The Four-eyed Journal » Firefox

Firefox 3.5 – tab tearing, private browsing & HTML 5 video support

jhay — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:20:06 +0000

It’s probably late than never, but it’s great news that Firefox 3.5 has been released yesterday for the masses to download and enjoy.

Those who fell in love with Google Chrome and it’s many great features sans plugins & extensions support would probably switch back to Firefox 3.5 because the same cool features in Chrome like tab tearing, that awesome search bar and private browsing are now also found in Firefox. I know, because I’m starting to love Firefox again.

Tear tab feature in Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 from Percy Cabello on Vimeo.

I think the best new feature about this version of Firefox is the support for HTML 5 with video in an open-source format like Ogg Vorbis or Theora. It means that Firefox 3.5 treats videos as if they are just part of the page and not as embedded flash objects. This, in my theory, would be a key in by-passing some firewalls that filter out flash objects in webpages.

Of course there’s support for tab tearing in Firefox 3.5, which was first introduced by Chrome. Again, better to late than never right?

A minor qualm over Firefox 3.5’s private browsing mode

However, there’s one thing that I frown about Firefox 3.5. Sure it now has a porn private browsing mode but why does it have to devote the entire browser into that mode whenever private browsing is activated? I like Chrome’s implementation better. It’s version of private browsing called Incognito, allows me to open a regular Chrome window or tab and an Incognito window at the same time. It’s more flexible and less time consuming.

In Firefox 3.5 however, it interrupts your workflow because it stops your current regular browsing session and devotes the entire browser into private mode. What if you only wanted to view a single page in private browsing just to have a peek or do a quick transaction?

Hopefully, the Firefox team will consider this minor issue for the next version. Overall though, version 3.5 is a great update to Firefox because I almost made the complete return to using Firefox as my default browser.

Datablitz website tagged as malware host by Google Chrome

jhay — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:43:26 +0000

Could this be an “aftershock” of the human error at Google which tagged every site in the Internet as malware last January 31, 2009? Upon visiting Datablitz’ website (http://www.datablitz.com.ph) a few minutes ago, it was tagged by Google as a site that could harm my computer for it allegedly hosts some malware. Check the screen shot I took below:

Datablitz site tagged as malware

I used Google Chrome because it’s my default browser, checked the same site using Firefox and no warnings appeared. Does that mean that Firefox uses a different process and reference to tell whether a website is dangerous for visitors or not?

Have you experienced the same thing using Google Chrome?

Mozilla Survey – What have we done wrong?

jhay — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:43:09 +0000

This is officially the last week of the 1st semester, Finals exams are up next week, good luck to all students out there because one more big challenge and it’s a much deserved semester break is next. It means more time for me to spend online blogging and blog-hopping.

Moving on, I just answered the Mozilla Survey as share by Yuga. The questions are quite interesting but over all they give me the following impressions:

Mozilla is preparing something big or just something in the back burners – Firefox 3 has scored a Guinness world record and the latest upgrade to it was just released it would seem that Firefox is doing well. Perhaps a big marketing blitz to promote Firefox is on the drawing boards.

They really want to know the mind-set or preferences of Firefox users today – most questions dwell on technical stuff like tabs, anti-phising features, browser speed etc. It’s like they’re asking us which features do we really, really want in a browser nowadays.

Asking us for help – Some of the questions made me feel a bit guilty about making Google Chrome (there I’ve said the magic words!) my de facto web browser. I recall how I use to be a proud promoter of Firefox to my friends and online now it has all slowed down the moment Google Chrome landed on my laptop.

Lastly, here’s the clincher:

Is there anything Mozilla should either start — or stop — doing to drive greater awareness, education, word-of-mouth or press in your market?

My answer was simple,

Do a more proactive marketing campaign, like those “I am Mac” ads or something. Stop relying on a third-party to do this for them because good relationships could suddenly end and turn ugly. Right Google?

Anyone else who took the survey too? What are your thoughts about it?

Firefox on Full screen mode (F11)

jhay — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:58:59 +0000

Try it. Hit F11 on the Firefox window of your choice and presto! It’s now on full screen mode removing the menu and tool bars and even the status bar from view.

In this way, you can fully focus on the web page you’re working on like reading lots of online text or in my case, writing this post in full screen mode. It’s a workaround to the inability of who doesn’t use the rich-text editor in WordPress to still enjoy writing their posts in full-screen mode. Well sort of.

Anyways, it’s a good way of getting free from the distractions of your desktop when doing online work, like blogging, blog-hopping, reading online text, even watching online videos. It could even give you massive over doses of your favorite online media sites or services. Can’t get enough of your friends’ Plurks? Try Plurking in full screen mode. That way you won’t feel over whelmed by all the sudden rush of new plurks and responses.

The full screen mode really grabs hold of your desktop. Even IM notification pop-ups and private message windows do not pop-up from no where. You do hear the alert sounds but Firefox keeps them behind your browser. Pretty neat for someone like me who has a little tendency to relapse into his short-attention span days.

Still, you can navigate to other windows by using the ALT+Tab key should you really need to. I haven’t tried Internet Explorer in full screen mode as well as the other browsers on my notebook like Opera and Safari. Though I doubt I’ll have a taste of what it’s like in IE because it’s been a year since I last used the darn browser at home.

Well that’s it for this little write-up about another neat feature of Firefox. It’s nothing special but something that could really do wonders for some of us who wants to really focus on things we’re working on, literally, once in a while.

Now running Firefox 3 – is this the right version?

jhay — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:09:08 +0000

So today, June 18, on our side of the planet is the actual Firefox 3 Download day. The geek in me had lost its brain yesterday because I woke up very early in the morning just to download Firefox 3 and be part of some awesome world record – for geeks.

But lo and behold, all I found was that “coming soon” graphic on the Firefox 3 Download day website. After blurting, “WTF?!” it then occurred to me that I was on a different time zone than where the Mozilla folks are so I had to wait for some 10 hours and more before the sun has shined on their part of the globe turning their calendars into June 17, 2008.

Being the genius that I am, I did some timezone computations using complex algorithms and found out from friends on Twitter that Download day would actually be June 18, 1:00am here on Philippine soil.

That was some 6 hours ago and right now I’m running Firefox 3 and officially part of that world record – for geeks. I sure am glad I did not wait up until 1am earlier for Firefox 3 to be officially available for download because one; I was really wrestling against my tired-from-school, skinny-ass body who has taken sides with the Sandman, in his futile attempt to prevent me from becoming part of that awesome world record – for geeks, and second; I had a feeling that once Firefox 3 does become available for download, those 1 Million-strong fans who pledged to join the quest for that world record download – for geeks, the Mozilla servers would be swamped DDoS-style. And it did, as Yuga puts it succinctly, Firefox 3 Download Day goes kaput!.

Well for a couple of hours, after which everything went down smoothly and the Mozilla servers are now up, running and serving up Firefox 3 to the masses. Holding back and taking some sleep really proved to be a good choice as I did not suffer the frustration of some who weren’t able to download Firefox 3 right away after staying up and waiting that long. Patience does have its rewards.

But wait, what’s this?

I did download the correct installer right? And this is the final version of Firefox 3 not some Release Candidate Beta version right? Then how come that was the page I saw after running Firefox 3 for the very first time? Guys any ideas?

Anyways, so far, I’m happy with Firefox 3. It’s got some refreshing look and feel, it loads pages a lot faster than before, most of plugins work well with it and it does take up less system memory though the new “Awesome bar” annoys me a little because it doesn’t throw back the exact right URLs I’m looking for but hey, over all, Firefox 3 is awesome! Go download it now, retake the web with the best browser today and be part of that world record for – geeks.