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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."

8 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. What's up with the code names, anyway? by KlaymenDK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "the next version of Firefox, codenamed 'Gran Paradiso'"

    Why are they using code names?

    I can understand how it could be necessary for things like the original Mac and Windows 95. But why for yet-another-version of an established product?

    As I see it, either they might as well call it "the upcoming Firefox v3", or they should not (want to) discuss it publicly at all.

    Or is it just to keep Marketing occupied with something harmless?

  2. Sticking with FF by shirizaki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Honestly with the issues I had with IE6 I moved to FF 1.5. Then when IE7 came out I upgraded, but found it almost as loose as IE6, just with tabs. Not to mention IE7 doesn't have extentions. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have half of the extensiosn I have for FF. I'm not even mentiioning the portable version I carry with all of my extensions on it.

    Firefox 2 has ben extremely stable except with a few quirks, which stems from my computer being slow as hell. I look forward to what Firefox 3 bring to the table.

    --
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  3. Detachable tabs? by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will they implement detachable (and attachable) tabs? Konqueror has had this forever, so Firefox has some catching up to do.

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  4. Looking forward to Bookmarks improvements! by KlaymenDK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I for one am very much looking forward to improvements in the Bookmarks department.

    How it was in Mozilla was actually better than Firefox now, the context menu in the app/toolbar menus were so good you'd hardly ever need to use "Manage Bookmarks".
    Anyway, people are allegedly no longer using bookmarks in favour of tag clouds and what-have-you ... probably why it was never deemed important enough to implement the store-your-bookmarks-on-an-FTP which has been discussed for so long.

  5. Fit and Finish? by adavies42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is anyone working on the little things? Stuff like the URL bar not getting the focus half the time when creating a new tab, or the status bar not saying "Done" when a page is actually finished? The continuous minor irritations of things like that are what make up a large part of a user's general feelings about a product, and one of the reasons I"ll always prefer to use Safari when I can.

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  6. Re:I'd be happy... by ivan256 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With flashblock installed, I have never had a FF2 crash. I currently have 20+ tabs open in two windows. I've actually got a few flash things running, but most of them are blocked.

    Try it. You may be pleasantly surprised. You'll have less crashing *and* less CPU wasting flash ads running in the background.

  7. multi-threaded UI yet? by Tumbleweed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone know if this is in the pipeline for FF3? *sigh*

  8. Re:Hope its better than FF2 by StonyUK · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I had the same experience. For me it turned out that the Google Toolbar was causing the problem. I now use Googlebar instead and Firefox is solid and stable again.