The explosion of personalized web has pretty much clobbered online privacy to its death bed. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, someone or the other is tracking your surfing habits. The worst part is that this practice has become so rampant that most of us have come to accept online tracking as standard affair. Mozilla has been trying to tackle the problem of behavioural tracking on the web for quite some time. Couple of years back, it introduced the “Do Not Track” header, which has already been adopted by Internet Explrer, Safari, and Opera. Now, Mozilla has released an experimental add-on to showcase how personal data is being tracked across the web.

Earlier this month, Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, unveiled Collusion. Collusion is a Firefox extension that visualizes the spider-web of interaction between websites and third-party trackers that often track you without your explicit permission. Collusion is essentially a reporting tool whose purpose is to make netizens realize just how grave the situation is. Here’s how my Collusion graph after a brief ten minute browsing session involving Techie-Buzz, TechCrunch, Mashable, and BBC.

My Collusion graph is peppered with third-party tracking website that I never explicitly browsed to. Personalized web isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can increase engagement, reduce user frustration, and improve productivity. However, the mad rush of advertisers to track users without their knowledge and permission is something that is deeply worrying. Kovacs very righty remarked that “with every click of the mouse and every touch of the screen, we are like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs of our personal information everywhere we travel through the digital woods”.

[ Download Collusion for Firefox ]

Mozilla had been attempting to create a perfect mobile browser for Android for too long now. Its Firefox for Android has always been sloppy with a laggy user interface and bugs all over it. For this reason, I have always preferred Opera Mobile on my Android phone, though, the latest Firefox beta for Android is set to change this. It is snappier, extremely responsive and it will blow your mind. It is a vast improvement over the default featureless Android browser and finally, it looks like Firefox is geared up to compete with leading Android browsers like Opera Mini, Chrome and Dolphin HD.

This latest beta version of Firefox is reported to support more devices than earlier, and it also boasts of performance improvements like faster scrolling, optimized memory usage and of course faster browsing! All in all, the once loathed Firefox for Android has managed to impressed everyone and frankly speaking, I too am sold!

Most of these performance improvements in the latest Firefox beta can be attributed to a new responsive UI, which is using the Android native UI instead of the earlier XUL based UI developed by Mozilla. The addition of a default Flash plugin in the latest beta received mixed reactions. Nonetheless, it is an item in the feature inventory. Text rendering, and panning and zooming have also been improved a lot. Here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

There are still some unimplemented features in this beta version, like text reflow, selecting text etc. I call them unimplemented features because they should appear in any latest mobile browser, and this one is a beta, so it gets the benefit of doubt.

Grab the latest Firefox for Android beta at this page on the Google Play store. Read more about the latest Firefox beta on the Mozilla blog.

You install Firefox on your freshly minted computer. Everything is great for a while. Firefox loads up in seconds, web pages open in a snap, and everything works. But then, over time, Firefox starts acting up. It gets slower and slower. Things that used to work stops working. Sudden freeze-ups and crashes begin appearing. I am sure this is something many of you have personally experienced. As our Firefox profile begins accumulating clutter, the performance and stability of Firefox takes a hit. This might be due to a toolbar you unknowingly installed, or some extension that has a memory leak bug. The thing is that finding out the root cause is both time consuming and frustrating.

In order to make things simpler, Mozilla is adding a magical reset button to Firefox. The new option will be available under about:support (accessible via Help –> Troubleshooting Information). Clicking on this button will create a new profile with default settings, which will hopefully solve your performance issues. Firefox will also copy over your browsing history, cookies, saved form history, saved passwords, and bookmarks. This means that you will essentially have a fresh install of Firefox, but with all of your personal data intact.

The biggest drawback of the reset feature is its location. It’s buried deep within Firefox, and is practically impossible to discover. To counter this problem, Mozilla is currently thinking about prompting the user to reset Firefox after it crashes for the third time. It is also exploring the possibility of giving Windows users this option when they are reinstalling Firefox.

As you must have heard by now, Mozilla is furious. The non-profit organization behind Firefox is angry because Microsoft is practically making it impossible to develop third party browsers for Windows 8 for ARM through artificially imposed restrictions. A short while back, even Google backed Mozilla and expressed its concern about Windows 8 restricting “user choice and innovation”. My colleague Paul Paliath has already weighed in on the debate. While he believes Mozilla’s complaint is baseless, I am not quite so sure.

Before proceeding any further, let’s delve a little deeper into the technicalities involved. With Windows 8, Microsoft is introducing an entirely new class of applications. These applications will run in Metro mode, and will be built using the WinRT API. The Windows applications that we are accustomed with are all built using the Win32 API. Now, Microsoft isn’t exactly killing the Win32 API. Windows 8 for x86 (desktops) will continue to offer a classic mode, which will be capable of running all Win32 applications. However, if an app wants to run in Metro mode it has to use the new WinRT API. The trouble is that in an attempt to make WinRT power efficient, fast, and secure Microsoft ended up making it way too restrictive. Due to this, several classes of modern applications can’t be developed by leveraging WinRT alone. In order to skirt around this significant roadblock, Microsoft created a third category of applications. This category of applications have a frontend developed using WinRT, but they can also leverage the power of the Win32 API. In other words, they look like Metro apps, but offer the power and flexibility of a traditional Windows app. Unfortunately, on ARM devices, the only apps which will be allowed to leverage both WinRT and Win32 APIs are apps from Microsoft. Paul is right in saying that Microsoft isn’t specifically targeting browsers. In one fell swoop Microsoft has put all third party apps at a significant disadvantage. Whether it be office suites, media players, or browsers – all apps will have a hard time matching products from the Redmond giant as they will practically be running on two different operating systems. To make matters worse, Windows 8 for ARM won’t allow third party apps to run as pure classic apps either. Asa Dotzler explained the trouble faced by browser developers quite succinctly.

Microsoft has made it clear that the third category won’t exist on Windows for ARM (unless you’re Microsoft) and that neither will the first category (unless you’re Microsoft.) That means that IE on ARM has access to win32 APIs — even when it’s running in Metro mode, but no other Metro browser has that same access. Without that access, no other browser has a prayer of being competitive with IE.

You might be wondering exactly what kind of restrictions does WinRT impose that makes it impossible to develop a competent browser. Here’s an example – WinRT doesn’t allow translation of code at runtime. This is something absolutely critical for a technique called JIT (Just-in-time compilation). You might have heard of JIT before, as over the past few years, all browsers have been using JIT to deliver astounding improvements in JavaScript rendering speed. Lack of JIT will instantly push a browser back by several years. Keep in mind that this is just one example. Modern browsers are pushing the limits of what is possible within a browser. With the restrictive sandbox offered by WinRT, many of the bleeding edge features offered by modern browsers can’t be implemented in WinRT.

Mozilla has already issued thinly veiled threats of legal action, and considering that Windows 8 is pretty much done, the threat of another anti-trust ruling is the only thing that can realistically make Microsoft change its mind. However, is Microsoft really abusing its monopolistic position to crush competition? The answer is trickier than you might think.

Social photo-sharing and bookmarking website Pinterest has become quite a rage. Just last month, it overtook Google Plus to become the third most popular social network (behind Facebook and Twitter). Much of the success of Pinterest can be attributed to it’s simple but intuitive user interface (UI). Now, by using a simple userscript, you can skin your Google Plus stream to look like Pinterest.

Pinterest UI for Google+ is currently only available as a Greasemonkey script for Firefox; however, Chrome support is on its way. The script reformats Google+ into a multi-column grid layout ala Pinterest. It is designed for screen resolutions larger than 1024×768. On smaller screens, the script will automatically disable itself. The layout is completely fluid and adjusts to the resolution and browser window size. The new Google+ layout received a lot of flak for wasting enormous amounts of screen real-estate. This script solves that issue by making use of the entire screen width. It ensures that there is always at least three columns. When your screen is not wide enough, the posts are “compressed” into a smaller size to fit the screen width. Here’s how my stream looks with the Pinterest UI installed.

One of Google Plus’ strong points it is media integration. Large thumbnails, tight coupling with YouTube, and support for GIF animations lends it an edge over Facebook. As a result, pictures and videos often constitute a sizable portion of the Google+ activity stream. Pinterest interface for Google+ is ideally suited for circles in which a lot of media is being shared. It’s a bit messy for sure, but it also has its own advantages.

[ Download Pinterest UI for Google+ Greasemonkey Script ]

Mozilla designers have been pretty busy in the recent past. Mozilla introduced a significant user interface overhaul with Firefox 4, which received somewhat mixed reviews. Since then, Mozilla has periodically tweaked the interface to address many of the complaints. Now, a little more than a year after Firefox 4 was released, Mozilla is gearing up for another significant redesign.

Mozilla’s Stephen Horlander is working on a new design called “Australis” that will unify Firefox’s appearance across platforms and form factors. This includes Firefox for desktop (Windows, Unix, and Mac), Firefox for Android (phones and tablets), and Boot2Gecko.

The most distinctive features of Australis are soft textures, smooth curves, and a streamlined experience. Here’s how Firefox is expected to look in Windows, Mac, and Unix respectively.

As you can see, the tab strip has been redesigned in accordance with Australis’ design principles, and the menu button has been overhauled. It has now been merged with the address bar, and features a completely reworked layout.

Firefox for Mobile already looks a lot like the Australis mockups. It will be tweaked further to bring it in close alignment with its desktop counterpart.

We also know that Mozilla is working on a Metro compatible version of Firefox for Windows 8. Development on that still has a long way to go, but the mockups suggest that Firefox for Metro will look a lot like Firefox for Android tablets.

Although the frequent redesigns might irk some users, it’s hard to not get excited about the Australis mockups. The new design is modern, beautiful, and minimal. You can get a taste of the new Firefox design with the Australis theme that is already available in the Firefox add-on repository. Don’t forget to chime in with your take on the planned Firefox redesign.

SPDY has seen a major push yesterday, with Firefox finally making the move to SPDY. The latest beta of Firefox 13 arrived with SPDY enabled by default and this makes SPDY a primary candidate in the world of application layer protocols. Besides Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome are the two major browsers by market share. While Google Chrome has shipped with SPDY for a long time now, although Firefox had SPDY present from version 11 onwards, it was turned off by default. Finally, after a series of bug fixes, SPDY has made it to the latest beta of Firefox 13.

Apart from SPDY, Firefox 13 will have major behind-the-scene changes and some long-awaited UI changes too. The latest release of Firefox version 13 brings the much awaited speed dial, which is a necessity for any modern browser. Firefox 13 will also turn on smooth scrolling and on-demand tab loading, when opening tabs from a saved session.

When Google announced SPDY for the first time, it was unclear whether it would catch up with the well-established HTTP protocol. SPDY was invited to be a part of the new HTTP standard and things were off to a promising slow start. However, Google has also taken the alternate path, by marking a presence on major browsers first, and then creating a lock-in situation so that it ends up as a web-standard anyway. Nevertheless, to survive the competition with a rapidly developing browser like Google Chrome, Firefox has to improve on speed, and SPDY will be a good start.

The release notes for the latest beta can be found at this page.

According to a study conducted by New Relic which measures browser speeds on both mobile and desktop platforms, Internet Explorer 9 takes the cake for the fastest browsing experience on Windows with load times of around 3 seconds, while Firefox 14.0 and Chrome 17 tied at 3.5. Safari for Windows 5.1 took 4 seconds to load the same page.

On the Mac side, Chrome is the winner with Chrome 13 reporting load times of 2.4. Chrome 19 on the other time has load times of around 2.7, tying it with Safari 5.1. In the survey, a total of 7 Chrome versions were tested. Firefox 11 for Mac took 2.8 seconds.

The mobile browser speed results are quite interesting. Apparently, Blackberries are in fact good for one thing; BlackBerry Opera Mini 6.5 took around 2.6 seconds to load pages, compared to Safari (iPad) 5.1′s load time of 5 seconds, and Safari (iPhone) 5.0′s load time of 6.2 seconds. The load time for Safari (iPhone) 5.1 was around 6.6 seconds. Opera Mobile 12 for Android’s load time was around 7.3 seconds.

The study was conducted in March 2012 over the course of one week, in which New Relic surveyed and measured the speed of 5 billion global page loads across PC and mobile browsers.

In conclusion, here’s a statistical tidbit: This year’s average page load is 5.5 seconds, compared to last year’s time of 6 seconds.

With all the recent changes in the web technology stack and the advancements in web-browsers, third-party plugins are becoming a thing of the past. A decade ago, Adobe thrived on a business, which was based around providing an extra layer on top of the web. Adobe provided us with PDF readers and flash for web. However, with HTML 5, videos do no need a flash container to run inside a browser. When it comes to PDF files, Google Chrome has already devised a way to display PDF files in a web browser and now, Firefox has deployed its own solution to display PDF files in the browser.

PDF.js is a well-known script that renders PDF files with HTML and JavaScript successfully. It can be installed as an extension. However, the good news is that the latest nightly version of Firefox 14 ships with PDF.js built in. This is a major improvement as it adds a default PDF support in Firefox. Although the PDF rendering from Pdf.js is not as smooth as Adobe Reader, it is worth the freedom.

Dr. Andreas Gal, the Director of research t Mozilla writes about the benefits of the PDF.js extension, saying,

The traditional approach to rendering PDFs in a browser is to use a native-code plugin, either Adobe’s own PDF Reader or other commercial renderers, or some open source alternative (e.g. poppler). From a security perspective, this enlarges the trusted code base, and because of that, Google’s Chrome browser goes through quite some pain to sandbox the PDF renderer to avoid code injection attacks. An HTML5-based implementation is completely immune to this class of problems.

Adobe plugin have attracted security vulnerabilities for too long, and with Flash losing ground, finally, we are moving towards a truly open web without any proprietary layers on top of it. The PDF.js project is developed openly and can be found on Github.

Today, Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 11, the next version of the popular web browser. The new version brings in quite a lot of new features for end users and web developers alike.

For the end user, Firefox 11 introduces add-on sync. Add-on sync uses Firefox’s built-in sync feature to ensure that all your Firefox installations are in sync with the installed Firefox add-ons, in addition to the bookmarks, open tabs, history and passwords.

Add-on sync has been a much-requested feature and personally, I’ve been resisting from moving away from Chrome to Firefox for the sole reason that sync is such a seamless and painless experience in Chrome, as compared to Firefox. Another feature Mozilla’s brought in, no doubt targeting Chrome users, is the the ability to import browsing data – including Cookies, Bookmarks and Browsing History from Chrome. Till this release, such an import was possible only from Internet Explorer.

For web developers, Firefox 11 brings in a new Style Editor allowing for on-the-fly-editing of stylesheets. The Style Editor features a two-pane UI, with the file listing on the left and the plain-text editor on the right. The plain-text editor also features syntax highlighting to make it easier.

Firefox 11 also features a new 3D vizualization of the webpage’s DOM tree. Initially introduced as an add-on called Tilt, the 3d visualizer makes use of WebGL to build a multi-layer representation of the webapge’s DOM tree. While it looks gimmicky, it might help few people who’ve been trying to analyze and fix the annoying layout bugs.

For Enterprise users, Mozilla will backport security fixes in the current version of Firefox to a separate point patch, as part of Mozilla’s Extended Support Release proposal.

What’s in the future?

The current version of Firefox brings in preliminary support for SPDY, Google’s alternative for the HTTP protocol. Future releases will undoubtedly improve upon SPDY support. Upcoming releases of Firefox will make addon compatibility less of a hassle. Previously, add-on authors would have to manually update their add-ons when a new version of Firefox was released. Mozilla’s proposal to move to a rapid release schedule caused a lot of anguish to developers and end users alike. Going forward, Mozilla will make all-ons compatible with Firefox 4 and higher, automatically enabled.

Firefox 13 is expected to bring in silent updates – all updates will be automatically & silently downloaded in background and will not be interrupted if the browser is shutdown.

From the Gecko platform point of view, Mozilla will bring in support for a whole lot of new web technologies, including

• WebRTC for real time audio & video conferencing
• Web Sockets will be completed to match the W3C specs. Incidentally, Mozilla has dropped prefixes for Websockets starting from this release of Firefox
• SPDY, HTTP Pipe lining and HTTP Pre-connections
• DASH and WebM support
• Support for key input in fullscreen mode
• Possible support for H.264 & MP3 decoding using codecs present on the OS

Download links

Firefox should automatically update your Firefox to the newest version soon. You can also download the latest version from Mozilla’s website.