Archive
February 22, 2010 - 12:22 am
Google has announced that it will stop development of its Gears browser plugins which allowed powerful features including offline storage (for running web apps while offline), geolocation, web workers, and desktop integration.
Instead, Google will support these features as defined (or in process) in the W3C’s HTML5 specification.
This is good for the “one web” goal, but like other proprietary implementations there will be a cost: developers who embraced Gears’ way of doing things will now have to rewrite their code, including big names like WordPress, which took this way for offline storage and speeding the admin interface.
January 27, 2010 - 10:54 am
According to a recent email by Canonical’s Rick Spencer in the Ubuntu development mailing list, Canonical is planning to change Firefox’s default search provider to Yahoo! starting with forthcoming Lucid Lynx, due in April.
The change will also change the default home page from the current Ubuntu customized Google search page to a Yahoo! home page.
The post emphasizes that previous user choices of search engines will be respected, so the change will apply for new users only (new installations, or new local users).
November 7, 2008 - 11:15 pm
Firefox 3 introduced tighter OS integrating across all platforms, and even different Strata (Windows theme) flavors for Windows XP and Vista. However the result was not optimal and there is room to make Firefox feel more native.
October 30, 2008 - 4:06 pm
In Firefox, from the File menu, select New Tab. Or press Ctrl + T. Or double click on the tab bar. The result is the same: a blank page that does help you get where you really want.
The Firefox development team is well aware of this and is currently experimenting with several ways to predict what you may want to do when you open a blank tab: a search, check a recently visited tab, a new web feed item, or just one of your favorite sites.
October 29, 2008 - 9:49 pm
My past list of six dark themes for Firefox was not meant to be comprehensive, but just share a few ones I stumbled upon on Mozilla Add-ons. Many users made some interesting suggestions for additional dark themes so I decided to take a more complete picture and found there were a lot worth a screenshot.
For dark computer desktop fans, here are ten more Firefox themes that should suit your taste. Pictured on Windows XP with the Royale Noir theme variation.
October 28, 2008 - 11:18 am
There’s been a flood of posts on the web about the discovery of Minefield, an enhanced new web browser by Mozilla, that just leaves Chrome and the others biting the dust due to its serious performance superiority.
As most Mozilla Links readers may know, Minefield is the main code repository for Firefox (the trunk) where patches and new features that are meant to be included in the next Firefox release first land.
When a milestone is approaching (alpha, beta or final), the trunk is frozen so nothing but stuff related to the goals set for the next milestone will go in. The frozen code is used to make a build, the build is QA’d, mirrored and released as an alpha or beta (code name Shiretoko for Firefox 3.1, Gran Paradiso for Firefox 3, all names of national parks).
October 27, 2008 - 4:06 pm
On the latest blog post by Mozilla’s Laura Mesa, she shares the results of a survey conducted on past September 23 to randomly selected Firefox users updating to 3.0.2 and 3.0.3.
When asked how likely they were to recommend Firefox to a friend in a scale of 1 to 5, 89% of the 30,272 respondents answered 4 or 5 (most likely), “which can also be understood as an 89% customer satisfaction rating”, said Laura in her post.
October 26, 2008 - 9:37 pm
… because Dora, the explorer, says so.
Dora, the “explorer”. Swiper, the “fox”. It was inevitable. By J8d on deviantART.
- 12:04 pm
For those inclined to black or dark desktops, here are six nice Firefox themes you want to give a try.
Pictured here on Windows XP with the Royal Noir theme for darker effect. All available from Mozilla Add-ons, but for those marked experimental you will need an account.
avant.garde.10011:nerom created by Rob Holian. (experimental)
October 24, 2008 - 9:57 am
Used Hide Caption by Ji Shiping, to hide the title bar. Cons: have to aim below the window control buttons to move the window; need a Mozilla Add-ons account to download.
Fission by Zeniko, adds a progress bar to the location bar so you can hide the status bar. Cons: no room for extensions’ status bar icons or download status.
Compact Menu 2 by Milly C., to reduce the menu bar to a blue button next to the location bar. Cons: an additional click for menu only actions.
Searching with keywords only, hence, no search bar. Stop and reload buttons combined via CSS. No global throbber.
Enjoy.
