All posts tagged ‘firefox’

File Under: Browsers
Nov
20
2012

Mozilla Brings Social to the Browser With Firefox 17

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Firefox 17, now with more Facebook. Image: Mozilla.

Mozilla has released Firefox, 17 which includes support for the company’s new Social API. For this release Mozilla worked with Facebook to create Facebook Messenger for Firefox — a Firefox sidebar that brings your Facebook updates with you wherever you go on the web.

If you’re already using Firefox, the browser should update the next time you restart. If you’d like to test out Firefox’s new Social API features, head over to the Firefox downloads page and grab the latest release.

As we noted when the beta was released, the new Social API features are entirely opt-in. To see the new Facebook Messenger for Firefox you’ll need to visit the Facebook Messenger for Firefox page and click “Turn On.”

Once you’ve turned it on you’ll see a new social sidebar with Facebook chat and updates, like new comments and photo tags. Any new messages or friend requests will trigger notifications and you can reply right from the toolbar. There’s also a new “like” button in the URL bar for sharing websites that haven’t yet added their own “like” buttons.

The new Social API extends the App Tabs concept Mozilla debuted back in Firefox 4. App Tabs give websites a more permanent place in your browser window. Web apps like email, document editors or news feeds are easier to use when they get a special spot in your browser. The Social API extends that idea, bringing social websites out of tabs completely and into a persistent sidebar that you can access without the need to switch tabs or log in.

At the moment “social websites” means Facebook since Mozilla partnered with the company to build out the first Social API example, but it’s not hard to imagine Twitter building something similar. Perhaps even more interesting would be websites not typically considered “social networks”, but which could nevertheless tap into the Social API to build interesting tools. Imagine, for example, a GitHub sidebar with all your project updates and pull requests.

Giving social websites a cozier spot in your browser might sound like a privacy can of worms, but Tom Lowenthal, of Mozilla’s Privacy and Public Policy team, assures users that nothing has changed regarding the privacy of your data. “These pages are treated just as if you’d loaded them in another browser tab,” he writes. That means Facebook is tracking what you do, but no more so than if you logged into the site without the new Social features. In other words, just because Facebook is persistent in the sidebar doesn’t mean it has access to any additional information from your browser.

Firefox 17 marks the second of what Mozilla calls “Extended Support Release” (ESR), a version of Firefox that Mozilla supports a bit longer than usual so that organizations like schools and large businesses have the support they need for mass deployments. The last ESR release was Firefox 10, so there’s a ton of new features in store for those who’ve been sticking with the ESR releases.

Mozilla has been working hard on Firefox’s developer tools over the last several Firefox releases and Firefox 17 adds even more new stuff, including live HTML editing.

The Style panel has long allowed developers to manipulate the styles on a page and the new Markup panel can now pull the same trick with the DOM in real time. Got a client that wants to re-write the homepage copy? No problem, just start typing. Live previews mean you can quickly prototype ideas without diving into your actual HTML templates or even opening a text editor and starting the save-and-refresh dance.

The developer tools in Firefox 17 now look a bit more like what you’ll find in other browsers. Selecting HTML elements on the page no longer draws a dark “veil” over everything else. The veil nicely isolated elements, but it often made it difficult to work with surrounding elements. There’s been an option to turn off the background dimming for some time, but now the dimming is gone for good. Instead highlighted elements are outlined with a dashed line and the “node toolbar” which appears below the selected element.

There are several other new tools for web developers in this release, including a revamped Web Console and a smarter debugger. See our earlier coverage of the Aurora release and the Mozilla hacks blog for more details on everything that’s new.

For more on everything else that’s new in Firefox 17, including the new click-to-play policy, which prevents vulnerable plugins from running without the user’s permission, head on over to the Mozilla blog or read through the Firefox 17 release notes.

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File Under: Browsers, HTML5, Mobile
Nov
19
2012

Mozilla Tempts Mobile Developers With Firefox OS Simulator

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Firefox OS’s home screen, dialer and web browser. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

Mozilla has released a new version of its experimental Firefox OS Simulator. The Firefox OS Simulator (which also goes by the nerdtastic nickname r2d2b2g) is a new add-on for Firefox that makes it easy for web developers who would like to get their hands dirty building apps for Mozilla’s coming mobile Firefox OS.

Mozilla’s Firefox OS is still in the very early alpha stages, but if you’d like to test your apps in the latest version of the Simulator, head on over to the download page (note that there are known issues running the simulator on Linux and Windows XP).

Firefox OS is Mozilla’s answer to the question how does Firefox stay relevant in an increasingly mobile world? Locked out of Apple’s iOS due to the platform’s developer limitations and only recently beginning to create a truly competitive browser on Android, Mozilla’s long term mobile plan is to create its own mobile operating system built entirely on open web technologies.

Although the company has since switched to the “Firefox OS” moniker, the original name, Boot2Gecko, neatly captures Mozilla’s take on the mobile operating system — essentially turning the Firefox web browser into an operating system.

Applications built for Firefox OS use nothing more than web development tools — everything is made with HTML, CSS and JavaScript — which then run atop Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine.

To make it possible to create full-featured mobile apps with only HTML and other web tools, Mozilla is relying heavily on device-level APIs to tap into everything from dialing phone numbers to listing contacts, taking photos and getting Wi-Fi information. Not all of the APIs Firefox OS uses are web standards yet, though Mozilla has submitted most of them to the W3C for consideration.

Mozilla hardly has a monopoly on using web tools to build mobile apps; that was Apple’s original plan for iOS and it’s also exactly what tools like Phonegap or Cordova allow you to do for iOS, Android and other mobile platforms. The difference with Firefox OS is that you don’t need to package your app up in a native container — there’s no need for Phonegap and its ilk.

While Firefox OS may use familiar web development technologies and may run on the same Gecko engine that already powers the Firefox web browser, developers still need a way to test their apps in a mobile environment, which is where the Firefox OS Simulator comes in.

To get started with the Simulator, first open up the “Simulator Manager” by selecting the new Firefox OS Simulator option in the Firefox Web Developer menu. In the Simulator Manager you’ll find controls to start and stop the Simulator and a JS Console option to see any error messages as you develop.

For more on how to get started using the Simulator and building apps for Firefox OS, see the Mozilla Hacks blog, especially the very thorough tutorial from Mozilla community member Luca Greco, who walks through nearly the entire process of building and testing an app on Firefox OS.

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File Under: Browsers, Social
Oct
23
2012

Socialfox: New Feature Puts Facebook in Your Firefox

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Facebook is in your Firefox (but only if you want it). Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey.


Mozilla is rolling out a beta version of its new Social API for Firefox. For this release the company worked with Facebook to create Facebook Messenger for Firefox — a Firefox sidebar that brings your Facebook updates with you wherever you go on the web.

If you’d like to test out Firefox’s new Social API features, head over to the beta channel downloads page and grab the latest release. Then point your browser to Facebook, which will prompt you to install the Facebook Messenger for Firefox.

If you don’t visit Facebook you’ll never know the new Social API exists.

That’s exactly as it should be, according to Mozilla’s Johnathan Nightingale, senior director of Firefox engineering. I spoke to Nightingale ahead of the Social API release and he stressed that the Social API is entirely opt-in by design. “Our plan is not to push anyone into something they don’t want, but to make

easier and better for those that already use it.”

The new Social API can be seen as an extension of the App Tabs Mozilla added to Firefox 4. The App Tabs feature recognizes that all tabs are not equal. Some tabs, like e-mail, document editors or news feeds are easier to use when they get a special spot in your browser. The Social API extends that idea even further, bringing social websites out of tabs completely and into a persistent sidebar that you can access without the need to switch tabs or log in.

“Social is not like other things that people do on the internet,” says Nightingale, “it runs as a current through everything they’re doing.” The Social API is designed to make it easier to stay in that current even while you’re visiting other sites. For example, Facebook Messenger for Firefox adds a sidebar that is visible even when you switch tabs. It’s easier to keep up with what’s happening because you see updates rolling in even when you’re browsing other sites. Since constant Facebook updates are annoying when you’re trying to get work done, there’s also a way to hide the sidebar until you want it again.

Facebook’s Social API implementation also adds a “like” button to the address bar, which means you can share a page with your friends on Facebook without leaving that page, which is great for sites that don’t offer their own social sharing buttons.

The Firefox Social API consists of a manifest file and few URLs, but the user interface, the features offered and all the other details are up to the social site itself. For now that’s just Facebook, but Nightingale says Mozilla will add more support for more providers, and eventually even for multiple social sites at once. The idea is to make it easy for any site to build on the Social API, much like the OpenSearch API did for custom search engines.

If you don’t use Facebook there’s nothing to see right now. However, after playing around with the new Facebook Messenger it’s not hard to imagine how other sites might do something similar. Twitter is an obvious example, but the Social API is not limited to just “social networks.” For example, GitHub could create a sidebar with, say, all your project updates and pull requests.

The privacy implications of giving social networks a cozier spot in your browser may make some people nervous, but Tom Lowenthal, of Mozilla’s Privacy and Public Policy team, assures users that nothing has changed regarding your data. “Once enabled, Firefox loads several pages from your social network over secure connections,” writes Lowenthal, “These pages are treated just as if you’d loaded them in another browser tab.”

That means Facebook can set cookies and collect data just like it would if you were logged into the site, but neither Facebook, nor any other social network that builds something with the Social API, will get any special treatment or additional data from Firefox. In other words, just because Facebook is persistent in the sidebar doesn’t mean it has access to any additional information from your browser.

If you’re always logged into Facebook anyway, the new Facebook Messenger for Firefox makes for a smoother, more compelling social network experience. It’s also easy to back out of should you end up disliking it. Those looking for something similar from another social network will just have to wait for those networks to build out their own Social API offerings.

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File Under: Browsers, HTML5, Multimedia
Oct
22
2012

Mozilla Plans H.264 Video for Desktop Firefox

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Mozilla is getting closer to making H.264 video work in Firefox.

The company’s recently released Firefox for Android already bakes in OS-level support for the H.264 video codec and now Mozilla is adding support to desktop Firefox as well.

Mozilla long opposed supporting the H.264 codec because it’s patent-encumbered and requires licensing fees. It’s also the most popular codec for HTML5 video on the web, which drove Mozilla to swallow its ideals and get practical about adding support to Firefox. Instead of including the codec directly in Firefox, the browser will rely on OS-level tools to play H.264 video.

There’s still no support for H.264 in the current desktop version of Firefox, but as Mozilla CTO, Brendan Eich recently noted on his blog, work is under way and, with the exception of Windows XP, all platforms will get OS-native codec support for H.264 video. Windows XP, which lacks OS-level tools for H.264, will continue to use the Flash plugin to play H.264 movies.

If you’d like to keep track of Mozilla’s progress adding H.264 to the desktop there’s a tracking bug that follows solutions for all the major desktop platforms. Eich does not give an explicit timeline or any hint of when H.264 support might ship with Firefox on the desktop.

The HTML5 video element was supposed to offer a standards-based way to play movies on the web without proprietary plugins like Flash or Silverlight. Unfortunately that dream has failed to pan out. Instead of proprietary plugins, the web ended up with proprietary video codecs, which has created a split in browser support for HTML5 video. Firefox and Opera support the open Ogg and WebM codecs, while Safari and Internet Explorer supported H.264.

Mozilla (and Opera) were against the adoption of H.264 on ideological grounds — H.264 is not an open codec and requires that companies using it pay royalties. But earlier this year the company partially reversed course and said it would support H.264 on devices where the codec is supplied by the platform or implemented in hardware.

In announcing its change of heart with regard to H.264, Eich wrote, “H.264 is absolutely required right now to compete on mobile. I do not believe that we can reject H.264 content in Firefox on Android or in B2G and survive the shift to mobile…. Failure on mobile is too likely to consign Mozilla to decline and irrelevance.”

However, while Mozilla may have abandoned the fight against H.264 in HTML5 video, it has taken up the same banner when it comes to WebRTC. WebRTC is a group of proposed standards that will eventually make web apps capable of many of the same feats that currently require platform-native APIs. In his recent post detailing the progress of H.264 support, Eich says that Mozilla is still focused on “the fight for unencumbered formats” for WebRTC, and promises “more on that front later”.

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File Under: Browsers, Mobile
Oct
19
2012

Firefox Aurora Brings Mozilla’s Web-App Marketplace to Android

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The Firefox Marketplace in Android. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey.

Mozilla is taking the wraps off the Firefox Marketplace, the company’s new web-app store for Firefox on Android.

Marketplace apps are only available in the newly-updated Firefox for Android 18, which is currently in the Aurora channel. To get Aurora installed on your Android phone you’ll need to be using Android 2.2 or better and make sure that the setting to allow apps from “Unknown sources” is checked. Once that’s done, head to the Aurora mobile download page and grab the latest release.

Once Aurora is installed the new Firefox Marketplace is available under the Options Menu. Choose the “Tools” item and select “Apps”. From there you’ll see a link to the Marketplace.

Given the convoluted installation and pre-beta status of Firefox 18, this release is obviously not meant for everyone. It does, however, offer developers a look at what Mozilla has been creating.

Right now the Firefox Marketplace is still rough around the edges. So far there isn’t even a way to accept payments, one of the much-touted aspects of the Marketplace. Mozilla says that payments and other common app store features like ratings and reviews are coming soon. There are plenty of free apps available already though, including Twitter, Lanyard, Todoist and quite a few games.

Installing an app from the Firefox Marketplace is as simple as clicking a button, which installs the app and adds a shortcut to the Android applications list. Mozilla has done a great job of making web-app installation indistinguishable from native apps on Android.

Firefox apps in the Android app switcher. Image: Screenshot/Webmonkey

The difference between native and web apps becomes more obvious when you start comparing speed side by side. For example Twitter from the Mozilla Marketplace is noticeably jerkier when scrolling compared to the native Twitter Android client.

It’s worth asking though, even if Firefox Marketplace apps matched native apps in performance, does you need web apps on Android?

The answer for most people is probably going to be no. However, building out the Firefox Marketplace on Android now ensures that the bugs are worked out and that there’s a smoothly functioning app store ready to go when Firefox OS officially launches.

And there are definitely some bugs and quirks in this early release, like the fact that in Android’s app switcher all Firefox Marketplace apps are labeled simply “App” rather than the name of the application, which can make finding what you’re after tricky when you have a lot of apps open at once.

The main purpose of this release is to work out exactly these types of kinks. As Mozilla Labs Engineering Manager Bill Walker writes on the Labs blog, “our goal is to collect as much real-life feedback as possible about the Marketplace’s design, usability, performance, reliability, and content.”

Developers interested in building apps for the Firefox Marketplace should head over to the Mozilla Developer Network and the Marketplace Developer Hub, which contain extensive documentation, FAQs and emulation tools for building Marketplace apps.

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