Firefox Friday Five - bringing a little fire to your weekend!

Sebastian is out stomping the fjords in Norway -- true story! -- so I'll be your humble replacement columnist this week. Fortunately, I 'm inheriting a pretty easy job, because there's plenty of interesting Firefox news to discuss today.Just pretend I'm writing all of this in my poor approximation of a British accent, and Seb will be back before you know it.

Okay, here goes ...

1. The Contacts Add-on

I wrote about this on Download Squad earlier in the week, but it's worth mentioning here, too. Mozilla has a created a browser-wide contacts extension that syncs with your address books and social sites. Why is it cool? Well, how does having access to your contacts on any website grab you? How about browser-wide email autocomplete? Mozilla's new Contacts add-on is a pretty sweet deal, and you can grab a preliminary version now.

2. Mozilla escalates the HTML5 open video battle

As you may know, Mozilla has taken Firefox down the path of open HTML5 video, but in a different direction than Webkit browsers like Safari and Chrome are headed. Instead of the H.264 video format, Mozilla is backing OGG Theora. This is both more open (because H.264 is proprietary, and Theora's open source) and cheaper for Mozilla (because it avoids H.264 licensing fees).

Who the heck uses Theora for HTML5 video, though? Well, starting this week, Wikipedia does. It's not exactly YouTube, but it's good news for Firefox fans that one of the most popular (and most democratic) sites on the web has endorsed Mozilla's video format of choice.

3. The End of Firefox 3.0!

It's been a good run, Firefox 3.0, but it's time to let go. The final security and stability update ever for FF3.0, version 3.0.19, will come out on March 30. Considering how long 3.5 has been stable, and how much progress 3.6 and even 4.0 have made, it's about time everybody moved on up from 3.0. This quick update cycle is why we love Firefox, though! Look how long it took Microsoft to stop supporting IE6. Feel free to point, laugh and gloat.

4. Mozilla testing awesome Account Manager

Last week, Lee checked out an experimental login manager add-on for Firefox that makes logging in and out of websites a snap. It's not quite ready yet -- it worked for Lee on Facebook, but not Google -- but when this thing gets up to speed, it'll be a big boost to both security and user experience. Knowing at a glance whether you're logged in to the webpage you're visiting? Yes, please!

5. Hey, remember those Firefox icons?

Last time I wrote this column, I put out a call for your Firefox icons, and you came through! Sebastian never got around to posting them, though, so I'm taking this opportunity to present some of the coolest submissions here. Thanks to everyone who left a comment.




And, to the guy who sent in the Opera icon, ha ha, very funny.


That's the Five for this week, foxy boys and girls! Have a good weekend, and look forward to the return of everybody's favorite sassy Brit, Sebastian, either next week or the week after.

Tags: extensions, features, firefox, firefox friday five, FirefoxFridayFive, html5, mozilla