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Firefox 3.5 will support IRC through Mibbit
If you download a recent nightly build of Firefox 3.5, you'll find a new option for "irc" in the applications setting in the options dialog. From the drop-down menu, you can select Mibbit or designate a desktop IRC client. Now when you enter an IRC server in your URL bar, Firefox should automatically launch Mibbit. Just make sure the address starts with "irc://" or "ircs://" and you should be good to go.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsfeffreyMar 19th 2009 7:18PM
The Chatzilla extension has been out a while doing the exact same thing.
Is this only different since the extension is pebuilt into the firefox?
JakobMar 19th 2009 7:34PM
Amazing feature! Will love it :D
TatsuyameMar 19th 2009 8:42PM
Yeah, CZ has been around for a while, and you can even run it in a tab...
I prefer to use IRC in Pidgin anyway, just to have all my chat stuff in one window.
notatoadMar 19th 2009 9:03PM
i don't understand why mozilla keeps integrating features that should be extensions. this is the stuff bloat is made of.
challengerapproachingMar 20th 2009 8:42AM
notatoad: there is no way this could be considered bloat. They aren't integrating mibbit's source code into Firefox (impossible because mibbit isn't even open source), they are just providing a handler. If you go into your Firefox options/preferences, you should be able to set certain filetypes to open with certain applications. Those applications aren't bloating Firefox; they are purely external and are just referenced by the options. Much like the Google search box, it simply takes you to a page generated by a website based on your request (the search box takes your input and tells Google to search for that, then displays the page Google generates, whereas the IRC setup takes a link to a chatroom on an IRC server and takes you to a chatroom page generated by the mibbit server that corresponds to the chatroom and server the link contained). Firefox would gain far less than 1 KB in application size from the necessary code to let webpages open files or addresses in the same way desktop applications do now.
fosronMar 20th 2009 8:42AM
Well Opera had this function for a really long time now :) Everyone's duplicating Opera inovations: Speed Dial, IRC and more stuff :)
RahabibMar 20th 2009 6:28PM
yea. Opera is a great browser, but the adware versions they came out with early on left a bad taste in many people's mouth about it, which it never really recovered from.
Chatzilla is nice although it seems development on it has slowed down. besides, mibbit being built in without downloading anything is a good thing for people who want new users to come to their irc chat rooms. Right now I have a link on one of my pages going to a mibbit app for those people anyway.