Screencast Introduces New Mozilla Firefox 3 FeaturesFriday June 6th, 2008Mike Beltzner has created a screencast introducing some of the new features in the forthcoming Mozilla Firefox 3. The overview, which is in Adobe Flash SWF format and lasts three minutes and forty-six seconds, covers the new Location bar autocomplete functionality (dubbed the "awesomebar" by its fans), one-click bookmarking using the new star button, bookmark tags, the site identity button (personified by Larry the passport officer), malware protection, improvements to the file download user interface and the built-in Add-ons browser. The Mozilla Firefox 2 really have some interesting features but, one that i missed from the version 2 is the yellow background on the url box when the user accesses an encrypted website. The yellow background helps to identify easily whether the connection to the website is secure or not. I don´t know about the other people but I would like to have this feature back on version 3. I agree. Visual cues are helpful. I also think the new arrow (for 'Go to the address in the Location Bar') is too small and easy to miss (1. Accessibility anyone?, 2. Does no one else copy/paste links into the Location Bar using their mouse?, 3. Moving it to the left of the drop-down from the right really didn't help). Actually, IIRC, the gold (not yellow) bar signifies an extended validation site (not just any SSL site). It was a bad idea because IE is using a yellow address bar for suspicious websites. I would like two things in firefox 3. 1) I would like the google toolbar to be made compatible with it. 2)I would like a shortcut to be made for the addons window A Google representative indicated last week in one of Google's Toolbar forums that this was nearly ready for release, and suggested that it would be available by the time the final version of the browser is officially released as such. This is typical of Google. It seems that when FF 2 came along, it was right at the final release before Google's updated toolbar was available. I, too, am eager for the Google Toolbar. The built-in multi-purpose search bar still doesn't do everything, such as highlighting the keyword or jumping to the next instance of a keyword with a click of the mouse. I like firefox much better than Explorer, but everything has drawbacks. There are ways to get the best out of Firefox, detailed in the book Hacking Firefox: More Than 150 Hacks, Mods, and Customizations by Mel Reyes. You can find it in ebook form at http://www.booksonboard.com/index.php?BODY=viewbook&BOOK=37679 This book teaches you how to get tighter security and greater functionality. A custom installation for Linux. Maybe even that unique extension you've always dreamed of creating. From hacking profile settings to cracking links and cleaning out the cookie jar, this book teaches you how to tweak firefox to your liking, including Step-by-step instructions for these hacks and dozens more: Settings, content, and extension hacks, Hacking the interface and themes, Performance boosters, Anti-phishing and security hacks, Toolbar and status bar tweaks, Navigation, download, and search hacks Hacks for common plugins, as well as Extension and theme creation. It's a great book. AWFUL bar is more like it. Putting up the titles of pages I have visited in BIG BOLD LETTERS is a major privacy issue. |