has been significantly changed.
Mozilla started creating an application last year called WebRunner that would allow you to run certain websites in a standalone version of Firefox. Eventually WebRunner was renamed to Prism, and thus was born a great tool. Prism 0.9 is the latest release, and it is really starting to evolve into a handy little application.
It's here! Firefox 3 Beta 4 has been added to Mozilla's FTP's, and the distribution has already begun among download sites. This release was expected by the end of February, but they must have hit a few bumps in the road. And now Firefox 3 Beta 5 is currently scheduled for late March.
