Benjamin Smedberg, Daniel Glazman, Henrik Gemal, Michael Kaply also appear to be part of ‘the resistance’ (can’t beat the nerdy name).
View Source and JS Console are needed. Especially view source. This wouldn’t be a wise move.
Benjamin Smedberg, Daniel Glazman, Henrik Gemal, Michael Kaply also appear to be part of ‘the resistance’ (can’t beat the nerdy name).
View Source and JS Console are needed. Especially view source. This wouldn’t be a wise move.
Well, I reported on Spyware Blaster supporting Mozilla a while back. Now WinPatrol seems to be moving towards Firefox support.
Good to see products feeling it’s relevant to support Firefox. No big vulnerabilities regarding Spyware have been found, and third parties are already jumping on board to help prevent it.
Well, today was something. I downloaded a nightly Firefox build and decided to see about breaking the Extensions Manager. So I went to update.mozilla.org and found a few of my favorite extensions: Gmail Notifier, Checky, LiveHTTPHeaders, Web Developer, User Agent Switcher, among others.
Installed them all (at once), then quit Firefox. Restarted Firefox. All worked perfectly. Checked for updates, no updates found. Everything worked without a hitch.
This was the first time it’s been a good experience with the feature for me. And this time, it was flawless.
So hats off to the dev’s for a quality job. The move towards 1.0 is a looking good.
Happy birthday to Mozilla.org! Help them celebrate their birthday by spreading the word and downloading a build of Firefox and Thunderbird.
I mentioned it briefly the other day. I also commented in a bug regarding the topic. Darin Fisher now is inquiring about WebDAV in the workplace.
I thought I’d take a moment and expand on my thoughts regarding WebDAV:
First a little background on WebDAV. As stated on the website:
WebDAV stands for “Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning”. It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers.
It is also the subject of RFC 3744. So now everyone knows what it is.
Why do we need this protocol? Well, simply put, it has some advantages. Since it’s an extension of HTTP, it runs on port 80, which is universally open. As a result, it’s the preferred protocol in the workplace, since no new ports need to be opened to allow it to work. It works with most firewalls. Not every office allows FTP, or SMB. But most allow HTTP. Hence it’s got a sweet spot in every admin’s heart. It also means software developers targeting this market are looking at WebDAV seriously. Since WebDAV means it will most likely work in the office. There’s a reason Apple took WebDAV over FTP as the protocol of choice.
Take for example Stellent. I had the privilege of seeing this during a training last week. They use WebDAV to integrate content management with the desktop.
Now why should Mozilla do what Mac OS and Windows already do? To make Mozilla more diverse of a platform
Look at the strategy: Mozilla is flexible and extendable. Many companies have created products based on WebDAV, adding their own touches to WebDAV for added functionality. They could do so on the Mozilla platform, and run on all operating systems.
Mozilla could publish to WebDAV from products like Composer/NVU, and Calendar.
Mozilla could use WebDAV for remote profiles over HTTP. Allowing you perhaps to use your home profile while on the road.
Composer, Firefox, and Sunbird can all use a WebDAV component to their advantage. GoLive, Internet Explorer, and iCal, their respective competitors already support WebDAV.
So ultimately, we would have a cross platform product that could leverage WebDAV, allowing software developers to use extensions on Firefox to provide the functionality they do right now with Applications for Windows. This potentially has implications for Linux, since the workplace has been PC-zone for some time. This could open things up for platform independence.
Just my $0.02
Well, I thought I’d sit down and be a visionary for a moment, and think about what it would take for Mozilla Thunderbird/Firefox to become the ultimate product for me. A few are bugs, a few are in the process, and a few are wishful thinking. Here’s what I came up with:
If something here isn’t a bug, feel free to file a bug, feel free to provide bug numbers, feel free to implement one of these. cc me on any bug that’s relevant to the above list. Have more things? Let it out. It’s the only way the best thigns make it into Mozilla, is when people say what they need. Support an idea? Say it, don’t like one? Say it!
That’s right. Pretty interesting read actually.
Go Mozilla. If we can do 1% every 2 weeks, that means in 18 months….
Ah… sweet bliss.
Well, things are pushing towards 1.0. Especially evident in a note by Ben Goodger today.
Note, this isn’t in any way meant, to start a flame war, or a “Ben Goodger$oft is evil” rant… so if you’re going to comment along those lines, just disappear and save us all the time.
I’m a little concerned, as I’ve voiced before. In particular the following quote alarms me a bit:
There is a new bugzilla nomination flag – blocking-aviary1.0RC1. We are now going to be fairly tight fisted about approvals here since we prefer to hit our target dates than become sidetracked. We would like to keep the bug list as similar in length to or shorter than what it is now. Basically we are trying to maintain feasibility. This may mean that your pet bug may be minused. This is an unfortunate consequence of project management, but if you can produce a patch and make a case for your fix, it may be allowed in.
Emphasis mine
My concern is this: Mozilla has built quite a reputation in recent weeks regarding security, and alternate browser articles. Pretty much every technology publication has mentioned it (as I mentioned earlier), often with very fond reviews in the past 14 days. That’s awesome news! It honestly is.
But with that comes some responsibility: So far, Firefox has shipped as ‘pre-release’ or ‘test’ releases. The authors of those articles note that these builds aren’t intended for production use. Just ‘technology previews’ as Mozilla.org likes to call them. And that’s great. That’s the way pre-1.0 should be.
But the second we hit 1.0, Mozilla Firefox will be viewed in a new light, and with a new level of detail. My personal concern is following a slightly buggy 0.9 release, there should be a little less emphasis on a shipping date, and more emphasis on what got us to this point: focus on quality code and end user experience. That’s what got this reputation. Not that builds are prompt and on the date.
For example, Jesse Ruderman makes a security note on his blog which is of particular interest, considering how many browser holes have been exploited in IE in recent weeks (Mozilla right now is being hailed as a ‘more secure’ alternative). Time should be taken to address, and examine stuff like this, and really make sure it’s given proper attention.
Another concern of mine is stuff like bug 154892. This effects quite a few sites. Users expect to be able to print, and get reliable output. It’s a simple, ancient function (from an enduser perspective, I realize printing is somewhat complex). But the end users won’t read/understand the bug. They just take it as ‘incomplete’, ‘buggy’, ‘unreliable’, ‘cheap’ software. That’s not how Mozilla should appear.
I’m not saying Mozilla should wait until Bugzilla clears (obviously won’t never happen). My point is simply that this mentality is a little bothersome.
As I posted in the MozillaZine forums:
But we only have 1 chance to make a first impression. I think we all know how Netscape blew it with Netscape 6. Even though Mozilla 1.0 really made up for that blunder. Many saw Netscape 6, and referred to it as ‘RIP’. Netscape never quite rebounded from that.
(perhaps the first time I ever quoted myself)
That is my ultimate fear. That negative karma associated with a pre-mature release. Apple suffered it a bit with Mac OS X 10.0. They got quite some negative feedback over DVD support, and burning support. The software itself was pretty good. Really quite good. But those missing holes were much more vibrant than the new Aqua interface, or UNIX core. They are what end users and the media focused on. That’s how they work.
Apple released 10.2 (Jaguar) a much more complete and thorough release. Covered all their bases. Jaguar did excellent. People were very satisfied with the product. Why? Because Apple had a complete product. It wasn’t bug free, it was succeeded by future versions, security patches, etc. But that maturity was valued.
What’s the moral of the story? We need some serious testing between now an 1.0 if this is going to happen. Extension Manager is extremely new, and as some have found a bit buggy still. That needs to change if this is going to be viewed as the new way to view the net.
The first impression will always be important. Mozilla’s got a high expectations to meet. The media is playing it up as a possible savior. To disappoint would be a shame. You never get to make a second first impression.
Just my $0.02.
Perhaps this will eventually make way into Mozilla at some point. It’s a great read. Perhaps it could manage disk space vs. performance much better than we currently do?
Could make Fireffox feel faster.
This infinite restart bug was driving me crazy the other day. Looks like Ben has found it. And it’s not to widespread. Only nightly users.
Ugh. What a pain that bug was. Made me not use 0.9 at work. But only that system was hit by that bug. My laptop, and Macs are fine.