Firefox learns to share, again

Firefox learns to share, again Seth Rosenblatt by Seth Rosenblatt October 28, 2011 12:38 PM PDT * comments 4 * * * * inShare0 * More o Email o Facebook o Twitter o LinkedIn o Digg o Print o Delicious o Reddit o Stumbleupon o Google Bookmarks Firefox Share brings a new take on sharing to the browser. (Credit: Mozilla) If at first you can't learn your social skills, try, try again. At least, that's what the Mozilla Foundation is doing. Following the demise of the first Firefox initiative to bring a more modern range of social sharing to the browser, Mozilla has released today its second attempt in early alpha called Firefox Share (download). Mozilla has lofty plans for Firefox Share. Along the same lines as the Firefox Weave add-on that later became the default-shipping feature known as Sync, Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of products, told CNET during a meeting at the company's new San Francisco offices on Wednesday that Mozilla wants to bake Firefox Share directly into the browser. "It's a new sharing option based off of F1, with the same team, but learning from the F1 experience," he said. F1 was the add-on first released about a year ago through the Mozilla Labs sub-group within the Mozilla organization. Even though Mozilla prefers to rely on add-ons to expand the browser's feature set, sharing was a no-brainer, said Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's Director of Firefox Engineering. "We're doing it because we feel it's such a common thing to do today." Like F1, Firefox Share is a restartless add-on, which means that installing it won't require a Firefox reboot. It appears on the right edge of your location bar as a paper airplane. Click the icon and you get a drop-down that asks you to log into one of three accounts: Twitter, Facebook, or Gmail. So right there, there's been a drop in share options as the add-on has been re-architected. LinkedIn, Google Apps, Yahoo, and multiple accounts per service have been abandoned for now, although Mozilla said in its blog post announcing the new add-on that it plans on bringing them back. The company also noted that Firefox Share will take on the default style of the operating system that the browser is running on, which means that if you're on Windows, it will look native to Windows, and so on with Mac and Linux. The way that the add-on works under the hood has changed, too. F1 was powered by a stateless server as a proxy to communicate between service providers and the browser, "because it was faster," said the Mozilla blog post. Firefox Share, on the other hand, is built on a client-side-only solution where the browser talks directly to the service provider. This was done to avoid having to use Mozilla servers while eliminating some potential security issues. In some brief hands-on testing, the add-on worked about as well as you'd expect an alpha add-on to work. The core functionality was there. Authentication was simple, and it was easy to jump from sharing in Twitter to sharing in Facebook. Direct message contact selection on the Twitter side appeared to be broken for me, although that's not surprising for an alpha. Firefox has faced a number of growing challenges in the past few years, such as exploding interest in competing browsers like Chrome and on mobile devices, convincing its die-hard fans and businesses that a rapid-release cycle would benefit all, and maintaining a renewed emphasis on performance and stability. Dedicated, integrated social sharing would certainly be one thing that could help set it apart on a feature level, although, as with all things browser, it's rarely about who's first, but who does it best. Seth Rosenblatt Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to, including browsers and security on Windows, Mac, and Android. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2, although let's face it: there are far scarier things out there besides long-dead operating systems. For instance, take the rumored Angry Birds/FarmVille crossover app... Topics: Browsers and extensions, Mac Software, Windows Software Tags: Mozilla, Share, Firefox, add-on Popular headlines The zombie apocalypse is here Do not track, online ads, and the end of anonymity Cat out of the bag? Apple testing Mac OS X 10.8 Adding image effects on iOS Add Halloween fun to your Android for free Kids won't do chores? There's an app for that Latest Tech News CTO for HP's PC unit announces retirement China launches unmanned capsule for key docking test South Korea fines six LCD makers for price fixing Copyright bill controversy grows as rhetoric sharpens Urban Airship to acquire SimpleGeo P2P marketplaces: Reach out and hire someone Space beer a step closer to coming right up Some app makers hope to scare the hell out of you 4 comments Join the conversation!Add your comment (Log in or register) Comments 1-4 of 4 Fine, as long as they keep it in their add-on pants. Posted by GlennAllen (418 comments ) October 28, 2011 1:23 PM (PDT) Like Reply Link Flag E-mail it's an add-on for now, and later it will be built-in, as was the case for "weave", which beecame "SYNC", and the idea for "F1" too (F1 was to be baken in once successful). having it as an add-on is simply their way of testing it before baking it straight in. Posted by p3ngwin (8 comments ) October 28, 2011 2:16 PM (PDT) Like Link Flag E-mail There had better be a way to shut the hell off entirely if it's baked-in. Posted by QMT (444 comments ) October 28, 2011 3:50 PM (PDT) Like Link Flag E-mail I agree completely with the thoughts of GlennAllen and QMT. Posted by BurnInMyLight (16 comments ) October 30, 2011 11:40 AM (PDT) Like (1) Link Flag E-mail I 'like' it. Ba dom tish. Thanks for the tip cnet! Posted by shinyflu (73 comments ) October 29, 2011 3:37 AM (PDT) Like (2) Reply Link Flag E-mail firefox has always been and will always be a 3rd rate IE they will never be able to surpass IE total waste of time Posted by izzy2112 (4 comments ) October 30, 2011 1:22 AM (PDT) Like (1) Reply Link Flag E-mail Please Izzy keep your IE fanboy gushing out of here. This is a great little addition to a great browser. Comments like this one are pure spam. Posted by Lance B (4 comments ) October 30, 2011 6:56 PM (PDT) Like Link Flag E-mail thank's Posted by mailituismail (2 comments ) October 30, 2011 10:14 AM (PDT) Like (1) Reply Link Flag E-mail Comments 1-4 of 4 Join the conversation Log in or create an account to post a comment, or quickly sign in with: Comment Add your comment The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use. Comment reply Submit Cancel The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use. Report offensive content: If you believe this comment is offensive or violates the CNET's Site Terms of Use, you can report it below (this will not automatically remove the comment). Once reported, our staff will be notified and the comment will be reviewed. 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