SeaMonkey, Mozilla's all-in-one Internet suite, releases new beta

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Vlad Bobleanta on April 8, 2011 at 10:30 AM

The SeaMonkey Project has released SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3, a version that makes a lot of new functionality available to a wide audience for the first time. A lot of stuff has been added and tweaked since SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 2 hit the streets back in February, and we're now one step closer to the final release of version 2.1 of the integrated Internet app suite.

SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 lets you enter Safe Mode from the Help menu, and you can permanently apply some of the Safe Mode settings if you so wish. When a plug-in crashes, you're now instantly presented with options, such as reloading the page. Built-in extensions such as ChatZilla, JavaScript debugger, DOM inspector, and DebugQA are now installed by default. SeaMonkey Sync has received an easier setup process, and Windows 7 jump lists are now supported. Also added are detection of outdated plug-ins, WebGL support, an optional search bar (including suggestions for search engines that support them), an engine manager for OpenSearch, and plug-ins now work in feeds shown in MailNews windows.

ChatZilla is working again, as are the JavaScript Debugger Venkman, as well as download progress display in the Windows 7 taskbar. Restoring large browser sessions has been improved, and you can even switch tabs by mouse scrolling.

This being a beta, the obvious warnings apply: stuff may break, bugs may show up everywhere, and generally speaking you probably shouldn't use this version as your daily driver -- at least not from the get-go, without having tested it for a while first.

Download SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 Tags: apps, beta, browsers, free, Internet, Linux, Mac, OSX, productivity, seamonkey, SeaMonkey 2.1, seamonkey 2.1 beta 3, Seamonkey2.1, Seamonkey2.1Beta3, utilities, windows

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Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Sebastian Anthony on April 8, 2011 at 05:20 AM

Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem. Tags: adblock plus, AdblockPlus, add-on, add-ons, addon, addons, apps, browsers, extension, extensions, firefox, firefox 4, Firefox4, mozilla, performance, speed, testing, web, wladimir palant, WladimirPalant

View the original article here

SeaMonkey, Mozilla's all-in-one Internet suite, releases new beta

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Vlad Bobleanta on April 8, 2011 at 10:30 AM

The SeaMonkey Project has released SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3, a version that makes a lot of new functionality available to a wide audience for the first time. A lot of stuff has been added and tweaked since SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 2 hit the streets back in February, and we're now one step closer to the final release of version 2.1 of the integrated Internet app suite.

SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 lets you enter Safe Mode from the Help menu, and you can permanently apply some of the Safe Mode settings if you so wish. When a plug-in crashes, you're now instantly presented with options, such as reloading the page. Built-in extensions such as ChatZilla, JavaScript debugger, DOM inspector, and DebugQA are now installed by default. SeaMonkey Sync has received an easier setup process, and Windows 7 jump lists are now supported. Also added are detection of outdated plug-ins, WebGL support, an optional search bar (including suggestions for search engines that support them), an engine manager for OpenSearch, and plug-ins now work in feeds shown in MailNews windows.

ChatZilla is working again, as are the JavaScript Debugger Venkman, as well as download progress display in the Windows 7 taskbar. Restoring large browser sessions has been improved, and you can even switch tabs by mouse scrolling.

This being a beta, the obvious warnings apply: stuff may break, bugs may show up everywhere, and generally speaking you probably shouldn't use this version as your daily driver -- at least not from the get-go, without having tested it for a while first.

Download SeaMonkey 2.1 Beta 3 Tags: apps, beta, browsers, free, Internet, Linux, Mac, OSX, productivity, seamonkey, SeaMonkey 2.1, seamonkey 2.1 beta 3, Seamonkey2.1, Seamonkey2.1Beta3, utilities, windows

View the original article here

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
by Sebastian Anthony on April 8, 2011 at 05:20 AM

Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem. Tags: adblock plus, AdblockPlus, add-on, add-ons, addon, addons, apps, browsers, extension, extensions, firefox, firefox 4, Firefox4, mozilla, performance, speed, testing, web, wladimir palant, WladimirPalant

View the original article here