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

"Blur the edges of the browser"

[Raineer]

Cleartype fonts will clear that right up.

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[monkeyboythom]

Welcome timetravelers to the world of 1996!

Funny..will they talk about about running applications from a browser window...and will they then tout pay-per-services through a web-based subscription model? And yes, why use Microsoft, when a thin OS client is all that will be needed when Netscape...oops...Mozilla runs everything from a browser.

Gee, I bet they'll next try to sell me on Savings & Loans created funds to house all my Dot.com gains!

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[Clete2]

Kiss the original reason for Firefox's invention goodbye. "Now introducing Firefox 4! Now with added bloat!"

That said, I'm using Firefox 3 Beta 4 and it's less bloaty (memory footprint wise) than Firefox 2.

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention that a browser,which is the single biggest source of viruses and exploits,really shouldn't be more tightly integrated into the OS it's running on.The fact that IE is tightly integrated is the reason I have it blocked at the firewall on all my machines and am using Firefox in the first place.But at least with Open Source if Firefox royally bones it there will be Seamonkey,Kmeleon,or some other fork pop up that uses the Gecko engine without doing something stupid like tightly integrating with the host.Now if I could just get Noscript and Adblock running in Kmeleon I'd have what Firefox was supposed to be originally:a fast lightweight and nicely customized browser that gives me the web MY way.But this is just my opinion,YMMV.

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[Raineer]

Took 6 hours for someone to say what I knew when I posted it :D

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[Billly Gates]

"

Welcome timetravelers to the world of 1996!

Funny..will they talk about about running applications from a browser window...and will they then tout pay-per-services through a web-based subscription model? And yes, why use Microsoft, when a thin OS client is all that will be needed when Netscape...oops...Mozilla runs everything from a browser.

Gee, I bet they'll next try to sell me on Savings & Loans created funds to house all my Dot.com gains!
"

You are %100 correct and its all coming true, though your comment was intended to be sarcasm.

Look at Google apps as an example?

Microsoft killed the network computer by changing the EULA for its windows monopoly to somehow make it appear that smart terminals were dead.

It is coming true and dumb terminals of the 1980's are certainly the right way to go for large organizations thanks to networking and the internet.

True active desktop using push technology was stupid and not a real implementation but look at KDE and konqueror as an example?

Oh and dotcoms not making money? I just complemented an e-commerce course at my college and the market is now just exploding thanks to highspeed internet that was unavailable to most users during the 1990's. Amazon just made its first profit and the internet as a marketing tool is exploding and ecommerce has been growing tremendously. Especially this is true in asain markets.

The browser is the computer as far as I am concerned and many businesses will be looking into servring intranet and web apps as a cost reduction measure. New apps like myspace and even slashdot are changing the way we network and learn more about our IT jobs.

However Google and Microsoft already have a heads up and pissing off google might be bad. Information retrival is the next wave of the future as storage capacity gets larger. The windows vista search utility is really cool when looking up java docs.

Re:"Blur the edges of the browser"

[m50d]

Now if I could just get Noscript and Adblock running in Kmeleon I'd have what Firefox was supposed to be originally:a fast lightweight and nicely customized browser that gives me the web MY way.

This is going to come off as trollish, but it's here already and it's called Opera.

I hope they implement this as plugins

[pembo13]

Because I would like my browser to interact with my machine as little as possible && and I am not at all into social networking.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[calebt3]

Ditto. Integration with the OS is the last thing I want. That's exactly what gets IE into so much trouble.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[jellomizer]

But this is an Open Source Program not a Microsoft App. So it is good for you. Come on Drink the Koolaid. Just because my Integrating the browser with the OS for microsoft created a whole bunch of security conserns doesn't mean it will do the same with your Browser/OS.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[dvice_null]

The summary does sound quite bad, but if you read the article, it sounds actually much better.

"At the moment, these are two separate projects Mozilla is running to push out the edges of the browser: Prism and Weave."

"Prism
Prism is Mozilla's shot at busting apps out of the browser. Part of the Prism project is making the browsing core available to apps developers so they can build products like Zimbra Desktop (review) that are essentially Web apps, but that don't look like it. "

"Weave
Weave extends the browser in the other direction: Not toward the desktop, but instead into the Internet. Mozilla wants an individual's browsing experience to stay with them no matter what machine they are on."

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[iONiUM]

You're not the "average" user. You know how I know?
a) you're on slashdot
b) you used && in your comment, perhaps by mistake
c) "I am not at all into social networking."

On the plus side you definitely belong here!

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[bkr1_2k]

"Weave extends the browser in the other direction: Not toward the desktop, but instead into the Internet. Mozilla wants an individual's browsing experience to stay with them no matter what machine they are on."

Screw that! My employer doesn't need to know I read slashfiction or what kind of porn I browse at home. Now, the porn I browse at work, that's different!

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[zappepcs]

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[dedazo]

Since you can save your session, is there really any reason to be keeping your browser open for 3 days.

The correct question here is why should I have to restart my browser every three days.

I rarely see it go past 150M of memory usage. I suspect it's probably some extension you are running that is consuming all the memory.

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[webmaster404]

I honestly don't want Firefox integrating too much with Ubuntu or other Linux installs. Now while Firefox is a great browser (I usually prefer it) recently it has gotten very popular and is now more of a target for malware, while most malware doesn't target Linux, if Firefox has a flaw in all versions, it would make just adding a Linux binary to the malware to make it affect Linux, and that is something I would rather not ever have to deal with.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[FunkyELF]

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[mhall119]

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. I've been using Beta 3 and now 4 on windows at work(*) for several weeks now, and after a leaving it open for a week it will usually consume ~75MB of memory. I have seen it peak at about 130MB when in heavy use. But nowhere near the 300+MB I would get doing the same with FF2.

(*) I have beta 3 on Ubuntu at home, but I've never checked the memory usage because even though I run the same apps at home, I've never had any memory problems on Ubuntu.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[moranar]

I'm appalled at how people downplay the effect of rm -rf ~ . A Linux install can be reinstalled in a couple hours, but the important documents people have usually aren't backed up at all, and are therefore much more valuable than the contents of /usr or /etc.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[aix tom]

That is exactly the thing.

I switched from Netscape to Phoenix at that time because it was more LIGHTWEIGHT.

I like programs better that do one thing, and do it good, than the ones that do everything a little.

Also, integrate Firefox into the OS? As it runs on many OSes that integration will either be bloated without end to fit all OSes, or they don't integrate well, or they fork into different versions for different OSes.

All things that not really help make the browser better, just cost a lot of time an manpower.

So when they go through with that, after Firefox 3 is may be high time to look for a more lightweight browser again.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[jeremyp]

Your case is helped by the blatant lie about Minesweeper.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[mhall119]

Some of the 2.x plugins have been upgraded to work with 3.0, others work fine they just need the version compatibility bumped up to 3.0. Currently I'm running:

AdBlock Plus
Aging Tabs
Download Statusbar
Firebug (disabled when not in use, otherwise it is a memory hog)
Fission
Flashblock
IE Tab (Stupid intranet sites)
Java Quickstarter (huh, I didn't install that)
Web Developer Toolbar

The only one not working is LiveClick for more usable RSS bookmarks.

It's been running all day, with between 1 and ~20 tabs open, and is currently sitting at 65MB memory with 5 tabs open. Really, the memory improvements in FF3 are really very impressive. It'd have been running longer, but I had to reboot Windows, it started forgetting to drawn windows when they would popup, or I restored minimized ones, go figure.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[Tumbleweed]

&& and I am not at all into social networking.

And if you keep using programming terminology like '&&' instead of 'and', YOU NEVER WILL BE.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[cheater512]

But on Linux, backing everything up is far simpler than windows.
cp -rf ~ /backup does the job.

Compare it to Windows where data is everywhere and its impossible to back up everything properly.

Anyway most malware wants to make the maker cash, not be disruptive.

Admittedly, no I do not backup. :P

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[nschubach]

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[CoreDump01]

I'm appalled at how people downplay the effect of rm -rf ~ . A Linux install can be reinstalled in a couple hours, but the important documents people have usually aren't backed up at all, and are therefore much more valuable than the contents of /usr or /etc. While I do agree that a rm -rf ~ is pretty bad and basically screws up your box just as bad as a rm -rf / would have done, I somehow can't seem to feel pity for all these morons who do not back up their important stuff to an external media.

If you didn't back it up, it wasn't that important in the first place, right?

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[bob.appleyard]

Browsers don't just implement HTTP, though. They have to have an HTML renderer at the very least. Then you get onto CSS and Javascript, which means making a virtual machine, and there are a whole slew of other technologies that your modern browser is expected to support (e.g. binary plugins for Flash, Java and what have you). Furthermore, they have to do these things in commonly-agreed ways, and those ways are being revised all the time. It's a mean task: no wonder so few actually manage to do it decently.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[pthisis]

I'm appalled at how people downplay the effect of rm -rf ~ . A Linux install can be reinstalled in a couple hours, but the important documents people have usually aren't backed up at all, and are therefore much more valuable than the contents of /usr or /etc. Absolutely. FWIW, it's not hard if you're user "john" to create a "johnbrowser" user, set the preferred browser to "sudo su - johnbrowser firefox", and "chown -R johnbrowser:john ~/.mozilla ~/Downloads". There are a few details, but distributions could very easily set it up.

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[PitaBred]

So much for being able to upload family photos to a website...

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[kesuki]

this is the annoying thing so many Linux newbies thing that rm -rf ~ is the 'worst' thing a Linux browser exploit can do.

No the worst thing a Linux browser exploit can do, is install apache+php+php uploader application in ~
one that you know, now loads every time the browser is loaded. after all it was the browser that got hacked...

combine it with some sort of dynamic dns app and the machine can have it's own host name that changes every time it's ip address changes... or instead of a web server, they could just install an irc bot, that loads every time the browser is loaded, thats a little less noticeable... and negates the need for a dynamic dns, it just needs to auto connect to an irc server.

unless you've specifically modified your home directory so that it can't contain programs, they can always infect your home directory with mal-ware.

OTOH since without a combo root escalation all you have to do is 'ls -a ~' to detect said mal-ware its easy to see if you've been hacked...

and this whole concept of where firefox 4 is supposed to be going, just makes it worse, firefox 4 might as well call itself 'ie 5' because if they really do make it so hyper integrated it will become the next best rootkit installer since ie5.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[JackieBrown]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_OS

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[MrNaz]

I'm appalled at how after 10 years of dealing with regular every day users, just how recalcitrant open source nerds are in failing to recognise basic behavioural patterns that just won't change.

I agree, not backing up is stupid. But as an IT admin, ensuring all of my users' data is safe is my job. It'd be like a security firm hired to manage a company's building security saying "dumb staff, if they aren't second dan black belt karate masters with a 9mm tucked into their belt I have no sympathy if they get mugged in the lobby".

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[sumdumass]

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.

Re:I hope they implement this as plugins

[Per Wigren]

"If you didn't back it up, it wasn't that important in the first place, right?"

Is that what you say to your dad/mom/daughter/son/best friend/grandma when they come to you in tears because they just lost three years of photos or cubase masters?

It's true that they should had backed up the data, but it's just evil to put it in their mouth that the data was somehow unimportant for them. Just like if wake up late, risk your life in panic trying to get to work faster than it's possible, arrive 10 minutes late and then hear "I see that you don't care about your job, right?". Or to make a car analogy: If you didn't wear your seat belt, your life wasn't that important in the first place, right?

Repeat after me: People are humans. Humans error.

Not everybody have computers as their hobby like you and I. In 2008 people a LOT of people have their whole lives on their computer with no back up what so ever, but somehow I really think it's more the fault of the makers of operating systems and sellers of computer systems. Just like Windows pop up warnings saying "your antivirus is not updated", it should say "Your home folder doesn't seem to have a backup. In case of a hardware failure or a virus you may lose all your data. Do you want to back up now?". Power users like you and I can turn the warnings off and implement our own rdiff or Git backed scheme and others (and lazy power users) can use the better-than-nothing built-in system, but at least they will no longer be unaware of the problem and they can keep using computers for what they were meant for: Being lazy.

is it just me?

[Ecobady]

I really dont want mozilla suggesting anything in my address bar

Re:is it just me?

[dvice_null]

Usually these features can be disabled quite easily from the about:config.

Re:is it just me?

[jellomizer]

Oh yea it is easy type about:config (like that is a common way to change preferences in application of the 21 centory) Then hunt down for some feature name that is probable more reference to a Varable Name and less of what it actually does and then figure out what the value should be... A piece of Cake, I have no Idea why people say Open Source Software is hard to use.

Re:is it just me?

[calebt3]

This is where Google comes in handy.
http://zacgarrett.com/software/disable-url-search-in-location-bar-of-firefox-3/index.html

Re:is it just me?

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

Actually, in this case they can't. I personally HATE the new "awesomebar", it really sucks. Luckily, there is a way out.

I'm really hoping Mozilla does not take Firefox in the direction of "wow new features!" that actually reduce functionality.

Re:is it just me?

[Mateo_LeFou]

Oh, yeah, sure. I'm going to go and... read, whatchamacallit .. *instructions about how to do the thing that I want to do.

Not likely. Firefox doesn't behave how I like by default because it's, um, open source software I guess.

-PseudoJello

Re:is it just me?

[SatanicPuppy]

gp is right...You shouldn't have to look up instructions on how to change a basic setting. It irritates the hell out of me when FF does crap like this. You can add an "Advanced Configuration Options" button that will provide this sort of functionality without forcing the user to remember a piece of command syntax.

Re:is it just me?

[at_slashdot]

I have no Idea why people say Open Source Software is hard to use.

I have no idea either, open source is a just way to develop programs, I see no connection between this and the complexity of programs or their user-friendliness, I bet there are many tic-tac-toe programs that are open sourced... I can write a shitty program with close source or open source alike. If it's open source at least there's a chance that somebody else can fix it.

Re:is it just me?

[soliptic]

That way out doesn't look like it would be any use to me. From the comments:

Would it be possible to add an option to give the same search behaviour that the old address bar gave? i.e. Just search based on the beginning of the URL, not searching against sub-strings within the entire URL and title.

This is what bothers me, not the presentation.

The current autocomplete matching behaviour suits me perfectly. I press "l", I get "last.fm/user/myusername" suggested. Which is what I want. Because it's the most common site I visit beginning with "l". Which is why I frickin' pressed "l", goddamnit! Not because four weeks ago I once visited a page with <title>Little random thing I have no intention of visiting again</title> !! Ditto "f" for facebook, "e" for "en.wikipedia.org", and of course "s" for slashdot... etc etc.

With almost every single one of the short list of daily / most-visited URLs (not even just sites, but specific URLs), "initial letter, down arrow, enter" gets me straight there.

Of course, sometimes this isn't enough. My two most visited forums both begin with "d". Big deal. It's not a chore to type two letters, down arrow, enter.

It is a chore to have the autocomplete search space vastly increased with a bunch of crap, whereby simple mathematics dictates the S/N ratio will be worse and the matching will get worse. I mean, ffs - it's been standard SEO policy to have lengthy <title> tags and lengthy URLs, containing the maximum possible number of keywords and keyphrases, for years. One or two letter autocomplete terms will be guaranteed to match almost every page in my history.

Now, people will say, "great, you're a geeky power user who remembers wikipedia will autocomplete from "e" for "en.", but a normal person would type "wiki"..." In that regard I don't really mind that they're monkeying about with this. I am not wanting to be that stereotypical slashdotter who presumes his own habits are the be-all and end-all, if something works perfectly for him then god forbid millions of people should dare to differ, etc.

In that spirit, whilst I can see what this post is getting at, I wouldn't give a damn if changing this back was in about:config. In my experience, every time I've needed to delve into about:config it was something where I felt, "fine, fair enough, that's the sort of geekism where anyone caring enough to change it will be cool with googling the about:config tweak".

But from what I gather, it's not even possible to change this with about:config. Which makes me want to reach for the :mad: smilies I would have available on the more frivolous boards I frequent.

Re:is it just me?

[Fallingcow]

"e" for "en.wikipedia.org"

OK, you may already know about this, but I feel compelled to spread the Good News in case you don't.

You can right click on any search field, and click "add a keyword for this search" to be able to type "[keyword] [search term(s)]" in your address bar to use the search.

For example, every Firefox installation that I use has Wikipedia set up as, "wp [keyword(s)]". If I game on it, it's got Gamefaqs set to "faq [keyword(s)]". I'm so used to it that I try it without thinking on other people's machines and am always a bit taken aback when it doesn't work :) Much faster than selecting the desired search provider in the box at the right.

Re:is it just me?

[jellomizer]

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.

Active Desktop?

[Hatta]

Didn't we try this 10 years ago, and it sucked? I want more separation between my browser and OS, not less.

Re:Active Desktop?

[michaelggreer]

Agreed. And my least favorite feature of FF3? That "smart" toolbar, that refuses to listen to what I'm typing in preference to its own idea of what i want. No thanks.

This is all wrong!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely Firefox is going in the wrong direction! IMHO, blurring the edges of the browser should be the job of the Window Manager.

I'll get my coat..

Beard...

[Naughty Bob]

From his picture in TFA, Chris Beard, VP of Labs for Mozilla, has no beard, despite his high-up position within the open source movement.

Does open source play by ZZ-top rules now?

Sounds Scarry.

[jellomizer]

Even though this is Open Source It sounds to Scarry.
We origionally used firefox because it was a fast simple browser without all the overhead of Mozilla/Netscape. It seems like it is going back into that direction again. Why because once it got popular people began asking oh One more thing. The firefox team needs to learn to say NO to feature requests and Yes to fixing bugs and not finding excuses not to fix them.

Re:Sounds Scarry.

[TubeSteak]

At this point, I'd take a browser with half the awesome and none of the bloat.

Maybe FireFox needs a "lite" version.

Re:Sounds Scarry.

[Xarius]

Maybe FireFox needs a "lite" version.

Heh, oddly enough FireFox started out as a "lite" version of the original Mozilla.

Re:Sounds Scarry.

[jbeaupre]

Funny but if "scarry" means causes scars or covered in scars, it's more scary than "scary".

Re:Sounds Scarry.

[Wellington Grey]

And so continues the software circle of life.

Oh please DON'T

[snarfies]

I don't WANT the edges pushed. I just want a browser, really. I just want to look at web pages, maybe even post to the occasional online forum (like Slashdot). I don't want a huge bloated thing that will suck up all my system resources and take two minutes to fire up. I just want a simple, standard-compliant, browser. Please, just let Firefox be that and make a new program to do all that other crap.

Re:Oh please DON'T

[pohl]

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.

Re:Oh please DON'T

[moderatorrater]

I don't want a huge bloated thing that will suck up all my system resources...I just want a simple, standard-compliant, browser You obviously haven't read the standards. Honestly, they're so complex they scream "bloat" at the top of their lungs.

Re:Oh please DON'T

[soliptic]

That blog post wasn't alarming. Or at least, maybe that one was, but try this one, which says a similar sort of thing, but makes its case at greater length, and, well, generally better.

In fact, if you compare and contrast this quote:

... virtually none of the issues on the Acid 3 list are important enough for us to take at this stage. We don't want to be rushing fixes in, or rushing out a release, only to find that we've broken important sites or regressed previous standards support, or worse introduced a security problem. Every API that's exposed to content needs to be tested for compliance and security and reliability...

With this story from the same day, then you get a sense that maybe the Mozilla guys aren't so clueless on this topic as you suggest...

Of course, don't get me wrong, I'm not literally suggesting that the Safari guys were so busy getting to 100/100 they directly introduced that security bug as a result of one of the acid3 fixes. (I know the dates don't work out, for starters).

What I am saying, is that were Mozilla saying "fuck acid3", that's alarming. But when they're actually saying things more like the "only add these fixes with thorough QA", above, or

[acid3 tests] should be fair to the web; they should be based on how good the web will be as a platform if all browsers conform...

We will fix standards compliance bugs; it's what we do. But we won't fix them all with the same priority, and I hope that we won't prioritize Acid 3 fixes artificially highly, because I think that would be a disservice to web developers and users.

Then it's not exactly random attention-seeking as much as carefully and broadly considered development strategy.

All that said, I still completely agree that this new address bar and "blurring the edges" talk is hovering somewhere between stark raving bonkers and epic fail.

Re:Oh please DON'T

[pohl]

Thank you for the link to Shaver's blog post. Indeed it is more reasonable than Rob Sayre's "sour grapes" post, although i find Ian Hickson's response to Shaver's blog post to be more reasonable still. (Worth reading if you missed it.) Also don't miss Maciej Stachowiak's Scenes From an Acid Test. It does touch on the careful approach they have taken. I wish we could peek behind the curtain at Opera to see what's really going on there.

Translation

[Xeth]

We're not going to fix the memory leaks.

(Seriously though, I love Firefox. But please remember why it was spun-off from Mozilla in the first place...)

Frightful?

[Gay for Linux]

Anyone else find the security aspect of this a bit frightful? They want a database which will track our browsing habits, constant updates to the Mozilla servers, and integration with the OS?

Firefox starts to sound like the next big brother.

Re:Frightful?

[garett_spencley]

Actually the first thing that I thought after reading the summary was that FF4 was going to be Internet Explorer.

I think everyone else hit the nail on the head. We originally used Phoenix because it WASN'T these things. It was a light, simple, fast, usable browser. Now they're talking about integrating it with the OS ... isn't that something we've been complaining about with regards to IE for the last 10 years ?

Seriously

[joppinkaru]

I don't WANT the edges pushed. I just want a browser, really. I just want to look at web pages, maybe even post to the occasional online forum (like Slashdot). I don't want a huge bloated thing that will suck up all my system resources and take two minutes to fire up. I just want a simple, standard-compliant, browser. Please, just let Firefox be that and make a new program to do all that other crap. What other Windows Vista features can I expect in Firefox 4?

Sounds like an OS

[tknn]

So why don't they just break down and admit they are developing an OS that runs on top of other OSes?

rewrite html first

[spectro]

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.

Re:rewrite html first

[plague3106]

You should check out XAML.

Re:AwesomeBar

[CaptainPatent]

I vote we tag this awesome article "AWESOMEBAR" Until now, I just thought the AwesomeBar was what Chuck Norris ate for breakfast!

SeaMonkey

[DoktorSeven]

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.

Re:IE 4.0 Lives in Mozilla...

[Raineer]

I tend to agree. I think this is fine for the crowd that knows nothing about computers and WANTS to know nothing about computers. You doubleclick one icon and it does everything, they can't tell it's laggy and they don't care.

Techies need techy programs, quick/fast/onlywhatyouneed. For some reason FF3 (which I have been impressed with up until now) has seemed to lag quite a bit lately. I'm trying out Opera 9.5 (my 3rd go at their beta) and Webkit (forced to use windows here, webkit is my choice on OSX). Both have quite a bit of merit.

Penultimate stage of the browser life cycle

[Bovius]

Lemme break it down for you:

• Gestation: Initial release of totally awesome browser is developed.
• Infancy: A few people start using the browser and see how totally awesome it is. Word spreads.
• Childhood: User base grows explosively. People start complaining that totally awesome browser doesn't have feature X.
• Adolescence: More and more features get tacked on to browser. Side effects of bloat become noticable. Users start to ask for a lite version.
• Maturity: Browser starts performing tasks entirely unrelated to web browsing. Browser becomes hefty and clumsy (FireFox is somewhere in this stage)
• Entrenchment: Browser has enough of a user base to establish its own nonstandard rules for web content, essentially branching the web. Alienation and hostility ensue.
• Death:: User base dwindles becuase the browser doesn't play nice with the rest of the world anymore.

Those of us who think the new vision is a bad thing aren't necessarily curmudgeons who don't want anything to change. We know a lot of very specific things about how we want to interact with a computer, and we don't want the same organization that produces our web browser of choice to dictate the rest of that interaction. It doesn't really matter whether they get it right or not.

Firefox development should fork

[MyDixieWrecked]

The whole original premise of Firefox was that it was lightweight, fast, and actually worked. Because of this, I think they should keep the firefox brand as-is... make it smaller, faster and more lightweight, but no reason to go fill it up with these features.

I think they should fork development into a new product. Basically going in the direction that they are discussing with version 4. These features look like they could be a great idea. A lot of really progressive and great things look stupid on paper, but once you see them and use them, they can surprise you, at times.

Personally, I think they need to make firefox even moreminimalistic. Something that will have the absolute smallest memory footprint after being launched and be snappy and responsive. Modern websites have a TON of code ([x]html/css/javascript) and graphics so it's understandable that the footprint would grow when you have 30 tabs open; but on slower hardware such as the eeepc or older laptops, I'd like the browser to not impact the system quite as much in the memory department.

Re:Firefox development should fork

[rrohbeck]

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.

It's EMACS all over again.

[serviscope_minor]

Firefox will be a great OS. The only thing it lacks is a decent browser.

What we need is the browser equivalent of vi. And it actually exists. How wierd is that?

Weave is a good idea, but dangerous

[lpangelrob]

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.)

Re:Weave is a good idea, but dangerous

[bkr1_2k]

You can do that with a standard pop email client using gmail now. Why should it be built into the browser functionality?

Re:Weave is a good idea, but dangerous

[lpangelrob]

You can do that with a standard pop email client using gmail now. Why should it be built into the browser functionality?

That's true for email, but from a general standpoint there's only a finite number of applications possible for an infinite amount of web applications. Desktop versions of Picasa, Google Calendar, or even any given corporate intranet app would be nice. Plus, from a developer's standpoint, the idea of being able to push out fixes and having users automatically receive them every time they connected to the network would be a good thing.

Frankly, it sounds a little bit like Java, which is why even as I type this, I wonder where I've heard all this before. (In fact, I work in the commodities industry, and one of our trading platforms works just like this, except they have official releases.)

Re:Weave is a good idea, but dangerous

[tepples]

You can do that with a standard pop email client using gmail now. Why should it be built into the browser functionality? The browser would allow deployment of an application into a sandbox.

"more tightly integrated"

[Zakabog]

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 what they're saying is, "We're cloning internet explorer"?

Doesn't Firefox already use up enough memory? Currently Firefox is running on my computer using up nearly 800MB of RAM. I have 3 tabs open and none of them are doing anything intense. I'm glad my computer has 2 gigs of RAM but I bought that for Photoshop not Firefox...

Re:"more tightly integrated"

[Jeff Carr]

800mb? You're doing something wrong.

Mine is currently using 179mb of memory, with 12 tabs open and 21 addons including custom Greasemonkey scripts and Stylish styles running.

Yes, I'm running Windows here at work, but I run the same setup at home on KDE, and still use nowhere near 800mb of memory.

Yes, Firefox could stand to lose a bit of weight possibly, but Firefox 3 is supposed to be shedding some of that.

Besides, the integration that everyone is so up in arms about without reading the article, is Prism, a separate stand-alone application. It would be like complaining that Thunderbird is bloating Firefox because they're based on the same code-base.

Hold on...

[GameboyRMH]

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.

The Awesome Bar

[Scrameustache]

Where the women are easy and the booze is cheap!

Re:Some recommended commands

[Yvan256]

Score: 5, Confused

What is it with everyone and HTTP / XML?

[shish]

It seems that the world is moving back to a thin client setup; but instead of a client having a network connection to a server, its communication is via several abstraction and generic transport layers (HTTP / AJAX); instead of using a relevant protocol, everything is translated into XML-based RPC; and instead of using a useful widget set, everyone is bastardising HTML (eg, the hundreds of javascript-based calendar widgets; when all GUI toolkits I know of have one built in).

Is it just me, or is this hideously inefficient, ugly, and Wrong(tm)?

Didn't Microsoft already try this?

[Itchyeyes]

integrated with the computer it's running on, and also more hooked into Web services So Firefox 4 is going to have Active X?

Summary of all comments

[radl33t]

"Get off my lawn"

All I want from the address bar

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

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.

Re:All I want from the address bar

[MP3Chuck]

Sounds like you want something like Firefox 3's address bar. When you start typing in the address bar it basically searches your history and bookmarks. So I can type "dot" and it'll still bring up "slashdot" since that's the most relevant result for me.

Re:Uncessary Complexity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you can turn it off with a plugin that will break with every single release.

Re:Some recommended commands

[FredFredrickson]

There are no nutrients in [rock]. Dragon kills you. You are dead. [Restart?]

Jumped the shark

[Quattro Vezina]

Tagged with "jumpedtheshark".

A web browser should be a web browser, goddammit.

The Mozilla Foundation is the single biggest thing hurting Firefox. The MoFo has already turned Firefox into proprietary software. Seriously, Firefox isn't as free as you think, all while falsely claiming Firefox is open-source. They commit extortion against people who make custom icons, and they've announced that no one is allowed to distribute Firefox without MoFo signing off on it. Debian and the FSF want nothing to do with them, and for good reason.

I have much less of a problem with Opera. Opera doesn't hide the fact that they're not free at all. It's a closed-source browser that admits it. The Mozilla Foundation lacks that honesty.

Not to mention performance: Firefox is a giant memory leak, while Opera just keeps chugging along. Then again, Opera has managed to piss me off with 9.50...I hate how 9.50 totally locks up my computer and makes my hard drive grind for 30 seconds flat every time I type a URL into the address bar.

Re:AwesomeBar

[geekoid]

Nope
the Awesome Bar is what Chuck Norris shits out every morning.

Re:AwesomeBar

[sm62704]

Until now, I just thought the AwesomeBar was what Chuck Norris ate for breakfast!

No, it's where I go to drink.

Awesome bar - as envisioned by the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O

[ILikeRed]

Come on - the awesome bar sounds almost as good as the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000

Huh? Why?!

[neowolf]

They really need to just work on having the fastest and most standards-compliant Web browser available. That is what people want and expect from Firefox.

Microsoft has been trying to "blur the lines" of their browser for years, and look at the mess that's ended up being. Once you start blurring the lines and hooking more and more into the operating system- you create security and reliability risks. Firefox is popular now because it is more standards compliant than IE 7 (and probably IE 8) and is considerably safer and more reliable. Why ruin a good thing?

Re:AwesomeBar

[jo42]

As long as it also gets tagged "bloatware".

Re:Firefox 4?

[Lemmy Caution]

No kidding. In a commercial product, promoting the n+2 version when you are on the n version and about to release the n+1 version would be suicide. Can you imagine if, just before the iPhone release, Steve Jobs said, "the iPhone 2.0 will have built-in GPS, 3G, and shoot lasers!" Granted, free software is somewhat different than for-pay gadgetry, but it still takes the winds out of the sails of the pending next release.

History

[Kaki Nix Sain]

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.

Re:Awesome Awesome Bar awesomeness!

[Petrushka]

Maybe I've been sheltered, but this is honestly the first time I've seen what truly seems to be astroturfing for free and open source software. I find it hard to believe that there is actually someone outside Mozilla who thinks the Awesome Bar and OS integration are good ideas. Can anyone independently confirm/deny whether the parent works for Mozilla?

There's more than one way to integrate.

[Vellmont]

To all the people panicking about IE like OS integration, I think you're all over-reacting and missunderstanding. There's more than one way to join two things together.

The article doesn't go into specifics, but I'd imagine that what Beard is talking about is creating a browser that has a richer UI, and not limited by the traditional browser window. The effect would be a browser that doesn't look like a browser, and webapps that don't look like webapps. This doesn't mean a tightly-coupled OS/Browser combo like IE is/was. Obviously Mozilla can't really do that, since they don't have control over any OS.

What is a browser for?

[v(*_*)vvvv]

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.

Yeah, but what do you suggest?

[coder111]

Of course it is inefficient and Wrong(tm), and I have commented before on this same issue. And don't get me started on writing rich web applications that run on different browsers. Cross-browser compatibility very frustrating and maybe even harder than cross-platform compatibility.

However, what else do you suggest?

1. A Browser is already available on most systems, nothing to install.

2. Having an application run inside your Browser is reasonably secure.

3. HTTP is a protocol that is enabled/working on 100% of machines connected to the internet.

4. Zero administration. User doesn't have to do anything to get it working.

If you were to have another Application Client, you would need:

1. Damn good design and balance between various issues (performance, friendliness to user, ease of development, security, features, integration into OS, etc). And of course open standards. This can be achieved, but it's not easy. A lot of projects tried it and failed.

2. Popularity. It would have to be on >30% of machines out there. You would basically have to convince Microsoft to include it with Windows. And that is not going to happen, because it would threaten their office monopoly and other products.

3. Networking. You would have to convince millions of clueless network admins and security policy makers to allow another protocol on their network, especially in corporate networks. Not going to happen, and will impede your popularity a lot.

So writing applications for browsers is a really bad idea, but it is the best we have. If Microsoft didn't have a monopoly, and we could easily distribute another client to desktop/home machines, this might be less of an issue.

And practice shows that thin clients are a GOOD idea if you have clueless users. And most of the users are. You cannot trust users to administer their machines properly. Well designed server is more reliable than a malware ridden desktop machine. And it can backup files automatically, preserve user settings, work from different places, etc.

--Coder

Konqueror- Or not?

[martinw89]

We are all making comparisons to IE trying this direction years ago. I was tempted to further comment on KDE's similar attempts that were split up with 4. But in making looking to the original article, I found that I couldn't compare much. Prism, the direction in which "the lines are blurred", does not make attempts at system management or even at messing with your files. It does however give the option to make web applications like GMail work similar to local apps. According to more information about Prism, this also gives the options of having specific profiles for specific web applications. Think about it: you could have a slimmed down, no add-on profile for quickly checking your e-mail. And for general browsing you could have the full profile, no-script, adblock plus etc. Sounds pretty original

Web -2.0

[fph il quozientatore]

Cool. This way on, Firefox 7.0 will be looking much like Emacs.

Re:off your central topic, but...

[obender]

Do you know how many times I've wished for vi style editing in text boxes?

Here you have vi in a text area.

Re:There are many paths to the same flaws...

[smallfries]

Try reading his comment again. The connection between "changing the usability and UI one comes to expect from a web-browser" and XPI is exactly what has broken IE ever since Microsoft tried this (as the GP pointed out). When you blur the boundaries between a trusted environment and an untrusted environment, you break the very rudimentary security that the web-browser has. The main outcry in the comments here today is not even about the assumption that FF4.0 would be "bloated" - it's because it'll become the same insecure mess that IE is.

A real desktop application is trusted. I installed it. I gave it access to my local drive. It is fundamentally different to some webapp running in a page that I happened to surf across.

My browser profile is private. If it's going to "float" between browsers then how is privacy going to be guaranteed?

Most people don't want a tightly integrated experience - because the security problems that it would cause are too much hassle for them. They want a browser that works - it browses the web (including whatever scripting, and media that requires) - but it works within a sandbox, away from the rest of their system.

Awesome Bar?

[AmigaMMC]

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!

Awesomebar?

[Junior J. Junior III]

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

This is nice but...

[kilodelta]

Would they please get the add-on's rocking for FF3? I'm still using 2.0.0.13 right now because I use a ton of add-on's that aren't available for FF3 yet.

Not "Firefox". The Mozilla platform maybe.

[Flammon]

Seems like many Slashdotters are missing the point. The idea is to use the same technology that is used in the Firefox browser such as the rendering engine (Gecko), style sheets, scripting, XUL, etc. and use it for more than simply browsing the web. Let's call these parts the Mozilla platform. So now we have a web browser, Firefox, an mail client, Thunderbird and a calendar application, Sunbird. Why not an instant messenger, a media player, a bittorrent client, a document reader.

I would love to be able to set the look of my desktop by simply changing a style sheet or extend my applications by writing a little JavaScript. The Mozilla platform has become very capable over the years and could make the development of powerful network integrated desktop applications very easy. The name Firefox was used in the article because it is familiar but The Mozilla platform would have been a better choice of words.