Mozilla

Bing pings Facebook

In today's show, we're Binging our friends, casting spells in Kindle's library, and bracing ourselves for the return of the browser wars:

Microsoft's Bing search engine now includes Facebook integration. When you search for something on Bing, a side panel will pop up and show which of your friends might help you with your search. So for example, if you search for hotels in Chicago, Bing will point out which of your friends live in Chicago.

Microsoft is also in the news today for stirring up the browser wars again. According to Mozilla, Microsoft is preventing … Read more

Hands-on Boot to Gecko: Interesting, but far from baked

NEW ORLEANS--Mozilla may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to mobile technology, but that may change early next year. Its mobile operating system code-named Boot to Gecko is developing rapidly, but it will face challenges both technical and tech cultural.

Judging from my colleague Stephen Shankland's take on how Boot to Gecko performed at its public unveiling in February, Mozilla has definitely made progress with the phone. The build I used was installed on a Samsung Galaxy S II.

The interface appears to be a mix of traditional iOS-style app icons, and Windows Phone-style … Read more

Mozilla CEO pushes for HTML 5 over mobile apps

NEW ORLEANS--Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs believes that mobile users want more choice and are ready to be freed from the shackles of app ecosystems.

Speaking today at the CTIA show here, Kovacs said that just like consumers moved from the walled garden of AOL when the Internet first went commercial, they are now ready to move from the walls erected by Apple and others in the app market places. He said that new standards, such as HTML 5, will help set mobile subscribers free.

"In the early days of AOL we were within their walls," he said. "… Read more

Mozilla is first major tech company to denounce CISPA

Despite big name tech companies -- such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Oracle -- supporting the controversial Internet surveillance bill that passed in the House last week, Mozilla has come out against the legislation.

"While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security," the tech company wrote to Forbes reporter Andy Greenberg. "The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse."

Mozilla is the first major tech company to … Read more

Firefox Aurora slightly tightens security

Following the release of Firefox 12 earlier this week, Mozilla's latest browser build for developers shows off some new security tweaks and implements some game-centric APIs.

Firefox 14 Aurora (download for Windows, for the Mac, and for Linux) also brings native full-screen support to Macs, and the location bar can finally autocomplete URLs.

The security tweaks involve some minor interface adjustments. The Site Identity Manager, which is the block of color on the left of the location bar, has been changed so that it's easier to understand. Going forward, gray globe will be the default icon for a … Read more

Firefox beta moves closer to SPDY

Firefox 13 has moved to the browser's beta channel today, bringing with it default support for SPDY, some elbow grease on default landing pages like the Home page, and better memory management for open tabs.

Firefox 13 beta can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Having SPDY active by default means that, for sites that support it, they will appear in your browser faster than before. SPDY is also a more secure protocol than HTTP, which it's the successor to, because it uses SSL encryption for all sites.

The new Home page, available at about:home, puts … Read more

Mozilla looks to summit 'Kilimanjaro' for project unity

It's been a busy year at the home of Firefox, as Mozilla went public with major developments meant to change the Web, but it's about to get much busier as it looks to make those initiatives a reality. A key step forward will be to unify its development schedules under a project named Kilimanjaro.

Oh, and it wants to have Kilimanjaro bagged by September of this year. The related bugs blocking Kilimanjaro have all been marked as "highest priority."

Damon Sicore, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, explained in a forum post that Kilimanjaro is about … Read more

Developers get a helping hand in Firefox 12

The bottom line: Firefox 12 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Please note that the First Look video below is still applicable to Firefox 12, as is this Firefox How To collection, even though it features Firefox 4.

Review: For those of you who spent last year away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version … Read more

Firefox 12 ushers in automatic updates

Mozilla has updated Firefox to version 12 today, completing a cycle of changes to how the program updates and bringing some serious elbow-grease to its developer tools.

You still have to you approve the User Account Control (UAC) the first time you install Firefox, but for all subsequent versions, it will automatically update without your approval. This is the same update procedure that Google Chrome has been using on Windows for more than a year with few if any known negative consequences.

You can download Firefox 12 for Windows | Mac | Linux.

Besides cutting down on the your interaction with the … Read more