Technomaly » Firefox

Add Social Media to Gmail with Rapportive

J. Matthew Zoss — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:06:17 +0000

I can’t say that I really notice the Google ads when I’ve got my Gmail inbox open, but if there was another option I’d certainly get rid of them. But wait! Now there’s a better way! Firefox and Chrome plugin Rapportive replaces those ads with the social media contacts of the person you’re emailing, so rather than looking at a bunch of text links for bondage and domination services or sausage factories, you get a nice picture of your friend and some links to their online presence. You obviously need a Gmail account to make this work, but Rapportive doesn’t record your password or other info, so you can set those privacy concerns aside.

I get a lot of business emails in my Gmail account, which often comes from email addresses tied to no social networking accounts, so in those cases Rapportive tends to come up empty. But even a blank space is nicer to look at than a bunch of ugly text links.

Story and Image via Lifehacker

Firefox’s Mobile Browser “Fennec” For Android

Asterios Kokkinos — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:17 +0000

Hey, I’m using Firefox right now. I like Firefox. I think Firefox is pretty great. So it only stands to reason that I’ll also be into “Fennec,” which is Firefox’s mobile version of its veritable, hard charging browser.

Better news? It was recently spotted running on Android, my current favorite mobile operating system. This wasn’t always going to be the case – for a while, it looked like Mozilla wouldn’t put Fennec on Android because Google was going to force the program to run on the Dalvik virtual platform instead of natively on Android, a sentence which is gobbeldygook to me but will likely make sense to you, the reading public. Google relented, allowing Fennec to run natively.

At the time, Mozilla was only working on Fennec for Nokia & Windows Mobile.

Looking forward to Fennec on your iPhone? Well don’t! Mozilla’s not bothering, as they believe it’d be blocked by Apple, who would probably block it faster than a photo of a girl in a bikini. God knows they’re protective and fickle about what can or can’t run on their precious iPhone.

Source & Photo Source: PCWorld

Firefox Release Candidate 3.6 Available For Download

Asterios Kokkinos — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:04:32 +0000

Today, Mozilla made Firefox Release Candidate 3.6 available for download. You can download a copy here.

So what’s new in this version of Firefox? According to Mozilla, a faster JavaScript engine, themes, open video, audio, and font standards and suport for location-aware websites.

What’s a “release candidate?” Well, according to PC World, a release candidate in this case means it’s out of beta, and stable for everyday use, but isn’t completely finished. Mozilla cites 70 fixes from the beta in Release Candidate 3.6, and goes on to say that when 3.6 Final is done, your browser will automatically update with it.

So, let’s see how many tabs I can open at once without it crashing. I’m running OSX 10.5.8, 1.33 GHz G4 with 1.25 GB ram.

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I’ve downloaded & installed the Release Candidate, and opened a little over 50 tabs at once. The new Firefox holds up nicely. There’s no lag in this Wordpress page I’m using, my gMail’s fine…not bad, Firefox!