Firefox 3.1 brings new features and forces yet another Remove-on

No sooner had the Mozilla devs released Firefox 3 that they had already begun work on Firefox 3.1. I’m not helping test it this time, but I’m hearing that they’ve redone the JavaScript engine and they’re adding a nice tab preview feature that reminds me of the Shift Switcher in Compiz-Fusion, but I’m also hearing that they’re changing yet another default behavior: They’re pulling the New Tab button off the toolbar and putting it to the right of the tab bar itself. It turns out part of the problem was that some people didn’t know tabbed browsing was available, possibly due in part to the fact that the default behavior was to hide the tab bar unless more than one tab was open.

Before anyone tells me how nice that feature is, especially in other browsers, let me point out the fact that this is yet another feature that’s currently available in an extension. As was the case when they rolled out the Smart Location Bar this change has prompted quite a bit of discussion, and the moderators of the MozillaZine Forums have had to work pretty hard to keep the topic constructive.

Luckily our friend Cat Thief has once again come to the rescue with her New Tab Button remove-on. The Mozilla support crew is already telling people about it, despite the fact that Cat Thief flat out refuses to have her extensions on AMO.

This begs a question: If an existing feature is available via an extension, why the hell do the Firefox devs have to add them to the base package? I know they get a lot of requests to do this type of thing, but Firefox has always been a quick little browser that can be customized with the use of extensions. Now they’re adding so many extensions to the default browser that it may not be all that small anymore. I also know that this particular feature is a popular feature of IE7, but I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again: Firefox is not IE, Opera, or Safari. Firefox is Firefox, and people love it because it’s different from the other browsers. If we wanted to use IE or Opera we’d use them, but we don’t (and yes, I can run IE on Linux, but why would I want to?). We use Firefox, although some of us are less happy than we used to be.

If someone wants to put out a web browser that has the speed of Firefox 3 but with the default behaviors of Firefox 2, I’d love to help test it. I bet there are some others who would kill to be part of the testing team for it, if not helping code it. Otherwise we need easier ability to add extensions like Firefox has in Epiphany or Opera. I’d use Epiphany myself except I can’t see how to add some third-party add-ons or change behaviors like being able to select new tabs as they’re opened.

Please, will somebody come to the rescue of all of us users who hate what has happened to our beloved red panda?

Get ready for a new Crash Reporter icon in Firefox 3.1

Firefox lead graphic designer Alex Faaborg says that they’re going to try to get a new icon for the Mozilla Crash Reporter. Right now they just use the icon for the software updater, but this is something they’ve been wanting to do for a while.

There’s no preliminary graphics, but Alex does have an possible idea. You can follow the discussion on his blog, but he does realize whatever they come up with could be an image that people get really sick of. Although hopefully people will get less chance of getting sick of it as Firefox gets more stable and crashes a lot less often (unless you’re testing pre-release builds, of course, when things are liable to crash until they get specific bugs munched).

Peng’s links for Friday, 12 September

• Wladimir Palant: Filtering HTML code in Adblock Plus. Firefox can now allow extensions to inspect and modify responses to HTTP requests before the sender gets it (coming soon to Firefox 3.0.3), and Adblock Plus is taking advantage of it by letting you use HTML code to prevent malicious JavaScript from running on yoru computer. The developer of Adblock Plus wrote a fairly technical article about how to do it, but it’s definitely worth the read.
• Tom Dryer: Test OpenOffice 3 Release Candidate 1. OpenOffice.org version 3 has some great new features and Tom has step-by-step instructions for you to get OOo3 installed so you can start checking it out, as well as instructions for removing it if you decide you want to wait for it to get into the Ubuntu repos.
• Og Maciel: BillReminder “Royal with cheese” released. Version 0.3.2 of Og’s BillReminder software has a number of bug fixes and translations to make this already good software even better.
• Ton Dryer: Control your Desktop with Mouse Gestures. If you use the Mouse Gestures extension for Firefox you know how easy it can be to use your mouse to do things. Now you can control your Linux system with gestures thanks to Easystroke.

Peng’s links for Wednesday, 27 August

• Dave Townsend: Throwing in the Towel. The developer of the Nightly Tester Tools (NTT), Update Channel Selector and Tab Sidebar extensions for Firefox and Thunderbird has essentially ceased development on his extensions. He says NTT and Update Channel Selector will probably get an update or two each, but otherwise we shouldn’t look for any more updates to his extensions. I’m sorry to see him close up shop on his extensions. I use NTT and Update Channel Selector quite often, even if I don’t return to beta testing new versions of Firefox. You’ll definitely be missed, Dave, but best of luck on your current and future endeavors. If any add-on developer should be elected into the Mozilla Dev Hall of Fame on their first ballot, you do.
• Daniel Holbach: Second Ubuntu Developer Week! Just because it has Developers in the title doesn’t mean only tech-y types need attend. If you’re not sure there’s any way you can help develop Ubuntu Intrepid check out the list of things Daniel lists as being a part of the UDW. You may just find something you can participate in. I need to try to get back to helping with 5-A-Day again, and I may have to try to get in on the packaging sessions. There are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind learning how to package.
• Wladimir Palant: Don’t bother reporting your plugin issues to me. Wladimir is the developer of Adblock Plus, and he’s seeing a lot of bugs filed against various plugins for Firefox. There’s just one problem: There’s not a hell of a lot he can do about plugin issues with Adblock Plus. Luckily he points out the work of Adobe devs that have done to fix some annoying bugs. Unfortunately their bug fix caused some regressions. I hate when that happens.

I have a couple or so more things I want to post on, but since they’re not GUN/Linux/Ubuntu related I’ll post them separately.

Mozilla offers Firefox 3 as an update to Firefox 2 users

Last night Mozilla turned on the major update mechanism for Firefox 2.0.0.16 users to encourage them to accept an update to Firefox 3.0.1. You can accept it or decline the update for now if you want. If you say “Later” you’ll be asked again in 24 hours. You can select “Never” and they might ask again in “several weeks or moths” according to Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Some add-ons still have not been updated to work with Firefox 3 yet, so if there’s an extension or theme that you simply can’t surf the web without you should check to see if it works with Firefox 3. Themes written for Firefox 2 especially need to be updated to work properly in Firefox 3.

Of course Ubuntu users (and possibly users of other Linux distributions)  won’t have to worry about this update notification if they’re running Firefox 2 from Ubuntu’s repositories, but if you installed it yourself, either manually or via a script, you may get this notification as well.

For more information check out Mike’s post about it, but I recommend you backup your Firefox user profile before accepting the update. Users have found that once Firefox 3 uses your profile it may not be usable by Firefox 2 again.

Peng’s links for Friday, 15 August

Before I get into today’s links I want to apologize for my sister’s post about Debian’s birthday showing up on the Planet, with my picture on it nonetheless. I’ll let her know that anything tagged Ubuntu goes to the planet with my name on it so she may want to refrain from using that tag. Although it saves me the work of making sure readers of PUU know about tomorrow’s Debian Day celebration. (I’ll make sure she fixes the spelling in the post title, as well.)

• New York Times: Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software. A federal appeals court rules for an open source programmer and also gives Creative Commons a win. John Lily from Planet Mozilla also covers this story and includes a link to a response from Creative Commons CEO Lawrence Lessig. (Full Disclosure: All articles on this blog, whether by myself or by Nanci, are covered by a Creative Commons license, as the left sidebar shows.)
• Steven Rose: Intrepid Ibex for the cautious. Another post form Steven (yes, I made sure I spelled it his way rather than my son’s way this time) has great information for anyone wanting a sneak peak at the new features in Ubuntu Intrepid without the risk of running an alpha version of an operating system. I’ve started using the PPA he lists (as well as Steven’s PPA) and I have to like I’m liking what I’m seeing so far. Except for the possible change of the default IM client from Pidgin to Empathy. I looked at Empathy and feel Empathy is much easier to set up and use.
• Bob Lord: Banks still act like phishers. After reading Mary Hammak’s  comment on my post about Bank of America and Bob’s post I’m wondering if I need to try to do more to protect my personal information. This isn’t a Chicken Little thing, it’s a pull-your-head-out-of-your-arse thing.
• Daniel Stone: ryan farmer is a spammer. Here’s a guy that thinks there’s nothing wrong with whining about a problem and not taking the time to bother with a little something many of us like to call “facts.” He (Ryan, not Daniel) also gave some of the Ubuntu leaders the gift of being signed up for spam lists, but he won’t take the time to allow someone questioning his so-called-facts on his blog. But then he was caught breaking the Ubuntu Forum house rules and then had the audacity to whine about it rather than fess up. What a maroon. The moral? People always pay attention when you least want them to.
• Atul Varma: Tab Navigation: Tradeoffs. Atul looks at a change coming in Firefox 3.1. I’m not sure how I feel about it from reading Atul’s post, but I wanted to let you guys (and gals) know that the Firefox 3 changes haven’t stopped just because Firefox 3 got uncaged. It may be a great change, but once again get ready for your browser to tell you that the way you use tabs is evidently the wrong way. (That came out a lot more pissed than I meant it to.)
• Eddie Martinez: The Myth of the Operating System Install. Every OS, whether it’s Windows, GNU/Linux or OSX, has basically the same install process. Yes, there are different details, but if you read Eddie’s post you’ll see that the basic install process of, say Linux, is no more difficult than the install process of, say, OSX. To borrow a favorite phrase from Adam, Jamie, Kari, Grant and Tory, the myth of the hard/stupid OS install is BUSTED!
• Jussi Schultink: Testing Firefox QT. KDE users rejoice! FIrefox 3 is getting a native build rather than forcing you use a web browser that’s made for a different desktop technology.
• Jorge Bernal: Is Ubuntu the new Linux? I’m not sure what Shoes is, but I’m glad they’re cross-platform (OSX, GNU/Linux, Windows). And thanks for reminding me of the proper way to refer to GNU/Linux. Please tell me Tux isn’t unemployed now.

/me checks my feeds one more time

Yep, that’s a lid. I hope everyone enjoys National Relaxation Day, and I hope you all have a great weekend. I know my weekend got better when I found out I can see my beloved Dodgers play the Brewers on national TV when their game Sunday is the TBS Game of the Week. Go Dodger Blue!

Peng’s links for Monday, 4 August

• Ubuntu Productivity: No! Wha…oooh…wow. Yes! Have you ever shown someone Linux? The writer of this blog is an OSX user who has decided to give Ubuntu a try after hearing so much about it. This post has some of the reactions he gets when people he does business with see he’s running Ubuntu. You should definitely check out his entire site. Thanks to Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #102 for bringing this site to my attention.
• Robert O’Callahan: Why Ogg Matters. Firefox 3.1 will have support for Ogg Vorbis/Theora media files, but some people don’t quite get why this is even desired, let alone important. Robert has a mini-FAQ to show why Firefox 3 users need Ogg support.
• LinuxDevices.com: LiMo touts new phones, members. The Linux Foundation has great news for people wanting smart phones based on Linux.

Some of us are taking kernel updates for Ubuntu and finding that the numeric keypads are borked (again). If this happens to you remember to disable allowing the keyboard to control the cursor. I spent a couple of days fighting with it until I remembered I dealt with this before. D’oh!

And if you need a smile to help improve the start of another week may I suggest my very first loldog?

Peng’s links for Saturday, 26 July

Finally I’m able to blog again. I had spied some great links I wanted to pass along in the last few days and I’m finally able to post them.

• Fabrizio Balliano: 10+2 things you’ll get with Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”. We’re less than three months from the next version of Ubuntu, and we even have a third beta alpha that just came out (thanks for the correction, Mackenzie), but Fabrizio gives us some things to look forward to having when the Ibex hits in October.
• Edward Lee: Firefox 3.1 Restricts, Matches, Keywords. There will be new ways to limit what comes up in the Smart Location Bar. (Kudos to Ed for using that name for the bar rather than the name that so many of us hate.)
• Christer Edwards: OpenOffice Easter Egg and Joey Stanford: OpenOffice Credits. These two posts have some info on some fun Easter eggs in the open source productivity suite OpenOffice.org.
• Justin Dugger: Backgrounds for people with no talent. Justin praises the official background for Ubuntu Hardy (which I also love), but he also has a way for anyone to make a new desktop wallpaper, even if you aren’t artistically inclined.
• LinuxDevices.com: “Handheld recording studio” mixes with Linux. For all those who want to set up a demo recording studio in their place of abode, or even build a Linux-based rig for doing remote recording, Trinity Audio Group may have just the thing you’ve been looking for.
• Steven Rose: “Ultamatix: The New Automatix”. While some people hated the Automatix software source before it was shut down back in March, some people thought it’s closing was bad news. Someone’s come out with a replacement, although not everyone’s seeing this as good news. Personally I think there are already good ways to install just about anything in Ubuntu and if you can take the time to learn how to use them there’s very little software you won’t be able to use.
• Anat Narayanan: Microsoft joins Apache. You saw that right, Microsoft is now a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation. I guess they’re really putting their bankbook their positive comments about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). And someone from Mozilla got thanked for helping educate Microsoft about why FOSS is such a good idea.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 5 July

It’s Saturday? I woke up this am and after the holiday yesterday (with the busses in town running on a Sunday schedule) I honestly had no clue what day it was. Sorry about not making a links post on Thursday. A roomie of mine had Achiles’ tendon surgery last week and he had to go for a follow up appointment Thursday. Unfortunately we finished a lot earlier than expected so we had to wait for The Ride to come get us. Unfortunately he wanted the fresh air and while there were no seats outside other than in the sun (I’ve had enough sunburn in my life, thank you) I wouldn’t leave him outside while I sat inside, so I ended up standing about an hour more than I should. Needless to say, I was in no shape for blogging last night, even with the maximum allowed dosage of pain meds. I apologize for some of these links now being a few days old.

I trust everyone had a great 4th of July. I’ll have another post soon for those who’s like to see the fireworks in Boston but either couldn’t get down there or didn’t see them on CBS last night.

• Mary Colvig: We’re official! The Firefox community has been certified as setting a new Guinness World Record for the “largest number of software downloads in 24 hours.” Asa Dotzler has answers to some of the questions people keep asking about the record.
• Markus Thielmann: Adobe updates Flash 10 Beta. a number of bugs got fixed in the newest Flash 10 Beta, including the pain in the arse windowless mode bug, and Markus has information on how to install it, complete with a PPA so Ubuntu users can get updates automatically.
• Eddie Martinez: Best Buy sucks at selling computers. Ok, now I know to never go to the Best Buy on W. Roosevelt in Chicago, especially if I want to buy a computer. I just hope the corporate office reads his post, because I seriously doubt it’s an isolated incident.
• Frank Taylor: Google Teleases Street View for Tour de France in Google Earth/Maps. It’s the time of year when people who otherwise don’t care about competitive cycling go out of their way to keep up with a bicycle race. Thanks to Google we can get an even better look at the course in the first time they’ve posted Street View images for a country other than the US. He also has a nice article on using Google Earth for tracking storms, a very handy thing to know now that the new hurricane season is upon us. Just remember to use it carefully, as the storm tracking layers are designed to be used one or two at a time, not all at once.
• Wladimire Palant: Blocking malicious sites with Adbock Plus. There’s yet another fantastic use for the software add-on that web site owners hate so much. And since there’s security issues on Flash that are being exploited this news is out none too soon.
• BBC News: It’s not the Gates, it’s the bars. Sichard Stallman has a nice article about the retirement of Bill gates. Thanks to Xkutzy on the Ubuntu Forums for pointing this out to me.
• Christer Edwards: Printing Diectly to PDF in Ubuntu 8.04. I have my default printer set to create PDF documents rather than having to worry about killing trees and buying toner, but Christer wrote a great HowTo so you can do the same. Now I won’t have to dig so hard when I have to find this info to set it up on another computer.
• Ken Gurnick: Ethier leads Dodgers to ‘lucky’ win. Nomar and Andru were back in the lineup for the Dodgers after spending some time on the DL, and Joe Torre had to call a team meeting after the game. Yes, they won 10-7 more thanks to some Giants errors, but it was a pretty messy win, But hey, the Dodgers are now just a half game out of first place! Woot! We have some great highlights to enjoy, too.
• Kevin Smith: Curious George, the Shadow of the Bat, and Other Stuff. “Silent Bob” has some great pictures from working with George Carlin, as well a link to a great Newsweek piece he wrote about his friend. As  well as a picture from his newest movie, due out on Halloween.

Sorry about stuffing so many links in this post. I have one more post that Nanci said I had to write and then I plan on taking the rest of the weekend off. It is supposed to be a three day weekend here in the colonies, after all. :p

A call for open source programmers

Now that Firefox 3 is out and so many of us dislike some of the new default behaviors I thought of a way that a number of us could be made very happy, but it requires the services of programmers within the open source community.

With Firefox being an open source project I’m thinking that someone much smarter than me could take the code for Firefox 3 and the code for Firefox 2 and combine them in a way that could give us the speed of Firefox 3 but the look, feel and UI behaviors of Firefox 2. It should also accept either Firefox 2 or Firefox 3 extensions and themes, although I’m not sure which. Mainly I’m thinking about losing most of the Smart Location Bar and reverting it to a Firefox 2 address bar and ditching the new zoom system in favor of Firefox 2′s text zooming. If someone wants full page zoom with it they should be able to easily add the existing extension that does the job.

I’ll admit I have no idea how doable this is, although I know that Shawn Wilsher on Planet Mozilla said giving us both the old and new UIs is simply impossible. Perhaps what I’m hoping for is similarly impossible, but I’m not knowledgeable enough about coding to have a clue about how hard what I’m asking for would be, other than what Shawn is telling us.

I don’t have a clue what this browser would be called, although it certainly wouldn’t be called Firefox since Mozilla isn’t making it. One thing I do know is that if someone could do it, even just for Linux, it would make a lot of people very happy. (Sorry, but if it’s a Windows or an OSX app it would be completely useless for me.) So what do you open source programmers think? Would you be willing to take on this project, or at least look at it to see if it may even be possible?