All posts tagged ‘add-ons’

File Under: Browsers, Web Services
Dec
2
2010

Xmarks Lives: LastPass Buys Downtrodden Bookmark Syncing Service

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Just when we all thought we’d never see it again, the cross-browser bookmark syncing service Xmarks has received a life-saving injection.

The company has been acquired by LastPass, maker of a cross-browser password manager and form filler add-on. The deal was announced Thursday, and terms were not disclosed.

Xmarks will live on as a freemium service. The initial cross-browser syncing tool you’re already familiar with will be free, but users will be encouraged to upgrade to a paid subscription to unlock more advanced features. It’s the same model employed by LastPass for its own Premium version of its (otherwise free) password-syncing service.

Xmarks Premium will be offered for $1 per month ($12 per year) and it comes with some new features like apps for the iPhone and Android phones, and technical support. You will also be able to bundle the premium offerings from LastPass and Xmarks together for $20 per year.

There’s already an iPhone app for Xmarks, and the company just recently released an Android app, too. Xmarks says anyone currently using the iPhone app can continue to use it without upgrading to the premium service, but they will have to buy in to the $12 per year plan to get future upgrades.

It looked like curtains for Xmarks in September, when the company announced it would shut down its service in early 2011.

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File Under: Browsers, Web Services
Oct
11
2010

Xmarks to Continue Syncing Bookmarks, Thanks to Loyal Fans

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XmarksXmarks has a new lease on life thanks to the support of its most vocal users.

The free bookmark syncing service had previously announced it was shutting down, but vocal customers signed an online pledge last week promising to pay for a premium version of the service. This made the company take a second look at its options.

Now, according to a new post on the Xmarks blog, it looks like the service itself will continue, even though the company behind Xmarks may still be doomed.

In a new blog post thanking users for their outspoken support, Xmarks CEO James Joaquin, says “Xmarks now has multiple offers from companies ready and willing to take over the service and keep making browser sync better.”

Although Joaquin cautions that no deal has yet been signed, he seems confident that one will emerge in the near future: “With multiple offers on the table we’re pretty confident that Xmarks will continue on with no service interruption,” he says.

That’s good news for the some two million users who rely on Xmarks to sync bookmarks and open tabs between web browsers like Google Chrome, IE, Safari, Firefox, as well as mobile devices.

Many of the users have already but their money where their mouth is — or at least pledged to put their money where their mouth is — using Xmarks’ PledgeBank page to promise their support for a premium version of the service. That’s no doubt had a positive effect on Xmarks perceived value and convinced at least a few companies that service might be worth buying.

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File Under: Browsers, Web Services
Sep
30
2010

Xmarks Mulls Switch to Premium Service

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XmarksXmarks has had a change of heart.

The free bookmark syncing service had previously announced it was shutting down, but according to a new post on the company’s blog, there’s a chance Xmarks may soon be reborn as a paid service.

It was an outpouring of support from users that flipped the script. Xmarks has a small army of faithful fans, many of whom said they’d be willing to pay for the service after hearing Tuesday’s shutdown announcement. Based on the amount of interest, the company it decided it may be able to make a subscription model work as a sustainable business.

For now, Xmarks is asking users who would be willing to $10 a year for Xmarks to register their support on a new Pledgebank page. If you’d be willing to give Xmarks a few dollars to keep the service alive, you pledge your $10 over at Pledgebank (no credit card required).

There’s no guarantee that a premium version of Xmarks will happen. In fact, Xmarks CEO James Joaquin says company would need at least 100,000 pledges — five percent of their 2-million-strong user base — before Xmarks would consider a premium service. Even if all those pledges turned into real cash that would still only amount to half the $2 million Xmarks says it needs to break even each year. And as Joaquin points out, the conversion rate from free to premium users is typically more like 1 to 3 percent.

That’s a long way from Xmarks stated goals, but stranger things have certainly happened in the world of web startups.

Xmarks started as a Firefox extension for syncing bookmarks between your various Firefox installations, but soon expanded to work with Google Chrome, IE and Safari, keeping your bookmarks in perfect sync across all those browsers.

Unfortunately, despite an incredibly useful set of features and a 2-million-strong user base, Xmarks never found a way to make money. After failing to find a buyer and facing increasing costs with little or no way to recoup them, Xmarks announced that it would shut its doors in January, 2011. Over the following two days, Xmarks was inundated with users begging for a reprieve in the form of a paid version.

Now it seems the company is testing the waters to see how many of its enthusiastic users will actually put their money where their mouths are.

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File Under: Browsers, Web Services
Sep
28
2010

Popular Bookmark Syncing Tool XMarks to Shut Down

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xmarks tab syncThe free, cross-browser, cross-platform bookmarking sync service XMarks is shutting its doors. Despite some 2 million users, the company has never found a way to make money and can no longer afford to continue.

XMarks will continue to function for another three months — until January 10, 2011 — after which the service will pull the plug, the company says in a blog post. There is no real replacement for XMarks, though the company has set a up page to help users migrate away from from XMarks which lists a few suggestions, like Evernote and Sugarsync.

XMarks started as a Firefox extension for syncing bookmarks between your various Firefox installations. The company then expanded to work with Google Chrome, IE and Safari, keeping all of those browsers in perfect sync.

Earlier this year the company added another very useful feature that syncs your open tabs between browsers (and even your phone, thanks to the web-based interface).

Unfortunately, despite an incredibly useful set of features, XMarks never found a way to make money. Todd Agulnick, co-founder and CTO, writes on the company’s blog that XMarks was always “predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service.”

Agulnick recounts several of XMarks attempts to make a profit, including a smart search tool based on anonymized data from the over 100 million bookmarks stored on its servers. While the search tool “turned out amazing results” writes Agulnick, it only worked well for certain types of queries and was “terrible at finding facts.”

Sadly, a business model for XMarks never emerged and, faced with rising hosting costs and expenses, XMarks has decided to shut down.

Perhaps part of the reason for XMarks demise is that Firefox and Chrome have both added their own bookmark syncing systems to the browser itself, eliminating the need for an add-on. Mozilla has built its Sync service directly into the latest versions of Firefox (including the nascent mobile version) and Google Chrome can now sync your settings to any installation of Chrome using your Google account. Safari’s syncing is handled by MobileMe.

Now, if XMarks were to try charging for its services, it would be competing against free tools that don’t require any effort on the users part.

Of course, no browser vendor makes a syncing tool that syncs data between web browsers like XMarks did. That’s a feature, for those of us that used it heavily, that will be sorely missed.

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File Under: APIs, Browsers
Aug
27
2010

Jetpack Edges Closer to a Starring Role in Firefox

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Mozilla Labs has announced an update to its Jetpack extensions system that makes it easier for developers to write browser add-ons that more closely interact with a person’s computer desktop.

The new Jetpack SDK is version 0.7. It is quickly reaching the level of maturity required for it to become a standard feature in Firefox.

Jetpack is a new extensions framework for Mozilla’s browser designed to offer developers an easier, faster way to build browser add-ons using common web development tools like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The Jetpack extension framework will not replace Firefox’s existing framework, which uses heavier code. But Mozilla expects to see many developers switch to the new framework once it’s complete.

While Jetpack was innovative when Mozilla first announced it, Google has since added an extension system to its Chrome browser that works on the same principles as Jetpack — using web-based tools like HTML and CSS. More recently Apple joined the fray by adding a similar extensions system to Safari 5.

Firefox’s lightweight extension framework has spent a long time in development. Jetpack graduated from Mozilla Labs (though the project is still hosted there) in March of 2010, but, while there was some speculation that Jetpack might end up in Firefox 4, that appears unlikely.

Still, the developer SDK is now at version 0.7 which brings three new APIs for developers to test. The panel API creates floating modal popups that appear on top of web content and browser chrome and persist until dismissed by users or programs. There’s also a clipboard API for interacting with the OSes clipboard and a notifications API which mimics the look of Growl to display messages to the user.

The Jetpack roadmap calls for another SDK release near the end of September and then Jetpack should hit 1.0 sometime in the fourth quarter of 2010. Once Jetpack 1.0 is stable look for it to begin working its way into Firefox.

In the mean time, if you’d like to test out Jetpack and see what the fuss is about just install the Jetpack add-on, which allows Jetpack to work within current version of Firefox. Yes, it’s a little weird, but for now Jetpack is an add-on that you use to install add-ons.

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File Under: Browsers
Jul
2
2010

Mozilla: Firefox Users Have Downloaded Two Billion Add-ons

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If you ever doubted Firefox’s add-ons have played a major role in the browser’s success, Mozilla has some staggering numbers to prove you wrong.

The Firefox add-on website recently passed the two billion downloads mark.

That’s more add-ons downloaded than there are people on the web. Of course, that doesn’t mean everyone has add-ons installed — many of us have a dozen or more add-ons installed at any given time — but Mozilla has previously shown that some 150 million add-ons are in use every day.

Of course the word “add-on” is a little vague. Mozilla isn’t just counting web developer favorites like Firebug or YSlow, but also things as simple as Personas themes, which might explain why the numbers are so high. For instance, if you frequently change Personas, you’re downloading a new skin every time, and that drives the numbers up.

UPDATE: The original version of this post incorrectly stated that Mozilla was including individual downloads of Personas in its count. The two billion number is new downloads of extensions and themes since 2005. Personas are not included in the count.

Still, there’s no question that Firefox users love their add-ons, and Mozilla has the McDonalds-esque number to prove it.

If you’re looking to extend Firefox, or just curious about what other people are using, check out the new “Best of 2 Billion Firefox Add-ons” collection Mozilla has posted. There are number of web developer favorites, including the aforementioned Firebug and YSlow, as well as some other must-haves like NoScript, Xmarks and Greasemonkey.

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File Under: Browsers, Software
Jun
1
2010

The Best Chrome Add-ons for Web Developers

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We love Google Chrome — it’s blazing fast and supports most of HTML5 and CSS 3. But when it comes to using a browser for web development tasks, it’s hard to beat Firefox. With add-ons like Firebug or the Web Developer extension, Mozilla’s browser is still the tool of choice for tweaking and testing pages.

If you’ve been looking for Chrome-based replacements — a better way to inspect code, test alternate resolutions, or quickly check a page’s validation status — the Chrome team has a new Chrome Developer Tools page with some very useful add-ons for web developers.

Sadly, there is no equivalent for Firebug (even the “light” version is no replacement for the real deal), but there are a number of great developer add-ons for Chrome that we hadn’t noticed before.

Speed Tracer is a decent substitute for Yahoo’s YSlow add-on for Firefox. Speed Tracer helps identify and suggest fixes for performance issues. The Web Developer extension (written by Chris Pederick, the same person who did the Firefox version) gives you quick access to validators and offers page resizing and a CSS elements viewer.

Other nice extensions include Chrome Editor, which allows you to make live edits without needing to jump between your text editor and web browser. There’s also, JSonView, which lets you see JSON data, and PHP Documentation, which gives you quick access to PHP’s extensive documentation.

If you’re a heavy Firebug user, there’s nothing here that’s going to convince you to switch from Firefox to Chrome for web development. But if you’ve already made the switch and are looking for some additional web development tools this collection of Chrome add-ons has you covered.

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File Under: Browsers, Software
Apr
30
2010

Xmarks Syncs Open Tabs Across Browsers, iPhone

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xmarksThe popular Xmarks browser extension has added a new feature to sync open tabs across browsers and platforms. Xmarks, which started as a Firefox extension, is now also available for Google Chrome, IE and Safari, so this new feature has the capability to keep all of those browsers in perfect sync. It will now even allow you to sync your open tabs to the iPhone using the Xmarks web-based interface.

The new features bring Xmarks closer to Firefox’s own Weave syncing tool. Although Weave can handle some things Xmarks cannot — like form data and browser settings — Weave only syncs between Firefox installs.

If you frequently switch not just computers, but browsers (as many of us do), Xmarks offers a more universal syncing solution.

Once Xmarks is installed, you’ll need to create a web-based account if haven’t already. The new tab syncing feature is disabled by default, so make sure you head to the preferences panel (or page, it varies by browser) and turn it on. Once open tab syncing is enabled, just click the “open remote tabs” menu item and you’ll have access to any tab in any browser where Xmarks is installed.

Xmarks has long been a favorite for syncing bookmarks across browsers, but the new tab syncing features make it even more useful. Weave is nice, but for true cross-platform, cross-browser syncing, Xmarks is the way to go.

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File Under: Browsers
Apr
8
2010

IE8 Crashing Too Much? Blame Add-ons, Says Microsoft

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ie9_balls

Add-ons account for more than 70 percent of browser crashes in Internet Explorer 8, according to Microsoft.

The company released a whitepaper this week titled “Enhancing the performance of Windows Internet Explorer 8″ that outlines the various factors influencing performance and speed in its flagship browser. The whole report is available for download (as an MS Word .doc file, if you can believe it).

The other 30-odd percent of crashes in IE8 are caused by the browser, one of its subsystems (such as the download manager) or by malware.

When confronted with criticism about performance, especially crashes, browser makers are always quick to point their fingers at add-ons. And rightly so — add-ons are sometimes buggy and poorly tested. As a result, browser makers are now subjecting add-ons to a more rigorous testing process to vet their stability and safety before giving them the stamp of approval.

In a detailed analysis of Microsoft’s report at our sister site Ars Technica, Emil Protalinski argues that the third-party add-on culture around IE isn’t as robust as those surrounding Firefox and Chrome.

Protalinski chalks it up to IE being a poor development platform.

Microsoft’s two biggest competitors in the browser market, Firefox and Chrome, both put a big emphasis on add-ons. Microsoft claims that IE add-ons are very easy to develop and that it made sure the developer tools are not a separate download. That may be true, but IE still isn’t as good an extensibility platform as other browsers: it’s harder for plugins to intercept web traffic and so add-ons like NoScript are much harder to port.

During his keynote address at Microsoft’s recent MIX10 developer event in Las Vegas, IE general manager Dean Hachamovitch said that one of his team’s goals is to significantly improve the browser’s extensibility in the next version.

IE9 is due around the end of the year, but you can test drive it right now.

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File Under: Browsers, JavaScript
Feb
17
2010

Latest Update Makes JetPack Add-ons More Powerful

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Mozilla Labs has announced the release of JetPack 0.8, an update to its new, lightweight extensions framework for Firefox. Jetpack lets people use common web tools like HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build Firefox add-ons.

The latest release of JetPack brings two new APIs in the fold; the Toolbar API, which lets JetPack developers place custom buttons and controls in the Firefox UI much like traditional add-ons can do, and a new Places API, which allows JetPack add-ons to interact with Firefox’s history and bookmarking tools.

Together with the existing APIs, JetPack is starting to look like a much more capable platform for add-ons developers. While JetPack will never be able to duplicate all the functionality of the existing Firefox add-ons system, Mozilla’s plan is migrate as many developers and add-ons as possible to JetPack without eliminating the existing platform.

JetPack offers several advantages over traditional add-ons, both for developers and users. Developers get to use common web building tools like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, whereas traditional Firefox add-ons generally require knowledge of XUL markup. Users can install JetPack add-ons without restarting their browser, and the lightweight add-ons usually have less of an impact on browser performance.

Eventually, Mozilla plans to incorporate JetPack into Firefox release, most likely Firefox 4.0, due at the end of next year, though there is some chance JetPack could be part of the planned upgrades between now and then. For now though, interested developers can grab the JetPack add-on that allows JetPack to work within current version of Firefox.

While JetPack was innovative when Mozilla first announced it, Google has since added an extension system to its Chrome browser that works on the same principles as JetPack — using web-based tools like HTML and CSS. It would be nice if Chrome extensions would work with JetPack and vice versa, but differences between the underlying browsers make such compatibility unlikely.

Jetpack is still an experimental Labs project and may have some bugs, but if you’d like to take some JetPacks for a spin, head over to the Labs website, install the add-on and then browse the available JetPack extensions.

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