FreeSoftNews

Mozilla Tuesday set Friday as the ship date for the first preview edition of Firefox 3.1, the fast-track update it hopes to polish off by late this year or early in 2009.

In a meeting Tuesday, Mozilla developers and managers nailed down details of Firefox 3.1, including the release date for the first alpha. Previously, Mozilla had tentatively scheduled the alpha for sometime this month.

“Still on track for Friday release,” said the notes posted online after the morning meeting.

Read more at Linux World

Glubble is a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as I discovered through my use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don’t come with easy answers.

Read more at Linux.com

As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update
process, Firefox 3.0.1 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux
for free download from http://getfirefox.com/.

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest
release. If you already have Firefox 3.0, you will receive an
automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can
also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the
Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox
3.0.1 Release Notes at:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/3.0.1/releasenotes/

Note: All Firefox 2.0.0.x users are encouraged to upgrade to Firefox
3.0.1 by downloading it from http://getfirefox.com/.

(follow-up: mozilla.dev.planning / dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org)

As announced before, tab switching is getting a dramatic update for Firefox 3.1 in both visual and behavior.

Press Ctrl + Tab (or Shift + Ctrl + Tab) and you are presented with tab thumbnails and titles with the most recently visited ones first so you can more easily determine which tab you want to go, have the one you most probably want to go closer, and as a result get to it faster. Hold Ctrl pressed and keep pressing Tab to see the thumbnails smoothly scroll to the left while the status bar displays the tab web address.

Read more at Mozilla Links

As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update
process, Firefox 2.0.0.16 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux
for free download from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html.

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest
release. If you already have Firefox 2.x, you will receive an
automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can
also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the
Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox
2.0.0.16 Release Notes at:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/2.0.0.16/releasenotes/

Note: Firefox 2.0.0.x will be maintained with security and stability
updates until mid-December, 2008. All users are encouraged to upgrade
to Firefox 3.

(follow-up: mozilla.dev.planning / dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org)

The release of Firefox 3.0 has been a resounding success, but for some the upgrade path has been less than painless. The latest version of the open source browser differed enough from previous versions that many add-ons had to be substantially rewritten before they would work with the new release. And just when the dust appeared to be clearing, Firefox 3.1 is on the horizon.

Read more at LinuxWorld

The largest bank in the United States has officially ignored the second most popular Web browser–until recently.

A tipster for Networkworld.com pointed out recently that Bank of America’s Web site did not list the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox as a “supported browser,” even though Firefox now commands almost 20 percent of the browser market. The bank’s site lists Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari, and Netscape as acceptable browsers.

Netscape? Even AOL, Netscape’s former owner, doesn’t support Netscape Navigator anymore.
Read more at CNet

While the awesome bar, download pause and resume, malware protection, the new themes, and serious performance improvements are perhaps the most representative features introduced with Firefox 3, here are some other useful ones you may not be aware:

Read more at Mozilla Links

They did it — Mozilla now holds the world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours, according to Jamie Panas, press and marketing assistant at Guinness World Records.

Download Day 2008, designated by the Mozilla Foundation on June 17 in celebration of its 10th anniversary, saw the release of Firefox 3, the free Web browser for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. An intensive marketing campaign to set the first Guinness World Record of its kind, for the most software downloaded in one day, resulted in more than 8 million copies downloaded in one day, according to Mozilla.

Read more at Linux.com

Guinness has confirmed to Mozilla that Firefox 3 effectively set a new world record for most downloaded software in a single day on June 17, its release date (GMT-7, Mozilla HQ time).

The Official Mozilla Blog mentions 8,002,530 people downloading Firefox 3, but I guess it must be a typo since the record is about number of downloads which can’t be easily translated to number of people.

Read more at MozillaLinks

As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update
process, Firefox 2.0.0.15 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux
for free download from http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html.

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest
release. If you already have Firefox 2.x, you will receive an
automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can
also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the
Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox
2.0.0.15 Release Notes at:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/2.0.0.15/releasenotes/

Note: Firefox 2.0.0.x will be maintained with security and stability
updates until mid-December, 2008. All users are encouraged to upgrade
to Firefox 3.

(follow-up: mozilla.dev.planning / dev-planning@lists.mozilla.org)

Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0 browser uses memory much more efficiently than its rivals, according to an independent tester who wrote a memory-monitoring utility to track usage by Firefox, Internet Explorer (IE), Flock, Opera and Safari.
Read more at LinuxWorld

With all the recent attention on the new Firefox 3 Internet browser, it’s easy to miss two strong, innovative rivals. Add it all up, and Microsoft’s market-leading Internet Explorer has some impressive challengers. Opera 9.5, for instance, lets you share bookmarked Web pages and notes among several computers. And another browser, Flock 2, brings Firefox 3’s improvements to an already strong system for sharing photos and blog entries and linking friends on social-networking sites like Facebook.

Read more at LinuxInsider

The popular Google Browser Sync extension for Firefox, which synchronizes browser settings and information across multiple computers, is now an open source project. Google is distributing the Browser Sync source code under the BSD license and is making it available through a Subversion source control repository on the Google Code website.

This is a major reversal of Google’s position on Browser Sync, and it will very likely save the add-on from extinction. Shortly before the official launch of Firefox 3, Google said that Browser Sync development would be discontinued and encouraged users to adopt Mozilla Weave or Foxmarks instead. The availability of the Browser Sync source code, however, will make it possible for the open source software community to collaboratively bring the add-on to the new version of Firefox.

Read more at ars technica

On the back of the release last week of Firefox 3.0, Mozilla’s open-source browser gained market share at the expense of rivals Internet Explorer (IE) and Safari, Net Applications said Monday.

Firefox’s share ended the week at 19.17 per cent, said Vince Vizzaccaro, the Web metrics firm’s executive vice president of marketing. That’s up 0.76 per cent from the 18.41 per cent it posted for May.

Read more at LinuxWorld

Debian’s “Iceweasel” build of Firefox 3.0 is out. Working fine for me so far with one exception.

“There was an error launching the default action command associated with this location.”

Read more at LinuxWorld

Two of the most popular Linux browsers were unveiled this month after years of development — the open source Firefox 3 and the proprietary Opera 9.5. Opera’s launch a week before Firefox was like any other launch, unlike Firefox’s much publicized world record attempt. But Opera 9.5 is no less revolutionary than Firefox, matching its open source rival feature for feature, from security-related enhancements to improved multilingual text rendering.

Read more at Linux.com

A number of people who monitor our Zero Day Initiative’s Upcoming Advisories page noticed yesterday that we reported a vulnerability to Mozilla (ZDI-CAN-349). Taking into account the coincidental timing of the Firefox 3.0 release, many are asking us if this is the first reported critical vulnerability in the latest version of the popular open source browser.

What we can confirm is that about five hours after the official release of Firefox 3.0 on June 17th, our Zero Day Initiative program received a critical vulnerability affecting Firefox 3.0 as well as prior versions of Firefox 2.0.x. We verified the vulnerability in our lab, acquired it from the researcher, then promptly reported the vulnerability to the Mozilla security team shortly after.

Read more at DVLabs

The official Mozilla Blog reports that there were over eight million downloads of Mozilla Firefox 3 in the twenty-four hours after release, despite the widespread server availability problems. The Spread Firefox Download Day 2008 page has an interactive map showing the numbers of downloads in different countries and Mozilla Corporation CEO John Lilly has a weblog post with more statistics from Firefox 3’s first twenty-four hours.

Once the exact figure has been determined and verified by Mozilla’s own judges and officials from Guinness World Records, Firefox 3 will be declared the holder of the world record for the most software downloads in twenty-four hours (since the record doesn’t exist yet, there’s no real doubt that it will be awarded to Firefox 3). The Download Day FAQ has more details about the specifics of the record attempt.

Read more at mozillaZine

The final release of Firefox 3 is now available for download at http://www.getfirefox.com
- at this time Firefox 3 is available as a download only. Firefox 2
users will be offered an update to Firefox 3 at some time in the future.

You can find out more about what’s new in Firefox 3 in the the “What’s
New” section of the release notes at:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/3.0/releasenotes

Anyone can download the Firefox 3 Release Candidate builds for
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 45 different languages from:

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-rc.html

Developers should also read the Firefox 3 for Developers article at
the Mozilla Developer Center:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Firefox_3_for_developers

cheers,
mike