“The next version of Firefox will come out of the virtual box with Google’s anti-phishing tools built in. While the Googlified security services have been available through use of the Google Toolbar for either Firefox or IE6 for quite some time already, this marks the first default installation. And we all know how much Google values the defaults.”
It would be nice if the Mozilla people separated themselves from Google a bit and did some of this stuff for themselves. The OSS people do seem to be cheering Google on a lot, but isn’t it getting a bit… monopolistic? Like Microsoft?
I don’t think it’s really the same thing. Mozilla needs a partner for anti-phishing, if I understand the technology (isn’t it a web service), and they do themselves better to work on their browser and platform, than spend their money on running a service like that.
Also, since Mozilla is Open Source, anyone is free to take their browser and bundle it with their own software, and their own services (or someone else’s if they want). Ubuntu bundles Firefox, with it’s own defaults for example (even with a custom (terrible) icon).
Even if they weren’t open source, if they don’t limit a re-distributor by demanding that they support Google (and install that support), then they are still not doing anything wrong, IMO (as long as their API is open, which it is).
Microsoft got into trouble because they were forcing their customers to use their software (or at least to install it by default), and were leveraging other ubiquitous software (Windows) to do so.
Mozilla isn’t quite so ubiquitous.
A closer analogy would be GNU/Linux – many distributions ship with Firefox by default, but some use Konqueror – and there are many distributors. So no monopoly.
Edited 2006-05-31 23:10
Ubuntu bundles Firefox, with it’s own defaults for example (even with a custom (terrible) icon).
FYI, they don’t use the official icon because they can’t (trademark issues). That’s no excuse for an ugly design, of course.
if google turns evil, there is nothing stoping the mozilla people from going to someone else.
this is cooperation between to seperate entitys, not one entity bundling one product with another to push a service they are setting up…
It’s about balance, we need something big and scary with enough ballast to weigh against Microsoft.
edit: bam! got the first message wrong -.-
Edited 2006-06-01 13:58
While im sure this is a good thing now i dont really want this feature as a default unless i can choose not to install it with no adverse affects.
I dont mind having these things supplied with the browser but i dont want it to end up asking to install desktop search engines, toolbars and the likes.
I totally agree. I’m not about to say “oh, this is a dark day for the little browser that could, bloatware ahoy, etc.etc.” – but I do reckon a lot of the early-uptakers, who were won over by Firefox’s leanness, will view this with a sense of foreboding.
If it’s hard-coded, thus adding to the bloat factor, I will not be a happy bunny.
Google donated code and services to mozilla, why do you all think this is a bad thing?!
Apart from the antiphishing thing, one of the things I like about it is the spell checker feature that underlines misspelled words in web forms with a thin red line. Just like OpenOffice.org you can get suggestions for replacements in a right mouse pop up menu.
The tabs works much better, with a close button on the active tab. This makes it easy to close tabs without so much mouse movement.
Unfortunately it doesn’t pass the Acid2 test, and as I understand this will not change until the 1.9 series of Gecko that will be used for Firefox 3.0.
Even though this is an alpha release, it seams to be quite stable at least on Fedora FC5.
So the OSS comunity get help from Google so they can put there browser up againest a giant like Microsoft!
monopolistic, dont make me laugh because remember that dated, security nightmare browser called IE still owns the browser market. People install firefox because they like it not because they have no choice.
It’d be nice to see a full set of parental controls in firefox 2.5.
Unless someone could convince netnanny they should port to linux.
I’ve not used netnanny but dansguardian seems to do the (not-to-bad) trick.
Doesn’t DansGuardian require a separate computer?(proxy, server, etc)
From what I read on the website, it does.(a separate computer I do not have)
Net Nanny is self contained AFAIK.
I just have the one as well – but, yes, it does work as a proxy server 9in conjunction with squid I think). Then you point all your kids Firefox configs to the localhost for proxy connection and away it goes.
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=657&slide=2…
Nothing anyone can really do here to exclude Goggle I guess – its OSS so you may choose it .
Perfect example of how a company can use OSS contributions & niceness to create “unbeatable” competition .
Its an OSS project so no-one can say that its unfair bundling which forces others out.
Just happens to be convenient for Google.
What shall we search for today
?
usually when an Opera thread comes up all the Firefox shills try to hijack it, so i make no apologies for asking this Opera question in a Firefox thread. Here’s my question, I am almost totally fed up with Opera because when using multiple tabs, the pages I load in the background keep yanking focus away from the page
I’m trying to type passwords etc in. It is really super frustrating, it nullifies the utility of having tabbed browsing. Amazon’s pages are totally aggressive this way, so is Lycos, but now it seems that ALL webmasters are learning this trick. I have been an Opera user since v3.62, but am completely fed up. So I thought maybe you open source guys could explain what code snippet is behind this since it’s obviously proliferating throughout the web, and could tell me if Firefox is aware of the issue or vulnerable to the issue. It’s a big enough deal that if Firefox is immune to it I may ditch Opera. The current beta fails to communicate with online purchasing forms such as albertsons.com, and there is already a prior annoyance where I can be typing into a form before all the ads on it load, and then when they do the page will yank my cursor into a text field I already filled and overwrite it. No wonder they dropped their slogan of
“simply the best internet experience”, more like best way to get continuously p*ssed off. Does Firefox have these issues? And I mean on a page from a dial-up, not from your own hard drive. As long as there are dial-ups then browsers should still be counted on to work on them.
and could tell me if Firefox is aware of the issue or vulnerable to the issue.
Looking at bugzilla, it appears that this was fixed in Firefox in 2004.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124750
there is already a prior annoyance where I can be typing into a form before all the ads on it load, and then when they do the page will yank my cursor into a text field I already filled and overwrite it.
That, sadly, I believe this is still a problem in Firefox as well.
I hope it’s optional, I don’t want my browser contacting Google everytime I click on a link. I don’t care that I could be going to some scummy website, it’s my business and no one elses. Let the noobs that can’t surf cop it, but let us seasoned users not install it if we don’t want it!
True. This is one way to sure get what sites the world is going to. Atleast the Firefox users for now.
I’m sure Google will have a plugin for IE7 as well that uses its anti-phishing service instead of MSNs.
It is entirely optional…
There is an option in the preferences… it’s not even hidden!
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/657/12.gif
*Edit reason: changed URL
Edited 2006-06-01 13:48
phishing threat is overrated