Underexposed

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.

Sometime last night, Firefox downloads crossed the 500 million threshold.

Mozilla congratulated itself on attaining 500 million downloads of the Firefox Web browser.

(Credit: Mozilla)

It's an arbitrary but interesting milestone for the open-source Web browser, whose development is overseen by Mozilla but that's also developed and extended by a large number of outside programmers. In September 2007, Firefox crossed the 400 million download mark, indicating an average rate a bit shy of 20 million per month at present.

According to the Spread Firefox site, there had been 500,168,448 downloads as of 6:15 a.m. PST. About 12 hours earlier, there had been more than 499,900,000.

Firefox has spread widely in the years since its release. The project originally was named Phoenix to symbolize a rising from the ashes of the Netscape open-source browser project that began in 1998 but languished for many years as Microsoft's Internet Explorer solidified its lead.

Now Firefox programmers are working on version 3, which brings performance improvements and interface changes, and Mozilla also is working on a mobile version of the browser for handheld devices.

A sister subsidiary of Mozilla, Mozilla Messaging, is working to reproduce the successes of Firefox with the open-source Thunderbird e-mail software.

Mozilla has released a third beta version of Firefox 3, bringing about 1,300 changes to the widely used open-source Web browser.

Firefox 3 Beta 3 should be more stable, perform faster, use memory more efficiently, and fit in better on various operating systems than its predecessors, Mozilla said.

Beta 3 of Firefox 3, shown here running on Windows XP, uses new interface elements made of vector graphics. It helps improve performance, Mozilla said.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

Having tried the new version out for a while this morning, my top impression hasn't changed since beta 2: the best thing about the new version is faster performance. Pages load faster.

Other improvements, according to the Firefox 3 release notes, include a better tool for seeing who owns a Web site; better protection against sites known to install viruses, spyware, or other malicious software; the plugging of 350 memory leaks that previously could waste more and more computer memory; the ability to locate downloaded files; a better tool to find and install plug-ins; and , now enabled by default.

The new Firefox beta can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web site, including versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux localized for several languages.

The new Firefox beta also adopts more of the native style of Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Linux--the latter having been a point of some contention earlier given some technical difficulties. Also interesting from an interface standpoint and giving the beta a new look is the use of vector graphics for elements such as the back arrow and reload button.

I like Firefox 3's new location bar drop-down feature, in which Firefox presents various sites I've visited or bookmarked. For example, typing "can" retrieves a list that includes various Canon Web sites I've visited as well as Icanhascheezburger.com. (Alas, though, everyone's favorite LOLcats site seems to have a rendering problem with the new browser in the form of 10 "favorite" buttons.)

Beta 3 apparently improves the "frecency" formula that selects what to display in the drop-down list based on how frequently and recently you visited the sites. My only beef with the location bar drop-down so far is that it's a visually chaotic jumble of URLs, favicons, and titles in different fonts and colors.

Coincidentally, I was able to give the new Firefox 3 beta a short stress test, and it fared much better than its predecessor.

I found a misbehaving Flash ad Tuesday that made Firefox 2 chew up about 98 percent of my CPU power and thereby caused my system--especially Firefox--to slow to a crawl. Today, I found that same ad on another Web site while trying the Firefox 3 beta, and although it, too, maxed out my CPU, Firefox now was usable, though sluggish.

Firefox 3 sports a new add-on manager to find, add, disable, and uninstall plug-ins.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

There are some reasons I won't be moving full time to the new beta, though.

Unsurprisingly, given warnings in the release notes, several plug-ins I use still aren't compatible: Foxmarks, del.icio.us, Fotofox, and FireFTP. And Yahoo Mail only can be used in its older classic mode for me.

For the Yahoo Mail problem, there's some hope: Mozilla is waiting on Yahoo for a bug fix for the mail site, and the Firefox release notes now offer a less pessimistic warning that the newer Yahoo Mail interface "may not work for all users right away."

The release notes also warn that Windows Live Mail doesn't work; a plug-in must be installed to play Windows Media Player content on Windows; Firefox often will stop responding to keystrokes when using Google Documents on Mac OS X; and printing is broken on many versions of Linux.

'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.

Another star is coming into alignment in the mobile Linux galaxy: Firefox.

Mozilla has set up a group to develop the Firefox Web browser for mobile devices, hiring new staff and elevating the priority of the work to the same level as desktop computers. Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, announced the mobile Firefox move on his blog Tuesday evening.

"We are serious about bringing the Firefox experience and technology to mobile devices," he said. "Bringing Firefox add-ons, the Mozilla platform, open source, and a large and passionate community to the closed and fragmented mobile platform will do the world some serious good."

Schroepfer announced two new hires. One is Christian Sejersen, who recently led browsers at mobile browser developer Openwave, will be in charge of the mobile Firefox work and will set up a research-and-development center in Copenhagen, Denmark. In addition, Brad Lassey joined Mozilla from France Telecom's research-and-development group.

Mobile devices have become a "tier one platform set for Mozilla," he added. "This means we will make core platform decisions with mobile devices as first-class citizens."

Don't expect instant results, though. Mobile Firefox won't arrive until "later...certainly not before 2008." It will employ technology that will ship after Firefox 3, he added. That version isn't even in beta testing yet.

The work dovetails neatly with several other projects for open-source mobile devices. Canonical is working on a version of Ubuntu Linux for mobile devices, Intel trying to improve Linux for x86 chip-based mobile devices and includes Canonical as a partner in the effort, Nokia runs a project called Maemo for its Linux-based Internet tablets, and Google apparently has its own mobile Linux work under way.

While these efforts are marching in the same direction, if not necessarily in lockstep, it should be noted that mobile Linux efforts have been under way for years with little major success. One thing that's different this time is that Intel is working to bring the power of a fairly modern PC to small devices, potentially making software development easier.

Apple's iPhone has put an emphasis on full-fledged browsers on mobile devices instead of the limited-function ones that so far prevail in the market. "The user demand for a full browsing experience on mobile devices is clear. If you weren't sure about this before, you should be after the launch of the iPhone," Schroepfer said.

Apple's products use its own browser, Safari, but another option is Opera, which has had a long-standing mobile browsing effort, with products including Opera Mini and Opera Mobile.

But full browsers present hardware challenges for tiny devices. "Getting a no-compromise Web experience on devices requires significant memory (at least 64MB) as well as significant CPU horsepower," Schroepfer said.

The mobile Firefox project will replace another Mozilla effort, called Minimo, Schroepfer said. "While we don't currently plan to develop that project further, it has already provided us with valuable information about how Gecko (Firefox's page rendering engine) operates in mobile environments, has helped us reduce footprint, and has given us a platform for initial experimentation in user experience," Schroepfer said.