The good folks at Mozilla are diligently working to improve Firefox. The work for the next version (3.0) is well underway. The next release of the popular browser is set to be released later this year. The focus will be on improving the user experience with web applications and web based email.
While the final feature set hasn’t been determined, Firefox 3.0 will also contain elements for its 4.0 release and beyond, said Mike Schroepfer, vice president for engineering for Mozilla, during a stop in London on Tuesday. The browser is due out in the second half of the year.
“What we’re trying to do with all of these things is lay the foundation,” Schroepfer said.
Perhaps most exciting could be Firefox’s ability to support writing an e-mail in, for example, Gmail while offline, with the data sent later when a user is connected to the Internet again.
Wait…Gmail offline? Very cool. I, like so many others has managed to drink from the Google Gmail Koolaid jug, will be happy to see that functionality. The ability to integrate this into my browser is not without it’s appeal.
Now one piece to the forthcoming 3.0 that I find of particular interest is the addition of an embedded database. This database will be used for “full-text indexing of the browser’s “history.” Users could search for images and text and see the cached page. The feature, however, may not make it into the 3.0 release, he said.” This could open up an raft of interesting SQL based problems if it does in fact make into the final release. Further to that it could also help make forensic work a little easier when trying to pull a users browsing history. All in all I will be keeping an eye open for developments on this browser. I’m looking forward to this one.
[tags]Mozilla, Firefox 3.0, Firefox Browser, Gmail Offline Support[/tags]
