Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on February 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

After several delays, Mozilla was finally able to roll out Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 today. The release of Firefox 2.0.0.2 is a pretty big one with 158 bugs being squashed: 21 fixed crashing issues, 4 fixed privacy bugs, and 2 fixed memory leaks. Not only that but Vista users will recognize a huge difference in the way that Firefox handles itself. Here are some of the Vista-related bugs that were fixed:

• Automatic Updates now works with users who have limited account privilege and User Account Control (UAC) enabled.
• Uses the Vista Default Application API which means Firefox should now be able to set itself as the default browser without having to be run as an administrator.
• Before Firefox would remain elevated (a.k.a. running as an administrator) after an update was performed, but that has been fixed.

The remaining bugs relate to under-the-hood work that won’t be visible to you. You will, however, be running a more secure and stable browser by upgrading. The official release notes page has not been posted for either version, but they should be available later on today (1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2).

Download Firefox 1.5.0.10:

Download Firefox 2.0.0.2:

Firefox 1.5.0.x will continue to receive security and stability updates until April 24, 2007 so I highly recommend that you upgrade if you haven’t done so already.

I also put together a portable version of Firefox 2.0.0.2 and that can be downloaded from here. That is great for anyone who wants to take Firefox wherever the road takes you. Of course, if you already have Firefox Portable installed you should just be able to go to the Help menu and use the “Check for updates” option to upgrade Firefox. Note: As Max mentioned below in the comments the upgrade option won’t work until Mozilla activates the Update, which will probably be tonight or tomorrow.

Now I’m just waiting for the new Firefox Addons site to be launched. It was supposed to happen last week, but they ran into some unexpected issues (here, here, and here). They now say that they’ll be doing some additional testing over the next week and a half to help create a list of things that need to be fixed before they ship the new addons site. After that is completed then they’ll make a release schedule. Oh, and don’t worry, it is probably more frustrating for them than it is for us:

It’s embarrassing and frustrating to miss deadlines (as I know from very extensive experience!), and painful to not be able to put your hard work out into the world where it can help people. The entire Remora team has been working almost literally around the clock for the last few weeks, and very hard for half a year before that, and we would like nothing in the world more than to deliver it to the world.

Good Luck Mozilla at getting that rolled out!

Thanks for the tip Alfredo!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on August 07, 2008 by CyberNet.

Yesterday Digg decided to launch their first Firefox 3 extension, and being a Firefox extension developer myself one of the first things I noticed was the preferential treatment they apparently received. Before I get into that let’s take a look at their well-designed extension.

The top toolbar aspect of the extension is nothing new as we’ve already seen other extensions offer similar functionality. Basically the toolbar provides a quick glance at how many Diggs and comments the page you’re currently visiting has.

The real power, however, comes from the notification system that it includes. When a new story is posted you’ll see a popup notification window in “near real-time.” Similarly you can also receive notifications for when your friends post new articles. Here’s an explanation by Kevin Rose on how it all works:

My only pet peeve is that when I click the “Digg It” button I shouldn’t be taken to the Digg page. The action should happen instantaneously without the Digg site having to load. If I wanted to go to the Digg page I’d just click the link for the comments.

–Eliminating the Need for the Digg Toolbar–

I don’t need another toolbar in my browser, and I’m sure that will be addressed in a future version of the extension. There’s an easy work around though. Go to View -> Toolbars -> Customize, and drag any of the objects from the Digg toolbar onto another toolbar. Here’s what it looks like when I dragged the two primary items up onto the Menu bar:

I don’t recommend dragging the Digg menu item from the Digg toolbar up there, otherwise it will stretch out the images a lot on those buttons. They still get a little stretched out, but it’s not as bad as it would be if you dragged that button up to the top.

–Digg is “Above” Other Firefox Developers–

There’s just one thing that I, as a Firefox extension developer myself, find a bit frustrating. Digg is apparently being given special treatment on the Mozilla Add-ons site considering that their extension has been out less than 3-days, and it is no longer experimental. Extension editors/moderators are supposed to examine user reviews to determine whether an add-on should make it out of the Sandbox. Interestingly enough the Digg extension was made publicly available before they even had a single review.

Yet our extension, CyberSearch, has 47 reviews (thanks everyone!) than theirs and it is still stuck in the Sandbox after over a month. I know the editors are overloaded, but I think they need to keep a fair playing field. Stuff like this is pretty discouraging for developers.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

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