Firefox 3.5 on Lenny

Firefox 3.5 is out finally again with no amd64 built ready for download. I didn't want to wait to see if someone is going to package it for Debian Lenny So I decided to compile it from source. Surprisingly, the compilation was smooth and the improved version of my favorite web browser was ready in no time.

I needed these packages to install before compiling Firefox for my Lenny setup:

aptitude install make gcc cvs libgtk2.0-dev libxt-dev libidl-dev \
  libzip-dev libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig-dev pkg-config \
  libdbus-1-dev libasound2-dev libnotify-dev autoconf2.13

After downloading and extracting the source from Mozilla website, I created .mozconfig file in the root of source directory containing these options:

mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/obj-@CONFIG_GUESS@
ac_add_options --enable-application=browser
mk_add_options MOZ_CO_PROJECT=browser
ac_add_options --enable-optimize=-O2
ac_add_options --disable-tests

Then the following commands from the root of source tree will do the magic:

export MOZCONFIG=.mozconfig
./configure
make
make -C browser/installer/

Upon the completion, Firefox 3.5 tarball and accompanying language-pack will be placed in dist directory. The tar file can be extracted anywhere and used without installation.

You can find a comprehensive build documentation at Mozilla Developer Center.

Links:
Build Documentation
Firefox 3.5 Source

Does Google Chrome mean Firefox is not good enough?

Google released its own web browser based on WebKit today. Well, it's too early to take Chrome seriously and also GNU/Linux and OSX support is not even ready. Nevertheless, Google's choice of WebKit made me wonder why.

It seems WebKit is easier to port to devices of different size and resource capacity. I read a while ago that KDE and Epiphany were moving to WebKit too. I'm not an expert in browser's engine technology but I think such interest in WebKit might be technical as well as greater flexibility with its license.

But what does all these mean to Firefox and its engine, Gecko? Does this mean soon everyone will abandon it just because big names are not interested in it? Or not too far in the future, its usage shrink significantly?

Although these are not particularly good signs for Mozilla, I think Gecko is more than a layout engine; it powers one of the most popular web browsers (I wanted to say the most but some loosers might argue why the IE is more used!!!). Firefox has a wealth of features in addition to its technical merits and Google need a lot of time to build a similar one. I guess by the time other catch up with Firefox features, Mozilla has perfected its Gecko further to stay competitive.

In the mean time, Firefox the web and support the browser that brought some joy to the net.

Wahooo! 8 Millions

Yes. We did it and it's well over expected 5 millions. It's great that people's interest in Firefox has grown up so much and I look forward for sharper rise as further improvements gets into the software.

Well, Firefox 3 has been in Ubuntu repository for sometime now, from Beta 5 to final release a couple of days before 17th. I'm happy that by the official release date, most add-ons I use were ported to the version 3 and now it truly replaces its older-self. I found the new version much faster and less-memory hungry (I'm not concerned much about memory as I have 4GB but still appreciate lighter applications) specially when Firefox 2 with Firebug was extremely slow and fat! (memory-wise)

Anyways thanks to all the developers and beta testers of Firefox for producing such a superb software.

ps. the download map at spreadfirefox.com is very interesting. Only 214k for China!!!?? What a shame. We didn't do any better here at Australia; 167k.

GMAIL for mailto Links

Today after happily downloading Firefox 3, I noticed a feature that seems to be new in Firefox; the ability to add a webmail service such as GMAIL as a mailto link handler. Well, I might be wrong but it seems version 3 is the first to do it without an add-on.

OK. I read the instructions in an article on lifehacker.com but since it's very short I briefly add it here.

First type about:config in address bar and after passing the warning message, find gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost entry and change its value to true.

Then type javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto & amp;url=%s","GMail") in the address bar and confirm adding it.

Go back and change the value of gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to false.

Now if you open preference, in application tab for mailto handler, you'll have GMAIL as a choice.

Link to original article:
http://lifehacker.com/392287/set-firefox-3-to-launch-gmail-for-mailto-links