Here’s a quick summary:

• if you’re working on beta blockers, nothing has changed except that “beta6+” will now be “beta7+” in your queries and bugs,
• we will ship a small, incremental update to beta 5 this week,
• beta 7 will be produced according to the previous beta 6 schedule,
• beta 7 will be considered the feature freeze milestone.

And now, the longer version with links!

We’ve decided to issue a small beta update in order to fix a stability issue on Windows and some rendering and keyboard/mouse focus issues on OSX related to plugins. This small update should be ready late tomorrow, and will be presented as “Firefox 4 Beta 6“.

This should have no effect on the schedule of the feature freeze milestone, other than to have its name change to “Firefox 4 Beta 7.” A bug to change all the blocking flags from “blocking2.0:beta6+” to “blocking2.0:beta7+”  has been filed, and the release description pages on the wiki have been updated accordingly.

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Tired of right-clicking to get a link to open in a new Firefox tab? Well, with the DblClicker installed – that will be a thing of the past.  This simple add-on for Firefox adds double clicking to the list of things you can do in your browser to bring up new links.

This lightweight tab extension for Firefox is pretty cool.  Once installed, it pretty much enables double-click action to a lot of things we do daily.  Here are the amazing features it brings to the table.

• Double-click Link to open in new tab.
• Double-click Bookmark/History to open in new tab.
• Autohide Bookmark/History after selection – according to DblClicker Options.
• Double-click tab action – according to DblClicker Options
• Duplicate Tab – default || Close Tab || None – avoid conflicts when using other tab clicking extensions.
• New tab will open in front/background for Links, Bookmarks/History according to FF preferences/DblClicker Options.

I open links in new tabs all the time, so having this add-on installed is a definate must for me.  Once you get used to double-clicking links, the functionality this add-on brings really feels like second nature.

You can download the DblClicker add-on from the Firefox Add-ons website.

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© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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Time to dig through the newest Firefox themes to see what treasures we can find.  Today’s selection comes in three different flavors, green, purple and black and is known simply as LavaFox.

Now I have mentioned before that is is really hard to make a usable dark Firefox theme, but I think LavaFox does a great job at getting the job done.  It doesn’t seem too dark – and is still really usable and great to look at.  The sleek black interface will look great on any Windows 7 or Windows Vista desktop too.

Just about every aspect of the skin is themed too – which is nice to see that they paid that much attention to the details.  Want to give them a shot?

• LavaFox V1 Purple
• LavaFox V1 Green
• BlackFox V1

All three themes can be downloaded from the Firefox Add-ons website.

Facebook Fan Page Come join the fun on the Firefox Facts Facebook Fan Page!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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Looking for an easy way to pass the time on a slow Friday?  Destroy the Web is the perfect game you can add into Firefox to help keep yourself entertained.  Turn any webpage out there into a shoot-em up video game.

Once installed, you will see that Destroy the Web adds an extra menu toolbar button.  Once you click it, the game begins.  It is then your goal to click on and “shoot” all the content on the webpage.  Destroy links, images, divs, headings and more in this little game for your browser.

Here is a little more about the Destroy the Web add-on from the developer:

Not satisfied with current games available for Firefox, I strived to create a game in such a way that it is well integrated with the actual browsing experience. Unlike the rest of those games, Destroy the Web is played against any page in the Web, causing the outcome to be always different.

it is definitely different, and a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be too.  You can download this add-on for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons website.

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© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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How do you quickly scroll to the top or the bottom of a webpage?  While we might often think of the mouse’s scroll wheel as a pretty default “duh-like” answer – there are other and maybe better ways to get the job done in Firefox.

Keyboard Tip – The first scrolling tip I have to share with you is related to the pictures you see above.  You can hit the Home key on your keyboard to go to the top of a webpage, and the end key on your keyboard to navigate your way to the bottom of a webpage very quickly.

Now, for the super handy extension to save the day.

The Scroll to Top/Bottom add-on for Firefox gives you a few more ways to do this same task.  You can either do it from the buttons in Firefox’s navigation toolbar or you can go up and down from the right-click menu.

You can pick up the Scroll to Top/Bottom add-on for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons website.

So, now it is your turn.  Tell me how you quickly go from the top of a webpage to the bottom (or the other way around) in the comments.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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Along with all of your productive and useful websites out there, gaming websites or online games often get tossed to the wayside.  You know what though? Supporting games and independent developers is just as important as supporting the guys making the awesome website applications we all know and love.  With that said, I am happy to see Mozilla has launched the new Mozilla Labs Gaming.

From the sound of it, it looks like they are really reaching out to online game makers to provide them with the community, platform and tools they need to create new and innovative games for the browser.

From the Mozilla Labs Gaming blog, here is what Pascal Finette said about why Mozilla is traveling down this new fork in the road:

Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geo location, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web.  With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform.  And what better way than through games?  Traditionally games and game developers have been at the forefront of technology, often pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible.

To to kick things off, and start them off right, Mozilla Labs Gaming is going to launch an international gaming competition called Game On 2010.  Not much news has been released about it yet – but keep your eye on gaming.mozillalabs.com for more information.

Add me on Twitter! Come follow my daily antics, links, tips and more @mitchkeeler on Twitter!

© Mitch Keeler 2010 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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Firefox 3.6.9 and Firefox 3.5.12 are now available as free downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux from http://firefox.com. As always, we recommend that users keep up to date with the latest stability and support versions of Firefox, and encourage all our users to upgrade to the very latest version, Firefox 3.6.9.

Firefox 3.6.9: http://firefox.com
Firefox 3.5.12: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to these latest releases. If you already have Firefox, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This updates can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

To help protect users, Firefox 3.6.9 now supports the X-FRAME-OPTIONS HTTP response header. Site owners can use this to mitigate clickjacking attacks by ensuring that their content is not embedded into other sites.

For a complete list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox release notes:

• Firefox 3.6.9 release notes
• Firefox 3.5.12 release notes

Note: All Firefox 3 and 3.5 users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3.6 by downloading it from http://firefox.com or by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu and clicking on “Get the New Version”, then checking for updates again once Firefox 3.6 is installed.

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The latest update to Firefox 4 Beta brings super fast graphics and incredible new audio capabilities to the Web. Firefox 4 Beta now leverages hardware acceleration to improve graphics performance for Windows users and also allows, for the first time, the visualization of audio data within the browser. If you haven’t already, you should download it for free, today!

Visualizing Sound
Until now, people haven’t had the ability to interact with sound on the Web in all the creative ways that video and images allow. Firefox 4 Beta introduces a new audio API to expose the raw audio data housed within the <video> and <audio> elements in HTML5 to redefine how people experience sound on the Web. With this new API, developers can read and write raw audio data within the browser, presenting audio information in completely new ways that could allow, for example, for people to visually experience a speech or a song through Firefox. Professor and Mozilla Developer Dave Humphrey has a more detailed blog post, and offers this demonstration to illustrate the power of this new API:

Enjoy Faster Graphics
Firefox 4 Beta now takes advantage of the built-in graphics hardware in Windows computers with DirectX 10 to improve graphics performance. On supported hardware, Firefox will use Direct2D by default to speed up the display of content on graphically intensive websites, giving more power to the Web. To learn more, read Bas Schouten’s blog post or Paul Rouget’s blog post and check out this demo:

More Secure Connections
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is a new security protocol in Firefox 4 Beta that allows websites to insist that Firefox always use secured connections. Firefox 4 Beta now remembers what sites use the HSTS protocol and will only connect to those sites using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in the future, helping to prevent “man in the middle” attacks. For more details, please read this blog post from Sid Stamm of the Mozilla Security team.

The Feedback program we launched in our first beta continues to be an incredible tool that allows our users to help us understand what they are liking most about the upcoming Firefox 4. We wouldn’t be able to make the progress we have without this vital feedback from the community of beta testers. Check out the Input page to see what people are experiencing in Firefox 4 Beta.

As always, Firefox 4 Beta testers will continue to receive automatic updates, so stay tuned for the next release in the coming weeks.

• Download Firefox 4 Beta
• Learn more about the features
• Submit your feedback
• Short, to the point FAQ
• Long, technical release notes

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We are excited to present to you the latest initiative from Mozilla Labs: Gaming.  Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser.  We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible. We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices.

Modern Open Web technologies introduced a complete stack of technologies such as Open Video, audio, WebGL, touch events, device orientation, geo location, and fast JavaScript engines which make it possible to build complex (and not so complex) games on the Web.  With these technologies being delivered through modern browsers today, the time is ripe for pushing the platform.  And what better way than through games?  Traditionally games and game developers have been at the forefront of technology, often pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible.

Game On 2010 Competition

To kick off this initiative in style Mozilla Labs Gaming is going to launch our first ever international gaming competition: Game On 2010. This competition will be open to all developers interested in creating awesome games using the latest in Open Web technologies. Stay tuned to the Mozilla Labs Gaming blog and follow us on Twitter for all the details!

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As part of Mozilla’s ongoing security and stability update process, Thunderbird 3.1.3 and Thunderbird 3.0.7 are now available as free downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux from http://getthunderbird.com/. As always, we recommend that users keep up to date with the latest stability and support versions of Thunderbird.

• Thunderbird 3.1.3: http://getthunderbird.com/
• Thunderbird 3.0.7: http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/all-older.html

We strongly recommend that all Thunderbird users upgrade to these latest releases. If you already have Thunderbird, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. You can also manually fetch this update by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Thunderbird release notes:

• Thunderbird 3.1.3 release notes
• Thunderbird 3.0.7 release notes

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