Firefox 4 Will Push Edges of Browser Definition

Chris Blanc writes "Mozilla Lab's push is to blur the edges of the browser, to make it both more tightly integrated with the computer it's running on, and also more hooked into Web services. So extended, the browser becomes an even more powerful and pervasive platform for all kinds of applications. 'Beard wants the new online/offline, browser/service to be more intelligent on behalf of its users. Early examples of this intelligence include the "awesome bar," which is what Mozilla calls the new smart address bar in Firefox 3. It offers users smart URL suggestions as they type based on Web searches and their prior Web browsing history. He's looking to extend on this with a "linguistic user interface" that lets users type plain English commands into the browser bar. Beard pointed me towards Quicksilver and Enso as products he's cribbing from.'"

Comments

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[dedazo]

Cool, then the Firefox developers will be able to blame not just memory leaks but everything on plugins. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Personally I'll wait to see if Firefox3 doesn't consume 700MB of memory after being open for three days before I think about buying into the idea that the Mozilla foundation should be pushing any envelopes.