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."

Comments

Sticking with FF

[shirizaki]

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.

Detachable tabs?

[Hatta]

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

Fit and Finish?

[adavies42]

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.