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Firefox 3 Plans and IE8 Speculation
ReadWriteWeb writes "Information about the next versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer suggest that the two biggest browsers are heading in different directions. Mozilla has published a wiki page detailing its plans for the next version of Firefox, codenamed 'Gran Paradiso'. Among the mandatory requirements listed for FF3 are improving the add-on experience, providing an extensible bookmarks back-end platform, adding more support for web services "to act as content handlers" — all of which show that Firefox wants to be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version. Also in the works is Microsoft's IE8. According to ActiveWin.com, a Microsoft official at CES told them that work has already begun for IE 8 and it may be released as a final product 'within 18-24 months'. Looking ahead, it's obvious that IE will continue to hook into the advanced functionality that Vista offers."
For the same reason Windows Vista used to be called by the codename 'Longhorn' or that Ubuntu 6.10 is referred to by the codename 'Edgy Eft'. Because when they start working on the release, they don't know what they will end up calling it. "FF3" could just as easily end up being FF2.5 instead of FF3 if they don't end up with all the features that they wanted.
My blog
Actually, Google offers a tool that does bookmarks syncing, among other things. Not perfect, but it mostly works. Has potential dangers to privacy, but is very convenient.
Ander
@=
It's probably not so clear from the article but Firefox3 contains a relational database, sqlite which can be accessed from Javascript. This allows for a whole new class of applications to be implemented as extensions.
Mod Parent Up!
It seems to be common to misuse FF as the FireFox abbreviation. Indeed, I can produce countless IRC logs of instances when users bash each other for using incorrect abbreviations.
Often, the FF acronym is associated with Final Fantasy, (FFVI was released in America as FFIII for anyone who doesn't get the reference).
For the record, the proper abbreviation is Fx.
It's boring to say 'firefox 3' and more fun to say 'gran paradiso'.
Not even because it's fun. Try reading the Mozilla forums sometime.
The browsers are given development codenames to SIGNIFICANTLY differentiate the development nightly/alpha/beta releases from the blessed official version releases. They don't want Grandpa Joe Sixpack coming along to download this "FoxFire thingy" he heard his kids talk about and accidently wind up with Firefox 3.0 Alpha 1, (which may or may not work as advertised because, well, it's an alpha) when he's obviously not interested in a development release.
Another reason is that it's less confusing and ambiguous, especially when you have multiple versions of Firefox. It's easy to get confused about which feature went into which product when you have "Firefox 1.0", "Firefox 1.5", "Firefox 2.0", "Firefox 3.0" and so forth. At least from a developer perspective, there's more uniqueness to "Phoenix", "Deer Park", "Bon Echo", and "Gran Paradiso" releases from the associated mental imagery.
But keeping them distinct and less noticable from the end user perspective is the most important reason.
When you get a chance, check out the current nightly trunk builds. Just after Firefox 3 alpha 1, they merged in the "reflow branch" which includes a bunch of CSS improvements and passes Acid2.
Use tab sidebar.T abSidebar
http://users.blueprintit.co.uk/~dave/web/firefox/
Yes, isn't officially on addons.mozilla.org, but this addon has been out there for a while.
You can always inspect the code if you want.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'