Firefox/Feature Brainstorming
We are currently in the early development stage for Firefox 3, and would like to collect all the ideas for feature enhancements in a single place. Our goal is to create a single index that lists what sorts of things we're thinking of doing, with links to more detailed ideas about implementation specifics or concerns, and targets for inclusion in the project.
Note: This is a list of feature enhancement ideas for all future Firefox releases, not just Firefox 3. Firefox 3 will include a subset of the items on this list.
How to use this page
- If you have ideas about features listed here please create a new wiki page off of your user page that outlines your ideas (mockups welcome!) and add a link to that page in the "References" column, or link to existing pages with examples, design thoughts, interesting articles, etc.
- If you have ideas for features not listed here please add them to the most appropriate group below. Include any references to more detailed implementation ideas.
- If you would like to comment on features listed here please do so on the discussion page rather than in the list itself.
- Etiquette:
- Please include a summary comment that describes your change so that it shows up in the page history view.
- Please make a User page for yourself with contact information so that if we need clarification of your idea, we can get in touch with you.
Platform Integration
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
bug 278343 bug 309807 |
|
bug 39375 |
|
|
|
|
|
bug 57805 bug 257241 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Browser chrome
Menus and Toolbars
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
Bug number required |
| Middle click on back / forward already does this, but History is not preserved.
Related to: bug 18808 bug 189313 bug 246719 a detailed proposal here |
|
n/a |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Browser customization
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| |
See MAF (Mozilla Archive Format) which was perfect but doesn't work with newer versions of Firefox on Linux and is not improved anymore.
| |
|
- FAQ on forum |
| |
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
| |
Add-ons, Extensions, Plugins
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
Preferences
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
| |
| |
| |
| General tasks | |
Many OS X users use Quicksilver to change network locations, e.g. home and work. If Firefox detected the proxy set in network locations then the user would not have to manually change proxy settings in Firefox each time the network location is changed. Similary in Windows, it could detect the Internet Options proxy. This "Use System Proxy" setting could be a 4th choice in the connections settings dialog along side Direct, Auto-Detect and Manual. | n/a |
Proxy settings should be saved in profiles, so that when changing network (more and more common with laptops and various wlan accesses) settings can be changed in a fast way | bug 43429. SwitchProxy adds a status bar menu to quickly switch between proxies. |
Early Netscape allowed the user to "save as" a web page as postscript, HTML, PDF, etc. These days, we seem to be only allowed to "save as" in HTML or text. This then means we have to use time-consuming external programs instead of it being a quick and easy drop-down selection. Please give us back our old "save as" options and also include a new ODF "save as" option. | |
|
Allow image placeholders to appear before the image starts being displayed (available in IE). CarlRogerson 23:52, 14 October 2006 (PDT)] | |
|
Allow animated image freezer. [Klapaucius, 17. October 2006 1130 CEST] | |
|
Add option to save proxy password and not bug every time the browser is open. | |
| Implement Media player in Browser, winamp, windows media player etc | |
Add an option to save all your preferences in a file, such as size of cache, places where you don't want to save passwords, when you want to clean your download history, information about cookies, contents, tabs, ... also to copy your passwords to an encrypted file (for making easier changing from windows to linux, for example | |
Tabs, sidebar, and windows
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
Tabbed Browsing -MZKB bug 55696 bug 281192 bug 156264 bug 102132 bug 104566 bug 298571 |
| |
|
n/a |
|
Super DragAndGo Extension allows you to drag links and words in order to surf and search |
|
SessionSaver - MZKB |
| |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
|
In Firefox 1.x whe have only one X for close all tab one by one. in firefox 2.x we have a X for every tab, i think it isn't not at all the best way. I think the best idea is put a X in the end of the tab bar (like 1.x style) and a X for every tab (2.x style) because when i've to close more than one tab i've to spend time to find the X of the near tab and click it instead to press the X in the end. | |
Search/Find
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| |
Summary:
Search features not related to the "drop down box"
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
Address bar
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
When nonlatin characters are used in address they are urlencoded. Many sites use them. Wikipedia is an example. But URL shown in an addressbar gets totally unreadable, like this one (see the title not the status bar). Such URL is not an easy thing write down on paper for example. It would be nice if such URLs were shown more like this (the non-latin part could be highlighted or formatted to prevent phishing): http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вікіпедія |
n/a |
Many pages don't have anchors so linking to Content that is somewhere on the page can be a pain. Make possible custom anchors like this:
| |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
Right-clicking on the RSS Feed icon should give you the following tasks:
|
n/a |
|
- Similar to AppRocket on Windows and Quicksilver for OS X |
|
n/a |
|
Can be done already: Control-Shift-Delete over a highlighted address bar history item will remove it. |
The only thing I really need the Statusbar for is to preview the target address of links before clicking them. Most of the time the statusbar is just taking away screen space without providing any useful information.
|
Terrible idea, says Gerv
|
When I use news aggregation sites like slashdot and digg that provide deep
links to stories on other sites, I invariably find myself wanting to look
at the home page or perhaps even parent of the current URL.
|
|
I'd like to be able to set my menubars, bookmark bar, and (as an example) the Google toolbar to autohide. By this, I mean like the windows taskbar. This way I would be able to use that extra space for viewing, but wouldn't have to turn the bars on and off manually, or switch from the fullscreen mode. |
|
On right click, adding also a "paste & go" item |
Like in Opera browser |
All major browser order the entries of the location bar based on last visited. The order also changes if I open the location bar and select an entry with the mouse. Sorting this way worked in early releases of Firefox 0.9.X. There is a bug filed in bugzilla for which the fixing is postphoned from one release to the other. Please make sure that it is included in Firefox 2.5, 3.0 or whatever it is. | |
|
|
A problem with Frames-based and DHTML / AJAX sites is that the page contents displayed can change but the location URL remains static, which impacts on the user's ability to bookmark page contents. For security reasons (e.g. to prevent phishing) it is not possible from Javascript code to change the location URL displayed in the browser (except perhaps to add a "#" value, which is of limited use). I propose that it should be possible to change the URL in other LIMITED ways, e.g.: To any other URL with the *same* domain AND/OR To change the querystring This could of course be configurable in the browser's Options, but one or both should be enabled by default, to allow web developers to make use of this feature to improve the user experience for most Firefox users. |
|
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
; highlight '1' and scroll to view photo2.jpg, etc.Bookmarks
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| |
|
- Provide in-page content-highlighting and saving page-state while bookmarking |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
The Suite used to have this; research why it was dropped before implementing it again |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| |
| |
One simple thing which I miss from IE - the ability to change the location of the bookmark file. To whit, I have a network of five PCs at home running Linux and various versions of Windows. With IE, I could set up a "Favourites" directory on the main file-server and point all instances of IE to that directory - in effect, no matter which PC I used, I would always see (and edit) the same Favourites directory. I am having trouble duplicating this simple feat with FireFox. Yes, there are a lot of (mostly not-working properly) "save to an external website and sync", but this is faught with problem, requires me to access an external site, takes time, etc, etc, etc. Frankly, I'd rather have a single bookmark file somewhere on the LAN which I can easily point FF to via a menu option. |
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
| Research Assistant | |
|
See: ResearchAssistant |
History
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| |
| |
|
Thumbnail session history |
History could show a list of pages visited that can be sorted acording to the fields seen in Page Info. History could show a tree of pages visited with the nodes being where people have hit the back button and then clicked on a new link. History could also show the web pages visited along with all the media they link to in a hierarchy of directory locations similar to what would be seen in a mirror of the websites visited. This would be a combination of History and the links tab of Page Info that is already available. Another version of this is to have a hierarchy based on links. Page a links to pages c, d, e, and f while d links to a, f, g and h. In this case a and f would both have 2 entries in the history. This could be usefull in creating static mirrors of dynamic content websites. Further functionality could be achieved by being able to select links in this hierarchy and tell the browser to get all the links it points to. This could be used to generate a list of files that can be downloaded to provide a mirror of desired sites with a great deal of control. One would then like to select a group of files by individual selection or by hierarchical groups to archive or explore for new links. This is essentially a webspider interface for the browser |
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
| History and tabs | |
|
Preserve history when ctrl-clicking to create a new tab. Essentially, let me ctrl-click to create a new tab, switch to that new tab, and then hit the 'back' button. |
n/a |
HISTORY NEEDS COLUMNS -- Forgive my clumsiness, I'm new to this. History needs columns. Specifically, if you click-n-drag the width of history, it just has titles of the web pages. It would be very nice to have a column with DATE (even time) visited, so you could search a word and locate a website visit from, say, a month ago, and then switch to date mode and go back there, browsing among the other sites you visited at that time. If you remember finding paydirt, or finding something that was dull then but now you realize it's paydirt, but can't remember a word or a date&time, that extra column could mean that you score. Less vital, but handy, would be a column of URLs. Let's say you think a URL virused you, and would rather not click back into it just to find out the webpage ADDRESS. (A right-click function here would do as well as a column, although less helpful to the newbie.) -- from yankeedam, new member
HISTORY WITH HOOKS -- Let's say you remember you found a bunch of great websites a month or two ago on the night you visited whitehouse.gov or whatever. You should be able to whiz back to the whitehouse web page, make it a hook, and from there, click into date/time and browse that evening's work. It should also work in reverse, where you remember discovering great photos on the ninth or tenth of last month, so you go back there and put a hook on the eleventh. Then you shift into word-search mode and explore some subject you were into on those nights.
-- from yankeedam, new member
Downloads
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
In the Download window, there shouild be a button to reactivate the main ffox window. It nags me that i can close the main ffox window while a long download occurs, and then cannot reactivate it from the Download manager window Firefox 1.5.0.7 (tested on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) has the following issues with the Download window. These should be fixed in Firefox 3: I recently started several larger downloads in Firefox and had to reboot my router while downloading. After this, I got to see several Firefox inadequacies or bugs, which I'll tell you about here: 0: After the temporary network connectivity disruption, my downloads were left in limbo, with Firefox only giving me the option to Pause or Cancel; with the progress bar still showing, but not increasing, and the numbers (rate of transfer, ETA) not showing. At this point I could not get Firefox to resume the downloads, not even by clicking Pause and Resume. However, looking at the Desktop, I could see that the partial files where there. I then found that I could resume the downloads with wget -c <URL> from the command line. If I can resume from the command line, why can't I resume from Firefox? 1: Upon now clicking Cancel in Firefox after the files were fully downloaded via wget, Firefox deleted the files. Also, where I resumed the download via wget and then clicked Cancel in Firefox, wget seemed to complete the download, but then threw an error message as the file was now nonexistant. I consider the fact that Firefox deleted the files upon clicking Cancel a bug. After all, after clicking Cancel, the download is still listed in Firefox' Download window. If anything, Firefox should delete the file upon clicking Remove. Which brings me to the next point. 2: The user should be able to trigger the following three actions (and others, which are not the issue here) in the Firefox Download window: Cancel -- this should cancel a current download, but not remove the file. Remove -- this should remove the download item from the Download window list, but NOT remove the file. Remove from disk -- this should remove the item from the Download window list and delete the file from the hard drive. Alternatively, there could be just one Remove link that prompts the user whether they wish to remove the item listing only or also wish to delete the file; or this could be made a user preference. 3: When clicking retry and a partially completed file of the same name already exists on the Desktop (e.g. because the user made a copy before clicking Cancel and then moved that copy back before clicking retry (cf. above broken Cancel behaviour), that file should be resumed. Instead Firefox currently attempts a new download from scratch and names it filename(2).ext. Firefox should resume the existing file, or give the user a choice. |
- metalink (file distribution standard with mirrors and checksums) |
| |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
| Upload Improvements | |
| |
|
Integrate a better download manager, something like DownThemAll!. |
www.downthemall.net |
Profiles
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| |
|
RFC 2244 - Application Configuration Access Protocol |
|
End-User License Agreement (EULA) Requirements for Firefox 2 |
(existing abilities for profiles storage are not useful for making corporatives defaults settings for whole groups of users - so it is impossible to switch massively users to Firefox with corporative policy and same setting for all)
If firefox configured to use MAIN profile, then it gets policy sets from this profile (so, user can't make "not allowed" changes, until he switch off using of MAIN profile in browser (so, needs ability for administrators to block switch off MAIN profile) ) Example: all default sets getting from MAIN profile and then firefox apply user settings, if this allowed by the MAIN profile for this group of sets) | |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Notification tools
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
is displayed in the Location bar. If a page has multiple content types available, however (web feed, microformat(s), microsummary, etc), putting all those icons in the Location bar may not be feasible. What are the possible alternatives?
Printing
| General tasks | |
|---|---|
| |
| Specific features | References |
|
Firefox:Printing_and_Page_Setup |
| |
| |
Printing in KDE, for instance, does not integrate with the KDE print system. It would be nice to have some of KDE's virtual printers available in Firefox, such as the pdf and postscript file creation print drivers. |
Firefox:Printing_and_Page_Setup |
|
n/a |
|
You can print backgrounds now; see File->Page Setup->Print Background. |
|
n/a |
Installer
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
n/a | |
A wizard that lets the user create his/her own installation file including the settings and extensions of his/her choice.
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Software update
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
|
Provide a more advanced export so bookmarks and bookmark settings as well as Toolbar settings are saved. Then provide a way to completely remove Firefox from Windows. The Mozilla folders under Application Data and Program files would be removed too. This is a must to be able to fix certain problems. Once Firefox is installed the advanced import would quickly restore all your favorite settings. | |
Default browser UI
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
With rare exceptions, the Average User does not need access to both the reload and stop buttons at the same time. Combining them so they occupy the same space and "toggle," à la Safari, will free up real estate on the UI and reduce visual complexity. | |
Many people like the simplicity of IE7 - that's the way it should be. More people would use Firefox if it were simplified. Take out the stuff that's not needed...
|
|
Exposé allows a user to quickly locate an open tab without the need to click through many tabs to find a specific target. | |
| |
P.S. Check out wikipedia's write up on synesthesia for more info... | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
It could considerably improve the usage of keyboard shortcuts for new Firefox users that are not used to work with keyboard shortcuts (like old people). This should be a default-on feature with the option to turn off in Options -> Advanced -> General -> Accessibility | |
Home Page and Home button have been with us since forever. However, I have a strong feeling they are no longer relevant and no one uses them as they did in the old times of "web portals". I propose to create a task-oriented "start" pane - basically a question of "what do you want to do". It should have:
I consider Thunderbird's start pane to be a good example of what I'm talking about. | |
Use OS X's provided widget set, especially for textarea, button, radio, checkbox and select elements. Native widgets feature spell check among other niceties. This would go a long way towards making Firefox feel more like a "real" OS X application. The current UI does not follow many of the common idioms on the Mac which causes confusion when switching between it and other Apple apps. This could greatly impact adoption on OS X, particularly among less savvy users who don't understand why it's different. | |
| |
If implemented, this proposal can boost productivity for web-application users with technically simple (and known from many text-processors/editors) UI add-on | |
Use heuristics to try and avoid caching sensitive data for autocompletion. For example, if something looks like a credit card number or social security number, don't cache it. It's very disconcerting to start typing in your social security number on your bank's Web site, and realize your browser already knows it... |
|
| |
| |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
Security
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
[ ] Disallow visiting sites by IP address (IP anywhere in the URL) |
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
See bug 347849 |
| |
| |
|
n/a |
|
1 Like "CookieCuller" |
| |
| |
|
n/a |
| |
|
n/a |
|
See bug 355319 |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
|
Integrated something like adblock. |
n/a |
Privacy
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
It would be useful to have a "one-click" method of doing a security and privacy audit. Have it check for disabled or "unused" security and privacy features, check for non-secure or not up-to-date software and plugins, and provide an up-to-date report of known security defects or issues. Provide recommendations for those who are non-technical. | |
The thing about privacy controls is occasionally forgetting to turn them on.
| |
Many firewall and antivirus applications have features to deny access to entire websites based on URL matching which is based on wildcards and regular expressions. i have long wanted something similar in Firefox's cookie manager. It would reduce a lot of overhead on the Exceptions List, keep it somewhat more tidy and manageable. Also, a better organizer for the EL would be nice: group by base site instead of absolute alphanumeric. For example:
Would make things easier to find, and make troubleshooting sites easier by being able to determine if a cookie exception is preventing proper functionality of the site (blocking some subdomain cookie that is required for login, etc.). | |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
1 bug 285790 already exists for form history |
| |
| |
| |
| General tasks | |
|
N/A |
| |
|
BugZilla for Auto Cache Clear |
| |
| |
| |
Identity
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| |
This maybe possible today, but it is not evident for beginners how to set up Firefox accordingly. | |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Feeds Handling
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
There could be 2 parts to the internal RSS reader: a sidebar on the left and the main content area, but a better approch is to have a small, none intrusive GUI like infoRSS ticker extension
Content:
or a scrolling ticker in the status bar like infoRSS extension. |
- On Web Feeds |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Microformat Handling
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Content filtering, manipulation, and control
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
- Flashblock remarks from bur |
|
n/a |
|
|
|
- Scribe |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
- nspluginwrapper |
|
n/a |
Put each document into an independent process (not thread: separate forked process) so that:
| |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
Remote Control
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
Browser Interaction
Scripting
| Browser Automation | References |
|---|---|
| |
For exemple, change some image, text disposition or even the whole design of the page using regular expression. (Maybe witch a WYGIWYS editor-like to be more user friendly ?) I think about a way that users can themselfs modify a whole page, and submit their 'patchs' to a centralized server.
When an other user navigate on the page, he can use a button on the navigation page to switch beetwin the different patchs submited by other people and vote for them. | |
| JavaScript engine is too slow. When a script on page is become unresponsive - Firefox hangs, until window, proposing to stop that script appears. Enclosing enhancements are good, but functionality and quality are the main thing, we must to follow. | |
| Make a quick-opening pdf reader, just for text. In other case, run adobe or similar |
ActiveX
| ActiveX controls | References |
|---|---|
|
Web services integration
| Web Services Utilities | References |
|---|---|
|
Automatically create a web services test form by inspecting a URL to a WSDL file. For comparison, ASP.NET can do this by browsing to a web services URL like foo.asmx?wsdl | |
| Web mail integration | References |
|
Following Firefox 2 support for online web feed readers, it could be extended to web mail services like Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and Gmail at least. Users should be able to select one or more web mail providers and set a default or just keep the default stand alone email client. The idea is not to develop a complete email client but to provide minimum integration:
| |
| Email pseudo-url | References |
|
Presently the mailto: pseudo url simply opens up a mail client. In the old Netscape/Mozilla days, the mail client was part of the package, so it wasn't necessarily such an issue. Perhaps Firefox could incorporate a lite smpt component which could actually send off data, perhaps as part of a form's action. |
Explorer files integrated
| FILES EXPLORER | References |
|---|---|
|
Firefox 3.0 should integrate a file explorer of your system, while having the same characteristics as a web page: Tabs, mouse gestures, bookmarks. etc. | |
| Explorer integration (Windows) | References |
|
In Windows allow file system browsing (ie C:\windows), perhaps by calling on MSHTML APIs.
In Windows, allow Firefox to change global settings for preferred browser; not only changing preferred browser for files-types, but also to change what browser applications start when they want to access a webpage. |
Opening Links
| Link Activation | References |
|---|---|
| |
| |
| |
|
See bug 55696 |
| Tab Interaction | References |
| |
|
Quick Top of page/Bottom of page
| Quick Top of page/Bottom of page | References |
|---|---|
|
Uploading Files
| Browser Automation | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
See bug 50660 and bug 347178 |
Dynamic Font Support
| Dynamic font (embedding font into web page) | References |
|---|---|
|
Enhanced Form Controls
| Enhanced Form Controls (create a real application environment) | References |
|---|---|
| |
|
Compatibility
Web standards compatibility
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
Bug 9458 (inline-block) Bug 24000 (page-break) Bug 10713 (text-shadow) |
| |
| |
The idea is to be able to edit site that don't have a DNS entry, when we develop a new version that is not on the "real" site. It's like to change this file: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts but included in firefox. |
n/a |
|
Bug 33339 - XHTML ruby support, |
| |
|
n/a |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| RFC 2557 BUG 40873 |
| |
| |
| |
| Library Compatibility | |
|
KDE compatibility
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
| |
Protocol and media support
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
Implement full support of FTP by adding features like:
|
See bug 208385 |
| |
|
1 SCTP patch |
| Flash | |
|
When a Flash media file is loaded, CTRL+T (open new tab) does not work. Flash must be stealing the keystroke. |
See bug 78414 |
UI compatibility
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
| Linux | |
|
|
| Mac OS X | |
|
|
Global community
Internationalization
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
See bug #240914. (David Baron said: I expect this will be fixed for Gecko 1.9 (i.e., Firefox 3.0...) See bug #356184. |
| General tasks | |
|
Many people I have shown Mozilla Firefox to have missed such a feature as it is in Microsoft Internet Explorer. |
|
bug#315748 |
Accessibility
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| General tasks | |
|
|
Developer-facing elements
Developer-facing UI
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
It would be great to have mechanism to define a panel, where data may be send to a server and its response is rendered into a certain area like: <asynch-panel refpanel="myPanel" refid="test" /> <asynch-panel name="myPanel" target="http://blabla.de/bsp.jsp"> <input type="text" id="test" value="<%="blabla"%>" /> <input type="submit" /> </asynch-panel>
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
(check out "HTMLayout CSS support map", they have done gradient filled backgrounds very effectively) |
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
Add-ons/Platform development
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| * A loader within the tray icon area which keeps the Firefox code loaded so it does'nt has to be reloaded all the time after you closed all windows of Firefox. An implementation is quiet easy: You just need to create another window like the download manager and drop it out of sight so Firefox is still open but invisible. This isn't wasting too much memory but saving a lot of time in starting Firefox again because its still loaded. A normal click on the tray-icon or another double click on the desktop will be handled the same way as now if Firefox is already running | FrenzyM6 |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
JavaScript Frame Sandbox
| |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
Performance
Mobile and Enterprise support
Mobile device integration/support
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
Make it possible to have firefox started as a new process with a switch (firefox.exe -np) to be able to have two instances running in case you are testing something that crashes the browser often while you are in some deep and nested back-end at the same time. it is very annoying that when it crashes all is lost. Yes - i could use another browser for the back-end stuff but why would i? |
Like you can have multiple instances of IE running |
|
Be the fastest browser on the market, not only on "fat" desktops, but also on bargain desktops with only 256MB of RAM. | |
|
Try to implement an internal memory manager. It should, for example, pre-allocate about 10% of ram memory and try to operate within that memory. All calls to "free()" should release memory to this global memory pool and all calls to "malloc()" must allocate memory from this memory pool. If properly implemented, we can even reduce the overheads that may arise due to such an implementation. |
n/a |
|
One feature I would like to see is faster startup times and less memory hogging as at the moment I think that ff takes a long time to boot up the 1st time but less time after that so I think a preloader would be a good idea and I also agree in trying to sandbox the browser/extensions to a defined amount of memory Therefore make the browser work faster. |
n/a |
|
Improve browser launch time on both Windows and Mac OS X. Currently IE and Safari launch much more efficiently, making it more sensible to open one of those browsers when quickly looking something up. Enduring the sluggish launch time again and again makes for an irritating experience. |
n/a |
|
Integrate a FF Preloader into the program. Currently the Preloader for Firefox 1.0 doesn't work for 2.0. A preloader option within FF that allows the user to choose whether to preload certain parts of FF could improve the boot time dramatically. |
n/a |
|
At the very least, bring up a UI as quickly as possible. Show the splashscreen while loading. Often I find I don't know whether Firefox has started up and start up multiple copies. |
n/a |
|
Bring speed up to par with Safari/Opera on the Mac platform. Perhaps bring project into XCode/Objective-C/Cocoa? The Cocoa API is much more feature complete than the Carbon API, since the latter is more of a carry over from MacOS 9. With Cocoa, things like integerated spell checking would come 'free', since they are associated with the widgets being used. |
n/a |
|
Hardware accelerated graphics (perhaps use the Vista/Mac OS X/AIXGL/XGL engines to do the acceleration for us) |
n/a |
|
Make the javascript engine less cpu hungry. |
n/a |
|
Do more caching of the DOM. E.g. stacking several PNG-Images with alpha channel slows down the browser dramatically, even for unrelated DOM changes. |
n/a |
|
Make the textarea performance better. Often, even on fast machines, I can type faster than the text appears. This doesn't happen all the time, but does often enough. As it catches up to me, I see all of the text in the textarea being cleared and flashing up for each character typed. |
n/a |
|
It is very annoying to be typing into a text box and have the browser go unresponsive for a few seconds while in the middle of typing. This is caused by Javascript in other windows (like gmail) waking up and using the network. Threading needs work to fix this. |
n/a |
|
Include a language-neutral VM for a back-end for javascript. The benefits are quite significant, and include: JIT compling, with caches of compiled code (done when the VM is not busy); a better sandboxing model for compile-time overruns and exception handling; better threading model for managing multiple windows and tabs; language-neutral interface for extending or replacing the runtime language (i.e. changing it from something like "javascript-1.7" to "moz-cli-1.0", so that languages like Ruby and Python could be compiled into the cli); easier to add libraries of code to the base distribution or from external sources (code libraries that people could download to their computers and use for certain sites); the introduction of a unified object/exception/type model. Perhaps less important reasons include: businesses might be a little happier because their code wouldn't be completely "transparent" as it travels across the net if it's possible to send it already compiled to a person's computer; it might make it possible to add extensions, like signed code or an abstract threading model. |
n/a |
|
Now multi-core CPUs are becomming standard it makes sense to improve multi-threading. Javascript or rendering on one tab should not lock up other tabs, for example. Even within a tab, image decoding, scripting, plugins and HTML rendering could all be separated. |
n/a |
| Consider implementing IEView and IETab extensions funcitonality in FF itself. Many web pages (e.g. some online e-mail access services) still require the user to be running IE so a way for FF users to view those pages wityhout having to find out and install those extensions would be extremely useful. |
n/a |
| Remove memory leaks (e.g. try using Firefox on the Typo3 Backend - you'll have to restart FF about once per hour, if you seriously use it) |
n/a |
| Make Firefox more crash resistant. I don't really know if it is the FF core which causes the crashes or one of the Extensions I run. Additional idea: Let Extensions run in a sandbox so they can't crash Firefox any more. Maybe that sandbox could also guard against unsafe Extensions which may try to compromise your computer. |
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
cellphone browser using JAVA(like opera mini), supporting XUL and extensions. |
n/a |
Enterprise deployment
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Long term target
On a long term basis Mozilla has come to a cross-road. The current XUL technology can't be used on a PAD/Smart phone nor on an OLPC. Yet there's a need for such a browser/mailer and it's just a matter of time somebody starts such a project. But I'm sure if such a browser/mailer gets built, it will be ported to the ordinary desktops slowly starting to replace Mozilla. And since switching technologies isn't a task done in a few weeks this subject has to be taken care of ASAP.
IMO it's important for Mozilla to start a task force now to think about the long term future. The PDA/Smart phones are already on the market almost exclusively using IE/Outlook and the OLPC and other embedded devices is just on the brink. So the pressure of this task, to prevent Mozilla from lagging behind again, is imminent.
Task force about technologies
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
More vs. Less
Well it seems like we could devide the users wishes into two overall categories: While the ones can�t get enough features, want more of them and through that keep pushing new technologies and conveniences for the user, the other fraction just want a quick and stable browser, supporting all the W3 standards.
I belong the other category, I want a quick and stable browser with a lot of Extensions and at least 5 distinct good looking skins. Still, I've got to admit, that without the more-and-more fraction, I still would not use the Mouse Gestures. So on the one hand, I am by all means interessted in the ideas of the other users, on the other side, I got to admit that I am _saturated_. The new features in version 2.0, I do not want them. Honestly. Yeah. That's it. So, unlike most of the users who posted here, I simply do not have any _new_ ideas thus I would prefer to vote uppon the most wanted features. [[6]]
Instead, you could focus on Sunbird. And of course some of the more interessting extension could some help to improve faster. I do not want to tell anybody how to spent his or her time, but if I am asked, this is my answer.
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
I fully support the idea of a minimal firefox with official extensions from the devs and unofficial extensions from the communitiy. Firefox is getting too big. The first time I used Firefox (around 0.5 ?), I used it, because it was small and fast! Now it just takes too long to load. This also helps the core team to do it's core stuff, and the extensions people to work on thier extensions separatly. If they want to update a feature or remove some bug, only the new extension has to be upgraded and not the full Firefox package. Official extensions would also allow the devs to adopt community extensions, if they are deemed usefull for (nearly) everyone, and add them to the offical Firefox extensions.
How about a extension 'mode' pack or something? This could be a bunch of plugins grouped under a certain name like 'Standard','Ultra Fast','WebDeveloper','Kiosk' etc... and then have a simple drop down where one could select the 'mode' and only plugins for that mode would be loaded. This way we get the fast version, and the features packed versions for those who want it (and we can easily switch). Ofcourse let the user modify the mode pack if they wish, but this can be hidden somewhere so beginners don't stumble upon it by mistake and mess things up.
It really is not a 'fast mode' vs 'feature packed mode' only, as it depends very much on what features a user wants and what they are doing at the time. By creating a couple of common usage mode packs it will make it easy to customize without having to individually download and install each plugin (though one could still do this). Maybe this is what a 'profile' is all about, but then again I still like to share bookmarks no matter how I'm browsing.
I for one sometimes like the browser to be very fast, at other times I prefer all the web developer options, and at other times when browsing for personal use I'd like other plugins loaded.
This way the core can stay small but first time users still get the cool behaviours they like without having to understand this whole plugin install business.(so a standard download and a core download without the mode packs for example)
The use case I see is that first time users will want all the whiz bang toys to atleast match other browsers, and don't want to go through and figure out what extensions are and how to install, they just want to click go and off they go. Experienced users on the other hand may want other features or a slimmed down feature set. I think this approach solves both issues.
I love the idea of official extensions! And I'd definately like the ability to strip down firefox to the core. This method of development and packageing gets my vote!
Perhaps the installer could be a bit more than just Core & More. You could for example have a check box for extra features, and another for web development tools. Each check box could be expanded to get individual extensions like no-script.
And of course the defaults will be well chosen
fast & slim - Quo vadis, FF
The more functionality you add, the more words and submenus have to be created. And both is confusing for beginners and older folks. What is the difference between words, that seem to mean the same thing at first glance ? Do I have to understand "all these new words" like "javascript", "PlugIn" ? Keep in mind, not all of the users are like the Techies who develop !
What the hell is the difference between an "extension" or a "plugin" ? What do I have to search for, to find the function I need ?
And if I click on a menu iten, just hoping it will do what it says, what do I have to select, if a submenu opens up ???
These are two examples for problems for a "once a while" user. So please keep it simple and easy. Let all the folks who like add extensions and other stuff.
Or offer a lean, easy to understand firefox (as it was in the first days, and these were woderful days, thanks for the "just-browse" browsers :-)).
Or offer an easy to use selection whilst installation saying "I don't understand all that technical stuff and don't want so use special functions" and set defaults and that's it !
Firefox already has all the necessary stuff. There must always be an easy way for "lightweight-users" to use firefox without getting confused about words, large submenus or confusing questions.
The more functions, the more words, the more confusion. Please, always offer an easy way for the non-techie user ... !
I agree that a much smaller (memory) footprint is needed (even on desktop systems), and love the extension pack idea. I'd like to also strongly suggest looking at the reason for the memory size with the current feature set - 225 MB with just 3 tabs open just seems like too much.
My suggestions for top priorities - before ANY new feature(s) (just my $ .02, for what it's worth): 1) Ensure that extensions don't break on each release, 2) MUCH slimmer footprint - 225 MB with 3 tabs is too much IMHO.
1) Fix the extension compatibility scheme. I do understand the intent of the existing system, and the responsibly of extension developers in it, however it simply isn't working well. A better solution (or use of the existing solution) is needed. As evidence, I offer the flurry of user problems/activity after every release when many if not the majority of the extensions no longer work.
2) A MUCH slimmer footprint - with today's basic features. 225 MB with just 3 tabs open is simply too much imho.
These are by FAR the top priorities in my mind, above and before any additional features. Without these being resolved, FF's growth will likely stall/regress (imho of course :-).
After that,
3) The ability for each user to create, save, install, and manage "feature (extension) sets".
---
The subject of More vs. Less is quite interesting. A good starting point might be to ask "what recent features are being used?". In that vein, maybe one of the "pre-release" versions could be "instrumented" to count the features used and (with the permission of the user, of course) report back those. Another way might be to do a web crawl, and see what features are used by various "popular" web sites. As with ANY feature set, one should realize that "growing featureism" is a very slippery slope. I suspect that many web users would be content with the features of an older browser (say back to 1999) to do their work. Remember that each added "feature" involves code, and with any new code comes both bugs and vulnerabilities. The user community wants neither.
---
Adding on to the "save memory" issue... The memory profile of the current Firefox grows and grows and grows; it apparently never releases memory, so after leaving it open for a couple of days (can't lose that tab...), it can easily exceed 200 MBytes, which is a problem on many systems.
So why not either make this behavior -- yes, I know it's there to speed up things by cacheing a lot -- either as an option, or by having a "release memory" button somewhere, to shrink it down without exiting.
BTW on a related note, when you do exit the current Firefox (1.5.0.7), it goes absolutely crazy grabbing MORE memory! I often end up closing it with the Task Manager. This behavior should be rethought.
Regarding the Firefox startup speed, it should be very high in any case. Maybe there should be a preloader at OS startup (something like Acrobat Reader 7.0 uses to speed up its loading) to get some (small!) footprint into memory.
To make things even faster, IMHO a cached version of the home page should be saved during surfing and immediately opened on startup (like offline browsing), before the browser even checks for an active internet connection.
Please, not a preloader. And move the discussion out of the feature list, if possible. ;)
User support and Testing
Help documentation
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
User-testing
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
| General tasks | |
|
n/a |
n/a |
Rich Internet Applications
There is an opportunity here to lead the way in supporting the growing number of DHTML- and Ajax-heavy applications and to provide the browser support needed to eliminate some of the drawbacks of these apps. In all cases a security model will be necessary, probably including some automated safeguards and some user confirmations.
| Specific features | References |
|---|---|
Here here! This would enable productivity applications on the web far beyond what we can do today. Mozilla has an opportunity to create a standard API for local storage. |
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
|
n/a |
Other resources
| Misc Thoughts | References |
|---|---|
| |
|
Enabeling new Top-Level-Domains on browser basis
| |
|
Decentralized/distributed browsing: in case a website has been slashdotted, Firefox should still be able to reach to its data by using the offline website data which is stored locally at other Firefox users, who were able to connect to it, their disk. Firefox should act as a kind of a torrent client. Of course, there might be some security issues. Https websites should be denied and the user itself should be able to disable this "torrent functionality". |
n/a |
|
Please focus more on stability, robustness, and security than on adding fun features. New features are nice, and fixing bugs isn't so much fun, but I find Firefox to be more of a memory hog and less stable than IE, and that's pretty sad. Stop competing against other browsers because you're afraid of losing market-share. The only way Firefox will ever be truly great if it's designed to be great from the ground up. Focus on changes that are less glitzy and more on changes that are fundamental to making a good browser platform. When something needs to be re-architected, re-architect it. Don't assume that bugs will ultimately get fixed; so far, Firefox has added features faster than bug fixes. Rather, focus on design principles that minimize the chances that problems will happen and minimize the consequences when they DO happen (and they will!). |
n/a |
|
I agree with the above. Firefox also has a reputation for being fast and relatively slim and there already is a plugin system for those who want a feature laden browser, so the focus should be on essential improvements that will have an impact on usability for the majority of users. A lot of the proposals here go way beyond what a dedicated browser should be able to do (more or less why Firefox was created from the Mozilla suite in the first place, no?) and would just add a lot of bloat. |
n/a |
|
I concur with the above two requests. Fix all the memory leaks! Firefox leaks memory like a sieve. I hate having to restart it periodically in order to get it all reclaimed. A web browser shouldn't be using nearly 150 MB of ram. That's 15 MB for each of my open tabs! |
n/a |
|
I don't know where this would go, but how about a really easy off-line browsing agent? Here's an example of what I do. Every morning I pull up about a dozen web pages in tabs, as a sort of 'newspaper' I read specific articles that catch my eye, or have an interest, like say the North Korea problem. I then go to the next article. (just like a newspaper.) I'd like to be able to click a 'offline this link' (or something like that), where it downloads just that article, as deep as it needs to go, with all the stuff that goes with it) then save it. I can then take this on my laptop and read it at work, in the car or such if/when I don't have internet connections. The off-line browsers I've used want to download the entire site(s), and are so hard to configure I give up on them. Also it should handle login sites too (like bank sites) but it'd be ok, if you have to input the login/password manually.) |
n/a |
|
I have no idea if this is possible, but if Thunderbird is installed it would be cool to have the option of opening Thunderbird as a tab. |
n/a |
|
Two buttons for favorites that open as many tabs as there are links in a special folder: One for daily checked pages (e.g. news paper, special forum a.s.o) and one for pages you check only sometimes (e.g. homepages of former friends or employers, news of your hometown a.s.o.) |
n/a |
|
I think the possibility to setup and use a socket connection for client-server communications would be a great improvement for Firefox to use it in Web2.0 / intranet-webapplications. mySocket = new SocketClient("tcp://domain.com/application");
mySocket.onData = processReponse();
mySocket.connect();
) If you look at the flash player for example, it is used a lot in all kinds of applications, not just gaming or chatting, but it's also penetrating the intranet-applications business. | n/a |
|
HTTP Sniffer. Have a HTTP Sniffer, where you see what exactly is transmitted, which POST / GET parameter, cookies, loading times etc. Something like httpwatch, see link. That's why I have to start IE in regular intverals. |
http://www.httpwatch.com/ http://tamperdata.mozdev.org/ Should this functionality really be in the browser itself, when there are things like Paros Web Proxy? |
|
Security I see many attacks upcoming, which manipulate the DOM-tree inside the browser, altering transactions in banking-systems a.s.o. What i wish for Firefox is, to have ONLY signed extensions! I want a default block of all extensions to manipulate SSL-protected sites. This security-feature will be a boost for the usage of Firefox, because all banks will promote FF. | |
|
Flexible table element selection and copy for example, select and copy a column (or columns) from a html table |