Firefox 3, Beta 4, Enhancements 900, Tested 5
By Davey Winder in Editorial
I’m a sucker for risking it all and installing beta software, especially when its my favourite browser client Firefox. OK, so I don’t install this stuff on a business critical machine, it goes on the test lappy instead. Which is exactly where Firefox 3, Beta 4 has been for the last 24 hours or so. Now I cannot claim hand on heart to have experienced all 900 claimed enhancements that this release brings, but I thought I might share my views on the few that I have noticed.
First and foremost there’s the memory issue, you know that one whereby Firefox has traditionally had something of a problem with letting go. This presents itself in a not so wonderful propensity to keep using more and more memory the more you use it, and not give it back when you close windows etc. Memory bloat is a terrible thing, especially on a Vista driven laptop which has enough trouble keeping up as it is. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Mozilla developers have kept to their word and done something about it. Claiming to have plugged hundreds of memory leaks, the team have certainly done something as it does not slow down as quickly as it used to and memory fragmentation seems noticeably reduced.
But it was the security stuff that I most naturally and most quickly gravitated towards, from the neat ability to integrate with your AV scanner and show the results inside the new download manager, through to being able to click on a favicon in the toolbar to get details of an Extended Validation SSL certificate if the site is using one. Hit the more button next to the verification data and you can view cookies and passwords associated with your site usage and even configure image loading and pop-up capability. Nice. As is the built-in warning of potential danger from sites known to host malware. I should be pleased that Firefox will now automatically disable older and unsafe extensions, but in practise I am not because some older extensions are useful and not inherently unsafe as long as you are cautious in your usage. Oh well.
Best of all, it has not crashed my Vista laptop once, has been noticeably quicker than previous versions and all bides well for the final release whenever that may appear…
Rated: 100% (3 votes)
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Are you a thieving Firefox user?
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Firefox on
I am not going to suggest that advertising revenue is not important in the overall web business model scheme of things, for a huge swathe of such enterprises it is vital. But suggesting that using ad-blocking technology within your web browser client is tantamount to theft is just daft. Not as daft as blocking anyone who uses the Firefox client because it comes with some rather effective ad-blocking technology built in, mind you, but daft nonetheless. The fact that one site has done both is shockingly stupid.
Take a look at whyfirefoxisblocked.com and you’ll see what I mean. Sure, it could all be some kind of elaborate hoax. Reverse psychology marketing perhaps, suggesting that Firefox users are the scum of the earth and detailing a (very primitive) way of blocking access to them, all to stir up media attention and get some free advertising (no pun intended) for the Mozilla browser.
Somehow, I doubt it though. I am inclined to lean more towards it being a genuinely ridiculous campaign by the hard of thinking. And here is why…
“Software that blocks all advertisement is an infringement of the rights of web site owners and developers” claims the site, continuing “accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing.” OK, they have a point so far, and the ethical approach would be not to visit a site and make use of that content if you are unwilling to take the advert rendering alongside. Indeed, this is pretty much what I practice. If a site provides quality content, gives me access to a resource that is valuable, then I will happily put up with some unobtrusive advertising. IT Pro falls nicely into this category as far as I am concerned. I disable ad-blocking on a site-by-site basis where I believe the content deserves it. However, where a site is geared towards feeding me adverts, filling their coffers in the process but without any worthwhile content or user experience alongside then the adverts are blocked. That is called freedom of choice, and unless there is a specific legal requirement which stipulates I must not block ads in order to access the site, I don’t think I am doing anything wrong.
Then again, I don’t think that site owners who try and prevent access by people using blocking software is wrong either. Naïve possibly, but perfectly acceptable nonetheless. Which is where the ‘whyfirefoxisblocked’ people come in, with the crux of their argument being that AdBlockPlus prevents web developers from blocking access to its users, so the only option is to block Firefox.
This is where naïvety turns into stupidity.
Not only is it a case of cutting of ones nose to spite the face, but it won’t work anyway. Firefox users can easily install a user agent switcher to fool the site into thinking it it IE accessing it. The real answer here is to design a site where the balance between advertising and content is such that users are not annoyed by one and disappointed by the other.
Actually, scrap that. It all turned to stupidity as soon as it was suggested that by using an ad blocker you were in effect stealing from the publisher. That’s like suggesting you shouldn’t fast forward through the adverts using a Sky+ recorded version of a TV programme, or switch to another radio station when the ads come on. Unethical perhaps, stealing never in a million years…
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