Looks nice! Despite hearing that FireFox Mobile would be tested first on Nokia’s cool little N810 internet tablet, here we have the first real shots of the thing and it’s on an unidentified Windows Mobile phone. Well then! I’m looking forward to using it; the concept demo looked pretty nice and these shots demonstrate that the Gecko engine has made the change intact. Will the next big browser battle be not FF vs IE, but Fennec vs. Chrome? (Meanwhile, Opera will still be awesome)
[via the::unwired]

Next week should mark the alpha release of Mozilla’s Firefox Mobile web browser. Interestingly, it’ll first be available on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, according to PC Advisor. The alpha will be available for Windows Mobile devices over the next few months, as well. Mozilla’s interested in testing out the touchscreen interface and the plugin development, so it’s a good move to release it for the N810 first as the Nokia Internet Tablet series has a pretty active developer community.

The beta version of Firefox Mobile will likely not be released until 2009. The browser is built on the same engine (Gecko) as the full-fledged Firefox and will be able to handle JavaScript and AJAX. Might not be a bad idea to work support for Flash Video, too.

Dare I say it, but I think my interest in the Bold is beginning to wane. BGR demos both IE and FF emulators that both crash, but that OS sure does it look pretty. Of course, I can’t pass judgment on something I haven’t seen in person, yet. Any BlackBerry fans being swayed either way by this video?

Here we are again mentioning the iPhone, but this time, blame Mozilla. The open source loving FireFox creators say they are inspired by the full mobile Web experience of Safari and the iPhone, and that they hope to have an alpha release of a mobile version of FireFox by summer, with the possibility of a beta release before the end of the year.

Started in October 2007, Mozilla’s mobile FireFox project, code named Fennec, hopes to deliver what Safari and the iPhone did for mobile Web browsing, but in an open source format.

VP of mobile for Mozilla Jay Sullivan, told NetworkWorld: “With the iPhone, people have a sense that they can or should be able to browse the full Web. We’re in that camp: We’re going for the full Web.”

But even more than camping with Apple, mobile FireFox hopes to up the ante when its comes to usability and performance, while keeping it open for developers.

Sounds good to me.

Just a quick update on something we posted yesterday concerning a security vulnerability found in Mozilla’s Firefox web browser (see the original post here).

First, this incident was NOT a zero day attack, as was originally reported. The exploit was discovered by a group called “The Zero Day Initiative” but was not actually a zero day exploit. According to the Mozilla Security Blog, the details of the problem will be kept private but it’s not a public exploit and “the risk to users is minimal.”

Second, we reported the exploit as a Firefox 3 issue, but the exploit affects Firefox versions 2.x and 3.0, so it’s not strictly a Firefox 3 issue.

We sourced this CNET article, which does contain accurate information. We apologize for any confusion that our original post may have caused.

There was more than 8 million downloads of Firefox 3.0 during a 24-hour period yesterday, making “Download Day” an unqualified success. As I type this, the total number of downloads is 8,846,784.

The Mozilla team is currently talking to the Guinness World Record officials about to what degree Firefox set a record. Hickey says the unofficial record for downloads in a 24-hour period is 5 million (”I read it somewhere yesterday,” he says), and I’m inclined to believe him.

There’s a fun map on the Firefox site showing country-by-country downloads. The highest number is the U.S. with (so far) 2.69 million downloads. The lowest? Liberia has four downloads so far. Western Sahara, which may or may not be an officially recognized country, has zero downloads. But my guess is that the people there have more pressing things on their mind than the Awesome Bar.

How’s the transition from 2.0 to 3.0 been for y’all? I don’t use too many extensions (only AdBlock and Better Gmail), so everything has been fine on my end.

via Bits New York Times Blog

Firefox 3 [Mozilla.com]

Today’s the big day. You’ll be able to download Mozilla’s latest web browser at 1PM EDT, 10AM PDT. If you’re the type that likes to open presents early, you can already find direct links to the final browser floating about the web. Me, I like to wait.

Hit this link when it’s go-time: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

Photo by Labnol.org

Next Tuesday is Firefox 3 Day, according to Mozilla’s developer news web site. The most recent release candidate was made available on June 5th yesterday, so that’s a pretty quick turnaround – a sign to me that the browser’s definitely stable. I’ve spoken to a number of people who have been using the various Firefox 3 betas and release candidates without very many problems at all. I’m running RC2 as well.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

Nice work, ladies and gentlemen. Looking forward to the final version.

Head on over to Mozilla.com to grab the latest release of the almost-finished Firefox 3 if you’ve been keeping up with the various betas and release candidates. The second release candidate should probably be the last one before the browser makes the leap to the final version and word on the street is that this latest iteration is definitely stable enough to use full-time.

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2 appears to be mostly bug fixes and behind-the-scenes updates. If you’re running and earlier version of Firefox 3, you should be able to update the browser through the Help menu. If not, you can download it directly here.

It’s Productivity Week here at CrunchGear, and you’ve already learned to drive better, organize your workspace, and use paper of all things. That’s all well and good, but I spend more time behind a keyboard than behind a wheel, and many of you are probably the same. And what application is always hanging out there in the background? Yes, it’s everyone’s favorite browser, Firefox.

And now’s a good time to get tweaking: you’ve got your Firefox 3 release candidate all downloaded, Things are a little different, you’re not sure what settings to adjust, and you don’t know which extensions are the definite must-haves. Don’t worry, child. Daddy will explain how to make your browser a fearsome beast.
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Ah, springtime; when a man’s fancy turns to newer, younger, more nimble versions of popular web browsers. Take Firefox 3, for example. It’ll be here “sometime in June,” Mozilla’s VP of engineering, Mike Schroepfer told CNET.

Apparently everything’s running relatively smoothly…

“We’re in a phase where we’re letting add-ons get a chance to update,” Schroepfer said. “We like to have RCs (release candidates) out for a while to gather feedback.”

More release candidates are possible, he said. With Firefox 2, there were three. “We’re in better shape this time, but there’s no reason to rush this,” he said.

Schroepfer also commented that the final version of Firefox 3 will be “2 to 3 times faster than the previous version and nearly 10 times faster than IE 7.”