Firefox Mobile OS will launch in five countries this summer
Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs noted during the All Things D conference on Monday that Firefox OS will launch in five countries starting this summer. The mobile operating system, designed for budget handsets, will show up first in Brazil, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Venezuela, the outgoing CEO said.
During the chat, Kovacs said the whole mission with Firefox OS is to stimulate the economy. He referenced Mozilla’s entrance into the browser market as a time when the number of people, websites and experiences on the web exploded. Read more...
Mozilla exits iOS as it retires Firefox Home
Two years after it managed to place a browser-related app on the iOS App Store, Mozilla last week announced it was retiring Firefox Home and yanked it from Apple's market.
The move was only the latest in a string of messages that the open-source company has sent over several years that it is not interested in developing a version of Firefox for the iPhone or iPad.
Firefox Home, which was approved by Apple on July 16, 2010, was not a full-fledged browser, but instead was a spin-off of the bookmark and tab synchronization technology Mozilla offered as an add-on, then later built into the desktop browser. The app gave users access to their browser bookmarks and history, to the open tabs from their most recent Firefox sessions, and to Firefox's "Awesome Bar" -- Mozilla's name for the address bar -- that let users search for previously-visited pages using keywords or characters in the URL or page title. Read more...
Android Firefox: Screaming, awesome, you’ll go blind etc
Mozilla has galloped a new version of Firefox for Android out of the gates just ahead of the expected full launch of Chrome on mobes later this week.
The open-source firm has had a version of its popular browser on little green phones since 2010, but it hasn't lit many Google-mobe-lovers' fires so far.
Chrome has been available in beta since February, but only on Android mobes running Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0). Read more...
Update: Metric firm changes numbers, Chrome still behind Firefox
Web analytics company Net Applications today changed its May numbers from those posted overnight, and now has Google's Chrome still in third place, albeit barely behind Mozilla's Firefox.
Earlier today, the California-based firm had published data that showed Chrome had passed Firefox for the first time, fueled by an increase of 1.3 percentage points to 20.2%. Meanwhile, Net Applications' preliminary numbers had Firefox falling six-tenths of a point to 19.6%.
The spot swapping came as a surprise: Earlier projections by Computerworld had pointed to a delay in Chrome's capture of second place, perhaps to as late as August.
Later Friday, Net Applications revised its numbers. Read more...
Mozilla product director says Firefox on Window RT ‘probably not worth it’
A Mozilla product director yesterday said that unless Microsoft allows other browser makers to call important APIs in Windows RT, it is "probably not worth it to even bother" building a version of Firefox for the new operating system.
In a Wednesday post to his personal blog, Asa Dotzler, product director of Firefox, again slammed Microsoft for not allowing third-party browsers access to Win32 APIs, or application programming interfaces, in the upcoming Windows RT.
Windows RT, once called Windows on ARM, or WOA, is the operating system Microsoft is developing for devices -- tablets primarily, but also lightweight laptops -- that rely on processors designed for the ARM architecture. Read more...
Firefox’s four release channels explained
By now, it should be easy to pick a browser. Most of you probably settled on a favorite ages ago, and it’s going to take some seriously cool new features — or a whole lot of crashing — to make you switch at this point. But even if you’re in love with your default you might be wondering if you’re running the right channel.
Opera offers up Opera Next to its users. Google Chrome and Firefox both have four versions being worked on at any given time. Fortunately for Firefox users, Mozilla’s got a handy new graphic that clearly shows what you can expect from each build — Stable, Beta, Aurora, and Nightly. To seasoned veterans of the web it’s a no brainer, but the image and a little explanation is handy for more casual users who want to know if the grass is greener on the other side. Read more...
Mozilla ponders major Firefox UI refresh
Mozilla is working on a revamp of Firefox to synchronize its various versions -- desktop, tablet, phone and Windows 8 Metro -- into a single visual style, according to documents posted by members of its user interface (UI) design team.
The project, which does not have a name, and the earlier blending of Mozilla's mobile and desktop design groups, is meant to bring more coherence to the various versions of the open-source browser. Read more...
Mozilla blocks Java in Firefox for some Mac users
Mozilla this week began blocking outdated versions of a Java plug-in in Firefox for some Mac users after calling the threat posed by the Flashback malware "evident and imminent."
The move came two weeks after Mozilla disabled unpatched versions of Oracle's software on Firefox for Windows.
Although Mozilla said on April 2 that it might add the Java plug-in to Firefox for Mac's blocklist -- a list it maintains of add-ons and plug-ins that the company disables because they're infected with malware or have been targeted by attackers -- it didn't follow through until Monday. Read more...
Firefox: In with the new, out with the compatibility
Another day, another version of Firefox -- like rival Google has done with Chrome, Mozilla has put Firefox on an endless update cycle, with new versions every six weeks or so. Unlike the case with Chrome, compatibility issues seems to be the price to be paid for having Firefox's version number change so often, with no obvious beneficial changes in exchange.
For example, the new Firefox 11 breaks compatibility with older versions of TinyMCE, the open source AJAX tool used by countless websites to provide rich text editing. If you see a row of Office-like formatting icon buttons, that's TinyMCE in action; in Firefox 11, you often see a blank window rather than your contents -- that's the bug. Read more...
Mozilla sets end of Firefox for Win2K, early XP
Mozilla on Friday announced that next month's Firefox 12 will be the last version to run on early editions of Windows XP and the 12-year-old Windows 2000.
The company also reiterated that it will stop serving security updates for 2010's Firefox 3.6 in April.
Starting with Firefox 13, the browser's minimum requirements will be XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Firefox 13 will not work on Windows 2000, Windows XP RTM (release to manufacturing, the original mid-2001 build) or XP SP1.
Firefox 12, set to ship April 24 and due to be replaced by the next edition on June 4, will be the last that supports the three older Windows.
"This support change allows us to significantly improve Firefox performance on Windows by using a more modern build system," Mozilla said in a Friday post to a company blog. Read more...
Mozilla will start Firefox silent updates in June
Mozilla yesterday reiterated that it's still working on silent updates for Firefox, and said it should have the Chrome-like service in place by early June.
In a sweeping summary of 2011's accomplishments and an outline of plans for 2012, Robert Nyman, a Mozilla technical evangelist, listed silent updates as one the projects the company will finish this year. "Updates will now be downloaded and installed silently in the background," wrote Nyman in a Wednesday post to the Hacks Mozilla blog. "Silent updates are currently planned to land in Firefox 13."
Mozilla unloads a Firefox upgrade every six weeks -- it launched Firefox 11 just two days ago -- and has Firefox 13's release on the calendar for June 5, 2012. Read more...
Did Google handicap malware defenses in Firefox and Safari?
In December a Google-funded security study slammed Firefox, putting Mozilla’s browser at the bottom of the heap when it came to protecting users as they surf. NSS labs quickly entered the fray to clarify some inconsistencies in the report and defend Firefox’s good name in the process.
NSS indicated that Chrome’s malware block rate had suddenly jumped to more than 50% right around the time that the original report was issued. Despite the fact that Firefox and Safari also rely on Google’s Safe Browsing API, their block rate remained stagnant at about 2 or 3%. Then, inexplicably, there was a dramatic swing in the days that followed the NSS Labs’ rebuttal. Chrome’s block rate dropped off a cliff, falling to just 20% — while Firefox and Safari’s rates more than doubled. Read more...
Mozilla, Firefox join anti-SOPA strike
Mozilla, the open-source organization responsible for Firefox, joined other major technology companies today to protest anti-piracy legislation by blackening the browser's home page.
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET, Firefox's default home page -- essentially a search field for Google -- will change from its usual white background with the Firefox logo to a blacked-out version displaying a modified graphic emblazoned with "Stop Censorship."
Meanwhile, the English language versions of Mozilla's sites -- mozilla.com and mozilla.org -- will redirect visitors to an "action page" asking for their support in stopping what it called "Internet blacklist legislation." Read more...
Mozilla moves forward with plan for enterprise version of Firefox
Mozilla is advancing its plans to release a version of Firefox tailored for organizations whose IT departments manage it for their employees from a central console.
This version of Firefox, to be called ESR (Extended Support Release), will be updated at a much slower pace than the regular version of the browser, in order to give IT departments enough time to appropriately test, certify and adopt the new releases.
The proposal to develop Firefox ESR has now been escalated from a "proposal" to what Mozilla calls "a plan of action," Mozilla official Jay Sullivan said in a blog post on Tuesday. Read more...
Why Google needs Firefox now more than ever
If you thought that Google was going to stick a lump of coal in Firefox's stocking this holiday season, you weren't alone.
Although rumors of Firefox's imminent demise were premature at best -- and self-serving for more than a few -- the Mozilla Blog now brings happy news that "we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google. This new agreement extends our long term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years."
Mozilla will continue to feature Google as the default search engine in Firefox, and Google will pay Mozilla an undisclosed amount in exchange for that placement. Definition of the term "significant" remains nebulous, but in 2008 Google provided 88 percent of Mozilla's revenue; in 2009 it was 86 percent; and in 2010 Google kicked in 84 percent, or about $103 million (PDF). Read more...