Firefox to Launch New Web Browser

Subject: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 16th 2008, 8:41 am

A new version of the Firefox Web browser is scheduled for release tommorow with improvements in security, speed and design.

Many of the enhancements in Firefox 3 involve bookmarks. The new version lets Web surfers add keywords, or tags, to sort bookmarks by topic. A new "Places" feature lets users quickly access sites they recently bookmarked or tagged and pages they visit frequently but haven't bookmarked.

There's also a new star button for easily adding sites to your bookmark list - similar to what's already available on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 7 browser.

Other new features include the ability to resume downloads midway if the connection is interrupted and an updated password manager that doesn't disrupt the log-in process.

In a nod to the growing use of Web-based e-mail, the browser can be set to launch Yahoo Inc.'s service when clicking a "mailto" link in a Web page, the ones you might come across clicking on a name or a "contact us" link. Previously such links could only open a standalone, desktop e-mail program.

Yahoo is the only Web service initially supported. To use rivals like Google Inc.'s Gmail and Microsoft Corp.'s Hotmail, developers of those services will have to enable that capability first.

Firefox also will start blocking rather than simply warning about sites known to engage in "phishing" scams that try to trick users into revealing passwords and other sensitive information. The new version adds protection from sites known to distribute viruses and other malicious software.

The list of suspicious sites come from Google Inc. and StopBadware.org, a project headed by legal scholars at Harvard and Oxford universities.

Security researchers who need access to problem sites can manually turn the feature off.

Firefox 3 also offers speed and design improvements - the back button is now larger than the forward button, for instance, because people tend to return to a previous page more often, said Mike Schroepfer, the project's vice president of engineering.

Firefox is the No. 2 Web browser behind Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer. It comes from Mozilla, an open-source community in which thousands of people, mostly volunteers, collectively develop free products.

Mozilla has been developing Firefox 3 for nearly three years and has been publicly testing it since November for Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

Its supporters are organizing launch parties around the world next week, and Mozilla is trying to set a world record for most software downloads in a 24-hour period.

Microsoft is currently testing Internet Explorer 8, while Opera Software ASA released Opera 9.5 on Thursday.

Administrator From : England OS :  Leopard 10.5.6

Why do microsoft even bother with Internet Explorer?

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 16th 2008, 8:51 am

because they bought the rights to what ever its called so they might as well use it no? also they dont want to affiliate with open source or with Opera because Opera was the original rival... Netscape only actually came into play a little after the Browser wars started. I remember using Netscape 1.3... the loading screen was cool! a lighthouse on a hill and a cool little ocean thingy happy

i remember those days... but thats why the bother wink

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 16th 2008, 6:46 pm

GoSco wrote:: Why do microsoft even bother with Internet Explorer?

+1

Member From : Georgia OS : Mac OS 10.5.3

GoSco wrote:: Why do microsoft even bother with Internet Explorer?

+2

Member From : Mexico City OS : Vista

alxmarcond wrote:: because they bought the rights to what ever its called so they might as well use it no? also they dont want to affiliate with open source or with Opera because Opera was the original rival... Netscape only actually came into play a little after the Browser wars started. I remember using Netscape 1.3... the loading screen was cool! a lighthouse on a hill and a cool little ocean thingy i remember those days... but thats why the bother

That Netscape loading screen was something fierce!
I remember it was an all nighter downloading it on what if I remember correctly was a 2400 baud modem, and remember those Firefox supporters to download it to set the world record http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 8:43 am

haha, i remember that ^_^ my dad was telling me about how Netscape was the next big thing with computers and the internet. that it would change the way we use the net. and it has happy

the world record thing is just a bonus smile

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 4:48 pm

is it out yet? let me see..

Member From : Georgia OS : Mac OS 10.5.3

It's out as of now, for sure. I've got it, and played around in it for a couple of minutes. More strenuous testing is needed though, before I switch back to it from Safari. The UI tweeks are pretty spiffy, though.

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 5:12 pm

Ciono wrote:: It's out as of now, for sure. I've got it, and played around in it for a couple of minutes. More strenuous testing is needed though, before I switch back to it from Safari. The UI tweeks are pretty spiffy, though.

Haha, I cant believe they still didn't fix the scrolling issue. Whenever theres a fixed background somewhere it starts going extremely jumpy and slow when you scroll

Regular Visitor

I hate FF3.
I'm already back to FF2.
It's definitely not what I was expecting, and with a lack of support for my add-ons, there was no real reason for me to keep it.

Moderator OS : Vista

I like it

http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features

Kid Sister From : NYC OS : Mac OS X

i had checked it out in beta version a while back and i didn't like it.. as same thing with the add ons situation as B1G_ said... also issues with some of my greasemonkey scripts... and i need tab mix plus, i dunno if they updated that for ff3 yet, so i gotta do a bit of reasearch befor ei consider updating again... for right now ff2 is fine for me.

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 8:27 pm

i used it in its first beta :O it was a beast then and still is (cept for the scrolling) and plus... im WAYYYY to lazy to change all the default values to the old firefox tongue

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 9:53 pm

alxmarcond wrote:: i used it in its first beta :O it was a beast then and still is (cept for the scrolling) and plus... im WAYYYY to lazy to change all the default values to the old firefox

wow, on windows its like... uninstall the "new" version, install older in same directory and it keeps all your addons, bookmarks everything tongue

and of course all files will open with it

Subject: Re: Firefox to Launch New Web Browser June 17th 2008, 10:11 pm

book marks and stuff it does but then u have to tweak the values in pidgin and stuff cause it installs in a different directory under a different .bin name :/