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Firefox Accepting Feature Suggestions for Version 3
Krishna Dagli writes to mention an article over at Ars Technica discussing the Firefox team's call for feature suggestions. Version 3 of the software is already in the works, and the team members are looking to the community for ideas on where to go next. From the article: "The wish list is long indeed, and it provides an insight into the desires of the browser community, and a look at the open source development process. While closed-source projects often ask their user community for feedback on requested features, the process is not usually open to the public. For Firefox 3, anyone can both suggest new features and comment on other people's suggestions. The feature requests are divided into categories, such as browser customization, privacy features, security, history, download manager, and other areas. There are suggestions for features found in other competing browsers, such Safari, IE 7 beta, and Opera. IE7 seemed to be featured most prominently, with requests for "low-rights mode," as well as more cosmetic features like skins that mimic Microsoft's browser."
An open source logo? :-) *duck* Au revoir, monsieur karma
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Make it fast, compliant and secure. Leave everything else to extensions.
With extensions, Firefox does pretty much anything that anyone could want in a browser. I'd like only two things from Firefox 3:
1. More stability and less memory usage. On both Windows and OS X, Firefox can swallow all your system resources if you leave it running long enough and do enough browsing. On my machines, the program also crashes, infrequently but regularly, most often when a page it's loading is corrupted by a network error. Spend the effort on finding memory leaks and bugs instead of adding gewgaws.
2. Without changing the functionality of the interface or its basic elements, make it prettier. The buttons look big, garish, and way too colorful; look at Safari for one example of a better way. (I use a skin to make my Firefox installs look much like Safari, but I think a more professional/more beautiful interface could inspire more people to switch.)
Did you file a bug?
:)
I doubt they will do this though. The password popup window already contains too many buttons: [Yes], [No] and [Never for this site]. End-users are already instantly paralyzed when they see a window with three buttons, like a deer in the headlights of an onrushing car. Adding a fourth button will make their brains melt out of their ears.
I can't count the number of times I've closed a tab and then wanted it back later in the day, but been unable to find the url because I've actually had it open on my desktop for several days (so it's not in yesterday's history.) Being able to sort history by "close time" as well as "open time" would be really useful.
Maybe this could be a firefox extention. Hmm.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Preferrably with control on the main panel to disable those sites with annoying float over ads that obstruct the view of the article you are trying to read. This is important since the Shockwave Flash positions itself as a mechanism for advertizers to bypass browser controls. Shockwave needs to be seriously slapped down.
Provide a way to get a list of all the loaded extensions and plugins, and how much memory each is using. That will silence all the people who install memory-leaking extensions and complain that FF itself leaks memory, and also force the authors of those extensions to fix the leaks.
Number one on my list:
Wait until the password has been accepted before offering to save it.
Other than that. Slim it down to the bare minimum and let people customize it with extensions.
1. A fix for this javascript DoS attack:
for(;;) alert("Please restart your browser.");
2. Make hotkeys work everywhere, all the time. (You know when you hit CTRL+L and nothing happens)
3. Make it possible to open javascript links in new tabs.
4. Support for soft hypens.
I've yet to find an extension for this, so if there is one, please let me know.
It's all too often when I middle-click a link to open in a new tab, only to get the tab being "Untitled" and the URL starts with "javascript:". Is it too much to ask that Firefox detect a javascript link and prevent it from opening in a new tab (or window, but usually I catch those), and merely run the javascript?