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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.'"
Ditto. Integration with the OS is the last thing I want. That's exactly what gets IE into so much trouble.
I have to worry that Firefox is making the same mistakes IE 5 and 6 did with "closer integration". On the upside, however, Epiphany using the WebKit engine seems to be coming along awesomely and now passes Acid3, so I think I've found my next browser...
Instead of blurring and complicating all this even more, why not take a fresh look into HTML and how to create a new open markup language that allows for powerful and rich UIs instead of having to mess with HTML/XML/Javascript/Ajax/etc.
HTML and all the technology around it did its job. Now it is time to come up with something better.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Odd that Firefox was spun off from Mozilla because Mozilla was too bloated and heavy, and now we're back around where Firefox is going to be (is?) the bloated one -- and the new Mozilla, SeaMonkey, is actually light and simple compared to Firefox.
So I've switched to SeaMonkey. So long, Firefox. I've used you since the early days when you were known as Phoenix. I shan't be using you any more, given the direction you're heading.
This is a sig. Deal with it.
No kidding. This is the second really alarming thing I've read from the FF crew today. It's almost as if they've become disheartened by the pace set by Opera and WebKit, and are engaging in random attention-seeking behaviours.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
I like the idea of Weave. I log into 3 different Firefox browsers each day. None have the same bookmarks or history. My last attempt at synchronizing them over the internet resulted in Google deleting the vast majority of my bookmarks. I wasn't about to try that again. That said, I really don't want my cookies, passwords or favorites ending up on a desktop in Thailand unauthorized, for any reason whatsoever.
I also like Prism. I know people like to complain about the bloat of Firefox. It's not like FF has been getting any slower. In fact, through the last 3 beta versions of FF3, it's been getting faster, and the memory usage has actually gone down. What's the big deal?
The primary roadblock at this point is network access. Sometimes I don't have network access on my MacBook, depending where I am (Alaska comes to mind). The ability to continue working on web-based applications, absent of a network, is tantalizing, to say the least. Imagine writing a whole bunch of emails on Gmail, and synchronizing once you get network access. (Like all the stability of Outlook (ha!) and all the continuous service updates of Gmail, rolled into one.)
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Firefox is free open source software. Anyone could make a spin-off project in 5 minutes, plus the old source will still be there. What's the issue? If the new Firefox is bloated in the opinion of an at all significant number of people, a Firefox Lite project will spring up in about 3 seconds.
I'd tag this article "dontpanic," but I don't think there is such a tag, plus then I'd be encouraging the use of tags, which are distractingly humorous web-toys at best.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I don't want huge OS/browser integration either, but there are some things that I would like regarding browser oriented services. http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Feature_Brainstorming:Bookmarks#Bookmark_tags_and_keywords
when the Browser is keeping tabs on sites visited and metadata regarding that AND making that available to the OS and other Apps there is a great many things that can become easy based on your use of the Internet. More than I can mention here, but I'd like to see it. Imagine some mashup apps run locally on what you view, or optionally what others view via a tracking service not entirely unlike del.icio.us that allows you to categorize files on your hard drive also, where the tag clouds are shared, and downloading files uses the tags to organize etc.. as a basic premise.
No, the tags do not have to be shared with the world, and files will still be files, but finding them would be easier than saving everything to the desktop. This is one area that I think has not been sufficiently explored to assist casual users. They can remember that the file was something to do with banannas, but not that it was about Costa Rica. Tags allow easier memory tracks for humans.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The correct question here is why should I have to restart my browser every three days.
On this machine FF has been running continuously for 4 1/2 days. I have one tab open (this one). The Windows task manager says the process is using 430MB of memory, with about the same for VM. That means it's been a good week, since I've see it go to 700MB.
As for extensions, I have IEView, AdBlock Plus and CustomizeGoogle, plus Google Notebook, which is installed but disabled.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
All I really want is for the address bar to include sites I've visited many times, but just have never typed in the actual URL before. It's a real pain to start typing only to find that the address isn't coming up in the suggestions and resorting back to the bookmarks menu. Anything more complex than that is a pain for me -- I want less typing, not more.
Come on - the awesome bar sounds almost as good as the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
Unless that Linux binary also exploits some service running as root the worst that can happen is an "rm -rf ~"
Running arbitrary code on a Windows machine is worse since you can't play minesweeper without being an administrator.
Not to downplay deleting your home directory, that would suck...I'm just saying its still not as bad.
Amen. It's time for a lean and fast browser again. One without plugins and extensions, and limited Javascript.
I want a browser, not an OS.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
How about just fixing the most broken metaphors of browsing that no longer fit how people use the browser? I'm looking at you History.
Now that tabbed browsing is the norm, it seems that the metaphors surrounding the browser's history are getting a bit dated. For one, it all looks so linearly organized. While over in reality, we have tabs spawning other tabs. When they are opened isn't necessarily at all when they are used (and thus remembered to be relevant). Some tabs are hubs that are returned to again and again, spawning the same or different pages each time there. Sometimes those spoke tabs last for one reading (or less). Sometimes they give rise to other tabs directly, with a middle click, other times indirectly (open new search on something related to the page's content).
All this rich information is completely lost in the current views of history. The complex path we took from then to now is all lost in a flat view that is only somewhat usable, largely because it has some search capability (but even that doesn't reach into the contents of the pages we are presumably searching for).
If there is a plugin for a richer history, I'd be happy to know.
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
Who said they wouldn't ship LinFox. A Linux based OS with Firefox as the GUI, and default user login with no privileges. An Internet appliance of sorts. I'm just brainstorming here. Haven't really thought this through yet.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Web surfing, period. If I wanted to do other things, I'd get the other things that would do it. At least make it a plugin please.
What makes me wish a web page were more tightly integrated with my OS? Absolutely nothing.
What makes me wish the address bar did more than go to where I type? Absolutely nothing.
Things that I wish for:
1) A fast, stable, independent browser that launches and terminates quickly.
2) The address bar not to reset focus when a page is done loading if I am typing.
Firefox is great because of all the plugins. I managed to get it just the way I want it, and I couldn't have done it without them.
Firefox sucks out of the box though, so maybe the developers can work on making a more impressive initial package.
And so continues the software circle of life.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Then your browser doesn't have access to your documents; you can save stuff in ~/Downloads and that's about it. Well, in reality johnbrowser has access to connect to your X Server so there may be some avenues of attack there, but it gets that much trickier to just wipe out all your stuff.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
No if a product is designed correctly then you wouldn't need those help forums. You can actually put a lot of features in a GUI without making a GUI Crowded.
The common complaint about Open Source Software is if you don't like it fix it. Lets be realistic. Most of us work full time jobs and have a life after that. Digging threw Firefox code to make a feature more usable isn't worth most of our time. I would just use a different browsers either Safari, IE, Opera... Because it takes less time to download a different browser then stick it with one I don't like.
Bitching in areas where we hope the people who's lives do consist of digging threw firefox code would be more pressed into making it better. The argument isn't about Firefox it is about the attitudes in designing features and the ego stating that it is the users fault for not being able to find a feature right away but will need to search the internet to find solutions for, is not efficient.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_OS
That's BS. Regular *nix users can run "servers", they just can't listen on a low port. In practice this a meaningless distinction for your friendly neighborhood botnet spammer.
The only "awesome bar" I care for is the one where free drinks are offered. I have been betatesting FireFox 3 for almost a month now and I can already tell you I hate their "awesome bar." The so-called smart suggestions get in the way, when I type something in the search bar I'm more interested in having an alphabetized list of sites I've visited, as it is standard, than a load of crap I have to search through to get what I want. With tons of extensions that don't work and their "awesome bar" I'm afraid it won't be too long before I switch back to FF2 or some other browser when 2 becomes obsolete... hate to admit it but IE8 doesn't look that bad (and I'm not talking about actual "look"). "awesome bar" ... tsk!
I don't use AdBlock unless it is built in and I don't know how to turn it off. But I see my memory usage sore when about any script is loaded. And it doesn't release. I had to add noscript just to keep things sane and stop crashes. To give you an idea, I have had the computer on for about 5 hours since the last reboot, I have about ten tabs open, 4 of them in the last 10 minutes browsing this thread and I am at 251,956K It is going up as I write this. If I open another window or jump between tabs, it goes faster. If I open the noscript to allow scripts from just this site, it jumps from 255,732 to 267,252.
What ever the problem is, I wish they would fix it. I have followed the directions to limits it but they don't seem to help. Earlier today, I got upto almost 650,000k because I had to turn noscript off to check a bank statement with my webmail open. Of course I had a few other things open too but that is besides the point. I rebooted and opened the same windows and only had about 140,000k usage.