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Kiosk mode added in Chromium nightly build

Lee Mathews — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Developer, Google, Open Source, Beta, Browsers

Developers have a number of features they still want implemented in Google Chrome. In a recent nightly build of Chromium, one that I've seen requested numerous times on the official mailing lists has finally landed.

Kiosk mode has arrived in Chromium, though it's an awful lot like full screen mode. In fact, Mohamed Mansour says as much in his note on the source: "Kiosk mode will just hide the status bar and initially set it as full screen. "

You're left to your new tab page and bookmarks bar to navigate. As in full screen mode, control-L doesn't bring up an address bar, nor does hovering near the top edge of the browser. That's something I'd like to see addressed in future builds.

If you've been waiting to see what kiosk mode in Chrome would look like, grab a current build from the Chromium server and append the --kiosk command line switch.

Kiosk mode added in Chromium nightly build originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla launches Jetpack Gallery, restart-free pseudo add-ons now available

Lee Mathews — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:30:00 EST

Filed under: Mozilla, Beta, Browsers

Jetpack is certainly an interesting project, and the fact that it brings no-restart add-on-like functionality to Firefox is awesome.

Today, Mozilla announced the launch of the Jetpack Gallery. It is to jetpacks what the Firefox add-ons site is to traditional add-ons. Up until now, Jetpack users had pretty limited options for finding packs - a single page of descriptions and links maintained by Mozilla and a community-powered assortment at Userscripts.org.

At the Jetpack Gallery, you can search for jetpacks and browse by tag. The assortment is still quite limited, though submissions will likely begin flowing in now that the doors have officially opened.

Continue reading Mozilla launches Jetpack Gallery, restart-free pseudo add-ons now available

Mozilla launches Jetpack Gallery, restart-free pseudo add-ons now available originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chrome OS browser saddles up and mounts your drives

Sebastian Anthony — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Not only does Google's Chrome browser allow for file navigation (type 'C:\' into Chrome!), it makes sense that the browser in Chrome OS will act as a system navigation tool, much like Windows Explorer or 'My Computer'.

Recent changes to the code base reveal a 'mount library' that monitors newly-inserted devices such as USB memory sticks -- something an operating system usually does -- not the kind of thing a browser would usually worry about. We suspect that when you open a new tab in Chrome you'll have the option of a 'My Computer' view that will update in real time as you plug in new devices or insert CDs. Or perhaps when you insert a USB device an Explorer-like new tab page will simply pop into existence.

Currently the changes only appear in the Chrome OS branch of the source code, but it doesn't take a wild stretch of the imagination to believe that Google has larger, all-encompassing plans for the Mac and Windows platforms. This might just be the next step for the Google Desktop.

Watch out...Google is coming.

Chrome OS browser saddles up and mounts your drives originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox 3.6 Beta 2 now ready for download, with 190 bug fixes

Jay Hathaway — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:45:00 EST

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

The second beta version of Firefox 3.6 has arrived, following hot on the furry little heels of 3.6b1, which was only a week and a half old. Mozilla's touting a whopping 190 bug fixes in that time, many of them user-submitted. If you're using an older version of 3.6, you should definitely update.

In my personal experience with 3.6, I've found that most of my themes and several of my add-ons (including the essential Greasemonkey) haven't been updated yet. On the whole, however, it feels very fast (especially at startup) and has proven very stable.

All the major upgrades came in 3.6b1, but if you're using Firefox 3 or 3.5, here's what might entice you to give 3.6 a shot: it offers faster Javascript performance and startup time, built-in support for the Personas one-click theming system, full-screen video and poster frames. If you want to wait for the final version of 3.6, you'll be pleased to hear it's scheduled for December. If the quick turnaround on Beta 2 is any indication, Mozilla is back on track to make that deadline.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 2 now ready for download, with 190 bug fixes originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox for Mobile Beta now available... if you own a Nokia N810 or N900

Sebastian Anthony — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

All ten of you that don't own a BlackBerry or iPhone... rejoice! I just can't believe I get to use the new Firefox for Mobile logo twice in two days.

It might be buggy, it might be slow, but the Fennec web browser has finally been branded a Mozilla product and dubbed the 'Firefox for Mobile Beta 5'. If you want to see a picture of it up and running on a mobile handset, head on over to the NokiaExperts website.

Here's a quick run-down of the features and neat bits:

AWESOMEBAR -- I had no idea it was actually called this. It's the searching-url-navigation-bar thing. I wonder how slow it searches through my web history, compared to the sluggish performance on my laptop...
Security -- password manager, pop-up blocker, automatic updates -- all there!
Add-ons -- you can find and install add-ons straight to the device (though I have no idea what kind of add-on compatibility there is...)
Device geolocation -- it seems there's a JavaScript API call that lets developers/web sites geolocate the handset? Cool.
Neat swiping stuff -- swipe left and right to expose and hide navigation and tabs.

Awesome! Now when do we see it on a device with larger-than-miniscule user base?

[via NokiaExperts]

Firefox for Mobile Beta now available... if you own a Nokia N810 or N900 originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile Firefox has a new logo: Furry fetishists rejoice!

Sebastian Anthony — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Open Source, Browsers

You are looking at the new logo for Firefox Mobile: The Pocketfox!

It looks more like some Harry Potter fan-art in my opinion -- someone with a Fawkes the Phoenix fetish -- but no matter! It's cute and very vibrant. It will certainly stand out, and ultimately that's what matters.

I can't help but wonder if the 'What's that in your pocket?' double entendre was intentional or not. I'd like to think the Mozilla developers have a sense of humor! If you want to find out more about Firefox Mobile (I don't think many people have heard of it), check out its 'Coming Soon...' page, which is full of juicy details about the new browser.

Mozilla have held a few contests recently. The one that's open at the moment -- 'Five years of Firefox' -- is open until December 9th. They're looking for poster ideas to celebrate their birthday. It feels like only yesterday that I held my Firefox 1.0 launch party...

What do you think of the new logo? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Mobile Firefox has a new logo: Furry fetishists rejoice! originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Five essential addons for new Firefox users (Happy fifth birthday, Firefox!)

Lee Mathews — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Features, Mozilla, Browsers, Lists

Five years ago today, a new web browser arrived on the scene. Yes, it was Firefox 1.0. At the half-decade mark, Firefox has become a force to be reckoned with. Nearly one in four people on the Internet is now using Firefox - and that includes the entire population of Antarctica!

If Firefox users were a country, they'd be the third most populous in the world - behind only China and India - at 330 million people! 2009 has certainly been a big year for the Fox.

Mozilla's add-on site reports 4.3 million registered users using nearly 164 million add-ons. That's a lot of people using a lot of add-ons. If you're a new Firefox user, you might be having trouble deciding which are worth installing.

Since this is Firefox's fifth birthday, here are five add-ons that can make browsing better for just about anyone!

Continue reading Five essential addons for new Firefox users (Happy fifth birthday, Firefox!)

Five essential addons for new Firefox users (Happy fifth birthday, Firefox!) originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla Jetpack contest winner harnesses GPU power to process data

Lee Mathews — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

Mozilla Labs has announced a winner of the Jetpack .5 contest. While Jetpack is known primarily as a framework for allowing coders with a web development background to put together add-on type enhancements for Firefox, the winner 's project wasn't your run-of-the-mill sidebar hack.

Alex Miltsev's submission was jetpack-to-CUDA, and it provides Jetpack developers with a simple way to offload intense processing tasks to GPUs. CUDA (demo video above) is NVidia's parallel computing architecture - and with CUDA-capable chips in more than 100 million PCs, Miltsev's handiwork could enable some seriously cool (and powerful) Jetpack add-ons to be developed.

The runners up (not to take anything away from them) were much more standard Jetpack offerings - a Google Translate extension, link shortener and sharer, and Twitter client.

Kudos to Miltssev for his creative entry! Here's hoping we see some truly awesome things in future versions of Firefox and Jetpack as a result.

Mozilla Jetpack contest winner harnesses GPU power to process data originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game on, Microsoft: Google Chrome shipping as default browser on some PCs

Lee Mathews — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:30:00 EST

Filed under: Hardware, Windows, Google, Browsers

The EC might be content with Microsoft's browser ballot screen, but that's not stopping Google from getting OEMs to turn away from Internet Explorer on their own.

Google already has deals with several OEMs to include their software, of course. They've been shipping Google Desktop on OEM pcs for quite some time now, and their plans to drop Google Chrome on new users have come to fruition as well.

As you can see, I unboxed a new Sony Vaio laptop running Windows 7 yesterday. Nestled amongst the other desktop icons was the tri-color Chrome orb.
Not only was Chrome pre-pinned to the Windows 7 taskbar, but a quick look at the internet options on the laptop revealed sad news for Internet Explorer: it had been bumped from default web browsing duties.

If we weren't already in the middle of an all-out browser war, the introduction of Google Chrome as the preinstalled default on Windows PCs could well set things off.

Game on, Microsoft: Google Chrome shipping as default browser on some PCs originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Embed a (very) basic Twitter client in Google Chrome with the ChromedBird extension

Lee Mathews — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Google, Open Source, Browsers

Hot on the heels of my roundup of 15+ great extensions for Google Chrome, I've already found some more that deserve to be mentioned. First on the list: ChromedBird.

You probably guessed from the name, but yes, it's a minimal Twitter client which you can access from Chrome's main toolbar. It hides inside a little birdie button until you want to check your stream or post an update.

ChromedBird displays the last 5 tweets in your stream and allows you to post updates - and that's it. Links you paste into your updates are automatically shortened using bit.ly. Sure, it's a pretty stripped-down Twitter experience, but it's still nice to have close at hand when browsing with Chrome.

ChromeBird is a little buggy, but it's a very early build. I'll turn a blind eye, since we only get extension support in somewhat buggy dev builds (click here to download) of Chrome (or Chromium) right now anyway.

You can find the ChromedBird .crx over at ChromeExtensions.

Embed a (very) basic Twitter client in Google Chrome with the ChromedBird extension originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get a Firefox 3.7 feature early with Tab Progress Bar

Jay Hathaway — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Utilities, Browsers

If you're gung-ho about upcoming versions of Firefox, you can start testing some of their features via add-ons. Firefox 3.7 is slated to introduce a new look for the progress bar, relocating it to the top of each individual tab but you can enable the feature in current versions of the browser right now, with Tab Progress Bar. This neat little add-on won't cost you much disk space, weighing in at a miniscule 6kb.

A new-look progress bar sounds like frivolous decoration, but it serves a practical purpose, too. If you often load bunches of tabs at once, It's helpful to be able to see the progress of each page you're loading at a glance. With this new design, you won't even have to change tabs to know whether those huge videos are almost done loading. One minor quibble: I've found that Tab Progress Bar best used with a theme that doesn't highlight your current tab in blue, as the progress bar tends to blend in with blue tabs.

Firefox 3.7 and 4.0 will certainly have bigger and better things to offer, but Tab Progress Bar is one small slice of the future that you don't have to wait for.

[via Lifehacker]

Get a Firefox 3.7 feature early with Tab Progress Bar originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Make your Firefox more like Google Chrome with Pin Tabs

Jay Hathaway — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Productivity, Browsers

One of the slick visual elements of Google's Chrome browser is pin tabs. They're those compact tabs that're only as wide as a favicon, and they save a ton of space in your tab bar. You could point out that Firefox doesn't have this feature, but I'd give you the Firefox fanatic's standard answer: there's an add-on for that! For Chrome-style mini-tabs in Firefox, grab the Pin Tab extension.

Pinning a tab using ctrl-click shrinks it and moves it to the left of your tab bar. A pinned tab is preserved across all sessions, and you can't accidentally upset it using the address bar. If you enter a new URL while a pinned tab is selected, that URL opens in a new tab instead. You can pin tabs by dragging them to the left of the tab bar, and unpin them by dragging them to the right. Pinned tabs save a ton of space, since they're several times smaller than regular ones, so this add-on is ideal for those who have dozens of sites open at once.

[via gHacks]

UPDATE: The developer of this add-on seems to have taken it down for right now.

Make your Firefox more like Google Chrome with Pin Tabs originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Old Man IE6 shakes fist as Firefox surpasses him in browser share

Jay Hathaway — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Browsers

Web designers and standards advocates have tried everything to kill Internet Explorer 6, but it just refuses to die. In fact, Microsoft has extended support for the aging browser until at least mid-2010, and longer for some versions of Windows. However, there is strong evidence that people are coming around to browsers that support standards, don't make web designers cry, and have frickin' TABS, for crying out loud ...

Firefox is now more popular than IE6.

That's right: according to October browser usage stats reported by Ars Technica, the old, incontinent granddad of the browsing world has finally been overtaken by the cool kid with all the rad accessories. Although IE6 still has 23% of the market - sadly, more than any other version of IE - when you add up the usage on every version of Firefox, you get 24.07%, enough to top that single old edition of Internet Explorer.

I assume the shift is accounted for by home web users shifting to newer browsers with the release of Windows 7, because corporate IT departments are still the last bastion of widespread IE6 use. As Ars speculates, high Windows 7 adoption rates could be the stake through IE6's cold, tab-less heart.

Meanwhile, in the Webkit browser wars, Chrome and Safari both made gains this month. Chrome is still growing faster -- right now it's closing in rapidly with 3.58% to Safari's 4.42%.

Old Man IE6 shakes fist as Firefox surpasses him in browser share originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Customizing Chromium with Userscripts gets way easier in nightly build

Lee Mathews — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Google, Open Source, Browsers

You won't notice this change in Google Chrome just yet, even if you're running the developer channel. But if you happen to be one of the intrepid souls who routinely download and roll the dice on Chromium nightly builds, you've now got a much easier way to install Userscripts.

In past releases, you had to manually save Userscripts into your Chromium (or Chrome) Userdata\Default folder. Not any more! Now, all you have to do is click on the .js download link for any Userscript. Once saved, Chromium automatically converts the script to a Chrome Extension.

Continue reading Customizing Chromium with Userscripts gets way easier in nightly build

Customizing Chromium with Userscripts gets way easier in nightly build originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Track Black Friday prices with Invisible Hand add on for Firefox

Dolores Parker — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, News, Mozilla, Holiday Gift Guide, Search, Browsers, Web

We've covered Invisible Hand, the discreet shopping comparison add on for Firefox, which displays prices on items you are searching on the web. Just in time for Black Friday, the hand has trotted out a new add on which along with other improvements, incorporates Google search results.

Now, you can get your price results in real time so you know you're getting the best deal. My test drive of the hand went smooth, the results loaded up within a second or two and updates were very discreet. This is a real time saver for getting price results.

The add on will be officially released to the Mozilla site within a few weeks, but the first 200 Download Squad readers can download the beta version. Just click on the link below and key in invisibleDLS for the access code.

http://preview.getinvisiblehand.com/

Track Black Friday prices with Invisible Hand add on for Firefox originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Chrome 4 hits beta, includes bookmark sync

Jay Hathaway — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:00 EST

Filed under: Google, Beta, Browsers

The latest Windows version of Google Chrome, version 4.0, is now in beta. It's reportedly a scorching 30% faster than the current release, and it includes a bookmark syncing feature that's been floating around in the developer preview version of the browser for some time.

Activate bookmark syncing on each of your computers, and Chrome will automatically synchronize any changes to your bookmarks across all your machines. It's made possible by the magic of XMPP, which also powers Google Talk. Sound good? Go ahead and download Chrome 4.0 Beta.

This beta version of Chrome is also notable for what it leaves out: extensions support. According to Stephen Shankland at CNET, Google is reworking the extensions interface for Chrome, so that feature is disabled for now. Shankland also tracked down some news on the upcoming Chrome Mac Beta. The team working on it has been instructed to fix all their high-priority bugs by the end of the week, and it looks like getting the Mac version out is near the top of Google's to-do list.

[via CNET]

Google Chrome 4 hits beta, includes bookmark sync originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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15+ great Google Chrome extensions

Lee Mathews — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST

Filed under: Features, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Google, Browsers, Lists

We've already mentioned other ways to power up Google Chrome. Before extensions arrived on the developer channel, Userscripts and bookmarklets were your only options. Both are still great ways to add some kick-ass functionality to Chrome. If you're running the stable or beta builds, you may want to stick to them for now.

10 handy Userscripts for Google Chrome users
15+ handy bookmarklets for Google Chrome (and other browsers, too!)

Now, onto the extensions!

If you have a favorite that I left off, feel free to share it in the comments!
Share

Continue reading 15+ great Google Chrome extensions

15+ great Google Chrome extensions originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox 3.6 has juicy Superbar integration with Windows 7 (and you can disable it)

Sebastian Anthony — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:15:00 EST

Filed under: Microsoft, Mozilla, Browsers

Yesterday I told you about the new Firefox 3.6 Beta -- and today, I can show you a neat bit of Windows 7 integration. Windows 7 uses Microsoft's Aero window manager and theme -- you've probably heard about it, or learnt to hate it in Vista -- and in it there's a cool technology called 'Aero Peek'. As you can see in the screenshot above, in Firefox 3.6 Beta, Aero Peek is now fully enabled, and smoother than its implementation in 3.6b1pre.

Aero Peek lets you see what's going on in a particular program without having to actually click anything -- you can just mouse-over it on the alt-tab running-programs menu or on the Superbar. In Firefox 3.5 this works for the Firefox window itself, but not the tabs within. Now, in 3.6 Beta, you can see what's going on in any tab by hovering your mouse over the thumbnail. I do wonder if this requires massive disk-swapping though, or if it takes snapshots -- but I'm pretty sure Aero shows you the window contents in real-time. Either way, it's cool, and beats the hell out of tabbing through 20 different tabs to find what you're looking for.

Those of you that are already using 3.6 might have noticed another neat thing: when you have a bunch of tabs (10+ in our testing) open, you get a "buttonized" list of favicons and page titles, instead of thumbnails. You can still jump straight to a tab or see a preview from the Superbar.

Don't like the Aero Peek integration? You can easily disable it -- if you're worried about the potential performance hit -- just whack about:config into your Firefox address bar and set browser.taskbar.previews.enable to false.

[Download Firefox 3.6 Beta here]

Firefox 3.6 has juicy Superbar integration with Windows 7 (and you can disable it) originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla release mockups for upcoming Firefox Linux releases

Brad Linder — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Linux, Mozilla, Browsers

The folks at Mozilla have released the first mockup showing what Firefox 4.0 may look like on Linux... and it looks an awful lot like the Windows version.

Firefox 4.0 isn't due out for another year or so, but the developers have already stated a few goals for the project. One idea is to move the browser tabs above the location bar. Another is to consolidate the menus into a few tabs that will hang out next to the location bar. Both movies will free up space, allowing more of the browser to be dedicated to displaying web pages.

If the end result looks familiar, that's because it looks an awful lot like the default layout in the Google Chrome web browser.

Mozilla has also released some mockups of Firefox 3.7 for Linux. One of the most notable changes is that the interface will be more consistent across platforms. Firefox 3.7 for Linux will use the same Forward/Back buttons as the Mac and Windows versions, for example. The edges of the browser, tabs, and other elements will also be curved rather than angled, which will make the browser look more like the mac and Windows versions.

At this point, both the Firefox 3.7 and 4.0 mockups represent proposed changes and not finished products, so things may change by the time these browsers are actually released.

[via OMG! Ubuntu]

Mozilla release mockups for upcoming Firefox Linux releases originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now available!

Sebastian Anthony — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:50:00 EST

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Browsers

Let's not beat around the bush: Download the new version of Firefox now.

With that out of the way, here are the new features that debut with Firefox 3.6, straight from the release page:

Users can now change their browser's appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
Support for the WOFF font format.
Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

These new changes mostly come from an upgrade to version 1.9.2 of Gecko, the HTML engine that does most of the rendering work in Firefox (and its light-weight sister Camino) -- and as with all version revisions, you will have to update most or all of your add-ons (there's even a compatibility checker!)

Developers should check out the notes for 3.6, if they haven't yet updated the add-ons they administer.

If you've heard enough, here are some direct download links to get you upgraded to the Beta ASAP:

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now available! originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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