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:Frightful?

[xtracto]

Firefox starts to sound like the next big brother.

At the risk of being unpopular and stoned to death by this crowd that is looking me funny, I think "the next big-brother" is no one else than your friend Google. You can't guess the quantity of information they OWN. Yes, they OWN information about you, it is theirs and they can use it for whatever they might.

Yeah, I know currently they have this "do no evil" motto, which can be modified in the non too distant future. Although IMHO such thing has no real value.

And why does it relate to firefox? because indeed there is a small text field in firefox which directs you to Google search by default. There is great money to be done from that from what I have read, and a great amount of information for Google.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[MrNaz]

Wow! That's a great solution, now all I need to do is give my Mum a crash course in command line usage, file ownership manage and UNIX file permissions! She'll have our family albums up in no time!