Mozilla has returned from Microsoft’s headquarters after meeting with the Open Source Director regarding Windows Vista. There were several different things that Mozilla wanted to address especially concerning new security features and restrictions that Microsoft placed in Vista. Here are some of the things that Mozilla had wanted to discuss:
Topics for Firefox 2:
- How does the new security model in Vista affect the various interactions our code has with the OS, specifically things like updating, installing add-ons, caching, bookmarking, copy and paste between apps, etc.
- How, if at all, has the theme stuff changed in ways that affect our ability to read default colours using nsITheme? Are there large font or other OS theme settings that break us horribly?
- Is there any way for our theming system to tell if a user is running w32/XP vs. w32/Vista?
- Any changes to bookmark, history or cookie import/export with IE7 for Vista?
- XPInstall and Software Update — how do we support installation into protected areas. For example, how do we install plugins.
Topics for Firefox 3:
- How can we interact with their RSS platform: low-bar, to be able to import/export/migrate, high-bar, to participate in feed read/unread status
- Can we pass calendar data to their Calendar app?
- Can we pass address data to their address book?
- How do we install global add-ons into a protected area from a running instance of the app?
- What is the replacement for GDI, that’s usable from native C/C++
If you have started using Windows Vista then one thing you have surely noticed is the User Account Control (UAC). That is the thing that pops-up all of the time requesting permission to execute a file or perform some task. It quickly got annoying for me so I went ahead and disabled it because I believe that I can catch anything that will do malicious damage.
However, certain aspects of Firefox are still flawed because of the UAC. If you try and change your default browser or try to update Firefox you will not see a pop-up window asking for permission. Instead the system just rejects the request without ever notifying the user. A temporary solution to the problem would either be to disable UAC in the User Account Control Panel or to right-click on the Firefox shortcut and select “Run As Administrator.” Either of those options will grant Firefox the permissions that it needs to successfully perform the actions.
I’m sure things will start to come around for Firefox but I am just afraid that users who do not fully understand UAC will get frustrated and switch to IE7, since it works perfectly with the UAC system.
If you don’t want to completely disable UAC I at least recommend doing it for the first few days. That way you don’t have to deal with the hassle of the hundreds of prompts you’ll receive while setting up the computer. After you get everything exactly how you want then re-enable it. That is my biggest recommendation for new Vista users.
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Tags: Firefox, Software, Windows
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Its amazing they think so far ahead as firefox 3. i’m sure when 2 comes out they’ll start work on 4
Firefox 3 *drools*
Nah, I say they skip right from Firefox 3 and go to Firefox 8 just so their number is higher than Microsoft’s
. Wait, maybe they will go to Firefox 10 so that they beat Opera too. 
i am afraid that thinking about firefox 3 is not that far a head. especially when vista, with ie7, is coming out pretty soon.
i doubt if they will be able to have answers, not 2 mentions solutions, 2 all the points they have written. and like Ryan said, some people might drop ff when vista will come along cause of them, or that UAC thing.
i just hope all this issues are not that of a big deal.
2 more things;
Ryan, is it possible that a comment i made just a few minutes ago to this item (with 5 links) was deleted?
and here is the links again – for everyone who wants 2 read more about mozilla’s people visit 2 Redmond;
a 4 part blog post from Vladimir;
[blog.vlad1.com]
[blog.vlad1.com]
[blog.vlad1.com]
[blog.vlad1.com]
and the [arstechnica.com]
Any comments with more than 5 links will get held for moderation by us. I have now increased the number of links to 15 because our spam protection is doing very well, so for the time being it doesn’t look like this should be a problem.
strange, cause i am pretty sure it was there (After i posted it), and then it was gone by the time i came in again to write the second comment. oh well
It was there…when the AJAX added it.
But then when you refreshed the page you were only shown approved comments so it did not show up. Both of the comments that you posted were awaiting moderation but I only approved this one since it included everything the previous one had plus some.
How about Firefox 2007? Oh wait, they can’t use years because Microsoft will claim they have exclusive rights to use years in the name of software products. May be Roman Numerals, Firefox MMVII?
I don’t know why are you having such troubles with Firefox and Vista. I installed both RC2s and they worked together seamlessly.
Have you tried to do an update using the built-in Update Manager?
For those who curious why Mozilla is developing Firefox 3 while Firefox 2 is not yet released, here is explanation:
Currently Firefox 3 Alpha versions are just Firefox 2 RC2 versions with NEW “Gecko” engine.
Firefox 3 Alpha features and GUI are (almost) the same as Firefox 2.
But Firefox 2 uses Gecko 1.8.1, and Firefox 3 uses Gecko 1.9a1.
Not recently. I have set it as the default browser with no issues though, you seem to say that doesn’t work. And I haven’t changed any security defaults since installation of Vista.
I’m not sure why you can set your default browser without a problem but the biggest pain for me is doing the updates. The reason the updates are not allowed without administrative privileges is because you can’t modify the files in the Program Files folder without the necessary permissions.
I was hoping that Mozilla would be able to address these concerns before Firefox 2 got released because businesses will start to get their hands on Vista in November. I haven’t seen any information as to when Mozilla plans to make a fully compatible Vista version though.
Thanks for the heads up. I would have been one frustrated user.