Browsersphere

Believe it or not it’s been over three months since the last edition of Around the Browsersphere, so we’re long overdue.  Let’s get to it…

• Mozilla turned ten last month.
• Camino 1.5.5, a maintenance release, was made available a couple weeks ago, and Camino 1.6 Beta 2 was released a couple weeks before that.
• Add-on developers need to get their butts in gear and start updating their extensions to work with Firefox 3, primarily because the browser will be out in a couple months and secondarily because I don’t like using the Minefield builds without my favorite extensions
• The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog points out that over 600 million Firefox add-ons have been downloaded, and that in anticipation of the release of Firefox 3, addons.mozilla.org is being redesigned.
• The Opera Desktop Team has been experimenting with document.all cloaking and is giving users more control over tab-related behavior (more on that here) in the latest builds.
• SeaMonkey 1.1.8 was released earlier this month.
• The Safari team has added support for the new W3C Selectors API and appears to be busy chipping away at bugs related to the Acid3 test.
• The WebKit team has been spending some time focused on SVG performance improvements and a native, Cairo-based Windows port of the rendering engine.
• The forthcoming Opera Mobile 9.5 (not 9.0) is twice as fast as Opera Mobile 8.65 and four times faster than Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile.  Screenshots and videos of the new release have been appearing quite a bit.
• Alex Faaborg has provided a second glimpse at the icons to be used in Firefox 3 (you can see the full sheet of icons here).  Apparently the throbber is still up in the air.
• Firefox has about:config, now Opera Mini has opera:config.
• Glubble is a parental controls suite for the Firefox browser (via Asa Dotzler).
• Will IE8 really pass the Acid2 test?
• Cross-window messaging is coming to Firefox 3 (via Simon Willison).
• VnTutor has a list of 10 hidden features of Konqueror.
• The creator of KHTML, Lars Knoll, has been promoted to VP of engineering at Trolltech.
• Everyone has a pet feature.
• Take a look at Maxthon’s split-view feature in action.

Anyone who has downloaded Firefox nightly builds is likely familiar with the Minefield moniker that replaces “Firefox” wherever that application title is used in a typical Firefox build.

I have been testing the latest Minefield builds the past couple of nights, and tonight I was notified of an update and subsequently downloaded it.  In the new version, which is identified by the following user agent string:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9b3pre) Gecko/2008012804 Minefield/3.0b3pre

…the new Firefox theme icons have started to appear.  These changes were recently alluded to in a post by Alex Faaborg.  As of the latest build, the reload, stop and home icons have been updated.  The back and forward navigation buttons have yet to change, presumably because work is still being done on the new Keyhole design and functionality.

The icons that have changed look exactly as presented at Alex’s blog.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I’m not a fan of the change.  Perhaps once the Keyhole changes are in place things will flow a little better, but the new icons have a bit of a “childish” feel to them that I just don’t like.  However, having once been a Firefox theme developer, I know all too well that everyone has their own, often very strong, opinions one way or another about the various Firefox themes.

Given that, what do you think of the change?  Furthermore, what do you think of the new Keyhole approach?  If you haven’t had a chance to see them in action, give one of the latest nightly builds a try.  Minefield is stablizing at the moment since Mozilla is getting close to releasing a third beta of Firefox 3.

As usual, web browsers are getting plenty of coverage over on Digg.  Let’s take a look at some of the hot topics over the past month.

• GStreamer brings HTML5 video support to GTK/WebKit – The GTK port of the WebKit HTML rendering engine has gained support for the HTML5 video element.
• First look: Firefox 3 beta 2 officially released – ars technica takes a look at the latest Firefox beta.
• Internet Explorer 8 passes ACID2 test! – An internal Microsoft build of the browser to be called IE8 passed the Acid2 test.
• Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 Is A Win For Linux – FOSSwire drools over the GTK support in the latest Firefox beta.
• Mozilla Announces Weave – “This project will be known as Weave and it will focus on finding ways to enhance the Firefox user experience, increase user control over personal information, and provide new opportunities for developers to build innovative online experiences.”
• Firefox 3 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 7.10 – How to get the latest, bleeding edge version of Firefox on Ubuntu without waiting for it to be distributed to you.
• Hands on with Mozilla Weave: Personalize your own cloud – links to ars technica’s take on the ambitious new project from Mozilla.
• 5 Things You’ll Love About Firefox 3 – links to ComputerWorld’s take on the latest Firefox beta.
• Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development – “sad” being a very, very relative term.
• NEW! Firefox Live Support Chat! – “fill in the fields and you will be answered in less then 20 seconds.”
• How to surf the web even if Internet Explorer is disabled – “how to use the Help function from basic Windows programs to surf the internets.”
• Barclays says no to Firefox – Barclays displays yet another sad example of misinformed browser sniffing.
• Chris Mills on “Why Opera?” – Opera’s developer relationship manager on why designers and developers should consider choosing Opera.
• Mozilla Gets a New CEO ahead of Firefox 3 – Meet John Lilly – “Mozilla COO John Lilly will take over the CEO position and plans to make a strong Firefox 3 release his top priority.”

I created a rather lengthy post over at my personal blog tonight titled How to Contribute to Firefox.  Rather than cross-post it here, I figured I’d at least share the link, since it’s probably relevant to a lot of the readers here (or at least I hope it is).

I ran across two lists of Firefox alternatives tonight, the first of which is War of the Web Browsers: The Underdogs.  It covers Avant, Flock and Opera, while Download Dispatch, Weekend Edition covers those plus Maxthon and a browser I hadn’t yet heard of: Slim Browser.

Mozilla needn’t be too worried, though.  As this Digg post points out, Firefox still tops Google’s list.

If you don’t let a single front page item on Digg pass you by unnoticed (like me), you’re likely to run into quite a few browser-related diggs over time.  Let’s take a look at some that have shown up over the course of the past month.

• Ubuntu Forums Firefox Plugin – “finding answers to stupid questions was never so easy.”
• Get your Firefox Wonder Edition, most efficient Firefox build! – “Firefox Wonder Edition is a special version of Firefox that combines one of the most efficient Firefox build[s] with special extras that make it the fastest Firefox around for Windows.”
• Firefox memory usage and memory leak news – “Many Mozilla community members, including both volunteers and Mozilla Corporation employees, have been helping to reduce Firefox’s memory usage and fix memory leak bugs lately. Hopefully, the result of this effort will be that Firefox 3 uses less memory than Firefox 2 did, especially after it has been used for several hours.”
• New Firefox 3.0 alpha blocks malware, secures plug-in updates – “Security features debut in latest preview, as Firefox 3.0 heads down the stretch.”
• Firefox/Camino vs. Safari Image Quality — Big difference (IMAGE) – “There seems to be a pretty big significance between these two browser[s] in terms of displaying this image. Not sure why this is happening…but it’s making me consider leaving my favorite browser.”
• New Konqueror web browser icon by Oxygen Team – “Konqueror, KDE web browser get[s] a new icon in Oxygen style. Check it out.”
• Justice in India is done with the help of Linux, OpenOffice and Firefox – “In Uttar Pradesh (most populated state of India), Judges have been distributed laptops powered by Linux, OpenOffice, Evolution, Gnome, Firefox.”
• Proposed Firefox 3 Theme For Mac OS X Looks Exactly Like Safari – “Firefox 3 is having an identity crisis on the Mac. Recent screenshots reveal that the new theme is striking similar to Apple’s Safari. If you can’t innovate, imitate.”
• Can IE’s architect explain why it’s so bloated? – “More good news for Internet Explorer users: Microsoft’s IE chief explains why IE is fatter than Firefox and will never have a similarly comprehensive plugin system.”
• Firefox Coming To Your Phone – “The iPhone, with its fully-functioning Safari browser, showed us that mobile browsing need not be a compromise. Now, the folks at Mozilla are working on a mobile version of Firefox.”
• Mozilla: We’re Ready to Rock the Mobile Web Now – “Here’s some information about what we’re planning to do with hiring, technology, partnerships, and products, and how you can get involved.”

As you can see, Digg is pretty heavy on Firefox, but you got a little Safari and Konqueror in there, too (the IE stuff probably doesn’t count ).

Buckle up, ’cause this one should be a doozy. There’s been a lot going on in the browsersphere lately, so I’ll try and break it down by browser.

Firefox

• The Mozilla Store relaunched a couple weeks ago and now features many more goods, just in time for the back-to-school season.
• Asa Dotzler explains the difference between the old Firefox logo and the new.
• Simon Willison links to an “idiotic campaign” called Why FireFox is Blocked (that was eventually hacked).
• According to Guardian Unlimited, 75% of the people who download Firefox don’t become active users.
• Mozilla Links gives us a look at Firefox 3’s new download manager.
• Ars Technica wrote about becoming a part of the Firefox quality assurance process.
• Kubuntu 101 explains how to install Firefox 2.0.0.6 on Kubuntu 7.04.

Internet Explorer

• TechRepublic.com shares 10 keyboard shortcuts for tabbing around in Internet Explorer 7.
• The cookies-per-domain limit has been increased from 20 to 50 in IE7.

Maxthon

• You can get a Leopard Safari skin for Maxthon 2.x.
• Maxthon was discussed at the Mozilla China open house party on Saturday.

Opera

• Already, Opera 9.5 (aka Kestrel) is getting high marks in the area of performance.
• Opera is currently building up its developer relations team.

Safari

• Dave Hyatt has posted five detailed articles on WebCore rendering.

Others

• Sunrise is “a web browser for web developers.”
• 32bit Web Browser apparently “makes browsing the web fun and profitable.”
• In the Playstation Forum you can learn how to keep your son from getting into trouble with his PSP web browser.

This is the first in a series of posts that will provide a laundry list of links to articles and posts around the browsersphere that you’ll hopefully find interesting and/or useful.

• How to keep up to date with the Mozilla development – Henrik Gemal tells us how he stays up-to-date with the latest happenings in Mozilla development.
• Better animations in Firefox 3 – The Mozilla Labs Blog covers some of the advantages of the Animated PNG format over traditional animated GIFs. The format is already supported in Gran Paradiso, the development version of Firefox 3, in case you’re interested in checking it out.
• Dave Winer’s take on feed reading in Firefox – Myk Melez talks about some takeaways from Dave Winer’s visit to Mozilla Headquarters (of which not everyone was impressed) in terms of future support of RSS in Firefox.
• Opera has bigger market share than Firefox in Russia – Opera Watch reports that Opera has surpassed Firefox’s market share in Russia to become the 2nd most popular browser behind Internet Explorer.
• Opera and CSS3 support compared to the other browsers – Opera Watch discusses how implementation of CSS3 support in Opera compares to the implementation in other browsers.
• I don’t think that you understand! – Firefox3 Vulnerable by Design – Planet-Websecurity argues that Mozilla’s attempts to put an end to XSS attacks in Firefox 3 are fruitless and will only “open a can of worms.”

If you spot any other useful or interesting browser-related links around the web, please feel free to send me a link at browsersphere [at] gmail.com.

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not for my first “official” post here at Browsersphere to focus on an email client instead of a web browser, but I think those of us who know the browser space well know that Mozilla Thunderbird has long been synonymous with Mozilla Firefox.

There are some interesting goings-on at the moment in terms of the future of Thunderbird and the organization that manages it.

Whereas web browsers and email clients used to be considered complementary (think Internet Explorer and Outlook Express), nowadays their apparent synergy has faded, especially with the takeover of web-based email services like Hotmail and Gmail.

Scott MacGregor, who has been at the forefront of Thunderbird development for many years, talks about the current crossroads over at his blog.

While certain devoted fans of the email application (such as Henrik Gemal in the comments on that entry) may see this as a death knell of sorts, I’m going to sit back for a bit and see what happens. Scott’s a smart guy and Thunderbird is an impressive application that I still depend on on a daily basis.

I wish Scott and his team the best of luck, whatever path they decide to take.