Posted 11/12/09 at 06:44:14 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Mozilla today unveiled the Jetpack Gallery, a place for developers to showcase their Jetpack add-ons.  Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project that lets developers build Firefox add-ons using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While the newly launched gallery – still in beta - gives developers the opportunity to host and promote their Jetpacks, it lets Firefox users browse, install and rate Jetpacks. Installing Jetpacks is quite easy and doesn’t even require a browser restart, save for the very first Jetpack that a user installs. The Jetpack Gallery currently features over 30 add-ons.

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Posted 10/13/09 at 05:00:00 PM by Florence Ion

Minuscule software patches may seem like they contribute the most insignificant changes, but we’re intrinsically aware that these frequent updates are recommended not just for stability and bug fixes, but also for new features. And with Firefox, add-ons have exactly the same effect—with each new add-on, your browser increases in vitality. The Yet Another Smooth Scrolling plug-in has that desired effect; it’s a small addition to your already cluttered library of plug-ins that can do wonders for your Internet browsing experience.

Yet Another Smooth Scrolling customizes your scrolling behavior so that keyboard cursor key scroll stride is no longer short and choppy, and the default scrolling behavior is less sensitive and doesn’t act as if it’s lagging between lines. We installed the add-on to see if it really changed our browsers scrolling behavior, and to our delight, browsing through a web page felt to have more fluidity than previously before. Additionally, we noticed that when we flicked the scroll wheel, the page scrolled further than the trace of the wheel length.  You can also specify three different scroll settings for any particular web environment, like a full .pdf document versus a weblog.  

Read on to find out more. 

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Posted 08/10/09 at 10:00:00 AM by David Murphy

I covered some awesome Firefox plugins a little bit ago, and it only seems fitting for Google Chrome to receive the same treatment.  But as you're undoubtedly aware, Google Chrome doesn't feature built-in extension support like other popular browsers on the market.  Or does it?

Actually, if you run the developer builds of Chrome, you can access the wonderful (beta) world of browser add-ons with but a few extra commands and tweaks.  Seeing as very few people who use Chrome know or care about this little modification, it stands that the actual world of add-ons for the browser is pretty small right now.  That said, there are still some neat extras that you can build into your browser--including some add-ons that mimic the best of what you'll find in Firefox's expansive database.

So what are you waiting for?  Click the jump and I'll show you how to surf with add-ons, then give you a list of neat ones to try out!

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Posted 07/17/09 at 02:30:28 PM by Florence Ion

Throughout the five years, Mozilla has dramatically improved the Internet browsing experience by producing stable, open-source applications that bring simplicity to our virtual lives. The latest version of Firefox is a prime example of how Mozilla integrates practical features into its products, like the inclusion of private browsing, tear away tabs and location awareness, while still maintaining a strong user base and delivering a stable browser.

However, the buck doesn’t stop there: Mozilla Labs has conjured up several new open source Firefox add-ons that aim to further enhance your web experience and promote better, more efficient browsing. Long time Firefox users are already familiar with the browser’s ability to become fully customizable with the inclusion of add-ons, so the concoctions coming out of Mozilla Labs should be no surprise. Read on to discover some of the latest releases from our favorite open sorcerers, but be aware that most Mozilla Labs projects are still in a prototype stage, so install at your own risk.

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Posted 06/14/09 at 03:34:57 PM by Justin Kerr

The labs team at Mozilla has been hard at work on Jetpack 0.2, and is actively looking for volunteers to help test out, and give feedback on the new experimental UI. For those who haven’t been following its development, Jetpack allows users to create custom sidebar applications. These can range from something as simple as a Twitter stream, to a fully functional media player that will allow you to view flash videos while still surfing the web in the same tab.

According to Jetpack designer Aza Raskin “Jetpack is two things at once: it is a platform for experimentation and it is also a solid set of APIs that anyone to easily build new Firefox features”. It’s pretty clear that the web browser, like most modern operating systems is a mature platform, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd. Mozilla is likely hoping that if Jetpack takes off (pardon the pun), it will be easier to break away from the pack in the future.

Users wishing to get involved in Jetpack’s development are encouraged to install the add-on, report bugs, or even just hop into the discussion groups to leave feedback. Hit the jump to check out a video of Jetpack in action, and make sure to leave your experiences in the comments if you decide to give it a try!

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Posted 05/22/09 at 10:03:23 AM by Paul Lilly

Mozilla announced it will start giving away Jetpacks to users, but you can't use them to fly around your neighborhood or to stir up general mayhem. So what exactly can you do with it?

"Specifically, Jetpack will be an exploration n using web technologies to enhance the browser (e.g. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), with the goal of allowing anyone who can build a website to participate in making the web a better place to work, communicate, and play," Mozilla wrote in a blog.

Oh. Well that's cool too, we suppose. Apparently, Jetpack will be the tool for building the next generation of add-ons, and according to Mozilla, they can be written "in under a dozen lines of code." But it's not just developers who should be excited.

"More importantly, from a user-perspective, Jetpack will allow new features to be added to the browser without a restart co compatibility issues, resulting in little to no disruption to the online experience," Mozilla added.

Color us officially excited again.

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Posted 01/02/09 at 02:00:00 PM by David Murphy

As we get ready to celebrate the end of 2008 and start of 2009, it's important to put down the champagne glasses for a moment and consider all of the big open-source stories that have come across over the past year.  There have been a lot.  In fact, we've even gone and chronicled some of the bigger stories for you already.  If you haven't checked it out yet, do so.  Like watching The Empire Strikes Back before A New Hope, you'll be lost if you read on much further.  That's because we're now taking a look at what's in store for the open-source world in 2009.

We'll get to the specific predictions in a big, but here's the big picture: the open-source software world is on the up, up, up.  We called this out in a news article awhile ago once the economy started taking a dive.  Guess what?  The economy's still taking a dive, and companies long and far are taking an increased interest in the open-source community.  That's because open-source solutions can help them generate cost savings over expensive, proprietary software without a loss of business quality or functionality. And that translates into increased opportunities for open-source developers -everybody wins!  Unless you're Microsoft and think the entire affair is rubbish.  But enough of that...  onto the predictions!

Click the link to jump into the open-source world of 2009!

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