Firefox Version 3.1 Beta 3 is in Tests: What About Version 3.2?

by Sam Dean - Feb. 10, 2009Comments (3)

It may not be perfectly stable yet, but if you've been following along with the beta releases of Mozilla's Firefox 3.1 browser, you can now get and test the candidate for Beta 3, as described here. Mozilla is calling for a Test Week for this latest version. Beta 3 was scheduled to be out on February 2nd, but bug fixes were required. Meanwhile, PC Pro has an interesting story up in which Firefox architect Mike Connor describes plans for version 3.2 of Firefox.

Probably the biggest piece of news that Connor reveals is that Mozilla's Ubiquity project is slated to go from a labs-based experiment, in the form of a Firefox extension, to becoming part of the browser. I'm a fan of Ubiquity, as described here, so I'd be happy to see that happen.

Ubiquity, seen at left where I've typed in the beginning of the command "e-mail," is a useful natural language command-line tool for use in Firefox, and you conjure it up, if you've loaded the extension, by typing Ctrl + Space. You can create your own commands for it, or use canned ones that are easy to select from lists like the one at left. There are pre-built commands for everything from translating web pages into PDF files, to jumping straight into webmail, and much more.

As described by PC Pro, Firefox version 3.2's inclusion of Ubiquity could mean that you could type commands such as "map 400 Van Ness Street" to instantly see a map of that address, or use a "share" command to send content directly to social network outlets. In PC Pro's interview with Connor, he also says that Firefox will not copy Google Chrome's practice of running tabs in separate processes, due to excessive memory usage requirements. Version 3.2 of Firefox may inherit aspects of Mozilla's Prism project, though. Prism allows you to give online applications such as webmail the feel of standard desktop applications.

Even if Mozilla just integrates the Ubiquity functionality into version 3.2 of Firefox, that will intoduce millions of new users to how useful it is. There is no word yet, though, on when that version will arrive, as Mozilla moves toward the official release of Firefox 3.1. 

 


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3 Comments
 

Is Ubiquity functionality based on the Semantic Web concepts? Is any of the Semantic Web rules scheduled for the Firefox releases?


0 Votes

The concept of ubiquity is great, but I seriously doubt they will implement it into the next version of FF. It needs to be worked on. The interface is just not there yet.


Just my two cents.


0 Votes

Some good tips and tricks on Firefox:

http://www.techunits.com/content/list_all/49/firefox


0 Votes
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