Archive for May, 2008
Set a Firefox World Record!
The New York Times ad…Firefox Flicks…the Firefox crop circle…Operation Firefox…you name it! The Firefox community is always up to some cool, collaborative way to declare their passion for Firefox. What better way to do this than band together to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours?!
It’s a whole lot easier and safer than donning a beard of bees or underwater jump roping. All you have to do is download Firefox 3 when it goes live on Download Day — some time in June. In the meantime check out Download Day Headquarters and pledge to download Firefox 3. We’ll let you know when Firefox 3 goes out the door, kicking off our 24-hour attempt.
Here are some other ways you can help in the run up to Download Day:
* Get the word out; tell your friends, your neighbors, your grandma, anyone and everyone to participate in Download Day.
* Host a party to download Firefox; you provide the people and we’ll provide the party favors.
* Put a Download Day badge on your blog, profile or website.
With your help the Firefox community can go down in history! If you have any questions or ideas please drop us a line at worldrecord @ mozilla.com.
Share Your Knowledge: Firefox Screencast Contest
Get ready to participate in the Firefox Screencast contest! This is your chance to use your talents and passion for Firefox to create support screencasts for the Firefox Support (SUMO) knowledge base on support.mozilla.com.
We have prepared a list of the top 100 most popular support articles from the SUMO knowledge base and ask YOU to create screencasts for one, two, three, or all of them! You can enter as many screencasts as you like. With 100 different articles, anyone can choose whatever article for which they would like to create a screencast.
Mozilla will not be hosting the videos during this contest, so please use a third-party application like Jing to record your screencast and send us the link so we can view it. Ever used Jing? Here’s a great online demo. Click “Video Tour” on the front page to see how to use it…it couldn’t be easier! Just download and begin recording!
All entries will be judged by a team who will look at the submissions and pick the best one for each of the 100 articles. That’s 100 winners!!
What are you waiting for? Go to the Firefox Screencast Contest and start sharing your knowledge!
Any questions? We’ve got the answers.
about:mozilla - Survey, about:addons, malware protection, screencasts contest, Firefox 3 add-ons, and more!
In this issue…
- Newsletter survey - last call!
- New about:addons newsletter
- Firefox 3’s malware protection explained
- Firefox screencasts contest continues
- Firefox 3 Add-ons compatibility update
- 20 top add-ons that are ready for Firefox 3
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
Newsletter survey - last call!
Today is the last day you can take part in the first about:mozilla reader survey! If you haven’t yet had the opportunity to respond, now’s your (final) chance! After today we’re shutting the survey down so we can start analysing results. Please take a couple of minutes of your time today and help us make this newsletter better. Thanks, and thanks to everyone who has already participated!
Mozilla has started a new newsletter, about:addons, strictly for add-on related news items and information. A lot of changes have been made to the way add-ons are built and hosted during the last Firefox release cycle, and there are lots of changes going on over at addons.mozilla.org (AMO) as well. It can be hard to keep track of it all with all the other information coming out of Mozilla, so we’re now putting together this dedicated newsletter. To sign up, head over to the about:addons subscription form, and for more information, check out Mark Finkle’s weblog. The first issue of about:addons has already been published, which you can read at the DevNews weblog.
Firefox 3’s malware protection explained
Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla’s Security UI lead, has written a blog post wherein Firefox 3’s new malware protection system is explained. “In Firefox 3, we have juiced up your protection in a couple of pretty hard core ways. First of all, we’ve added a second list, tracking all reported malware sites live on the net, in addition to the forgeries we blocked in Firefox 2. Second, we now block the page right up front, before it even loads, so that your computer is not at risk. And third, for people who are curious, we provide a report for malware sites that explains exactly what badness is going down.” You can read the full article over at Johnath’s weblog.
Firefox screencasts contest continues
The Firefox screencasts contest launched on May 19th, and is a great chance for you to use your talents and passion for Firefox to help create screencast support videos for SUMO. The SUMO team has compiled a list of the 100 most popular support articles from the knowledge base and are looking for help creating screencasts for all of them. There will be a prize awarded for the best screencast submitted for each article, and one grand prize for the best video overall. The contest only runs until June 15th, so you should head over to the SUMO blog for more information and to get involved!
Firefox 3 add-ons compatibility update
Alex Polvi has posted yet another Firefox 3 add-ons compatibility report, outlining the current state of add-ons that are not currently compatible with Firefox 3. This week’s listing includes: Firebug, MinimizeToTray, Tab Mix Plus, Noia 2.0, FireFTP, Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, and RedShift V2. For details and information about how to help, read the full post at Alex’s blog.
20 top add-ons that are ready for Firefox 3
In further Firefox 3 add-on compatibility news, Deb Richardson has blogged about 20 top add-ons that are ready for Firefox 3. “I know a lot of folks are waiting for add-ons to get updated before diving in to help test the Firefox 3 release candidate, but how’s your chance. Dozens of add-ons are being updated every day, and there are hundreds already set to go.” The list of add-ons Deb talks about include: Adblock Plus, Faviconize Tab, Flashgot, Forecastfox, ScribeFire, Shareaholic, and more. Read the full post at Deb’s weblog.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
- Mac Gecko Meeting
- Performance Infrastructure Meeting
- Performance/Leaks Meeting
- Mozilla 2 Meeting
- Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
- Weave Meeting
- Calendar 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.
about:addons - AMO changes, Future of add-ons, Bundling components & more
In this issue…
- Add-on Compatibility with Firefox 3.0.*
- The Future of Add-ons Management
- AMO 3.5 Developer Tool Changes
- Bundling Binary Components for Firefox 2 and 3
- Get Your Extensions Accessible
- Extend Firefox 3
- AMO 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 Released
- Songbird Add-on Site Redesign
Add-on Compatibility with Firefox 3.0.*
Firefox version strings 3.0 and 3.0.* have now been added to the addons.mozilla.org (AMO) list of allowed versions, so add-on authors can now specify compatibility with these versions. As a reminder, it is not necessary to upload a new version of your add-on if you are only bumping compatibility. See Basil Hashem’s post for more information.
If you haven’t yet got started updating your add-ons for Firefox 3 (shame on you!) check out the MDC for a crash course in what’s new in Firefox 3.
The Future for Add-ons Management
Dave Townsend is soliciting feedback on future enhancements to the Extension Manager. Here are some ideas he lists to start the ball rolling:
- Installing add-ons without restarts
- Presenting more detail in the install dialog
- Simplifying the UI
- Deprecating install.rdf and replacing with a simpler xml or json format
- Add-on dependencies with automatic resolution
Head over to his blog post and add your 2 cents.
AMO 3.5 Developer Tool Changes
Justin Scott has been posting details about the improvements coming in the next rollout of AMO (v3.5). The Developer Tools area has been rewritten to make the user interface more intuitive and provide a number of new features. Here are the areas Justin has covered:
- Improvements for managing authors
- Improvements to the translation box
- Cleaner category management
- Restructures property editor
- Improvements for managing add-on versions and files
Bundling Binary Components for Firefox 2 and 3
Significant changes required for updating binary components have some add-on developers finding the transition to Firefox 3 to be difficult. The changes can be large enough to require two sets of components, for Firefox 2 and 3 respectively. One way to make the process easier is to use a proxy stub to load the correct binary component at runtime. There is a new article on MDC with the details.
Get Your Extensions Accessible
Marco Zehe has an excellent post on making your extensions accessible to those using screenreaders and keyboards and includes some add-ons that have made the effort. Be sure to give his post and the guidelines he links to a read through if you want your extensions to be usable by as many people as possible.
Extend Firefox 3
Remember to get your submissions in for the Extend Firefox 3 contest which runs through July 4th, 2008. This edition of Extend Firefox is open to even more countries and we’re also opening up a special category to award prizes to existing Firefox Add-ons that are updated for Firefox 3 and that show significant improvements in performance and user experience.
AMO 3.4.1 and 3.4.2 Released
addons.mozilla.org is now releasing a new version about every two weeks. You can read more about version 3.4.1, released on May 1, and version 3.4.2, released on May 15.
Songbird Add-ons Site Redesign
The guys at Songbird have been working behind the scenes to bring a set of improvements to their add-ons site that should make it easier for users to find and install the add-ons they are most interested in. They boast better searching, categorizing and tagging as well has better handling of your add-ons metadata. Check out the sneak peek.
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Come meet the developers of Firefox on Friday!
This Friday, May 23, will be a special day for Mozilla as we’ll be hosting the very first Support Firefox Day*. You’ll get a chance to learn more about Mozilla, Firefox 3, and Firefox Support (SUMO) — and have your voice heard. We’ve got lots of things planned! In particular, we’ve lined up a prestigious group of Mozilla celebrities who will be taking YOUR questions and feedback about a variety of subjects. We’ll also have workshops where we’ll be focusing on user-to-user support, and some of the upcoming goodies in Firefox 3.
Here is the action-packed schedule:
- 8:00 AM PDT - 10:00: Support session #1
- 10:00 – 10:45: Workshop: Supporting Firefox 3 users with Live Chat. In this workshop, you’ll learn all you need to know about the cool user-to-user support solution on SUMO to start helping others. Host: Lucy Connor
- 11:00 - 11:30: Chat with Mike Connor, Developer Lead of Firefox 3. Mike will be taking your questions about the upcoming release of Firefox 3 and all its new features, including the all-new product help (yes, SUMO!)
- 11:30 - 12:30: Support Session #2
- 12:30 - 1:15: Workshop: Learn all about the new bookmark system in Firefox 3 (tags, smart location bar, keywords) to better help others. Host: Dietrich Ayala
- 1:30 – 2:00: Chat with Mike Beltzner, Phenomenologist & Usability Design Expert. This is your chance to get your questions about the Mozilla way of designing software answered straight from the source. You’ll learn, among other things, how user feedback and support continuously loops back into product.
- 2:00 - 3:00: Support Session #3
- 3:00 - 3:45: Workshop: Learn how to troubleshoot Firefox 3 like a pro. You’ll find out more about how Firefox works, and at the same time you’ll become an expert of user-to-user troubleshooting. Host: Matthew Middleton
- 4:00 - 4:30: Chat with John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla Corporation. John will be available to answer your questions about Mozilla, including how it was started, where it’s going, and any other things you can think of.
- 4:30 - 5:00: Chat with Asa Dotzler, Spokesmodel and Storyteller. Asa has been a part of Mozilla since the very early days and is the perfect person to ask your questions — any questions — about… anything!
Of course, the big highlight of the day will be the best new Firefox 3 feature of all: Firefox’s new user-based support system. All throughout the day, we’ll be showcasing the various aspects to the support system: from the collaboratively written knowledge base to the forums and chat-based support and inviting you to take part. We’ll be around all day in #sumo to answer questions and help you get started helping your fellow users and Firefox enthusiasts.
Hope to see you on Friday! If you’re coming, please let us know so we can better plan the events.
*) OK, we did host something similar that we called SUMO Day last month, but with the new name, we think this is a fresh start. 
FireFox Vietnam
Firefox 3 Release Candidate now available for download
Editor’s note: Mozilla announced Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 on Friday, May 16, 2008. See Mike Beltzner’s comprehensive post on Mozilla Developer News, crossposted below.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate now available for download
Please note: The Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes new features as well as dramatic improvements to performance, memory usage and speed. We recommend that you read the release notes and known issues before installing this release.
The first Firefox 3 Release Candidate is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.
New features and changes in this milestone:
- Improvements to the user interface based on user feedback, including changes to the look and feel on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux.
- Changes and fixes for new features such as the location bar autocomplete, bookmark backup and restore, full page zoom, and others, based on feedback from our community.
- Fixes and improvements to platform features to improve security, web compatibility and stability.
- Continued performance improvements: changes to our JavaScript engine as well as profile guided optimization continues to improve performance over previous releases as measured by the popular SunSpider test from Apple, and in the speed of web applications like Google Mail and Zoho Office.
(You can find out more about all of these features in the “What’s New” section of the release notes.)
Testers can download the Firefox 3 Release Candidate builds for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 45 different languages. Developers should also read the Firefox 3 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.
Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3 Release Candidate announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.
about:mozilla - New contest, Support Firefox day, Firefox 3, AMO, LiMo, Shredder, and more
In this issue…
- about:mozilla reader survey
- Firefox screencasts contest has started!
- Support Firefox day: this Friday!
- Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 now available
- Add-on developers: Firefox 3 final MaxVersion update
- Mozilla joins LiMo Foundation
- Thunderbird “Shredder” alpha 1 available
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
Last week we launched the first about:mozilla reader survey. If you haven’t had an opportunity to respond yet, now’s your chance. The survey will stay open until May 27th, at which point we’ll shut it down and start analysing the results.
Please help us make this newsletter better by giving us your feedback through the survey.
Firefox screencasts contest has started!
The Firefox screencasts contest is now on! This is a great chance for you to use your talents and passion for Firefox to create screencast support videos for the Firefox Support knowledge base (SUMO).
The SUMO team has compiled a list of the 100 most popular support articles from the knowledge base and are now asking YOU to create screencasts for one, two, three, or all of them! There will be 100 winners in all — one for each article — and every winner will receive a unique Firefox Screencast Contest t-shirt. This is the only way to get this exclusive collector’s item shirt, so start working on your screencasts today!
There will also be a Grand Prize awarded to the best entry from the 100 winning videos. Not to give anything away, but this prize will likely be something that you can use to take even more pictures and videos.
The contest will run from May 19 until 11:59pm June 15, 2008 (GMT-7). The team is looking forward to watching all of your submissions! For more information, check out the official contest announcement post.
Support Firefox day: this Friday!
On Friday, the SUMO team will be hosting a “Support Firefox” day in the #sumo IRC channel. They’ll be holding Q+A sessions with some Mozilla “celebrities” (John Lilly, Asa Dotzler, Mike Beltzner, Mike Connor) who will be talking about specific Mozilla topics and how they relate to the user-to-user support project SUMO. In addition, they’ll be hosting three workshops — how to help out through the SUMO Live Chat system, how to troubleshoot Firefox, and a guest workshop by Dietrich Ayala about the new Places (Bookmarks and History) system.
These sessions are always a whole lot of fun, and are a really great way to get involved with the Mozilla project. So head on over to the #sumo channel on irc.mozilla.org on or before Friday so you can get set up and meet some of the great folks who are working on Firefox and the SUMO project. More information is available over on the SUMO weblog.
Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 now available
The first Firefox 3 Release Candidate is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.
Some new features and changes in this milestone include: Improvements to the user interface; changes and fixes for new features such as the location bar, bookmark backup, and full page zoom; further security, compatibility, and stability fixes; and continued performance improvements including to the JavaScript engine. More information about this release is available in the release notes. See the official announcement for more information and links for downloading the software.
Add-on developers: Firefox 3 final MaxVersion update
Now that Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is available, addons.mozilla.org (AMO) has been modified and will now accept the final production version numbers for Firefox 3. In particular, we have added “3.0″ and “3.0.*” as valid Firefox compatible versions. The full application compatibility list is available at AMO.
What this means for add-on authors is that after you test with the Firefox 3 release candidates, you can use the Developer Tools section on AMO to bump your add-on version number without having to upload a whole new version. For more information see Basil Hashem’s and Mark Finkle’s blog posts.
Jay Sullivan has blogged about the Mozilla Corporation recently joining the LiMo Foundation. “Linux has great potential as a mobile platform, but it’s been hampered by fragmentation over the last several years. LiMo brings together many major device manufacturers, network operators and others in the mobile ecosystem to cooperate on building a Linux-based mobile middleware platform. We intend to participate actively in all aspects of the LiMo platform that relate to Web browsing, Web widgets/runtimes and security. We also plan to share our experiences with building successful open-source communities.” For more detail, see Jay’s blog post.
Thunderbird “Shredder” alpha 1 available
Shredder alpha 1, the first alpha release of the next version of Thunderbird, is now available for download. There are very few feature changes, so don’t expect it to be significantly different than Thunderbird 2, but Shredder is built on a substantially revised codebase that provides a great foundation upon which future feature changes can be built. Please be aware that this is an early alpha release and is intended for development and testing purposes only — this release is not for production use as it will contain significant bugs and should be handled with care. For more information about this alpha release, see David Ascher’s weblog post.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
- Mac Gecko Meeting
- Performance Infrastructure Meeting
- Performance/Leaks Meeting
- Mozilla 2 Meeting
- Crash Reporter + Analysis Meeting
- Weave Meeting
- Calendar 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.
Support Firefox Day
On Friday May 23 we’ll be hosting a Support Firefox Day. Frequent readers or SUMO contributors might remember the SUMO Day we hosted in April. Well, this time it’s SUMO Day with a twist and you really don’t want to miss it!
New Firefox Graphics
Post buttons and banners to advertise Firefox 2/3!
Put them in signatures on forums, on your site and blog! Show everyone why firefox rules supreme!
Let's see your talent!
for example, here's one i made:
