mozilla

A plethora of changes land in Firefox for Android 15 beta, as its desktop counterpart moves its memory management improvements up a notch.

Firefox 15 beta for Windows (download), Mac (download), and Linux (download), brings the memory management improvements developed in Mozilla's MemShrink project one step closer to the stable version of the browser, this time focusing on long browser sessions and how add-ons affect Firefox. Nicholas Nethercote, a developer at Mozilla, wrote on his blog that Firefox 15 beta is likely to be "drastically" faster than Firefox 14, in some cases.

The changes in the beta … Read more

The bottom line: Firefox 14 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately for the 'fox, that describes most of its competition, too.

Please note that the First Look video below is still applicable to Firefox 14, as is this Firefox How To collection, even though it features Firefox 4.

Review: For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major … Read more

The latest update to Firefox brings better security to search and to the URL bar, as the browser gets OS X and HTML5 tweaks, too.

The biggest change to Firefox 14 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux,) is that it runs HTTPS for all Google searches. This means that prying eyes, especially over public networks, won't be able to intercept your queries. Though Firefox currently supports this only for Google, Mozilla said in a blog post announcing the update that it hopes to extend HTTPS to other search engines in the near future.

A small interface design change also affects … Read more

Reports of the death of Mozilla's Thunderbird may have been greatly exaggerated. But the e-mail program is no longer on the company's priority list.

Responding to news items that his company was dumping Thunderbird, JB Piacentino, managing director of Thunderbird, tried to clarify the future of the software in a Mozilla blog.

Thunderbird users can look forward to upgrades down the road, with versions 14, 15, 16, and 17 on the horizon.

Mozilla also plans to support the application at least until the second half of 2013, according to Piacentino, and is trying to determine how to support … Read more

Surprised to find out that Mozilla's Thunderbird isn't dead yet? Well, have we've got news for you.

Mozilla is just now (sort of) pulling the plug on its open-source e-mail software, TechCrunch reported today. The company is looking for feedback and plans to share a final action plan in September.

In a "confidential" message sent to "Mozillians" prior to an official announcement this coming Monday, Thunderbird Managing Director JB Piacentino said Mozilla is moving its resources away from further developing the software with hopes that Thunderbird's vocal fans will take over that … Read more

Internet Explorer has been facing growing competition from rival browsers, but it's still the leader with more than 50 percent of the market, according to Net Applications.

IE grabbed a 54 percent market share last month, down from 56.7 percent a year ago. Traveling further back in time reveals an ongoing decline from November 2007 when Microsoft held almost 80 percent of the desktop browser market.

In second place with a 20 percent share in June, Firefox has also seen its share gradually drop. Mozilla's browser scored a 23 percent share a year ago after hitting a … Read more

Mozilla's browser-based smartphone operating system has grown up a notch, winning over partners such as Sprint and ZTE and picking up the marketing-friendly name of Firefox OS.

In addition, Mozilla has announced several partners, a necessity for making a bunch of software into something people actually use: only a very small number of people have the skills and interest to install a mobile-phone OS.

Carrier Telefonica and chipmaker Qualcomm already were partners that emerged when Mozilla announced B2G at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. They'd said to expect phones by the end of 2012 then, but now … Read more

The first major update to Firefox for Android (download) since January has arrived, and it brings with it a new interface, some new features, and a new approach to Android for Mozilla.

The company released the first stable version of Firefox for Android at the same time that it overhauled Firefox for PCs, back in March 2011. Barely six months after that, the company decided that the original Firefox for Android just wasn't good enough. With a responsiveness rarely seen by large organizations, Mozilla changed course and began to work on a different Android browser.

"In the fall … Read more

Making it easier than ever to make your own simple Web page to spread the memes of your dreams, Mozilla has introduced Thimble, touted as "ridiculously simple" for making Web sites.

Taking on the likes of Wordpress, Thimble is targeted at basically anyone interested in creating and sharing their own Web pages and other projects in as fast as a few minutes.

The difference here is that Thimble isn't really a blog-type page creator, but rather maybe more like the AOL-owned About.Me splash page maker for those Internet users with a little HTML and CSS knowledge. … Read more