Firefox 4 to leverage the browser possibilities
Mozilla plans to push out the edges of the browser with Prism and Weave in Firefox 4. The next Firefox will provide with an even more powerful and pervasive platform for all kinds of applications.
According to Chris Beard, VP of Labs for Mozilla the browser concept hasn't fundamentally changed in 10 years. Mozilla Lab's push is to blur the edges of the browser, to make it both more tightly integrated with the computer it's running on, and also more hooked into Web services. At the moment, these are two separate projects Mozilla is running to push out the edges of the browser: Prism toward the desktop and Weave to the Internet.
Beard believes the new browser to be more
intelligent on behalf of its users. Early examples of this intelligence
include the "awesome bar," which is what Mozilla calls the new smart
address bar in Firefox 3. It offers users smart URL suggestions as they
type based on Web searches and their prior Web browsing history. He's
looking to extend on this with a "linguistic user interface" that lets
users type plain English commands into the browser bar. Beard pointed
towards Quicksilver and Enso as products he's cribbing from.
In Firefox 3 the basis has been found. It has a new transactional
database that stores user preferences and favorites. However, it won't
be used for cross-browser syncing in version3. Firefox 3 users will, though, experience some online services
being fed into their browser. For example, Mozilla will update all
running browsers every 30 minutes with malware signatures, to stave off
drive-by downloads and phishing scams.
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