mozilla

After years of tough competition from dominance-seeking Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, Mozilla faces a second year in a row of forced adaptations. Its aggressive Firefox 2012 development plan calls for surgeries both minor and radical to integrate many new pieces into the browser, but it may not survive post-op. At least, not as you know it.

So far, the changes have resulted in a Firefox which, simply put, runs better. Two of the most tangible new tools have changed add-on behavior. The addition of add-ons to Firefox Sync let you mirror the same add-ons at work and at home, … Read more

NirSoft's MozillaHistoryView reads the history DAT file in Mozilla-based Web browsers such as Firefox as well as Netscape and displays your browsing history under a wide range of useful column headings. The built-in History feature in the latest version of Firefox also displays lots of useful information, it's true. But you must have Firefox open to use it. MozillaHistoryView is a standalone tool that reads history DAT files directly, whether your browser is open or not. You can save and export the data in various ways, too. The program also gives you greater flexibility in accessing multiple browser … Read more

The new year started strong for Firefox on Android, as it relaunched with a completely new interface native to Android. Three months on, though, and it's still not ready for prime time.

The decision came toward the end of 2011: in order to create a more seamless Firefox on Android experience, Mozilla would scrap its then-current Android browser, built in XUL, and rebuild it with native Android code. The look and basic functionality debuted on January 3, but since then the new interface has missed two ship dates on Mozilla's six-week rapid-release cycle. So where does it stand … Read more

Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature does a fine job of keeping track of RSS feeds. Feed Sidebar is a free add-on that opens feeds in a sidebar equipped with a handy toolbar that makes it easy to search and sort feeds, mark them as read, and limit their age. It doesn't replace Live Bookmarks in Firefox; it augments the standard tool. But if you follow a lot of feeds, you'll like what it adds.

After a quick and trouble-free external download, we restarted Firefox. We clicked the RSS button on the toolbar, and clicked Feed Sidebar's left-hand … Read more

Faster and more secure browsing is coming to Firefox in a big way, as the first Aurora build of Firefox 13 gets the SPDY protocol activated by default, capping off more than four months of work putting SPDY into Firefox.

Firefox 13 Aurora (download for Windows, Mac, and Linux,) doesn't include many other new features or changes that affect Firefox fans directly, but there are many under-the-hood tweaks. One is a user agent change in Firefox for Android, so that Web sites can recognize when a person is running Firefox for Android on a phone or a tablet. This … Read more

Chris Blizzard, a high-profile figure in the Firefox world, has left his job as Mozilla's director of Web platform to join a startup.

"I'm trying something new and starting in the next week or so I'm going to be joining a very small startup that's based in Palo Alto," Blizzard said in his announcement last week on his blog. "I happened to stumble across an amazing team that's doing great (and difficult!) work that deals with the intersection of systems, compilers, and web-scale problems."

Blizzard has been in charge of the &… Read more

Firefox 12 beta makes more than 85 changes to its developer tools, Windows users will no longer get pestered by a User Account Control pop-up every time the browser updates, and the HTML5 media controls have been updated

Updated today, Firefox 12 beta (download for Windows | Mac | Linux), pushes the browser closer to some of Google's notable achievements with Chrome. However, Mozilla's renewed focus on Web developers is a clear indication that it sees value in paying attention to the relatively small but hugely influential developer communities.

A Mozilla representative told CNET that Firefox 13 Aurora is due … Read more

Think of it as Microsoft's version of a good-news, bad-news joke. The good news: Its upcoming IE10 browser for Windows 8 will come in two flavors--one a streamlined, "Metro-style" program designed to resemble a smartphone or tablet app, the other a more standard desktop browser.

The bad news? Microsoft's upcoming IE10 browser for Windows 8 will come in two flavors--one a streamlined, "Metro-style" program designed to resemble a smartphone or tablet app, the other a more standard desktop browser.

In other words, everyone who wants to use IE10 will have to choose which flavor … Read more

High-ranking Mozilla staff, believing they've lost a fight to keep patent-encumbered technology off the Web, have concluded it's time to change course and support H.264 video technology.

The H.264, a "codec" to encode and decode video for more efficient storage and streaming, is widely used in everything from video cameras to mobile-phone processors. However, it's encumbered by patent royalty payments that go against Mozilla's goal of fostering an open Web.

The patent issue led Mozilla to strongly endorse Google's alternative VP8 codec that's part of its royalty-free WebM project. But … Read more