Tag: Mozilla

Microsoft Applauds IE8 Beta 2 Performance Boost

August 29, 2008 by Jason

Internet Explorer 8 is not the fastest browser in the universe. This, according to IE Program Manager, Christian Stockwell, working on the performance of the browser. However, this is not to say that the Redmond company has not poured a consistent amount of efforts into boosting the performance of IE7’s successor. In fact, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, planned for release by the end of this month, will offer palpable proof of the new horsepower under the browser’s hood.

“When we took a hard look at our goals and considered what we could do to build the best browser, we were presented with a quandary. On the one hand, we could focus very narrowly on scripting performance, trusting that our investment would noticeably improve our users’ browsing experience. Alternatively, we could invest more broadly in realistic scenarios, measuring heavily-used subsystems and investing our optimization effort accordingly. We opted for the latter approach,” Stockwell noted.

Even as early as March 2008, IE GM Dean Hachamovitch indicated that JavaScript performance was up 2.5 times, the Gmail inbox was loading 34% faster, the task of opening a new conversation took 45% less time, while that of opening a thread 25% less. With IE8 Beta 2, Microsoft has tweaked the execution time for the browser, but it has also managed to speed up navigation and user interaction. Read More»

Restore Your Lost Firefox 2 Bookmarks in Firefox 3

August 19, 2008 by Jason

Mahesh was worried because after upgrading to Firefox 3, he didn’t see his bookmarks and hence asked me if there is any way to get them back.

The answer is yes. You can definitely get back your bookmarks because Firefox has a backup of bookmarks through which you can restore them

So here are the steps to restore lost bookmarks in Firefox 3 (only for Windows, sorry Mac guys )

For Windows XP

1. Click on Start- > Run

2. Type – > C:\Documents and Settings\YourWindowsUserName

3. Display the Hidden folders by clicking on Tools at the top the Folder Options-> View -> Show Hidden Files

4. Now you should see a folder named Application data. Double click on it and then go to Mozilla-> Firefox -> Profiles Read More»

Internet privacy cleaner

August 15, 2008 by Jason

Cleaning your internet browsing history becomes more important as it is a matter of personal privacy issue for most of us.

NVT Internet Privacy Cleaner is one of the freeware’s which lets you clean your internet browsing history.

This programs lets you clean your internet browsing history in a customised way as you can easily select what to erase and what not to erase.

It lets you erase the following things:

  • Downloaded Program Files
  • Internet Explorer Cookies
  • Internet Explorer Typed URLs
  • Internet Explorer Cache
  • Read More»

Mozilla Introduces Firefox Snowl

August 08, 2008 by Jason

Snowl is designed to extend the functionality of Firefox beyond the default tasks associated with the process of navigating web content. In fact, this is the premise of Snowl, that the open source browser is capable of dealing with content in addition to what it was originally designed for. Snowl, a project from Mozilla Labs, is described as nothing more than an “experiment with messaging in the browser”.

“The initial prototype supports two sources of messages: RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter. And it exposes
two interfaces for reading them. First, a traditional three-pane ‘list’ view, targeted to active reading of important messages. Second, a ‘river of news’ view, based on the concept popularized by Dave Winer, designed for casual browsing,” revealed Mozilla’s Myk Melez.

The first version of Snowl is set up to mash together feeds but not much else. However, the project does have potential. Mozilla Labs is currently considering extending support in order to accommodate various sources of messages, but especially instant messaging services such as AIM or Google Talk. Read More»

Top Free and Open Source Apps for Mac Users

August 07, 2008 by Jason

A couple of days ago, I met an old friend of mine who just got his hands on a brand new Mac and, after about half an hour of showing the ins and outs of the machine, he asked me why the Mac community has so few free applications. If he had known that I would start writing down every piece of free and/or open source software capable of running on a Mac and keep talking about them for a whole hour, I think he wouldn’t have asked me that question in a million years.

To be fair, I kind of slowed down about 30 minutes after I started writing the list but still got pretty far to cover two pages. Those were the apps that I could remember at the moment, while still trying to write down other apps in no particular order.

The exact same question seems to haunt a lot of Mac switchers out there and thus, I decided to put up a list of the most important free applications I would install on my own Mac after performing a clean install.

Because I do want to give the list some type of order, I have put the apps in six categories, again, in no particular order: Internet, network, audio/video, graphics, games, editors and miscellaneous. The content in the first five categories is pretty obvious. In the sixth, I have included the programs that wouldn’t fit in any of the first categories. Read More»

Firefox 3.1 Shiretoko Alpha 1 Available for Download

July 28, 2008 by Jason

Firefox 3.1 codename Shiretoko Alpha 1 is available for download. The fully-fledged Alpha development milestone of the next version of Mozilla’s open source browser went live at the end of the past week. In this context, Mozilla managed to slip just a tad from its initial plans to make Alpha 1 available in mid-July. Firefox 3.1 only entered the code-freeze stage on Monday July 21, with the first build up for grabs on July 26. Still, Mozilla is moving full steam ahead to deliver the successor of Firefox 3.0 launched on June 17, downloaded over 8 million times just in the first 24 hours.

According to Mozilla’s own release criteria, Firefox 3.1 is meant to be nothing more than “generally usable for testing websites and features”. Developed under the codename Shiretoko, version 3.1 of Firefox has not, as of yet, officially been made available for download. Still, the Firefox 3.1 Alpha 1 bits were published to Mozilla’s FTP servers over the past weekend. Read More»

Fifty Best Firefox 3 Extensions

July 26, 2008 by Jason

Here is an attempt to collect the 50 popular and best firefox extensions which make your browsing, downloading and navigation in Firefox as easy as possible, while harnessing the full power and features of Firefox.

These extensions should work on the latest versions of the Firefox. Use the extensions which work best for your needs. The fastest way to install these extensions from developer sites is to drag them to the url bar.

When you upgrade to a new Firefox version, some extensions might not work till the AddOn owners upgrade them, use the Nightly testers tools to remove compatibility issues. Read More»

Firefox 3.0.1 Drops Next Week

July 10, 2008 by Jason

While Microsoft is still hammering away at Internet Explore 8 in order to produce the second Beta, currently planned for August 2008, Mozilla is gearing up to release the first update to Firefox 3.0. The successor of Firefox 2.0 was released to the general public on June 17, 2008, and climbed to a record 8 million downloads in just the first day. Firefox 3.0.1 is the first security and stability update for Firefox 3.0, and Mozilla is targeting July 16 for the release date. Firefox 3.0.1 code freeze status was available at the end of June, and the Beta versions of the first update to version 3.0 are already live and up for grabs.

“Candidate builds of Firefox 3.0.1 are now available for testing. You can get the builds here. If you have previously downloaded a beta version of Firefox 3.0 or have manually set your copy to be using the ‘beta’ release channel for updates, you can update yourself to Firefox 3.0.1 by selecting ‘Help > Check for Updates’,” revealed Samuel Sidler, Quality Assurance Engineer at Mozilla. Read More»

June reliability update for Vista SP1

June 29, 2008 by Jason

An update is available that will help improve the performance and reliability of Windows Vista SP1.

This update includes the following improvements on a Windows Vista SP1-based computer:

1. The stability of Windows Vista SP1-based computers by addressing some crashes that may occur when you try to check e-mail by using a POP3 e-mail client such as Windows Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird.

2. The reliability of the Windows Vista SP1 based-computers by addressing some problems that occur when you delete user accounts by using the User Accounts item in Control Panel. When this problem occurs, the system may stop responding (hang). Read More»

Firefox 3.0 Final

June 17, 2008 by Jason

This is it! The wait is now over! Firefox 3.0 Final is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Mozilla announced since last week, following the release of the Release Candidate 3 Build, that the gold bits for Firefox 3.0 would be made available on June 17, 2008, and managed to meet the deadline. Although the official release of Firefox 3.0 is still a few hours away, the downloads for the next iteration of the Firefox open source browser are live. So, make sure that you grab your copy; the links for the English binaries of Firefox 3.0 Final for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are also at the bottom of this article.

The Gecko 1.9 web rendering platform is the foundation for Firefox 3.0. Mozilla spent the last 34 months hammering away at Gecko 1.9. With the next version of Firefox, Mozilla will in fact move onward with the evolution of Gecko. But for now, Firefox 3.0 users will be able to enjoy the benefits of in excess of 15,000 updates introduced to the rendering engine. In this context, Firefox 3.0 delivers “improved performance, stability, rendering correctness, and code simplification and sustainability,” according to Mozilla. Read More»