Archive for April, 2008
about:mozilla - Mitchell’s keynote, Firefox in Europe, AMO changes, Marketing news, Firefox bookmarks, and more
In this issue…
- Mitchell Baker’s Web 2.0 Keynote
- Firefox progress in Europe
- Changes to Featured and Recommended Add-ons on AMO
- Getting ready for the launch of Firefox 3
- Firefox 3 Bookmarks
- Flickr Uploader, a developer’s story
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
Mitchell Baker’s Web 2.0 Keynote
On April 24th, Mitchell Baker gave a keynote talk at the Web 2.0 conference. Doug Turner has written up some of the highlights, and provides an embedded video of the talk on his weblog. From the talk: “[T]here is only one web. Firefox is the best and most effective platform for getting to that one web. We are building Firefox for mobile to spark innovation and excitement. We need an open web based development platform to do this. We view Firefox as this platform.” For more, watch the full video, head over to Doug’s weblog, or check out some of the other media articles:
- Firefox Goes Mobile
- Firefox Key to Open Mobile Web
- Mozilla: Fennec to Revolutionize Mobile Browsing
- Mozilla’s Fennec May Be Just What Mobile Browsing Needs
Tristan Nitot has blogged about some of the latest statistics available regarding Firefox market share in Europe. “According to Xiti, Firefox is getting close to 29% in Europe. The increase is 4.5 percentage points on the past 12 months.” Also, “According to Gemius (Rankings.hu), Firefox 2 is now the leading browser version in Hungary.” For more market share news and links to these stories, see Tristan’s blog post.
Changes to Featured and Recommended Add-ons on AMO
Basil Hashem has written a post about the recent changes to the “Featured and Recommended” add-ons part of the addons.mozilla.org (AMO) website. “One of the changes that was introduced with the latest AMO redesign is the ability to highlight a wider variety of add-ons. Instead of a single list, recommendations are now on a per-application, per-category and a per-locale basis. This gives the community greater flexibility and increases the face time and exposure that an add-on can have.” For more information and details about these recent changes, see Basil’s weblog.
Getting ready for the launch of Firefox 3
Paul Kim has blogged about the plans for marketing Firefox 3. “As with every previous version launch, we will be utilizing a combination of traditional marketing and PR programs with community and grassroots outreach. This combination has served us well over the past four years to drive adoption to over 160 million people worldwide, build the Firefox brand, and provide meaningful opportunities for participation at launch.” For more about the Firefox 3 launch marketing plans, check out Paul’s post.
Last week Deb Richardson wrote a great introduction to Firefox 3’s new bookmarking features. Like most people, she talks about being frustrated with the state of bookmarks in older browsers, where they end up as a junk-drawer of forgotten links. “Firefox 3 introduces a few new features to bookmarks that make them much, much easier to use, more useful in general, and much more useful in particular for catastrophically disorganized folk like me.” If that sounds like you, check out the whole article.
Flickr Uploadr, a developer’s story
Richard Crowley, the developer of Flickr’s XUL-based cross-platform uploader utility, has written a great article outlining the reasons they chose XUL and the hurdles he’s had to overcome throughout development. Included is a list of links to detailed blog posts he wrote during (and about) the development of the project. It’s a great article and well worth a look — check it out over at the Flickr developer blog.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
- Mac Gecko Meeting
- Performance Infrastructure Meeting
- Performance/Leaks Meeting
- Mozilla 2 Meeting
- Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
Thursday
Friday
Subscribe to the email newsletter
If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.
Star-worthy: Firefox 3 Bookmarks
As promised, we’ll continue to highlight some of the incredibly cool and useful Firefox 3 features you can expect to see. Today’s installment on Firefox 3’s new bookmarking system is brought to you once again by Deb Richardson, the author of the about:mozilla newsletter. Deb provides a clear explanation of the many improvements you’ll see, including:
- bookmark stars which allow for one-click bookmarking
- tags that allow you to add extra relevant information to a bookmark so it’s easier to find and organize
- smart bookmark folders or “saved searches” that automatically update when you add new items matching that search to your bookmarks
Firefox 3’s bookmark dialog box
Take a look at her post for more details, as well as a great how-to. I’ve found that I am using Firefox 3’s bookmarking with renewed gusto thanks to the little star and intuitive organization and search!
On the Street Interviews
Firefox in Jacksonville, FL
It is the hope that with the military bases, colleges, schools, etc. in the area we could make a strong impact on the spread and promulgation of Firefox. The Blue Devils started here, so why not a Firefox Den.
Firefox Spotted at ROFLcon
Look out for Firefox…he (or is it a she?) is on the loose at ROFLCon! ROFLCon is a fabulous celebration of all the goofiness that the Web has helped unleash. Mozilla stepped forward to help the conference because it’s just this type of creativity (or bizarreness depending on who you talk to!) that makes the Web so wonderful!
Firefox has been seen rubbing elbows with the Tron Guy and more. You never know where Firefox will show up next!
Spread Firefox in Malaysia
Obrigado Brasil!
Update courtesy of Ronaldo Lemos: 7,400 people attended FISL!
Mitchell Baker, Chris Hofmann, Chris Blizzard, Taras Glek, Marcio Galli and myself just wrapped up an amazing visit to Porto Alegre for FISL, Brazil’s largest open source conference. The conference drew over 6,000 people from Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, Angola and more! I wanted to extend a huge thank you to Bruno Magrani, Ronaldo Lemos, Mario Rinaldi, Clauber Stipkovic Halic, Giullermo Movia of Argentina, Felipe Gomes, Antonio Gomes, Andre Pedralho, Fernando Silveira, Marcelo Terres, Juliano Bittencourt and everyone else who helped make our experience so great!
Some of the highlights:
- We met many, many, many passionate Firefox users. In fact, 6,000 of them and not nearly enough Firefox t-shirts to go around. You can imagine the stampede!
- Our Brazilian contributors helped conduct a workshop on the various ways to get involved with Firefox and Mozilla. Despite the heat and far off location we had a great showing of people. Stay tuned for video!
- In line with the Brazilian culture, we had a great community party to thank our Brazilian contributors and get to know some new people.
- Juliano Bittencourt of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project took us to a local deployment where we met students who’ve been enjoying, customizing and learning with the computers. It was pretty amazing to see OLPC project coming to life.
It was great to see all the contribution that is going on in Brazil and to meet new volunteers. Thanks for the hard work!
Firefox on Myspace
about:mozilla - Firefox 2.0.0.14, Camino 1.6, Privacy policy, AMO, Security metrics, and more
In this issue…
- Firefox 2.0.0.14 released
- Camino 1.6 released
- Proposed changes to Mozilla’s privacy policy
- AMO 3.2: The Road Ahead
- Community Survey results
- Security metrics that matter
- Firefox wins “Browser” category of the Webware 100
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 2.0.0.14 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as a free download from GetFirefox.com. It is strongly recommended that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 2.x, you will receive an automated update notification. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.
If you are still running Firefox 1.5.0.x, you are highly encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 2, as Mozilla ceased supporting Firefox 1.5.0.x in May 2007. Simply choose “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu to begin the upgrade process. For more information about this release, see the DevNews blog post.
The Camino Project is proud to announce Camino 1.6, a major update to the Camino web browser. This release includes a number of new features and improvements, including a customizable toolbar search field, a find bar, software update, a scrolling tab bar, and enhanced AppleScript support. For more information about this release, see the release notes and the official release announcement.
Proposed changes to Mozilla’s privacy policy
In February, Basil Hashem blogged about some proposed changes to Mozilla’s privacy policies. After considering the feedback and commentary that arose then, the proposed policy has been revised, and Basil has blogged about it again. “The new policy conforms to the commitments laid out in the earlier discussion. Absent any major objections, we plan to update the policy as proposed and implement the web analytics tool immediately. [The] most notable difference this time around is that Google Analytics is not in the picture. Only Omniture is under consideration.” For more information, and for a copy of the revised policy, see Basil’s latest blog post on the topic.
Madhava Enros, User Experience lead for the addons.mozilla.org (AMO) redesign, has posted a detailed discussion about the reasoning behind and road ahead for the AMO 3.2 release. “In the 3.2 redesign, our goal was to improve the experience for people new to the idea of add-ons as well as the large and growing set of people who want to stop in, quickly find something to improve their online experience, and be on their way again. All of that said, … [a] successful AMO must support add-on developers and those advanced users who are at the forefront of add-on testing and reviewing.” To read more, see Madhava’s blog post.
At the end of 2007, Stats Malolepszy and Seth Bindernagel closed Mozilla’s first community survey and began analyzing the responses and drawing some conclusions from the data collected. They have finally reached a point where they are ready to publish some results. Much of the raw data has been presented earlier, at FOSDEM in February, but they have taken the time to refine what they have learned. These refined conclusions are being published as a series of blog posts, the first four of which are: Measuring the Temperature of the Community Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
Asa Dotzler, as part of the For the Record project, has written a detailed blog post discussing security metrics, and what security metrics actually matter. “A number of press articles…are offering the confusing and incorrect conclusion that the effective security and safety of web browsers can be measured by simply counting the number of vendor disclosed software flaws. This kind of measuring is flawed for several reasons, all related in that they make it more difficult for consumers to make informed decisions about their online safety.” For more of this article, please see Asa’s post at For the Record.
Firefox wins “Browser” category of the Webware 100
The 2008 Webware 100 Awards recognize the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications available today. After receiving more than 5,000 nominations for inclusion in the Webware 100, the editors selected 300 finalists which were then voted on by Web users, who voted nearly two million times to select the 100 top products — 10 each in 10 categories — from the list of 300 finalists. We are proud to announce that Firefox has been voted as the winner of the “Browser” category this year. For more information about the award, check out the Firefox Webware 100 web page.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
- Mac Gecko Meeting
- Performance Infrastructure Meeting
- Performance/Leaks Meeting
- Mozilla 2 Meeting
- Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
Thursday
Friday
Subscribe to the email newsletter
If you would like to get this newsletter by email, just head on over to the about:mozilla newsletter subscription form. Fresh news, every Tuesday, right to your inbox.
A Little Something Awesome about Firefox 3
Deb Richardson, author of the about:mozilla newsletter, wrote one of the better explanations I’ve seen on the “AwesomeBar,” Firefox 3’s revamped URL bar. It’s not the most humble of names, but if you check out Deb’s post you’ll see why it’s earned it.
In Deb’s words, here’s a quick snapshot of what makes Firefox 3’s URL bar just so awesome:
Dubbed the “AwesomeBar”, it lets you use the URL field of your browser to do a keyword search of your history and bookmarks. No longer do you have to know the domain of the page you’re looking for — the AwesomeBar will match what you’re typing (even multiple words!) against the URLs, page titles, and tags in your bookmarks and history, returning results sorted by “frecency” (an algorithm combining frequency + recency).
Not only that, but the drop-list results show you the page’s favicon, the full title, the URL, and whether you have bookmarked and/or tagged the page in a richly formatted two-line display.
Example: I start by typing “ginger”, and AwesomeBar searches through my history and bookmarks to return everything that matches that keyword, showing the first six and letting me scroll through the rest. You’ll notice here that several of the results are bookmarked (blue star icon on the right), and tagged (tag icon). The sites’ favicons are displayed on the left, making it really easy to scan through the results if you know what site you’re looking for in particular.
Check out Deb’s post for more on the AwesomeBar and check back here for more on the cool things to expect in Firefox 3!