Ever wonder what parts of the Firefox browser navigation get used the most? Mozilla has released a heat map detailing the information they were able to get from Test Pilot submissions back in May of 2010.  Here are the top ten more popular spots in the interface.

Did your favorite part of the Firefox interface make it onto the list?

• 95.6% – Location Bar

• 93.1% – Back

• 89% – Scroll Vertical Bar

• 73.2% – Reload

• 67.9% – Search Bar

• 58.4% – Bookmarks Bar Item

• 54.1% – Forward

• 42.8% – Scroll Horizontal Bar

• 39.2% – Stop

• 37.6% – Home

To check out the full list and more pictures/details about the data they collected, be sure to check out the Mozilla Labs page.

Some people may find the fact that Firefox opens a new tab on the far right of your tab toolbar a blessing and some might find it a curse.  It really has to do with how many tabs you are look at, in one single browser.  For those who are cursed today, I have your solution.  The Tabs Open Relative extension changes how new tabs open up, which means no more tab surfing for you.

Once installed, the Tabs Open Relative add-on for Firefox will make all new tabs open to the right of the current tab, rather than the far right of the tab bar.  Of course, this only applies when you are clicking links on a page.  In the case where several new tabs are opened in a row without switching tabs, each subsequent tab will be opened to the right of the previous one, so as to keep them in order.

So if this sounds like the solution to the tab navigating curse you’ve been living under, be sure to pick up this extension via the Firefox Add-ons site.  It is an easy way to fix this tabbed browser nuisance.

You’ve arrived in a new city, a new continent, a new coffee shop. You don’t really know where you are, and are looking for a good place to eat. You pull out your laptop, fire up Firefox, and go to your favorite review site. It automatically deduces your location, and serves up some delicious suggestions a couple blocks away and plots directions there.

It sounds to me a lot like what people had hoped Google would do with their Android phones, except Mozilla here isn’t talking about ad space yet. 

How can this be done?  It is in part thanks to the new W3C Geolocation Specification which, in turn, adds the ability for web sites to request and users to provide their locations.  It would/could be done a number of different ways such as GPS, WiFi, entering the details yourself, and so on.

If this tickles your fancy, you can download the Geode add-on for Firefox or just check out Mozilla Labs for more of the inside dirt on the idea.

Here is a little more information from the extension developer:

It uses relatively little resources, and works by accessing an IP address database contained within the extension rather than relying on top-level-domain roots like “.com” or “.uk”. Clicking on the icon brings up further information from Wikipedia or Geotool, which is an online Geolocation tool. Geotool attempts to get more information from the Website’s IP address, such as ISP and city and shows the location on a Google Map.

Where are some of your favorite web sites really hosted?