The Belgian Trotter

A few days back Firefox Beta 5 was released. I’ve already talked about the next version of Firefox but this beta is even better! 

If you install it on windows it will not overwrite your current firefox installation. I’m so pleased with this release however that it’s now my main browser. Memory management is really much better! My firefox with about 8-10 tabs open is in no way using as much memory as it’s older brother. It doesn’t only manage memory better but it’s lightening fast! It loads up in seconds and browsing is really going well. I also like the new ability to add bookmarks and give them keywords, really handy! The final public release is due out in June. You can play it safe and wait till June, of course. However, Firefox 3 is chock full of new features that are reason enough to test-drive it. However (aah there it is… what the catch ?),  when you run Firefox 3 some of your plugin’s, addon’s will not work. Or they are not working officially…
Don’t panic. It’s true that many Firefox extension developers haven’t updated their add-ons to work with Firefox 3. But in many instances, this is just a matter of the extension reporting back to the application that it isn’t yet compatible, even though the add-on might work anyway. Instead of waiting for your favourite extensions to get updated, you can tell Firefox to enable them no matter what. Of course If your extensions are not updated this means the creator isn’t dedicated to bringing out improved versions of it so I would add, skip these. But for the ones you really really like/need, here’s the trick: (AT YOUR OWN RISK )

• Type about:config into Firefox’s address bar and click the "I’ll be careful, I promise!" button.
• Right-click anywhere. Choose New>Boolean. Make the name of your new config value extensions.checkCompatibility and set it to false.
• Make another new boolean pair called extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value to false.
• Restart Firefox

O Look! I’ve got my extensions back Enjoy! 


Next, Adobe: An RSS reader for Video’s!

Adobe Systems plans to release Adobe Media Player (AMP), a free download for playing Flash-based Web videos on Macs or PCs. Written with Adobe’s AIR, AMP is a hybrid online/offline application that lets people subscribe to different video Webcasts. 
The videos are either streamed from the content producer’s Web site or they can be downloaded. Adobe will host a catalog, called Adobe TV, on its site where people can find videos. Because it’s written with AIR, people can be offline or online when they watch.