Posts tagged Firefox at Switched

Posts with tag firefox

NY Times Launches a Social Network

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Sep 23rd 2008 at 2:39PM

Not surprisingly (since everyone else is doing it), the New York Times has launched its own social network called TimesPeople. The New York Times has experimented with social features on its Web site before, but the launch of TimesPeople marks the integration of the paper's previous hodgepodge of disconnected features.

TimesPeople is primarily a vessel for commenting on and recommending articles, videos, and blogs from the New York Times Web site (like a site-specific Digg), but also integrates with Facebook. Via the Facebook app, users can share recommendations with a broader network of people. TimesPeople began life as a Firefox extension, but has now been integrated with the NY Times homepage to make sharing and commenting as simple as possible.

TimesPeople is just the latest in a series of experiments from the NY Times in its attempt to stay relevant during the age of digital media. Print outlets are struggling not just to stay profitable, but to simply matter in a world increasingly influenced by blogs and other online outlets. The Times has done better than most at staying afloat, but whether or not TimesPeople turns out to be a successful venture remains to be seen. [From: Valleywag]

Automated Comment Snob Filters YouTube Detritus

by Tim Stevens, posted Sep 14th 2008 at 5:21PM

Dropping by the comments section on the average video on YouTube isn't going to do much for your faith in humanity. Flame wars, racism, idiocy, and just plain bad grammar can easily be found all within the span of a few posts. There's not much those hosting the videos can do, as trying to filter every comment would be a full-time job. But, YouTube fans can finally automate that process to a degree by using the Comment Snob Firefox browser plugin.

The Comment Snob will let surfers set criteria for which comments are up to muster. Users can filter posts with excessive punctuation, misspellings, too many capitalized letters, and of course, profanity. The rules are totally customizable and, with a little tweaking, you can make your YouTube viewing experience much more pleasurable -- now if only we could get YouTube to integrate this into the site itself. [From: The Telegraph via DownloadSquad]

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Released to Public (Hands-On)

by Tim Stevens, posted Aug 29th 2008 at 4:10PM

Internet Explorer Beta 2 Released to Public

Have you been itching to get your hands on the latest flavor of Internet Explorer? Yeah, we can't say we really have been either, but just the same, Microsoft has released the second beta version of Internet Explorer 8 for public consumption, and you can download it now and check it out if you like.

The first beta was only for developers, but after a number of updates and fixes, Microsoft is opening this new version to anyone. To save you the trouble, we threw caution to the wind and installed it. So far it's looking quite good; stable and noticeably faster in many tasks than IE7, which is looking more than a little dated compared to the recently released Firefox 3.0. At first glance, IE8 doesn't look that much different, but does include a number of tweaks and updates, including:

Private Browsing - Curious about the darker sides of the 'Net? Don't worry, most of us are, and IE8 is the first browser to realize this, giving you a mode called "InPrivate" that doesn't track where you go in your history, doesn't keep cookies, and doesn't store auto-complete information.
Accelerators - Highlight a word, and IE8 will display a button that will let you define it through Encarta. Highlight a street address, and you'll see an option to display the address on a map. Highlight words in a foreign language, and you can see a quick translation. There are lots of little context options like this, called accelerators, because they speed up the process of copying a line of text, opening a new browser window, and pasting it in somewhere to look it up.
Visual Search - This is another area where sites will be able to insert themselves into your browser. Here you can define visual searches for things like eBay, enabling you to start typing your search into the IE8 search box and immediately get results and pictures from listings right through the browser. You can then click directly on what you want. There are visual searches available for other sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, and naturally, Google.

There are dozens of other updates, including stability and compatibility, which should make IE8 an excellent choice for someone looking for an alternative to Firefox. So far, we've found the browser to be very stable, so we'd rate this low on the danger meter, but as always, install betas at your own risk! [Source: IEBlog]

Lifehacker Shares Its Favorite Software

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 30th 2008 at 8:05PM

Productivity blog Lifehacker is a great resource online for software downloads, productivity tricks, and great DIY projects. Many readers out there take every endorsement or piece of advice from the blog to heart as words to live by. While we wouldn't go that far, the folks at Lifehacker certainly know a thing or two about using software and tools to be more effective and productive.

The editors at Lifehacker decided to share their personal favorite tools that they use in everyday work and life. The list includes many Switched-endorsed tools, such as Launchy, Firefox, Pidgin, and VLC and of course Web apps such as the suite of Google Apps, and online to do list Remember the Milk.

If you're feeling like you're not being as productive as possible with your home or work PC set up, check out these lists for some helpful suggestions. [Source: Lifehacker]

Firefox Gets Guinness World Record for Most Downloads

by Evan Shamoon, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 9:46AM

As we now well know, the Internet is serious business.

And to further clarify the point, the Guinness organization (World Records, not beer) has now given the title of "most downloads in a 24-hour period" to Mozilla, which hurled 8,002,530 copies of its Firefox 3 browser into cyberspace on June 17.

"As the arbiter and recorder of the world's amazing facts, Guinness World Records is pleased to add Mozilla's achievement to our archives," Gareth Deaves, Guinness' records manager, said in a statement.
While "Download Day," as Mozilla branded it, may have been a bit of a publicity stunt, it's still a pretty hefty achievement; this is the biggest launch to a piece of software, free or otherwise, in the history of the series of tubes that we have come to know as the Internet.

So how do things stand? Net Applications gave Firefox 3 2.31 percent market share for the entire month of June, compared with 4.28 percent for Safari 3.1, 16.13 percent for Firefox 2, 26.38 percent for Internet Explorer 6, and 46.45 percent for the Internet's 400 lb. gorilla, Internet Explorer 7.

And to the longtime users of IE, we have some advice: try Firefox for a week. Install some plug-ins. You may never go back. [Source: CNET]

Firefox 3.0 Released, Sets Download Record

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 18th 2008 at 10:32AM

A few weeks back, developers of the Web browser Firefox announced that when the eagerly anticipated 3.0 version of their software was released, they wanted to break the Guinness World Record for most downloads in a 24-hour period. The only problem was they didn't say when that day would be. As it turns out, the clock started ticking yesterday at 2pm, and they've already eclipsed the 5 million mark they set out to achieve.

As of this morning, downloads currently stand at 6,250,796 worldwide, a third of those coming from the U.S. This is despite a number of problems that plagued the Firefox download sites yesterday, as they struggled to handle the demand from all those would-be record breakers. But, they made it, and so far, initial reports are very positive for this new release. Browsing is noticeably faster than with the last version, stability seems to have been improved, and the graphical refresh the menus and buttons have received gives everything a nice, clean appearance.

We'll have a full review of the release later, but if you still want to be a part of history you have until 2pm E.S.T. today to fire up your (older) browsers to start the downloadin'. [Source: Mashable]

Firefox Developers Hoping to Break Download Record

by Tim Stevens, posted May 30th 2008 at 8:50AM

Firefox was a small, alternative browser when it launched back in 2002, popular among more elite computer users, but certainly not mainstream. Since then, it's gone on to capture nearly 20 percent of the total browser market, despite the latest version (2.0.0.14) having some irritating flaws, including sucking up large amounts of memory if you leave it running for awhile. The new release, Firefox 3, will hopefully fix all that and more -- you can try out a test release here. It's due to drop in the coming weeks, and when it does its developers want to set a new Guinness World Record for most downloads in a single day.

They're not saying exactly when the browser will be released, but they're already taking pledges for downloaders to indicate their intent on that day, whenever it may be. Eager Firefox 3 users can register for updates at the site, but you can be sure we'll let you know as soon as it's available. [Source: Spread Firefox via Slashdot]

Hackers Target Safari and Firefox Browsers

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 28th 2008 at 9:49AM

It's long been held that Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser was far and away the least secure browser available. Anyone who thought otherwise only had to look at the long and constant IE security bulletins to see what could be perceived as a glaring hole in the thing. But it seems as though maybe those updates are at least partially due only to commonality, as the increasing popularity of Firefox and Safari is putting those browsers under fire.

Firefox has released two updates to Firefox over the past six weeks, fixing five critical security holes that could let attackers access a user's browsing history -- not exactly life threatening stuff here, but still disconcerting. Apple's Safari is rather more compromised, since it allows attackers to completely take over your computer, and rather less fixed, as no updates to solve the problem are available.

These attacks and compromised levels of security are held to be due to those browsers' new-found popularity. IE, on the other hand, which has seen its usage wane in recent months, had no security vulnerabilities to report in the last month, meaning hackers may be getting tired of beating up on the thing. So which browser is most secure? Our money's still on Firefox, but IE is clearly not a bad choice either. [Source: Washington Post]

How to Read the Wall Street Journal Online for Free

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Mar 24th 2008 at 9:39AM

Two Ways to Read the Wall Street Journal Online for Free

One of the most frustrating things a news hound encounters online is the Wall Street Journal. The preeminent financial paper in the country has still yet to join the rest of the online news world and offer its world class reporting for free.

But fear not, faithful devourers of information, there is way around the Wall Street Journal's $79 a year subscription fee. And it's completely legal!

When you follow a link to a Wall Street Journal article -- like this one -- from a regular Web site, you get the first part of the article, but are told to subscribe to read the full article. Luckily for us, though, the Wall Street Journal struck a deal with Google and Digg that allows visitors to those sites to view the entire paper without subscribing.

So, you have two options. The first, and simpler option, is to search Google News for the headline of the article you want to read. Since you'd be following the link via Google News you'd be able to access the complete article. This can be a little tedious and doesn't guarantee you access to the entire paper however.

The second option is to use Firefox and install an extension called Refspoof. Refspoof allows you to trick the Wall Street Journal into thinking you're visiting the site via a link from another site. After installing the Refspoof ,visit WSJ.com. Then, in the "spoof" field of the Refspoof toolbar type digg.com. Then, click on the "R" icon to the right and select "static referrer."

Congratulations, you should now be able to browse the entire Wall Street Journal, sans subscription fee!

From Machinist

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Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8 Beta

by Tim Stevens, posted Mar 6th 2008 at 11:22AM

These days, the Internet browser wars are hotter than they've been since the late-90's (when Microsoft challenged Netscape and, eventually, killed the competition). Today, the battle is between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Mozilla is currently putting the wraps on its 3.0 version of Firefox, a major update with many stability and usability improvements, but Microsoft isn't sitting idle. Yesterday it released the first public beta of Internet Explorer 8.

IE8 promises a suite of improvements, with the usual visual refresh that major releases receive, but of course going much deeper than that. IE8 will now include integration with Facebook and eBay out of the box, meaning you can make and check status updates quickly and keep tabs on a set of auctions right from a browser menu. You can view maps from Microsoft's Live service just by highlighting an address on any page, and the browser can remember its current set of displayed pages so if you close the browser (or if it crashes) it'll come right back to where you were.

As of now, unfortunately, that functionality is apparently especially useful as, according to early reports, the browser isn't very stable at this point. It seems that many of the problems are related to incompatibilities with Yahoo's and Google's popular toolbars. So, like many betas (early and largely untested versions of software), the thing isn't quite ready for prime-time. But, if you're brave and want to give it a shot head on over to Microsoft's IE8 page.

From Digg, Read Write Web, and Washington Post

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