Perhaps Mozilla is finally seeing the light. There is a story circulating around that Mozilla will be providing better tools to deploy and manage Firefox within the enterprise. According to a PC World article that sources Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox at Mozilla Corp:

Through the program, which will start sometime soon after Firefox 3.5 is released at the end of June, companies can use a Web application provided by Mozilla to specify certain customizations for the browser -- such as bookmarks to certain sites or corporate intranets or portals, he said.

Companies also can brand the browser through technology called Personas that allows them to code a skin across the top of the browser with a company's logo on it, Beltzner said.

Once the custom browser is developed, the application then will send it to the company and give it an installation program that makes it possible to install the browser across all desktops in the company, Beltzner added.

As one who has deployed Firefox and Thunderbird in an enterprise environment, one of my biggest criticisms with Mozilla has been that Firefox and Thunderbird is not enterprise-ready software. It's not that there hasn't been a push by some in the Mozilla community to provide enterprises with the tools they need to deploy Firefox and Thunderbird. It's just without official backing by Mozilla Corp, those tools never really seem to fully materialize in a way that is needed in large organizations. Hopefully, this time will be different.

Story found via Matt Assay.

A recent blog post from Sarah Parez tries to answer some "want-to-know" questions on the upcoming Microsoft Office Web Applications.  With software as a service becoming more popular, Google has quickly become a competitor of Microsoft's Office Suite with its Google Docs.  Microsoft is aggressively fighting back by making its Office software available via the Web browser.

According to Perez's post, Microsoft's Office Web Applications will not only be available in Internet Explorer, but also Safari and Firefox.  Office Web will also be compatible on the Linux and Mac platforms.  Some of the specific answers Sarah Parez gives in her blog post:

Q: Do the Office Web Applications require Internet Explorer?

A: No! Office Web applications will work across multiple platforms and browsers including Safari and Firefox, too.

Q: Will the Office Web Applications work on the iPhone?

A: Yes, in the Safari web browser.

Q : Is Silverlight required in order to use the Office Web Applications?

A: No! Silverlight is not required. Using Silverlight will enhance the user experience, resulting in sharper images and improved rendering. Also, the Office Live Workspace has integrated Silverlight technology into the multi-file upload function for a better experience there, too.

Q: Will the Microsoft Office Web Applications work on Linux?

Mozzila released the final version of Firefox 3.0 today and you can download it at Mozilla.com.

Available today in approximately 50 languages, Firefox 3 is two to three times faster than its predecessor and offers more than 15,000 improvements, including the revolutionary smart location bar, malware protection, and extensive under the hood work to improve the speed and performance of the browser.

While I've been talking about Firefox 3 since late 2006, I have to admit that I haven't been into Firefox 3's development as much as I did with Firefox 2.  While there were some bumps on the way with the alphas and betas, Firefox 3.0 is definately a well polished product (I'm using it as I write in this post).  My first two impressions of Firefox 3 is that it is fast and that I don't quite get the awesome bar .

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.14 is now available.  The update is a security and stability release and this explains why Firefox users might have been seeing more crashes than usual.

Fixes for security problems in the JavaScript engine described in MFSA 2008-15 (CVE-2008-1237) introduced a stability problem, where some users experienced crashes during JavaScript garbage collection. This is being fixed primarily to address stability concerns.

I knew something wasn't right with my favorite Web browser.  You can download the latest Firefox (and Thunderbird) at Mozilla.com.

A complete copy and paste from Asa Dotzler's blog, but given the interest open source parents may have...I don't think he will mind.

Today, my good friends at Glaxstar have released Glubble 1.0 -- the parental control suite for the Firefox web browser.

But it's more than just parental controls; it's the best way to harness the most important social network there is, your family, to bring just the right parts of the web into your household, and it's the peace of mind that comes from knowing that your young ones are using the very latest in safe and secure internet technologies, produced and supported by the largest open source community in the world.

Get Glubble for your family today.

Mozilla's Firefox 3 Beta 1 has been released. The announcment from Mozilla Developer News:

Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download.
This is the ninth developer milestone focused on testing the core
functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform
scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed
at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:

• Improved security features such as: better presentation of website
  identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages,
  anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking
  for insecure plugins.
• Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier
  add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading,
  full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows
  Vista and Mac OS X.

Last week, I mentioned that Mozilla is planning to give the Firefox browser a makeover.  Alex Faaborg had mentioned that they plan to integrate the look of Firefox with Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X.  The problem was Alex had failed to mention anything about the Linux operating system.  Linux users, of course, then replied by comment that they were unhappy that there was no mention of Linux in the post.

I even replied with my own poorly written comment (#33) that there was a perception that Mozilla was abandoning Linux users by not also paying attention to the Linux desktop.  Alex eventually responded via e-mail and his blog (#35) that he "dropped the ball" by not mentioning Firefox 3 on Linux.   Mozilla was indeed looking at how they could integrate Firefox 3 (still in alpha) with the Linux desktop.

Interesting stuff, right?  Yes, but not really the point for why I'm writing this post.  In my reply to Alex's response I wrote something that was later disturbing to me.

Alex Faaborg has some mock-up images on his blog of what Firefox 3 will look like on both Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X.  I have yet to see any images for what Firefox 3 may look on a Linux box and many of those commenting are also not happy Linux was left out of the picture.

You can see the mock-ups yourself by clicking here.

The visual for Firefox 3 on Vista looks very nice but I'm not so sure about the the visual for the Mac.  The Mozilla bloggers are giving a lot of reasons for why Firefox on the Mac will look the way it does...and that worries me.  The more effort someone spends trying to convince me of something, the more evident it is to me that the idea isn't selling itself.

Michael Kaply is starting a new series on the use of Mozilla's Firefox as enterprise software.  In Part 1 he discusses the obstacles for Firefox to to be adopted in the enterprise.

As Firefox gains marketshare, there comes a point where increasing that marketshare depends on the adoption of Firefox in large enterprises. This article investigates what type of issues arise when supporting Firefox in a large enterprise, and what can be done to solve those issues.

The primary areas I will address are:

• Release Lifecycle
• Service and Support
• Business Value
• Third Party Applications
• Intranet Applications
• Deployment issues

In my own organization we have used Netscape/Mozilla products for years especially on the e-mail client side (with Thunderbird currently on every desktop in the office).  However, in today's enterprise environment you need something more than just a good browser or e-mail client on your people's desktop.  IT needs to be able to control, secure, and deploy software much more easily then what Seamonkey, Thunderbird, and Firefox currently provide.  Originally, I had hoped that Mozilla would make better use of the Microsoft Installer (.MSI) and deliver better integration with the Windows Active Directory/Group Policy scheme but such features and abilities never really seemed to surface.

Read more at the Open Source Community...

Michael Kaply has been writing a series of articles on how to deploy Firefox 2 within the Enterprise.  I wrote last year that one of the difficulties of deploying Firefox and Thunderbird in the enterprise was the lack of tools Mozilla provided for deploying the software.  I'm happy to say that   Kaply's articles do a fairly good job on providing some solutions for those organizations that need to manage a large network of clients.  Kaply's original intent is to cover the following topics regarding deployment of Firefox 2 within the enterprise:

1. Building a custom version of Firefox
2. Adding Enterprise specific customizations to Firefox
3. Creating a Firefox installer
4. Setting up your own update server to deploy Firefox patches

Currently most of his articles can be found on Kaply's blog under the "enterprise" category.

If the Firefox browser were a car, it would be in the garage right now being souped up by an anxious group of gearheads.

When Firefox 3.0 is released later this year, the open-source browser is likely to contain a host of new features, including offline support for Web applications and new bookmark and search features. Mozilla released the second alpha version of Firefox 3.0 earlier this month.

• Windows Vista Support: Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista are included along with the following caveats.

• New Languages: Beta releases for several new languages are now available for testing.

• Permissions Bug Fixed: In the German (de) locale on Windows and Linux, resolved a problem with certain files tagged as read-only.