Somewhat late, here are some short takes from last week:

• Adobe Shockwave. A new version of this plugin is available for download now from Adobe’s web site.
• QuickTime vulnerability. A security vulnerability initially discovered in Safari affects Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows as well. Very little detail has been provided but it seems to be related on some QuickTime interaction with Java applets. Current recommended workaround (sort of) is to disable Java: Tools menu/Options…/Content page/Uncheck Enable Java.
• Firefox pencils. JustZisGuy noticed a shortage of pencils at work and he saw an opportunity to spread Firefox. So he ordered a lot of them and coworker are grabbing them as you read this. Also, if you need more evidence that Firefox rocks, check this post.
• Laugh out. Mozilla Corporation’s Seth Bindernagel and Seth Spitzer were in Japan recently and recorded a funny video to promote Firefox. I have no idea of what they’re saying but you should give it a look.

Last week an unusual number of Firefox promotion initiatives started at Spread Firefox. I just learned that they are part of the first project of CIA-KGB, “a new institute intended to advance multidisciplinary innovation, make Stanford a key center in the design world, and strengthen the connection between the university and industry”.

• My eBay Fox, caters to eBay users offering an eBay toolbar. I tried it but I find it to consist of a search bar, unfortunately just like the default search plugin with no additional filters (such as price, But It Now!, Paypal accepting or location) and a lot of bookmarks. Some users may find it useful though.
• Firefox Got Your Back, presents a darkened Firefox logo to be covered by pixel areas users can claim adding an image, an email address and a comment that, in theory, expresses how someone covered your back.
• Underdog, targets dog lovers comparing some Firefox features to dogs’ attitude and behavior.
• Firefox 4 Life, it appeals to how Firefox can improve several aspects of web users’ lives. It introduces the FoxyTunes, Pronto, AdBlock and StumbleUpon Firefox extensions.
• PuckFox Cup, targets Sharks and Red Wings hockey teams, inviting them to vote for their favorite and introducing the Sharks and Red Wings themes available for Firefox.
• Everyday Hero, is a place for people to recognize other people achievement that make them their own heroes. I don’t see a direct relationship with Firefox besides presenting Firefox ads.

As you can see some of them appeal to a specific market segment while others (Everyday Hero and Got Your Back) appeal to a broader audience offering a medium for people to express themselves while introducing Firefox.

Good to see these new approaches and even better to be able to see their development.

It seems everything went better than expected in today’s Gran Paradiso Test Day and Mozilla decided to release Alpha 4 today. It wasn’t expected until next week.

Among the most notable improvement in this release is the first iteration of FUEL (Firefox User Extension Library), a JavaScript library designed to ease extension development. This should allow and even faster growth of the Firefox extensions library which already counts thousands.

It also features the new Page Info dialog released a few weeks ago. It has kept improving with easier wording specially in the security and general pages, so here are some updated screen shots.

Mac users will be glad to know that Firefox now supports Growl, the popular global notifications system. Downloads completion notifications will be served through it if detected in the computer. If you just can’t wait, Growl support is already available as an extension.

Work has started for per site preferences, as Myk Melez has released the third version (0.3) of Content Preferences, currently available at Mozilla Add-ons sandbox. The rework of the password manager has also started and it is being ported from C language to JavaScript for stronger security and code simplicity.

Finally, support for offline web applications support is slowly getting its pieces in place. Better Mac OS X Cocoa support is also included.

Places, the integrated history and bookmarks interface didn’t make it for this release. Neither did enabling Breakpad, the new open source crash reporting tool, by default, however the server application to receive the reports is setup and Alpha 4 can submit reports to mozilla.com and Mac OS X builds now have Breakpad as well.

As announced earlier, Alpha 5 is expected by the end of May. You can read more about future development and releases here.

The latest Opera 9.2, brought a new feature called Speed Dial which is basically a grid of your 9 favorite or more visited sites’ thumbnails presented instead of the blank page you get when you add a new tab.

Speed Dial is a Firefox extension developed by Josep del Rio that brings the same functionality to Firefox with a couple of new tricks and some handicaps.

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Mozilla developers have updated the Firefox 3 (Gran Paradiso) development release schedule providing details on what to expect on each of them. Most notable change is that milestone releases will be now date based, with monthly releases, a departure from the when ready basis that has ruled since I can remember.

Alpha 4, currently in code freeze mode, is due next week. Alpha 5 should be out by May’s end and will mark the return of Places, the long delayed integration of History and Bookmarks with powerful tagging and search capabilities. Initial support for identity management (CardSpace), enhancements to the extension manager and support for web content handlers is also expected. (more…)

In Firefox, when you right click on a text selection you can search for it using the currently selected search engine in the search bar. But it’s not always the most appropriate for what you have in mind.

Context Search, a Firefox extension developed by Ben Basson, brings all your installed search engines to the selection context menu so you can easily direct your search.

Pretty simple extension with no options and nothing more to tell about. Excellent.

Get it at Mozilla Add-ons.

Usefulness: 5/5 – Usability: 5/5 – Features: 5/5

Wikimedia Foundation and Linterweb announced the release of Wikipedia on CD, a compilation of 1,964 articles from the English version of the famous online editable encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Kiwix, the software provided for browsing and searching the articles, was developed by Linterweb, and is based on XUL Runner 1.8.0.4, a runtime developed by Mozilla that delivers the same Firefox user interface capabilities to any application built on it. (more…)

When you select Save Page As… in Firefox’s File menu, you don’t always get the complete web page. Some files referenced by style sheets may not be saved, leaving you with an incomplete and sometimes ugly web page.

Save Complete, is a Firefox extension developed by warhammerkid that corrects this. Select Save Complete Page As… and you will get the web page with complete styling and looking just like the one you saw on the web. (more…)

Has it happened that you need to select some text from a link? It can be a very delicate procedure: you have to carefully look for the end or the beginning of the link, click just next to either of them and then drag until the wanted text is selected. Then you paste it somewhere and remove the unneeded words.

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According to Mozilla’s support policy, yesterday marked the end of support for Firefox 1.5.0.x, as it has been 6 months since the release of Firefox 2, the current branch.

A final update, 1.5.0.12, however is in development and should be available around the end of May. After that Mozilla is planning to push the first major Firefox update, so Firefox 1.5.0.12 users will be prompted to update to, then current, 2.0.0.4.

So far tests with previous versions major updates (1.5.0.10 to 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.11 to 2.0.0.3) have been completed successfully, so it will all hopefully happen transparently for users that remain in the previous version, who apparently are not a few.
According to Mozilla Link’s logs,  82% of visitors use Firefox, 8.8% of them are still in the 1.5.0.x branch. I wonder why so many people haven’t updated yet. Anyway these numbers are still better that Internet Explorer users update rate: of 94.3% of Windows users who can update to IE7 (I’m counting XP and Vista users here), only 42.3% have updated.

Besides company policies, why don’t people update?