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"

[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.

is it just me?

[Ecobady]

I really dont want mozilla suggesting anything in my address bar

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.

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.

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..

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

[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: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: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!

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.

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.

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.)

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)?

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: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

[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