This morning, Amazon announced that Kindle Cloud Reader, the nifty HTML5-based Web app that lets customers read Kindle books in their browser (online or offline), is now available for Mozilla Firefox 6 and above, in addition to Google Chrome and Safari (on iPad and desktop).

Not much else to report in terms of news, but Chris Blizzard, Director of Platform Product Management for Mozilla’s Web browser, says there are now more than 450 million Firefox users worldwide.

If you’re on a website that uses accounts, the sign in button can be anywhere. Sure, there are some common best practices, but I can think of dozens of sites that put them all over the place. Mozilla is looking to fix that, by bringing the sign in to the browser level.

A new experimental extension that Mozilla has released for Firefox does exactly this. When it’s installed, you’ll see a new “Sign In” button just to the left of the URL box. Clicking this, pops open a window that prompts you for a username and password for the site you’re on. It then shows you when you’re signed into a site, and gives you one-click ability to sign out. Easy. Simple. Nice.

Of course, the site you’re on has to support this functionality. But Mozilla has made it easy to do so, as they outline in their post on the subject. And the best part is that this can be used with any type of log in — it can be a broad one like OpenID, or specific ones like a blog or even Facebook, Twitter, etc — again, if those sites were to implement something like this.

One important note:

It’s worth noting that this feature doesn’t communicate with any server-side components, and doesn’t capture, store or transfer any personal information. The button is semantically the same as clicking “sign in” on a page: it just tells the page you want to sign in (or sign out) right now.

Essentially, Mozilla is just creating a common place for the sign in button to reside within the browser chrome itself. Though they also note that it will support cookies if the site turns that functionality on as well.

While this is open for any site/service to use, it is also an extension of another Mozilla project: BrowserID. As they announced here last month, their idea for this new web identification system is similar to something like OpenID, which has never quite caught on (Mozilla also says it’s more secure and seamless). Mozilla is trying to re-think identification on the web from a high level.

Beyond BrowserID (which is an open technology anyway), Mozilla doesn’t have any real skin in this game. But some of their competitors could. For example, Google is in the process of implementing a signed in experience for their Chrome browser. This already works with Sync, but Google is working on profiles for Chrome as well. Being signed in on the browser level also allows you to be signed in to Google sites, which is key for something like Chrome OS.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been working with RockMelt on a Facebook signed-in experience for that browser (which, coincidentally is also based on Chromium).

And on a broader level, both Google and Facebook have been thinking about this always-signed-in experience quite a bit. This is especially important in mobile, where it can be more annoying to type in usernames and passwords over and over again. This, along with the focus on being a central identity for the web has led to projects like Facebook’s Single Sign On.

So while Mozilla may have mostly noble intentions here, I still suspect we’re going to see more along these lines from their competitors that aren’t quite as noble. That’s not to say they’re meant to be evil, just done for more selfish reasons. Google already has their browser. I’d bet that Facebook will have one sooner or later. This could help Mozilla, as they could end up as the truly open alternative.

Firefox may be getting a very nice facelift soon.

Mozilla designer Stephen Horlander has posted a set of screenshots showing off what may be the the future of Firefox’s interface, and it includes some major changes that give it a more modern look. My first reaction: this looks a whole lot of Chrome. And my second reaction: that isn’t a bad thing at all.  You can find the whole set right here.

To be clear, these are what Mozilla is calling “really early mockups”. They were presented internally at a company meeting last week, and the team hasn’t committed to when (or even if) they’ll be implementing the new UI.

That said, the mocks look solid and their reception seems to be positive so far, so don’t be surprised if you see these changes in action some time in the relatively near future — especially since Mozilla is now on a rapid-fire 18 week release schedule. So let’s take a look at what’s different.

The biggest change: no more search bar. One of Firefox’s trademark features, the dedicated search bar alongside the address bar, is gone — it’s been replaced by a field that presumably serves both functions, just like the one in Chrome. It’s also possible to enter Full Screen Mode, which merges a smaller version of this Awesome Bar and your tabs into a single line, further reducing the browser chrome and leaving more room for content.

Tabs are getting a rounder curve to them (in Firefox 5 they’re rectangular), which is very similar to the design in Chrome. But Firefox is actually improving on the design: only active tabs are presented with those rounded edges, whereas inactive tabs have very little chrome to them at all. This makes it easier to identify what you’re looking at, and it may make it easier to scan through them as well.

Other changes: there’s a new ‘functionality’ menu that includes common tasks (cut, copy, paste, new tab, etc, along with icons for app extensions. It looks good — and it also looks like it would be touch-friendly.

Straight from the heart of Mozilla’s developer newsgroup comes news of an ambitious new project: a standalone, web-based operating system. If that concept sounds familiar, I’ve also just described the core of Google’s Chrome OS which we’re beginning to see pop up on netbooks. The big twist?

It’s currently being developed for mobile devices. And it’s partially Android-based.

According to Dr. Andreas Gal, researcher at Mozilla, the impetus behind the Boot to Gecko project is to “make open web technologies a better basis for future applications on mobile and desktop alike”. A lofty goal to be sure, as the core underpinnings would ultimately extend beyond just mobile devices. Should Gal and his colleagues (and really anyone who wants to help) succeed, Boot to Gecko would have the potential to change how we interact with the web, regardless of platform.

Gal breaks the process down into actionable steps. First, the Boot to Gecko project aims to take the primary functions of a mobile device (i.e. “Telephony, SMS, Camera, USB, Bluetooth, NFC”) and create web APIs to handle them. From there, they intend to develop a way for web pages and applications to safely access those components as needed. They hope that by doing this, they (and other intrepid developers) will be able to create native-grade apps that run directly on the web instead of only being available on certain devices.

As I’ve mentioned, the open-source project is based partially off of Android — nothing terribly high-level though, just the kernel and the drivers so as to ensure that whatever progress they make can actually boot. It also doesn’t hurt that Android works (and in many case, has been made to work) on plenty of different hardware configurations, which is exactly what they need to see if the concept pans out. As it stands, development is in such a nascent stage that we have no idea what to expect visually, so no images yet folks.

Personally speaking, this idea has me on the edge of my seat. It will take a lot of work, and a lot of time, and there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever see a complete release. That’s the funny part though: I don’t think it really matters. If all they ever did was finish the API for telephony and SMS messaging, that would still signal a tremendous shift in how we use the web. Boot to Gecko will inevitably draw comparisons to ChromeOS (and I was guilty of this just a few paragraphs ago), but we stand to gain a much richer online experience if B2G comes to be. Only time will tell if these gentlemen succeed, but we’ll be certain to keep you up to date during the ride.

Today, the organization is launching a new program designed to help spur projects that focus on open web technologies. The initiative is called Web FWD (pronounced Web Forward), and invites teams to spend four weeks working in Mozilla offices, where they’ll learn from top experts in web technologies and have access to Mozilla resources.  Applications are now being accepted, and the first group of teams will begin working from Mozilla offices in August.

Pascal Finette, who heads Mozilla Labs, says that the project was inspired by the success of programs like Y Combinator — though there are plenty of differences. Unlike YC, which takes a modest equity stake in participating companies, Mozilla’s not out to make money. In fact, all code written during the four-week program must be open sourced (teams can later fork their code and continue to build their project into a business if they’d like — Mozilla will even make the VC introductions). Mozilla will also consider giving promising products that stick with the open-source model additional funding and resources.

The program is also a little less structured than YC, in that groups are admitted on a rolling basis. Finette expects teams to be around 2-3 people in size, though that’s one of the variables they’re still unsure about — it will really come down to what kind of projects get submitted. The bottom line, though, is that the teams need to be able to build what they’re setting out to build (in other words, if you’re a single engineer setting out to do an ambitious project, then you might have the odds stacked against you on getting admitted).

Finette says that the ideal applicants will be working on projects that are deeply related to open web technologies — things like online identity, social, personalization, and, more broadly, a ‘mobile first’ approach to designing web applications. “We’re not looking for the next big online game”, he says. Applicants don’t have to have a full project built when they apply, but Mozilla will be looking for some basic groundwork — things like mockups, some rough code, and a tangible demo (even if it’s far from a minimum viable product).

Mentors include both key Mozilla employees and other industry veterans (there’s a list here, and Mozilla will also regularly invite other experts for guest talks). Mozilla plans to have between five and ten teams working out of its offices at any given time — it’s starting the program in the SF office initially, but will extend the program to its international offices as well, so the number of accepted teams will increase.

Each participant will receive $2,000 for the month to cover food and living expenses. “We want them to be worry-free”, Finette says, so that the teams can really focus on their projects.

I like this idea. Mozilla’s Firefox and Labs projects has obviously introduced some innovative features and technologies over the years, but there are still aspects of the web — like identity — that simply don’t have any good, widely used open alternatives. This should help kickstart some compelling new projects.

But before you start rolling your eyes, Mozilla adds-on, “This number doesn’t include Personas, and even excludes popular add-ons bundled with other software that the user hasn’t actively agreed to install”. So apparently these aren’t force-installed add-ons then. I think. The company then went on to say it had expected the percentage of add-ons downloaded on Firefox 4 (which was released on March 22nd) to drop as time went on, but the figure “has stayed between 89% and 85% since launch”. (I’m surprised that this little self-congratulatory admission didn’t come with 5 exclamation points.)

Mozilla has also found that, on average, users download 5 add-ons, and that Firefox has racked up 2.5 billion total downloads and that 580 million add-ons are in use every day on Firefox 4. (Which does seem to be slightly higher than Mozilla’s add-on data available here.)

Back in April, Mozilla announced that it was moving to a rapid-fire release cycle, as well as introducing another channel called “Aurora”, which as my colleague MG Siegler pointed out, is the equivalent of Chrome’s “Dev Build”. Aurora falls in between Mozilla’s “Nightly” build and their “Beta” build, because users had come to expect that “Nightly” (which they had even renamed “Minefield”) would be closer to a beta or ready-to-release build — which it often wasn’t. Aurora is intended to be the version in which users and developers can play a greater role in participating in the building of new Firefox releases.

This announcement also came on the heels of Google’s announcement that it would be releasing a new version of Chrome every six weeks. Now, it seems that Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla have all sped up their release cycles to get new versions of their browsers into the market faster.

Thus, staying true to their promise, Mozilla also announced today that Firefox 5 is available for download on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.

According to the company’s statement, Firefox 5 “includes more than 1,000 improvements and performance enhancements that make it easier to discover and use all of the innovative features in Firefox”. The release includes added support for “more modern Web technologies” that will enhance developers’ ability to create “Firefox add-ons, Web applications, and websites”.

Firefox 5 also adds its “Do Not Track” privacy feature to Android, “making Firefox the first browser to support Do Not Track on multiple platforms”, the company said. The “Do Not Track” feature was designed to give Firefox users greater control over how their browser footprints are tracked and used across the Web. The feature essentially tells websites that users have chosen to opt-out of tracking — and is now “easier to find in Firefox Preferences”.

However, while Mozilla boasts improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL, and canvas, as part of its new support for “more modern Web technologies”, according to PCMag, Firefox 5 is still scoring the same as version 4 on HTML5test.com, which measures the overall level of HTML5 support and performance. Firefox 5 scored 240 out of a possible 400, compared to Chrome, which comes in at 291.

So, Firefox 5 may not knock your socks off. After all, the IE Team decided to send Mozilla a celebratory cupcake for the Firefox 5 release. (More like a sarcastic cupcake, methinks. Though still delicious, no doubt.) But this release is, at the very least, good to see Mozilla living up to its promise to keep its release cycle quick and cunning — like some sort of fox. Because when it comes to the Web — and mobile, and most things these days — quicker is better.

Twitter has just announced on their blog two new key bits of functionality: improved search and photos. The latter, we’ve obviously been all over in recent days, as we first broke the news a couple days ago. The former, we mentioned was likely coming as well. But there are a few details we didn’t know.

First of all, today brings a completely new version of Twitter Search that promises “more relevant” tweets, but also shows you related pictures and videos in the right-side pane. Even more interesting is that Twitter has partnered with Mozilla for a new version of the Firefox browser with Twitter built into the search bar. (There is also an add-on for current Firefox users.)

Notes Twitter:

And if you use this new version of Firefox with Twitter, you can type a #hashtag or @username directly into the address bar to go right to a search results page (try #idol) or someone’s profile page (like @nba). Simple.

And then there are photos. While this feature isn’t live just yet, in the “next several weeks” you’ll be able to upload a photo attached to a tweet right from twitter.com. This will work on the mobile clients as well, obviously.

Yesterday, we speculated that Twitter would be using Amazon to host these photos rather than putting them on their own servers. Instead, they’re partnering with Photobucket to host these photos. Interesting.

Twitter also says that they’re working with mobile carriers around the world to add MMS capabilities for simple picture attachment as well.

No word on the planned iOS 5 integration for Twitter, but that was to be expected. No way Twitter is allowed to announce that before Apple does at WWDC next week.

In a post yesterday on their Chromium, it’s pretty clear that Google feels their V8 benchmark suite is the best. In fact, they directly call our their rivals’ suites, noting bugs and saying that they must evolve. And then they go one step further: providing links to versions of the rivals’ suites supposedly perfected by Google!

Wow. In the extremely nerdy (and fairly incestuous) browser world, this is hardcore.

Specifically, Google says that SunSpider, first developed by Apple in 2007, contains tests that are “less relevant to the web in 2011″. Here’s the best part:

Even for the more relevant tests, JavaScript has gotten so fast that many finish in only a few milliseconds. This just isn’t long enough to figure out which engine is faster–a golf cart and a Tesla will finish a 10-foot race in nearly the same time.

Ouch.

To fix this issue, Google made its own modified version of SunSpider which essentially runs tests 50 times consecutively to better gauge speed. When the tests are run this way, Google says that “the results begin to reflect Chrome’s true performance.” Naturally. According to Google, Chrome is more than 30 percent faster (in the test results) when measured this way.

Meanwhile, they say that Kraken, the new benchmark suite Mozilla just created, is “in better shape” — but buggy. “As a result, the benchmark is less useful and has even (mis)led us to spend time making some irrelevant optimizations in Chrome,” they note.

Again, ouch!

To get around this, Google is now hosting a new version of Kraken “built directly from Mozilla’s source code repository”.

Are these claims about rivals’ suites legit? It’s hard to say for sure, but I have a feeling that the rivals themselves would dispute that. It is a bit odd that Google is reworking the suites, and that the end result is Chrome performing much better in the tests.

Of course, my eyes don’t lie. I’m a Chrome guy all the way because in daily usage I find it to be much faster than either Safari or Firefox (on a Mac, at least). Until that changes, I’m trusting Google on this one.

While Google Chrome may still only have about 10 percent market share in the web browser world, it’s effect on the space has been much greater. For example, remember when Google said that Chrome would begin releasing new versions every six weeks? Well now we’re seeing both Mozilla and Microsoft move towards that type of rapid iteration. In fact, Mozilla has moved so much in that direction that they’ve decided to alter their standard release model.

In a post today on their blog, Mozilla has formally introduced the new channel structure for Firefox builds. And this means the creation of a new type of Firefox build that neither a nightly (read: highly unstable) or beta (read: fairly polished) — they’re calling it Aurora. In Chrome parlance, it’s essentially their “Dev” build.

Previously, Mozilla had a Nightly -> Beta -> Release cycle, but it wasn’t utilized ideally. As they note here, they tried calling the nightly builds “Minefield” to imply they were risky, but that lead beta users to believe their builds should be highly stable (which they weren’t always). So Mozilla is sticking this new Aurora build in between the Nightly build and the Beta build. (They’re also killing off Minefield and replacing it with a build simply called “Nightly” — complete with a new icon.)

Mozilla hopes that this better sets expectations in terms of what users can expect from the various builds. In turn, they hope this will allow them to cycle faster through new builds (for example, Aurora is already technically Firefox 5, even though Firefox 4 was just released).

Again, you can likely thank Google for all of this. Not only have they pushed for rapid iteration with Chrome, but their Dev -> Beta -> Stable channels have becomes pretty well known amongst users. In effect what Mozilla is doing here is making Aurora their “Dev” build, Beta their “Beta” build, and Final Release their “Stable” build. Meanwhile, Firefox Nightly is now more like the builds of Chromium that Chrome developers often try out and develop on, but aren’t meant for regular users.

One thing Mozilla definitely does better here is the icons. If you’re using Aurora, you’ll have a different icon than if you’re using Nightly. (Though Beta and Release are the same standard Firefox icons.) Compare that to Chrome where aside from Chromium’s blue icon, I have no idea what build of Chrome I’m using (without hitting the About area in the menu) as all the icons look the same.

You can find and try out the new channels here.

As the team lays out in a post on their blog, a major change is needed to keep Camino going. Why? Because throughout its existence, the browser has been built using Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine — the one built for Firefox. But now that engine will no longer be embeddable in other browsers — even other Mozilla browsers, like Camino.

This means that they either go forward continuing to support the legacy versions of Gecko — which are already out of date, by the way, with the launch of Firefox 4.0 — or they have to go in a different direction. Obviously, they’re leaning towards the latter. And if they do go that way, the best option is clear: WebKit.

WebKit is the engine that powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari (as well as their mobile browsers). It has long been considered to be the hot engine of choice, even though the two largest browsers, Firefox and IE, don’t use it. In other words, it’s a nice fall-back option for Camino to have.

And others, namely Epiphany (the native browser for Gnome) have made the same jump in the past.

But there’s still a very big problem for Camino going WebKit: implementing it.

Again, Camino has no full-time employees working on it. It’s a true open-source community effort. For a long while, the project was lead by Mike Pinkerton, but he jumped over to help build Chrome for Mac long ago (but still contributes to the Camino project). Other contributors are Mozilla employees. These people all have very busy day jobs.

Here’s how they explain the problem:

Beyond that, the future is unclear. As a purely community-based open source project, no one is employed to work on Camino; all Camino developers are volunteers, working on Camino in their spare time, as a labor of love. While maintaining embedding in a fork of Gecko is theoretically possible, we don’t have the manpower for a sustained effort of that kind. A more realistic option would be to port Camino to WebKit, but while this would be much easier to maintain in the future, it would require a large amount of initial work. While we would like to take that approach, we don’t have the manpower to do it on our own—we encourage anyone who might be interested in adapting the Camino code to a new rendering engine join our development discussion list.

In other words, web developers, mount up! Save Camino!

[thanks Jeff]

Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript scripting language and chief technology officer at Mozilla, has joined the advisory board of Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based Ajax.org.

We recently wrote about Ajax.org’s introduction of Cloud9 IDE, a commercial, cloud-based development platform for JavaScript that incorporates HTML5, and supporting Python, Ruby and PHP.

Eich is known for his work on Netscape, where he started work in April 1995 and invented JavaScript. He then helped found Mozilla.org in early 1998, serving as chief architect, and later helped spin out the Mozilla Foundation.

In August 2005, after serving as a member of the foundation’s Board of Directors, Brendan became CTO of the newly founded Mozilla Corporation. His primary focus is improving the company’s star product, web browser Firefox.

His appointment to the advisory board is of course a boon for Ajax.org, which intends to use his insights to move forward with the advancement and promotion of Cloud9.

The company is looking to expand into North America in 2011.

(Photo via Wikipedia)

How many of the more than 7 million Firefox 4.0 downloads do you account for? Mozilla has a running counter that’s keeping track of how many people, and from where, have downloaded the latest version of its Firefox browser, which was officially released yesterday. The browsers wars are hotting up all over again.

You’ll recall that Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 only a few weeks ago, but that would (obviously) only be of interest to Windows users.

Google, too, recently updated its Chrome browser.

Hardware acceleration has popped up in these browsers, meaning that those of you with any sort of discrete graphics card can experience a smoother ride, as it were. There’s also increased support for HTML5.

TweakGuides has a handy article that details some of the more power user things you can do with the Firefox 4.

The Beeb kindly points out that there seems to be less heat this time around. Back in 2008, Firefox 3 was downloaded by more than 8 million people in 24 hours. A little more than 5 million people downloaded Firefox 4 within 24 hours of its release.

Part of the decline in interest (if you can call it that) would have to be attributed to the quick adoption of Google Chrome since its introduction in September, 2008. Why download Firefox 4 if you’ve already moved onto Chrome?

Mozilla has just released Firefox 4, and in less than a day clocked more than twice the downloads Microsoft boasted about after the release of Internet Explorer 9.

Now website analytics company StatCounter says Mozilla’s new browser has already taken 1.95 percent of the worldwide Internet browser market.

In contrast, StatCounter adds, Internet Explorer 9 has taken only 0.87 percent of the worldwide browser market a week after its debut.

And as you can tell from the screenshot above, not only Firefox 4 but also the recently released Opera 11 browser has a steady lead over IE9 at this point.

Worth noting: Internet Explorer 9 isn’t compatible with Windows XP, ageing operating system that was released ten years ago but still has an enormous user base around the world.

When all versions of each browser are taken into account, IE still leads the global market with 45 percent, followed by Firefox with 30 percent and Chrome with 17 percent, StatCounter says. The web analytics company recently reported that Firefox overtook IE to become the number one browser in Europe for the first time in December 2010.

In the US, IE (all versions combined) leads the market with an even bigger margin: 48 percent, followed by Firefox at 26 percent and Chrome at 14 percent.

StatCounter says its Global Stats numbers are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month from a network of more than three million websites.

As you’re aware by now, earlier today Mozilla officially unveiled Firefox 4 to the world. At first glance, it’s a great update with massive speed improvements. And that’s good, because that’s exactly what they need to combat the fast-rising Chrome browser from Google. But Google isn’t sitting still either.

This afternoon, Google pushed Chrome 11 into beta. On the surface, users might see this as little more than the version which brings the new Chrome icon. But underneath, there are a couple awesome new things going on as well.

One of the new features is added support for the HTML5 speech input API. This means that you’ll be able to talk to your computer and Chrome can interpret it. Those who have become accustomed to doing this on Android and other mobile devices will love this. More importantly, it’s an HTML5 spec that any developer will be able to take advantage of, not just Google.

If you’re running Chrome 11, you can try it out here. It works very well. You speak, and the browser is able to transcribe what you say. No Flash, no plug-in. Yep. Awesome.

The Chrome 11 beta also bring an initial take on GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, Google notes. This means that developers will also be able to create websites with 3D effects using CSS shortly. Again, very cool.

As the version numbers have been rapidly increasing, Google says it doesn’t like touting new version bumps. But this one is pretty nifty. And it should go stable fairly soon as well.

If you’ve already downloaded the new Firefox 4 today, the first you probably noticed is how much zippier it is. I pretty much had stopped using Firefox altogether because of the creekiness of its previous versions compared to Chrome, Safari, and IE9. But the new Firefox 4, which Mozilla claims is 6 times as fast as before, puts it back in the same pack at least as the rest. It’s been downloaded nearly 2 million times as of this writing (check the counter for more up-to-the-second numbers).

I’m sure there are plenty of benchmark tests that show one browser is faster than the other, and vice versa, but my initial reactions after playing around with Firefox 4 today and comparing it side by side with Chrome is that it is just as fast if not faster. It depends on which website I visit. TechCrunch, for instance, loads a second or two faster by my stopwatch. Without the stopwatch, I can’t tell the difference. And that’s a good thing for Firefox, because speed is my No. 1 requirement for a Web browser. Nothing else is nearly as important. Sluggishness pushes users away. So that’s fixed.

Firefox also supports all sorts of HTML5 and other modern Web apps. If you want to check some out, go to its Web O’ Wonder page where you can test 360-degree videos, animations, in-browser games and other highly graphic apps. You can se emost of them on Chrome as well, but these are tuned especially for Firefox 4. The360-degree video, for instance, looks much better in Firefox and the panning around is much smoother. But there are plenty of HTML5 apps that look better in Chromeor Safari, so don’t let canned demos sway you.

The new Firefox also has some new security features like a Do Not Track option for online ads, lets you sync tabs and browsers across to mobile browsers, and makes it easier to group tabs and see all open tabs in a thumbnail view. I don’t know if the speed and other features are enough to make me want to come back. I’ve got everything set up on Chrome so nicely and I am a creature of habit. But if Chrome starts acting up or crashing my browsers, it’s nice to know I’ve got plenty of other options—and Firefox is once again on that list.

At great long last, Mozilla has revealed the first developer release of their Web Apps Project, which aims to build the infrastructure for an open web app ecosystem.

Back in May of 2010, Google announced plans for what would become the Chrome Web Store. Mozilla responded immediately with plans for its own web store, now known as the Web Apps Project.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Google was first to the punch; the Chrome Web Store launched in December, and we’ve been waiting for Mozilla’s “more open” rejoinder since. The initial phase of Mozilla’s project is finally here and shows that the company is making a serious attempt to take advantage of what few limitations there are in Chrome’s ecosystem. Of course, whether it can compete toe-to-toe in the long run remains to be seen.

As to what we can expect: Mozilla’s web apps will run on Firefox browsers on desktops, tablets and smartphones, just as Chrome web apps run on Chrome and (eventually) corresponding Android devices. Yet, the difference is that Mozilla wants to play nice with Chrome and others (which isn’t exactly a new trend, considering Google pays Mozilla to run their search bar in Firefox), by offering Chrome users the ability to use its web apps through the release of a plug-in.

For its part, Google has said that Chrome web apps will also run in other browsers, but we have yet to see that — or much talk of that, since the Chrome Web Store launched a few months ago.

In the spirit of the new and open web, these new Mozilla-backed applications can be built using HTML5 and Javascript, and developers can use the stable APIs, utilities, and documentation in this release to publish their app to users, or to create a web app store or directory. Users can review a gallery of user experience ideas and beta-quality versions of Firefox and Chrome add-ons that integrate the web app experience more tightly with the browser.

This all sounds like a good start to me, because I will tell you that while I am a fan of Chrome, when using web apps in the browser, the experience (IMHO) is almost identical to that of using a website. When I click on the app’s icon, it opens in a new tab, takes up the full page, and just opens the URL. In terms of front-end user experience, I’m left wondering why it was necessary to even download the app in the first place? (That being said, Chrome continues to add cool features like this to improve the overall usability of its web apps.) But, until the experience of a browser-based web app truly distinguishes itself (for the average non-techie) from that of visiting its sister website, it’s a zero sum game. This seems to be a big part of the reason why so many continue to prefer the experience of a native apps to that of web apps.

Web developers and designers are beholden to certain expectations when changing features of a company’s website that the designer of a company’s native app may not be. Take Facebook for example: every time the site’s profile template is changed or layout is toyed with, millions of people are up in arms, shouting for blood (myself included). With native apps, there are fewer expectations and strings attached — the canvas is essentially blank — so developers can start fresh and figure out how to optimize the best features of its website with the possibilities inherent in an app.

What’s cool about Mozilla’s conception of web apps is that they are now easier to find, launch and synchronize across mobile and desktop platforms — they can be grabbed and arranged with a single click and will hopefully keep my credit card information safe, while sharing information with other sites that is both safe and improves the experience of a web app in such a way that a traditional website could not.

The deeply integrated in-browser experience that will allow syncing of applications with mobile devices and native web browser and OS integration is still on the way (this primary release is really just aimed to familiarize developers with the platform’s capabilities). And considering Mozilla announced its final beta of Firefox 4 last week, it remains to be seen whether these features will make it into Firefox 4. Seeing as Firefox, unlike Chrome, is not the default browser on millions of Android devices, it had better make it in and it had better work well.

For developers, cross-platform fragmentation is a big problem when developing apps, requiring them to create different versions of the same app for different phones, different browsers, different OSes, and so on. Then trying to sync updates of an app across the various iterations? *Shudder*. In the case of web apps, if you have to use a specific browser to run a certain web app, then that app is by default a Chrome app or a Firefox app, etc. You’re locked in. Mozilla is resisting the Chrome web app paradigm — in which a web app is designed for a particular browser (Chrome) in a channel the proprietor controls — in the attempt to make the experience more packaged, wherein the user chooses the channel and the browser in which to run the app.

So, by giving developers the opportunity to create their own web app stores or publish apps directly to the user and, in turn, allowing users to use these apps on any device or desktop, the experience can hopefully become significantly more open. Though, knowing its many implications, I say “open” haltingly. Of course, Google has the advantage of its humungous cloud and, having created a better (speedier and less buggy, IMHO) user experience with Chrome, it will probably continue to be the more trusted source. Perhaps given time, Mozilla’s wonky idealism will prevail, but it still has a lot of ground to make up.

Check out the intro to the Web App Project below:

Why is Mozilla harshing on Internet Explorer 9 (PC Mag had a good review of it the other day)? The company’s tech evangelist, Paul Rouget, said in a recent blog post that Internet Explorer 9 isn’t a “truly modern” browser, specifically calling out its implementation of HTML5. I don’t understand why the average person couldn’t use both (along with Chrome and Opera) to browse the Web as they see fit, but let’s hear Rouget out for a bit.

Rouget takes issue with IE9′s implementation of HTML5, saying Microsoft new’s browser (which I’ve used here and there since it went beta, and it’s fine for casual browsing, although, incidentally, I’m sill a Firefox user at heart) actually doesn’t support 99 percent of the HTML5 spec. Expanding that further, Rouget illustrates that IE9 supports a whopping 61 percent of Web standards. Compare that to Firefox’s 87 percent.

Probably most damning, and probably not too far off the mark, is the claim that IE9 is some two years late, specifically with its use of the video tag and and the canvas tag, to say nothing of SVG support.

For the average end-user most of this is probably academic; I doubt many non-Web developers out there knows what the canvas tag is used for. (I had to look it up, for the record.)

Again, I don’t see why there has to be such a war of words between proponents of this browser and that. They’re all pretty decent, right? Most of the CG staff has migrated to Chrome over the past few years (I think I’m the last Firefox holdout), and I’ve been testing the waters with IE9 for the past week or so when I’m on my PC.

At the very least competition between the different browsers should result in a better browsing experience for the “just plain folks” out there, no?

In the never-ending Browser battle, speed is king. Browser A might be the prettiest, most secure one around — but if Browser B seems faster or more light weight, good ol’ Browser A is going to lose users in droves. This is especially true in the mobile world, where cellular network latency and the occasional peak-hour bandwidth bottleneck add precious seconds over the near-instant connectivity we’ve grown accustomed to.

It makes sense, then, that Mozilla’s latest beta of Firefox 4 for Android is all about the speed. In at least one test, this newest build is clocking in at just over 3X faster than the built-in browser.

Here’s the rundown:

• In the Kraken Javascript Benchmark, this latest Firefox 4 Beta is roughly 3X faster — but to be completely fair, Kraken is built by Mozilla.
• Even in the more commonly used SunSpider test, however, Firefox 4 comes in at speeds twice as fast
• Javascript speeds are great and all — but most people wouldn’t notice the few fractions of a second’s difference we’re talking about here. Fortunately, Mozilla’s also shaved off speed around start-up and general page load, and improved page panning fluidity, memory usage, and text rendering.

Furthermore, Mozilla’s talking up the fact that they’ve just surpassed 100 add-ons, with things like Ad Block Plus and a User Agent Switcher already in the stable. Of course, they don’t mention the one plug-in that the default browser has that Firefox for Android does not: Flash.

Ready to give it a spin? You can nab the latest Firefox for Android Beta by pointing your handset’s browser right over here.

First of all, let me say that I think it’s awesome that Google has finally created a simple solution to allow users to opt-out of advertising tracking. This new Chrome extension already seems like a much better idea than the somewhat convoluted controls or browser plug-ins that they’ve created in the past to placate government agencies and concerned users. It’s also great that Mozilla is taking the same steps — though I’m going to focus on Google here since their entire business revolves around ads. (Though I guess you could argue that Mozilla’s does indirectly as well since they’re business revolves around the revenue they get from Google.) And it’s even better that they’re open-sourcing the whole thing.

But let’s be honest here: this really doesn’t mean much of anything.

Depending on which stats you prefer, Google Chrome has about 10 percent of the total worldwide browser market share. Of those, a smaller percentage actually know what an extension is. Of those, a smaller percentage use them. Of those, a much smaller percentage are going to know what this opt-out extension is. And of those, an even smaller percentage are actually going to install it. (The same argument could be made for Firefox, as well.)

When all is said and done, a lot of people simply are not going to be opting-in to use this opt-out extension. Currently, the users/weekly installs numbers haven’t been tallied yet, but there are a whopping 11 ratings so far (all of which give it 5 out of 5 stars, as they should).

Again, that’s not to say Google shouldn’t be offering this tool. They absolutely should. But I just think we should be honest about what it really means: again, very little.

The types of users that are actually going to install this extension are users that have either already blocked or naturally block out online ads. These are not the users that butter Google’s bread. They’re not the masses that click on ads because they have no idea what they’re clicking on, or because they see some flashy keywords that appeal to them. These are the savvy users that generate little or no revenue for Google already.

As product managers Sean Harvey and Rajas Moonka note in their post on the Google Public Policy Blog (also interesting that this isn’t on the much more widely read Official Google Blog, no?):

Keep in mind that once you install the Keep My Opt-Outs extension, your experience of online ads may change: You may see the same ads repeatedly on particular websites, or see ads that are less relevant to you.

“Change” is Google’s subtle way of saying “get worse” here, obviously. And that’s probably true. I’ll certainly acknowledge that targeted ads actually are better than non-targeted ones which just flash junk you definitely don’t want in your face. And that’s apparently what you’re going to see if you use this extension. Well, unless you have an ad-blocker extension also installed. Which, again, if you know about this extension, there’s probably a pretty good chance you do.

The next paragraph is also interesting:

Importantly, we’ve designed the extension so that it should not otherwise interfere with your web browsing experience or website functionality. This new feature gives you significant control without compromising the revenue that fuels the web content that we all consume every day.

To me, that reads as if Google is saying: “Look, we recognize that those of you who will be installing this extension are not looking at or clicking on the ads anyway, but please remember that online ads fuel the entire web (and Google). Just go along with it. Don’t ruin this for everyone.”

Fair enough.

This opt-out extension is a great step. It’s just not a giant step. In reality, it will mean very litte. And Google knows it. That’s why they’re fine with doing it — with some nudging from the FTC. (Also note: that Google is doing this via an extension rather than building it directly into Chrome as an option.)

On the flip side, if this extension were to be installed on a massive scale, it could conceivably cripple Google’s entire empire. And if they thought that would happen, obviously, Google wouldn’t be so ready and willing to offer this up.

Yesterday evening, Mozilla announced that it would be blocking the Skype toolbar add-on in all versions of its Firefox browser.

While this concerns an impending ‘soft block’, meaning users will be able to re-enable the add-on if they choose to do so, Skype is keen to point out users should always install the most recent version of its desktop client in order to avoid compatibility issues.

The VoIP company also says they’re sorry about the problems, and are diligently working with the Mozilla crew to iron out any remaining issues as fast as possible.

The Skype Toolbar for Firefox, which comes bundled with the Skype client, is a browser extension that detects phone numbers in Web pages and re-renders them as clickable buttons, cutting shorter the time it takes for people to call those numbers using the Skype app.

Mozilla claims the current shipping version of the Skype Toolbar is one of the top crashers of Mozilla Firefox 3.6.13, was involved in almost 40,000 crashes of Firefox last week alone and could potentially make DOM manipulation up to 300 times slower (and thus significantly slow down the rendering of regular Web pages as well).

Skype’s official statement on the matter:

Based on our initial investigation, we know that downloading the new client will fix for most users any compatibility issues, and we are working with Mozilla to ensure that there are no other compatibility issues. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused our users.

Users can download the latest Skype client with the latest included Toolbars OR the latest toolbar installer itself is here.