Firefox fans looking for a major update to the open-source Web browser probably will get a final version of it next month.
"We're looking for final ship sometime in June," said Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, in an interview Wednesday. Mozilla, which was spun out of AOL more than 10 years ago, oversees the Firefox programming project.
Mozilla leads development of the Firefox and Thunderbird projects.
(Credit: Mozilla)One of the Firefox's strengths is the broad collection of hundreds of add-ons, but that also means things move more slowly when programmers must update their projects to be compatible with Firefox 3. And that's part of what Mozilla is watching closely as it seeks feedback from the 1.5 million people who have installed the Firefox 3 release candidate 1, which Mozilla issued a few days ago.
"We're in a phase where we're letting add-ons get a chance to update," Schroepfer said. "We like to have RCs (release candidates) out for a while to gather feedback."
More release candidates are possible, he said. With Firefox 2, there were three. "We're in better shape this time, but there's no reason to rush this," he said.
The release candidate is available for download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. If you want to try it out, it's best to read the release notes first, in particular the known issues that could trip you up.
After Mozilla's years-long slow start, Firefox has gained significant market share against its top rival, Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Although the latter still dominates the market, Firefox has helped to reignite the browser wars to an extent: Microsoft is investing more resources in IE development, Apple has brought its own Safari to Windows, and Apple and Google are among those devoting attention to the open-source Webkit browser engine project.
Browsers have also become more important as the Internet has begun moving to the more lavish and interactive pages of Web 2.0. For that reason, performance has become a concern: browsers now must execute large amounts of JavaScript code that power-hungry sites such as the office applications of Google Docs and the photo editing of Picnik use.
The Mozilla Foundation has grown significantly over the years. It's set up two subsidiaries, Mozilla Corp. to handle the browser, and the newer Mozilla Messaging group to handle the Thunderbird e-mail software.
Firefox extensions need to catch up before Firefox 3 is released.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Based on market share statistics and the number of Firefox browsers that check Mozilla servers for updates, Schroepfer estimates there are about 175 million Firefox users today.
Firefox crossed the 500 million download mark in February, and now has been downloaded more than 556 million times.
What are Schroepfer's three favorite things about Firefox 3?
• "No 1. is definitely the "awesome bar"--the Smart Location Bar. It changed the way I use the browser. With a couple keyboard presses, it figures out what page I want to go to." The Smart Location Bar starts suggesting Web addresses based on the user's browsing history and can sidestep problems with complicated, hard-to-remember URLs.
• Second is "the performance and memory work. It's 2 to 3 times faster than the previous version and nearly 10 times faster than IE 7," he boasted. "We really tuned the heck out of memory use, so it uses a lot less memory, especially with lots of windows and tabs."
• Third: "The antimalware and security features. We used to tell people not to go to the bad part of the Net. Now we're seeing legitimate sites being taken over," so it's good to have better protection by default.
The CNET review of Firefox 3 RC1 generally concurred with Schroepfer's assessment, though we found the memory improvements were "nothing to write home about," and some performance improvements might be related to the fact that incompatible add-ons weren't running.
'Netstripe' graphic elements to give Firefox a Netscape skin
(Credit: AOL)The Netscape Web browser has long since been eclipsed by its Firefox offshoot, but it's still somewhat noteworthy that AOL is formally pulling the plug on its historic software.
"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape-branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla, and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," said Netscape's Tom Drapeau in a blog posting Friday.
Support for the Netscape Navigator browser will continue through February 1, 2008, he said, but AOL is recommending people move to Firefox. The Netscape.com portal will still be available, though, and nostalgia buffs can reskin Firefox with a Netscape look.
Netscape has a long history by Internet standards. The browser's precursor was a separate project, Mosaic, written by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina at the National Center of Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, but Andreessen left to found the Netscape start-up with Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark.
Netscape was key to making the World Wide Web useful and the company's initial public offering is considered the beginning of the dot-com boom. The software also struck fear into the heart of Microsoft, raising the prospect of a computing environment that could rival Windows.
But Microsoft fought back with Internet Explorer, winning away Netscape's dominant market share. Netscape fought back in 1998 with a plan to make its browser open-source software, but that didn't immediately improve the company's prospects, and Netscape ended up an AOL subsidiary even as the Internet service provider continued to ship Microsoft's browser. Sun Microsystems, in a complicated transaction, bought rights to the Netscape server software.
AOL never devoted much effort to Netscape, though the Netscape.com Internet portal still is up and running. But the Mozilla Foundation AOL spun off had more success. The Firefox browser that grew from it now has significant adoption, though still trailing Internet Explorer by a wide margin.
AOL wasn't successful in trying to resurrect the Netscape browser using a Firefox foundation, Drapeau said.
"While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Recently, support for the Netscape browser has been limited to a handful of engineers tasked with creating a skinned version of Firefox with a few extensions."
So yes, it's a sad chapter for Netscape Navigator, but at least it lives on as Firefox to give IE a run for its money.
Firefox just passed the 400 million download mark, according to the Spread Firefox site for promoting the open-source, extendable Web browser.
That number shouldn't be confused with actual installations, Mozilla's public relations folks rightly caution. (I'm sure I've downloaded it at least a dozen times this year, and I'm only using copies on three computers at present. On the flip side, there are any number of other ways to get Firefox, including Linux installations.) Nevertheless, 400 million is an achievement worth noting, given that just a few years ago it looked like Microsoft had the market locked up with Internet Explorer.
However, not everything is going swimmingly in Firefox land. Mozilla had hoped to release a Firefox 3 "Gran Paradiso" beta in July. Instead, Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, now says it's due "this fall."
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