Desktop software

One of Firefox's chief assets is a rich collection of extensions called add-ons, and for the small army of programmers who produce them, Mozilla has begun detailing how it plans to revamp Firefox's add-on system

In 2009, Mozilla began work on a revamp of the Firefox add-on system called Jetpack, but the initial attempt wasn't up to snuff for production work. On Wednesday, Mozilla sketched out its plan for releasing what will become the final version of Jetpack, called Reboot.

"We are looking at roughly a four month time-frame for completion of this feature roadmap," … Read more

Google has released its "stable" version of Chrome 4.0, an incarnation under development for months that brings extensions to customize Chrome features and a host of technologies for more powerful Web programming.

However, the new version is available only for Windows. The Mac OS X and Linux versions of Chrome arrived in beta more than a year after the Windows version, and there's still catching up to do.

Though this release is called version 4.0, Google de-emphasizes such numbers, calling them mere "milestones" on the way to a better browser. The software updates itself by default, keeping people on the latest version.

Chrome is the first browser from a Web powerhouse. It hasn't dethroned Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox, but Chrome has passed Apple's Safari in usage by one measure.

Extensions are a major browser feature, letting people add new abilities without burdening all users who might not be interested. Extensions are a major competitive advantage of Mozilla's Firefox, which calls them add-ons and has thousands available for download. … Read more

A disagreement between Google and Mozilla is making a once-obscure debate into a real issue for those who watch Web video or host it on their own sites.

Last week, Google's YouTube announced early support for HTML5 video, which can be built directly into Web pages and viewed with browsers without relying on a plug-in such as Adobe Systems' Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight, or Apple's QuickTime. Another Web video site, Vimeo, followed suit.

Native video on a Web page sounds nice, and many Web companies support the effort broadly. But there's one big devil in its detail: … Read more

Mozilla debuted Firefox 3.6 on Thursday, introducing significant under-the-hood changes that make it faster, help it render content better, and a few visual tweaks, as well. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, the most apparent changes in Firefox 3.6 are improvements made to the TraceMonkey JavaScript rendering engine, making it about 20 percent faster than when it debuted in Firefox 3.5, according to Mozilla. Although this makes it more competitive with Google Chrome, but not faster, there's more to Firefox 3.6 than speed.

Firefox maintains its reputation as the most customizable browser around, introducing default … Read more

Mozilla on Sunday released a second release candidate of Firefox 3.6 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's a modest upgrade that embodies Mozilla's effort to increase the frequency the open-source browser is developed.

Mike Beltzner, president of Firefox, announced second Firefox 3.6 release candidate Sunday but didn't share details. The release notes were equally mum, but the update process called the new software a "security and stability update."

The software is available from Mozilla's download site. More than 1 million people are testing Firefox 3.6 at present, and more than 300 … Read more

NonLinear Software used the music show of the National Association of Music Merchants in Anaheim, Calif., this week to unveil its newest product, AppOmator.

Among others, many individuals and companies in the music industry see opportunities in building their own additions to the 100,000 app-strong App Store. Creating an app that suits one's business goals or personal tastes, however, isn't necessarily easy. While some Web services provide templates to build an app, NonLinear's Mac desktop application lets users fully customize their app.

Using AppOmater, you can add custom graphics for the background and menu transitions, as … Read more

An update Thursday to the Google Chrome developer's build for Mac introduces more than just stability-fixes. Included in version 4.0.295.0 are the basic beginnings of a bookmark manager and a trackpad gesture that allows users to open the previous and next pages in a new tab using the CMD-three finger swipe. The cookie manager has also been included in this minor update, so those three combined equal some actual feature improvements in this update.

Two other fixes, in addition to the spate of stability improvements, include making the devtools window dockable and fixing stuck hover states … Read more

One of the biggest disappointments of Mozilla e-mail client Thunderbird 3 was that plans to bake in the calendaring extension Lightning were abandoned. When Thunderbird 3 debuted, users got a bit of a shock: Lightning wasn't compatible with the upgrade. Although there was a work-around through the Lightning nightly updates, the official build wasn't going to graduate.

Lightning 1.0 beta 1 fixes that, and also introduces to stable build users features that have been available in the nightly for some time. Lightning now displays the calendar and accompanying task manager in tabs, offers support for SeaMonkey 2, … Read more

Retail software sales rang in at $278 million for the 2009 holidays, a dip of 1 percent from the prior year, NPD Group reported Wednesday. But the results were far more joyous than in December 2008 when software revenue fell by 13 percent.

Thanks largely to Windows 7, operating systems enjoyed the greatest improvement of any category for the five-week 2009 holiday season, climbing to $29 million from $10 million in 2008. Educational software also proved a popular gift for the November 22 to December 26 period, with sales jumping by 15 percent courtesy of strong titles like Rosetta Stone … Read more