There will be no more updates for Firefox 3.0.x anymore, so if you haven’t upgraded to Firefox 3.6 – you had better hurry up and do so.  That was the official word from Mozilla on the topic in a recent meeting.

Now this might disappoint a handful of users out there, but it is nice to see Mozilla being more future focused – looking to get upgrades and updates out faster to the most recent Firefox versions. 

Firefox 3.0 will be looked back upon with great admiration.  It was the version of Firefox that set the Guinness world record for downloads in a 24-hour period, after all.

So now the question is – are you still using Firefox 3.0, and if the answer is yes, let us know “why” in the comments.

Simplification for web site logins is desperately needed.  Once upon a time, people thought Open ID might be the solution, but it has fizzled out.  Where is the future?  The Firefox Account Manager.

The Account Manager is a prototype that really makes things easy when it comes to logging into your favorite web sites.  You can login and logout, right from the toolbar.

How Does Account Manager Work?

I will let the fine people at Mozilla Labs explain that one:

We are proposing a new standard that Websites can implement, and although it is still an early draft, we’d love for you to check it out. We are particularly interested in feedback from Web developers and site administrators.

If you’re interested in hacking on the add-on, you can check out the source here. The project wiki page also has additional information.

Right now, the prototype they have posted only works with Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Mozilla Addons, Mozilla Bugzilla, and Get Personas – but with time (they hope) every web site will support this new standard.  You can learn more about the Account Manager concept idea here:

• Account Manager Details at Mozilla Labs

Tell me what you think.  Does this new concept excite you, or do you want to see it in action a ‘bit more before you make up your mind?

The Mozilla Labs Design Challenge based around redesigning the home tab is just about over.  This contest was put together by the Mozilla Labs team to inspire some new discussion and creativity on how a new home tab might look and feel in future versions of Firefox, such as Firefox 4. 

Now that the contest is coming close to the conclusion, we can all check out the top 10 designs that were voted on the most by the Mozilla fan base.  Here are the top 10 voted on submissions in the first round of voting for this specific challenge.

Alberto Moreno Alecsandru Grigoriu Amine Zafri Chad Pommiss Daniel Goodwin

Manu Kumar Maurice Lam NorCal Design Council Sam Horne Yatrik Solanki

Be sure to check out more (including video tours for each winner) here:

• Mozilla Labs Design Challenge: The Home Tab

Remember to check back on the design challenge site March 15th to see who wins the best in class honors.  I also want to give my own pat on the back to all the designers who submitted their entries and that made it into the top ten.  All of the submissions I checked out were top notch, and I am sure they will all help Mozilla decide on the best new home tab for Firefox 4.

Firefox 3.6 Released!

The latest version of your favorite browser has been released.  Firefox 3.6 is now available via Mozilla’s web site.  The big update this time around is the built in support for Firefox Personas.

Need more? Here’s the full list of new features that Firefox 3.6 brings:

• Available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
• Support for a new type of theme called Personas, which allow users to change Firefox’s appearance with a single click.
• Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time.
• The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
• Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
• Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
• Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow for more interactive web pages.
• Changes to how third-party software can integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.

More Firefox 3.6 Tips, Tutorials and Help!

• Enable Visual Tab Switcher in Firefox 3.6
• Firefox 3.6 Fix – Open New Tabs in Far Right
• Top 10 Personas Backgrounds for Firefox!
• Firefox 3.6 Portable Edition is Now Available via Lifehacker

Overall, not a bad upgrade.  If your Firefox has not updated it’s self yet, you can always pick up the update at Mozilla’s web site. What do you think of Firefox 3.6?  Love it? Hate it? More interested in Firefox 4?  Leave you feedback in the comments!

I know I have a lot of creative and opinionated readers here, so I thought this challenge would be right up your alley.  Last week, Mozilla Labs announced the Winter ‘09 Design Challenge.  What is at stake?  You might get to help design how Firefox 4’s home tab looks.

In the future release of Firefox, it seems the home tab will replace your default homepage as the big starting point for the browser.  Rather than having something like MyYahoo or iGoogle, you will have your own personalized home, served locally, just for you.  This page will have access to a lot more of your information since it never leaves the browser — history, add-ons, bookmarks, and pretty much anything you can see in Firefox at the moment.

Here is a little more about the project from Mozilla:

To participate in this Design Challenge you need to create a short video explaining your idea(s), presenting the mockup and showing how your idea works. Your video can contain anything from a napkin drawing, a wireframe, to a polished graphic/prototype.

Here are the important dates you should make note of, if you want to participate:

• December 2009 – Launch of The Home Tab – Winter ‘09 Design Challenge
• February 14th, 2010 – Submission Deadline
• February 15th, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting starts
• March 1st, 2010 – People’s Choice Voting ends
• March 15th, 2010 – Best in Class honors are announced

Good luck to all those who get involved with this challenge.  To learn more about it, be sure to visit the design challenge page over at the Mozilla Labs web site. You can also get updates via Twitter, @mozconcept.

A number of places are showing off some new design concepts for the Firefox 4 browser.  Now we have seen pitched some awesome Firefox 3.7 designs in the past, but it makes me wonder if the design phase for that is over, or if they are going to skip it to go directly to Firefox 4.

Not sure if I am digging the big orange button, but one would think it could be skinned over with a custom theme.  Are you excited about this new application button?

One can only hope. According to several web sites that heard about it from a friend, who knew a friend, who was feeding the dog of a guy who might have worked at Sony, the PlayStation 3’s web browser might be getting a big upgrade, to Firefox.

Well turns out is was a possible rumor, then not so possible, but might be in the works?  Here is the first leak of information from psinsider:

We recently received a tip from a source very close to Sony who says that they have been in talks with Mozilla lately about possibly porting Firefox over to the PS3.

Later on, they issued a “correction”:

Looks like we goofed on the Mozilla rumor… I heard back from our source recently.”I don’t know how the guys from ps3center did this, but please tell me WHERE I wrote that Mozilla is going to port Firefox for PS3 ?? There was just a meeting between someone from PS division and someone from Mozilla.”The original message only mentioned that they had been talking, and I made the mistake of assuming it was related to porting Firefox onto PS3. I apologize for the lack of foresight. Sometimes when interpreting information from a rumor (which in some cases can be worded pretty vaguely), mistakes like this can be made. We apologize for the inconvenience.

So there were “talks”, I guess you could say, but nothing definite or newsworthy yet.  Personally, I’d love to see the PS3 browser get switched over to Firefox.  Even a stripped down basic version of Firefox would be better than the buggy thing they have there now.

Here’s a great video that does a good job at telling the story of Firefox, from then to now:

The peeps over at Lifehacker have also written up a great retrospective that is well worth checking out.  What birthday wishes would you like to send to the Mozilla team?  Without Firefox, there would be no Firefox Facts – so as I enjoy three years of this blog, I’d like to thank Mozilla for the inspiration and all of you for reading it every day and making it one of the most popular un-official Firefox blogs out there today.

So happy birthday to Firefox, one of the best browsers out there on the planet.

Over the weekend I started checking out the newest project out of the Mozilla Labs, Raindrop.  To some it might sound a little like Google Wave – however it offers much more, and is also much easier to wrap your mind around. 

Here is more about the program, in a nutshell, from the developers:

When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.

I am all about the “making things easier to manage” so I eagerly anticipate learning more about what Mozilla has planned for this service.  If you want to learn more about the fundamentals of Raindrop, watch this video:

Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.

What do you think?  Are you excited, or does it look like another web trend that is doomed to trip over itself?  Leave a comment and let me know how excited you are about Raindrop.

In what is being seen by some as a silly feature to add, Firefox 3.6 is apparently getting better support for orientation of where it is at.  What does this mean, exactly?  Firefox will know, if your computer has an accelerometer in it, if it is tilting to the left, right, front, or back and will respond with the way the web page your looking at is displayed.

Here’s a few more details about the new feature coming to Firefox:

Originally built as something that we would include for our upcoming mobile browser release, we’ve made it available on desktop systems as well. Many modern Macbooks and Thinkpads contain devices and drivers that expose this information. We’ve added support for Linux, Macs and some Thinkpads where drivers and devices are available.

Overall, this is a pretty awesome new feature for the computers that will support it.  This picture really does not do it justice, go check out the video demonstration over at hacks.mozilla.org.