Archive for June, 2009
June 30th, 2009
We’re very excited to announce the official release of Firefox 3.5! You can download Firefox 3.5 at firefox.com and enjoy the new features and faster performance. If you’re using the latest version of Firefox 3.0, you can get Firefox 3.5 by clicking on the Help menu and then selecting Check for Updates.
The Firefox 3.5 press release is available here. We also compiled a guide to frequently asked questions. You can also check out this video for a guided tour of what’s new in Firefox 3.5.
Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox has a comprehensive post here. The post includes a list of some of the coolest Firefox 3.5 features, excerpted below.
- Firefox 3.5 is available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
- We have included tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode, and the ability to go back in time and Clear Recent History.
- Firefox 3.5 has support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio.
- The browser features faster performance on complex websites thanks to the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- Users can enjoy Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
- Web developers can make use of native JSON parsing, and web worker threads.
- This release includes improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Firefox 3.5 supports new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.
June 30th, 2009
In this issue…
- Firefox 3.5 now available
- Firefox Hacks
- Discover Shiretoko
- Firefox in context
- Weave 0.4 released
- Two new Fennec releases
- Firefox browser for CyberMentors
- Open Video Conference roundup
- Mozilla Service Week
- Design Challenge: vote now!
- Upcoming events
- Developer calendar
- About about:mozilla
Firefox 3.5 has been released and is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux in more than 70 languages. This release represents the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of thousands of contributors throughout the Mozilla community and around the world.
Firefox 3.5 has a huge number of additions and improvements for both users and web developers alike, including: robust new user privacy features; support for high quality open video and audio; a new, high performance JavaScript engine (and a host of other performance and speed improvements); downloadable fonts that will fundamentally change how we view typography and the web; powerful new developer features such as location aware browsing, canvas features, worker threads, native JSON, and media queries; and so much more. Firefox 3.5 is essentially an upgrade to the Web itself.
Mike Beltzner, Firefox Product Director, stars in this quick video introduction to Firefox 3.5. Visit GetFirefox.com for more information about and to download this release.
The Firefox Hacks team continues to focus on the new features that are part of Firefox 3.5, posting an article and demo every day. Recent posts include: Open video codecs and quality, a short introduction to media queries, 3d transforms, better security and performance with native JSON, and HTML5 video and the web. Check out the Firefox Hacks weblog to read about all of these new features and more.
Mozilla Japan has started a new “Discover Shiretoko” campaign in cooperation with the non-profit Shiretoko Nature Foundation in Hokkaido, Japan. “As some of you may know, each version Firefox has a code-name that is the name of a national park. The code name for Firefox 3.5 is ‘Shiretoko’ which is taken from the name of the Shiretoko National Park in Northern Japan. Mozilla and this organization have a number of common goals and you can read 4 stories about Firefox and Shiretoko on the Discover Shiretoko site.” The team is also running a new web banner campaign, featuring a unique and creative use of the Canvas element to grow a virtual tree on your website or blog. Read Foxkeh’s weblog to find out more.
Mitchell Baker has written an article that talks about Firefox in context of Mozilla’s larger mission to promote choice and innovation on the Internet. “Firefox enables the web and web applications to be ever more robust and exciting. The web enables Firefox to be more flexible, more agile and more responsive. Firefox builds an experience where the center of the entire system remains a person. Not a website, not a business, not a piece of software. The most important actor in the entire picture is a human being; an individual. You. Me. Each person living part of his or her life online.” Read Mitchell’s full post on her weblog.
Weave Sync is a prototype add-on that encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox experience across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together. It is part of the Weave project, which aims to integrate services more closely with the browser. This new release includes a major rewrite of many of Weave’s key components since the last major release in June. For more information, see the Weave 0.4 release announcment.
Stuart Parmenter has announced the release of Fennec 1.0 Beta 2 for Maemo and Fennec 1.0 Alpha 2 for Windows Mobile. “For these releases we have worked on improving the user experience, replacing our old theme with a much nicer looking one and fixing numerous usability issues. We’ve continued to increase performance and responsiveness.” Other changes include how add-ons are installed, how the download manager works, and several improvements to web forms.
Firefox browser for CyberMentors
Jane Finette has posted about Mozilla’s involvement with the UK-based charity that works to help Britain’s youngsters deal with and protect themselves from bullying. “Earlier this year they launched their CyberMentors program, offering help and advice from trained mentors to anyone who is being bullied online. Mozilla supported CyberMentors straight out of the gates, whereby members of the Mozilla community volunteered to be trained as CyberMentors. Yesterday, we took our partnership a stage further for this worthwhile cause by building and launching a new custom Firefox browser for CyberMentors.” To learn more about this project, see Jane’s weblog post.
Mark Surman posted an interesting round up of the goings-on and takeaways from the Open Video Conference that took place recently in New York. “It was an amazing confluence of people from the worlds of online video, art, free culture, open content and web technology.” Mark’s takeaways, summarized, are: “people who make video are great potential allies”, “we have a long way to go”, “there are some simple things we can do now to build momentum”, and finally “open video is both important and fun”. Mark’s post finishes up with some potential next steps, and you can read it in full over at his weblog.
There are two new stories about the exciting new Mozilla Service Week project that’s taking place Sept 14-21. The first article asks that non-profit and community organizations that are in need of technology help get in touch with Mozilla, so your organization can be included in the program. If you already have ideas about what sort of help you need, you can register directly at the Idealist volunteer organization. The second post is about how individuals can get involved with and get a head start on the Service Week. The team is looking for help promoting the Mozilla Service Week event over the summer, both to volunteers worldwide and to non-profits and local organizations that could use help. For more information, check out both articles: Public benefit organizations: How can we help you?, and Mozilla Service Week: How to help!
The submission deadline for the Mozilla Labs Summer ‘09 Design Challenge has passed, and over 120 concepts have been submitted around the theme of reinventing tabs in the browser. The nine panelists will be going through the submissions and determining the four “best in class” honors, but there’s an additional honor to be bestowed, and we need your help! You can participate by going to the Design Challenge showcase site, reviewing the concepts, and voting for your favorite to help determine which entry should receive the “People’s Choice” award. Voting closes on July 5th, so now’s a great time to start checking out some of the incredible work that’s been submitted for this Challenge. More information is available on Pascal’s weblog post.
The Mozilla community is organizing an increasing number of events and meetups all the time, and we include a list of these here every week. If you have events you would like listed, send them along to: about-mozilla*at*mozilla.com.
* Fri, Jul 10 – Online – Firefox 3.5 Security Testday
* Sept 14-21 – Everywhere! – Mozilla Service Week
For an up-to-date list of the coming week’s Mozilla project meetings and events, please see the Mozilla Community Calendar wiki page. Notes from previous meetings are linked to through the Calendar as well.
about:mozilla is by, for and about the Mozilla community, focusing on major news items related to all aspects of the Mozilla Project. The newsletter is written by Deb Richardson and is published every Tuesday morning. If you have any news or announcements you would like to have included in our next issue, please send them to: about-mozilla[at]mozilla.com.
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.
June 30th, 2009
Mozilla is proud and pleased to present Firefox 3.5, now available for download. Firefox 3.5 has been under development for the past year, contains many new exciting features for users and web developers, and is our fastest Firefox release ever. A video highlighting some of these new features is available, describing how:
- Firefox 3.5 is available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
- We have included tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode, and the ability to go back in time and Clear Recent History.
- Firefox 3.5 has support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio.
- The browser features faster performance on complex websites thanks to the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
- Users can enjoy Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
- Web developers can make use of native JSON parsing, and web worker threads.
- This release includes improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
- Firefox 3.5 supports new web technologies such as: downloadable fonts, CSS media queries, new transformations and properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 local storage and offline application storage, <canvas> text, ICC profiles, and SVG transforms.
As always Firefox 3.5 is available as a free download. Firefox 3.0 users can update their existing browser by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the “Tools” menu in Firefox.
We encourage web and Add-on developers to read the Firefox 3.5 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.
Note: users already running a Firefox 3.5 Beta or Release Candidate can also obtain an update by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the “Help” menu. If no update is available, you already have the final version!
June 30th, 2009
Firefox 3.5: fonts, speed, privacy enhancements and much more.
Available tomorrow by download or by using Firefox’s “check for updates” feature, which is found in the “Help” menu.
Plus “Shirotoko Shock” — a fun, easy way to be part of the launch!
June 30th, 2009
The day a new Firefox version comes out is always a fun day for me, because right now I feel like a little kid on Christmas, waiting to get to open his presents. Today is the day that Firefox 3.5 is released to the public!
This year I hesitated to download any of the release candidates, because they always seem to spoil some of the surprise. So, like many of you, I am anxiously awaiting Mozilla’s web site update that says Firefox 3.5 is ready for download.
9:43 AM CST – Firefox 3.5 is out via Mozilla’s web site!
Go here to download. Be sure to add a comment and leave us your first impressions of the newest version of Firefox!
8:16 AM CST – Looks like we figured out a hacked-up way to get Firefox 3.5 from Mozilla. Go to this address:
FileHippo.com also boasts about having Firefox 3.5 ready for download already too. Why/how is Mozilla letting all these other places jump the gun and beat them to the punch?
7:00 AM CST – Softpedia is claiming to have Firefox 3.5 Final, haven’t tested it yet. Also, even the president of Brazil seems to be getting into the Firefox 3.5 release party mood:
6:07 AM CST – Nothing much to be seen yet. I saw on Lifehacker they do have a confirmation that Firefox 3.5 will be released today. Mashable also has a nice post on what’s on tap for Firefox in 2010 that should hold you over.
More news coming soon! Keep checking back for more!
Might also be a good time to remind you to subscribe to Firefox Facts via our RSS feed. Join the over 6,000 happy followers of the feed for free. You can subscribe by e-mail too!
Keep coming back throughout the day, and we’ll have more coverage that you can shake a stick at. If you have any well wishes for the Mozilla team, Firefox 3.5 feedback or anything else you wish to share – be sure to leave a comment and join the party!
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© Mitch Keeler 2008 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
June 30th, 2009
The team here at Mozilla has been working hard on creating features, enhancing performance and adding other awesomeness to Firefox 3.5, and we’re very excited about sharing it with the world.
Alix Franquet and Rainer Cvillink recently tracked down a bunch of Mozillians to find out which aspects of 3.5 they’re most excited about, and the results are pretty interesting. Definitely check out the video (and see how many faces you recognize).
Stay tuned for more Firefox 3.5 news soon!
June 30th, 2009
The word on the street, and by street I mean various online news sources, is that Firefox 3.5 is set to be released tomorrow, June 30th. Version 3.5, codename “Shiretoko”, does bring a lot of new neat features to the browsing platform.
My personal favorite feature I have seen thus far, that shows the most innovation is the support for embeddable video, without the use of any plugins or third party scripts. This multimedia embedding functionality of HTML 5 may not be widely used yet, however this does give it a proverbial first kick in the pants to take off and become successful.
Of course, I wouldn’t be doing the Firefox 3.5 project justice if I didn’t mention the speed boost too. However, I’m not really sure that is something real users will notice. Maybe it is just me but Firefox 3 for me right now is still pretty darn fast. You can check out a full list of features via Mozilla’s web site:
Seems like this time around Firefox’s newest release has either sneaked up on me, or perhaps isn’t getting as much coverage as the last. What do you think? Are you excited yet?
Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!
© Mitch Keeler 2008 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!
June 28th, 2009
Weave Sync is a prototype that encrypts and securely synchronizes the Firefox experience across multiple browsers, so that your desktop, laptop and mobile phone can all work together. It is part of the Weave project, which aims to integrate services more closely with the browser.
Major Features
What is Weave Sync all about? In short, Weave Sync lets you securely take your Firefox experience with you to all your Firefox browsers — including our mobile browser, codenamed Fennec. It currently supports continuous synchronization of your bookmarks, browsing history, saved passwords and tabs. For example:
- Get the same results on the Smart Location Bar on each of your Firefox browsers, so you can get to your favorite sites with just a few keystrokes
- Continue what you were doing: have the ability to open any tab you have open on any of your Firefox browsers
- Keep the same list of bookmarks on all of your Firefox browsers
- Easily sign in to all your favorite sites using your saved passwords (this is especially handy on mobile phones, where it’s hard to type in complex passwords)
- Do it all securely: Weave Sync encrypts user data before uploading it to Mozilla’s servers, so that only you can access your data
What’s new in 0.4.0?
If you have not looked at Weave recently, now is a great time to jump in and try it out! This release includes a major rewrite of many of Weave’s key components since the last major release in June. A few of the major changes are:
- Preference syncing (including Personas)
- Identity support (automatic login, including use of OpenID logins)
- Better support for addons using Weave
- Support for Fennec 1.0 beta 2 on Maemo Linux
- Significant improvements in performance during startup and opening new windows.
Getting Involved with Testing and Development
- Install Weave 0.4.0 (requires the Firefox 3.5 release candidate)
- Learn more about Weave
- Discuss, debate, and add to the design in the Weave forum
- Join us in #labs on irc.mozilla.org
– Mike Connor, on behalf of the Weave development team
June 27th, 2009
Today the Mozilla mobile team announced the release of two milestones for the Fennec project – Fennec 1.0 Beta 2 for Maemo and Fennec 1.0 Alpha 2 for Windows Mobile. Additionally, you can also download desktop builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Stuart Parmenter, Mozilla’s mobile team technical lead, highlights some of the exciting new features in his blog post, excerpted below:
For these releases we have worked on improving the user experience, replacing our old theme with a much nicer looking one and fixing numerous usability issues. We’ve continued to increase performance and responsiveness. We’ve revamped how you install Add-ons, improved our download manager and the whole look of the application. We’ve started work on making forms on web pages easier to use, providing a nicer combo box UI than before.
For more details visit Stuart’s post. Congratulations on these milestones!
June 27th, 2009
Editor’s note: The inaugural Open Video Conference took place last week in New York City (Mozilla was one of the sponsors). Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, has posted some observations about the conference, which are excerpted here. We’re excited about the future of video on the web as we prepare to release Firefox 3.5, with built-in support for the open video format.
Wow! was the only word that can really sum up the Open Video Conference last weekend in New York City. It was an amazing confluence of people from the worlds of online video, art, free culture, open content and web technology. This is not a group that comes together often, but it turns out sparks fly when they do (in a good way).
Photo: Kid Kameleon, CC BY SA NC
…
Of course, the big take away is that open video is both important and fun. Dean, Elizabeth, Ben and all the volunteers did an AMAZING job organizing an event that showed this. They invited the right mix of people, programmed the right content and threw the right parties. The organizations that backed the event also showed tremendous leadership and prescience — Participatory Culture Foundation, Kaltura, the Yale Information and Society Project and iCommons. All of these people and orgs deserve a huge thank you (I hear clapping!).
Next steps: start doing the small and easy things (open video awareness and documentation), and figure out a way to pick up some of the hard stuff along the way (better codecs, easy tools, deeper connections to the people who make video). The good news is there are alot of people and orgs that want to make it happen, and they are gathering around this idea of an Open Video Alliance (the umbrella for the conference). Good things ahead.
PS. A full video archive of the conference sessions is coming soon. In the meantime, you can see one of the demos that Blizzard and Paul Rouget gave here and Blizzard and my slides here.