Firefox4 & the future of the Web

Firefox4 was released last month. It has been downloaded more than 57 million times since its release from all over the world. The release has been successful so far, but it seems not to be easy to compete the other browsers as much as before. In this post, I am going to talk about new features of Firefox4 , the reason why using Firefox is important, and the task of remaining competitive as a community supported browser.

New features of Firefox4
First, let’s take a look at the new features of Firefox4[1].

App Tabs & Panorama

How many tabs are you opening when using Firefox? In my case, I open more than 10 tabs, so it is very difficult to find the page I want to see easily. App Tabs & Panorama help you organize so many tabs. In more detail, App tabs are a kind of tab, but these tabs are located in the left side of the tab area, which just display its icon without the title. So it allows users to place more tabs in the tab area. The difference compared to normal tabs is that these tabs can be shown after the browser restarts. If you open Facebook, Twitter, and GMail as App Tabs, you don’t need to open those web pages again. In the case of Panorama, relevant tabs can be group together as you see the above figure. It helps the user find a tab more easily. In addition, you can move tabs among groups by drag & drop.

WebGL

WebGL brings 3D graphics to Firefox, which allows for developers to create 3D games and 3D UI for the Web. This link introduces several WebGL demos running on Firefox4, so you can imagine how the Web would change in the future.

In addition, Firefox4 introduces a lot of new technologies for Web developer:

• JägerMonkey JavaScript engine : This is a new JavaScript Engine that replaced TraceMonkey, which allows JavaScript to run faster.
• WebM Support: WebM is an open source, free royalties video codec open by Google. It allows people to author and distribute their own video without paying any royalties.
• HTML5 Parser: This allows the browser to parse HTML content in the same way, even if the content has errors.
• IndexDB: This is the Web standard for database.
• More File APIs: It allows to upload files more easily.
• Audio API: It allows to process audio streams for mixing and equalizing.
• Multi Touch: Multi touch is supported by Windows7.
• Web Console: This allows developers to check the content loading status from the console window.

For detailed information on the new features, take a look at the following page:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/

Why Firefox?
Do you remember the dark age of the Web? After the browser war[2] between Internet Explorer and Netscape was over in the 1990s, Internet explorer came to have more than 95% of the market share by 2002. As a result, nobody had cared about innovation in web browsers; until 2006 there was only one new version of Internet Explorer since version 6.0 was released in 2001. IT experts call this period of time the dark age of the Web, because there was no alternative browser for Internet Explorer. As a result, many web sites were dependent on Microsoft’s proprietary technology, like ActiveX control. Firefox was created to give back the Web to people by breaking the dark age like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.

Now, nobody dominates the Web because Mozilla has been doing well to develop the Web using open technology and in the standard way by HTML5, CSS3, SVG, free codec, etc. This means that there should be no barriers to see Web contents from any browser on any platform. However, there are still threats from big companies. They could control the Web in their own way if they surpass the other browsers. ActiveX control issue in Korea is a well known example. Therefore, we have to be interested in spreading Firefox and keeping the Open Web.[3]

Future of Firefox
Open competition makes the Web innovate faster than before. Actually, Firefox has a unique position in the browser market. It is an open source project and has lead to innovate the Web technology. However, Google Chrome also strongly has lead the Web innovation, which supports the multiple process model and the Web technology based add-ons. Additionally, it is an open source project and their development process is open like Firefox, so anyone can be involved the development. In the mobile market, the situation is worse. Apple doesn’t allow users to run Firefox on the iOS because Firefox can be an application platform itself. Another problem is that Firefox for Android is not popular yet.

Well, how does Mozilla overcome this situation? Mozilla is trying to move the development focus from platform to product. In addition, they are preparing the Mozilla2 project which is a future platform for Firefox. It allows us to open each web page and add-on using a separate process. In my opinion, Mozilla should release Firefox for iPhone based on WebKit, because offering the same experience is more important than being addicted to the Mozilla platform.

Firefox is not just a web browser but provides a way to see the world and meet people. If we access the Web through decentralized tools like Firefox, nobody can control the Web, allowing everyone to use the Web equally without any restrictions.

References
[1] http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_wars#The_first_browser_war
[3] http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2009/09/16/describing-the-open-web/

Firefox for Mobile Devices

I'd like to share a little bit old presentation about Mobile Firefox.

From: mobileportland, 2 months ago

Firefox For Mobile Devices

view presentation (tags: browsers mozilla portland firefox)

Dietrich Ayala's presentation at May 2008 meeting of Mobile Portland

SlideShare Link

Firefox+ Summit

I attended Firefox+ Summit at Whistler, Canada. It was a great time in my life because I met Mozilla folks who I had known the name only and talk about some issues I have wondered.

This occasion was held to celebrate Firefox3 release and talk about the future plan of Firefox3.1 and the current issues.

About 400 Mozilla peoples joined the summit coming from all over the World. They are involved in the various projects such as AMO(Add-ons), QA, Localization, Gecko, JavaScript, Mobile, UX, evangelist, messaging, SVG, MDC, and so on.

How could all peoples come together for Mozilla?

Mozilla is now making an effort to keep the freedom of the Web and Internet, because many companies are trying to change the web in their own unique ways by spreading proprietary technologies. Those approaches look like gorgeous and helpful for the users, but they hurt the Web. Although Mozilla is just a nonprofit corporation, but there are countless contributors and volunteers. So I believe that we can change the Web in a standard and open way although those activities are a little bit slow and require more consensus.

Let's make the Web a better place.

Camera Interface on Mobile Platform

Mozilla platform is trying to support device APIs for mobile environment.
Some people call them native interface

I already posted a blog on device APIs

The Mozilla community started to discuss what the device APIs should be supported through the news group and Mozilla wiki.

Christopher added some information regarding the device APIs in the wiki.
So you can find on-going issues to support the device APIs. They are not confirmed, so you can suggest your idea & opinion to them.

Actually, I'm interested in implementing a camera interface for Mozilla platform. This camera interface is not so important on desktop, but it plays a important role in mobile environment. Because the users can take a photo more easily using their phone.

That is a reason why Mozilla Mobile has been interested in implementing Camera API on Mozilla platform.

I think that implementing Camera API seems to be not difficult, because Mozilla already showed its video playback functionality through HTML5 element, which uses the GStreamer framework. So we can use a camera input instead of network stream. But, you should know how to use the camera input inside Mozilla.

Some of mobile platforms provide a way of using their camera input such as Windows Mobile5.0, Maemo platform. So I'd like to introduce the APIs as follows,

MaemoPlatform
There is an article which introduces how to use the Camera API
According to the article, applications can access the Camera interface through a kernel API called Video4Linux. The built-in camera present in Nokia N810 looks compatible with Video-4-Linux version 2 API from the article.

Fortunately, the Maemo platform delegates all multimedia handling to the GStreamer framework. It means that developers can use the Camera API if they know only how to use the GStreamer framework on Maeme platform.


Windows Mobile 5.0
Windows Mobile developers can manipulate the camera input through DirectShow. But It needs to know some prior knowledge of how to use COM interface.

Mozilla Mobile is planning to support the Camera interface through JavaScript. I'm not sure if Mozilla Mobile will expose the interface for the Web. Someday, the users would be able to upload their photos taken by the camera directly from Mobile Firefox to Flickr in any ways.

How to support native interfaces on the Web

I posted an article about supporting native interfaces in Mobile Firefox. Byt the way, I found information regarding my post from here. This paper explained the native interfaces I talked as sensors on device and introduced how to send their sensed data to servers via the Web.

The sensor means a device that reads data from the user's physical environment. By the way, I am interested in how to get data from the native interfaces via web browser. I have not considered yet how a browser sends data to a server.
Anyway, this paper seems to be useful to extend technologies of web browser in a standard way.

Getting a location data from a GPS sensor was already realized on Firefox. Doug introduced this news in his blog and he implemented a prototype. I think it needs to be standardized