Firefox3.5/Messaging

Overall

Firefox 3.5 is the browser that just keeps getting better and better. Faster, more secure, etc.

End-user

Main end-user features:

• Private browsing mode
• Awesomebar privacy options and view options
• Windows XP + Vista updates
• Performance: fastest JavaScript performance (via TraceMonkey)

Adding consumer/end-user Firefox 3.5 Launch objectives, strategies & tactics (11/11)

1. Objectives:

• Drive consumer awareness, trial and adoption of Firefox 3.5
• Position latest as superior alternative and promote browser choice
• Opportunity to promote mozilla mission vs. pure feature differentiation

2. Strategies:

• Leverage tech press and bloggers to raise awareness among core user base;
• Target new audience segment via acquisition campaign;
• Roll-out new site enhancements to drive conversion and engagement;
• Identify a key partner for consumer-facing co-marketing activity;

3. Tactics:

• Proactive PR outreach to targeted top-tier journalists /bloggers;
• Refresh SEM and online banner campaign [key message may be performance];
• Refresh online site content/elements on mozilla.com (primary download channel) and localize content into 45+ locales (tbd)
• Launch “Thank You” campaign to showcase community participation (tbd)
• Community outreach via core channels (SFx, Affiliates, Reps) and social media (Twitter, FB, Digg, Mozilla blogs)

Mozilla.com pages to be updated / refreshed include:

• Home page promo: http://www.mozilla.com [localized]
• Firefox Download page: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
• What’s new page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0.4/whatsnew/
• Features page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/features/
• Tips & Tricks: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/tips/
• Video page: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/
• New – video examples, updated tutorials + feature screencasts [to-do w/ Blizzard]
• Download instructions: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.0.3&os=osx&lang=en-US
• First Run page: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0.3/firstrun/
• Getting Started: http://en-us.www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/central/
• Press Reviewer’s Guide: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/kit.html
• Press Image library: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/images.html
• Logo Guide: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/about/logo/
• Start Page snippet + online channels (“get it now”)on SFx, Twitter, Facebook, etc
• SUMO > update home page links + knowledge base: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+Support+Home+Page

Developers

Main features for web developers:

• Video and Audio
• Geolocation
• Worker Threads
• CSS-SVG / External resource loading
• Native JSON
• Performance improvements for JS and DOM via TraceMonkey

Page for all features: Firefox 3.5 for Developers

Beta 1

• Delivery date approx Oct 15th. Code frozen now.

• Some developer features complete, many not done yet.

• Geolocation backend questions
  • How do we set up a static backend?
  • Do we have any examples, other than this?
  • Have to describe how this is different than geode
  • https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8420 - install to have a static geolocation static source
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_geolocation
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/en/nsIGeolocationProvider
  • whatismygeolocation.com to figure out what your location is
  • http://www.meer.net/~dougt/gps_test.html
  • http://www.meer.net/~dougt/flickr.html

• @font-face
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/index.php?title=En/CSS/%40font-face
  • Includes live sample
  • Only from same-origin (no support for document.domain)
  • Will eventually use access controls (i.e. cross-site xhr)

• Video/Audio is OGG-only
  • will add more backends, might be in 3.5 but likely to wait until after.
  • some unimplemented features as documented.
  • http://tinyvid.tv/ as example site
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/En/HTML/Element/Video
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/En/HTML/Element/audio

• XHR Progress
  • Now implement upload progress events
  • http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/progress/Progress.html
  • Old list of events:
  • 3.0: progress, uploadprogress, load, abort, error
  • 3.5: loadstart, progress, load, abort, error (uploadprogress still there but deprecated)
  • all those events are fired on the XHR.upload property and fire for the uploading
  • Demo of new features: http://mozilla.pettay.fi/xhr_upload/xhr_upload_demo.html
  • Could do this with the old uploadprogress event, but was non-standard, gave bad data about sizes (included headers, etc) and was tricky to use for starts and stops.

• XHR cross-site access control
  • http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/access-control/
  • Missing support for some redirects, but will be fixed in beta2

• TraceMonkey testing via config
  • http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/08/tracemonkey_javascript_lightsp.html
  • Have to set the javascript.options.jit.content preferences to on.
  • Where to file bugs?

Beta 2

• New stable platform for converting add-ons
  • addons page for developers - need something in there first

• Worker Threads standard still shifting, only very slightly.
  • http://developer.mozilla.org/web-tech/2008/09/04/web-workers-part-1/
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/web-tech/2008/12/04/web-workers-part-2/
  • Currently implemented in beta 2: https://wiki.mozilla.org/DOMWorkerThreads_current
  • Full standard: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-workers/current-work/
  • Sheppy still needs to document, trying to get info from bent + others.
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_DOM_workers

• l10n: Seth says that 54 languages could be participating in Beta 2.

• Video/Audio
  • Seeking works now, including rough duration
  • Metavid, wikipedia, other partners
  • .wav files now work for <audio>

• TraceMonkey

• Private Browsing mode
  • http://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2008-11-04/dont-leave-trace-private-browsing-firefox
  • "Diamond Ring Mode"
  • Talk about other use cases (from beltzner)
  • Looking for another job
  • Story from Alex about b-day present being spoiled
  • Shopping in general
  • Kiosks, coffee nets, schools, etc.
    • What's a coffee net? A cafe?
      • Transliteration of the word we have for this in Persian (doh!). I guess it's called Internet cafe? Where people who don't have Internet connection sit and use the web on a pay-per-hour basis...

• DNS pre-fetching
  • http://bitsup.blogspot.com/2008/11/dns-prefetching-for-firefox.html

• font-face
  • Don't know if we're using access control yet - ask jdagget
  • Still not done on Linux.

• XHR cross-site access control
  • Did redirects get fixed?
  • Changes in the last couple of weeks
  • Need to get a rundown
  • Need some links on how to do this in php/django/other
  • http://ejohn.org/blog/the-march-of-access-control/
  • [1] DevMo documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/HTTP_Access_Control
  • [2] DevMo documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Server-Side_Access_Control
  • [3] Working Code Snippets: http://arunranga.com/examples/access-control/
  • [4] Old DevMo documentation: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Cross-Site_XMLHttpRequest

Beta 3

• Native JSON
  • http://starkravingfinkle.org/blog/2008/02/extension-developers-native-json-parsing/
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/En/JSON
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_JSON_in_Firefox
  • http://blog.mozilla.com/webdev/2009/02/12/native-json-in-firefox-31/

• Access Control Spec
  • Some changes from Jonas + Arun - need to be ironed out

• Web Workers changes
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/web-tech/2009/01/05/web-workers-part-3/

• CSS + SVG

• Offline Apps stuff for 3.5?
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Offline_resources_in_Firefox
  • Spec: http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/offline.html#offline
  • DOM Storage too

• Support for .otf downloadable fonts?

• media queries: https://developer.mozilla.org/En/CSS/Media_queries