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Firefox Friday: Firefox 5, HTML5 games, WebM DRM, and beta updates
Like a fiery phoenix rising from the ashes, Firefox Friday is back!Mozilla has been incredibly silent since November, with the only real news being the adoption of two adorable red pandas (firefoxes) at Knoxville Zoo, Tennessee. The entire engineering team has been in crunch mode, churning through as many bugs as possible to get Firefox 4 into shape for late-February or early-March release, and thus, except for beta releases, not a whole lot has happened. Beta 11, incidentally, should be here in the next few days and beta 12 will be a week after that. Then, ladies and gentlemen, a week after that, we may have a release candidate on our hands.
Things have been a little more exciting at Mozilla Labs, however. It continues to churn out excellent (restartless!) add-ons like Home Dash and Instant Preview that will no doubt end up as built-in features of Firefox 5.
Yes, Firefox 5.
Firefox 5
A sly little rumor sneaked out last week: instead of the usual, steady stream of dot releases (4.1, 4.2, 4.3.), Firefox will be moving to a much faster major release cycle (4, 5, 6) -- just like Chrome. We could be playing with Firefox 5 as soon as May. But what are the implications? Rapid iteration certainly has it perks, especially in a sector like the Web where everything moves so damn fast. As we've seen with Chrome, the addition of new features does seem to come a lot faster -- but at the same time, while Firefox is adding Panorama and a completely re-jigged UI, Chrome hasn't had a significant UI change since its inception. You can only maintain breakneck speed for so long!
For a browser that has had an annual release cycle for the last five years, a 3- or 4-month release cycle would definitely shake things up. I just hope this is a move to make the lumbering dinosaur more agile, and not merely an attempt to play catch-up with Chrome.
Game On 2010 winners
The celebration of HTML5 Open Web technologies known as Game On 2010 finally drew to a close this week. The overall winner was Marble Run, which is exactly what it sounds like. Personally, I'm not a huge fan, but technically it's very well executed -- and of course, if you're a developer, you can view the source! The lucky winner will receive a trip to GDC and a ton of other goodies.Our personal favorite, Favimon, picked up the Most Original award, and the truly awesome touchtypetastic Z-Type managed to get the Community Choice award! Take a look at the complete list of winners if you're looking for a time waster this Friday afternoon.
WebM DRM
According to Mozilla's Asa Dotzler, while WebM could theoretically have DRM technologies strapped to it, it's unlikely that any of the major Web browsers will ever natively implement it.Instead, Flash, which is slated to support VP8 (WebM's video codec) in an upcoming release, will probably provide the DRM that publishers require.
It's important to note that H.264 and VP8 aren't technically all that different. They're both high-quality MPEG-4 codecs. H.264 doesn't include DRM, or any other feature that makes it more desirable to content providers. Really, the only significant difference is that H.264 is a closed-source and patent-encumbered version of VP8.
Put simply, once Flash supports VP8, there doesn't seem to be a reason for the continued existence of H.264.
Comments
20
Subscribe to commentsDeoWulfFeb 4th 2011 2:45PM
I like home dash, but one problem I'm running into is that whenever I mouse over the login page for my router (which happens to be one of the top sites I've visited recently) it pops up a dialogue asking for me to login in order to display the preview.
I've already condensed my entire Firefox UI to the titlebar anyway, and although I do like this quite a bit, it doesn't necessarily save me much space. It just makes my minimalist obsessions more practical to implement.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 5th 2011 1:34PM
@DeoWulf Can you not save your router's name/password? Or does Dash ignore those saved records?
NathanFeb 5th 2011 5:03PM
@DeoWulf .. Sounds like a bug.
They shouldn't be trying to preview sites with HTTP Basic authentication.
SilverWaveFeb 4th 2011 5:52PM
If you are on Ubuntu then and what the latest build see here:
Install The Newest Firefox ppa with command "add-apt-repository" (9.10 & above)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1352580
Either:
One Daily A Month (from ubuntu-mozilla-daily).
The latest firefox without the update hassle.
* One ppa for each Firefox.
* Updated at the start of each month.
Or
One Daily A Week (from ubuntu-mozilla-daily).
The latest firefox without the update hassle.
* One ppa per Ubuntu Version (containing both Firefox 4.0 & Firefox 3.6).
* Updated at the start of each Week.
e/g.
Add a PPA:
One Daily A Week #2 - Maverick
Code:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:silverwave/testing2
One Daily A Week #0 - Lucid
Code:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:silverwave/testing0
One Daily A Week #1 - Karmic
Code:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:silverwave/testing1
Update & Install
Code:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox
sudo apt-get install firefox-4.0
Applications > Internet.
FF3.6 is called "Namoroka Web Browser" (Firefox pre-release).
FF4.0 is called "Minefield 4.0 Web Browser" (Browse the Bleeding Edge).
Note: Mainly tested on 64 bit Lucid YMMV :-)
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 4th 2011 6:25PM
@SilverWave Thanks for the tips!
BroamFeb 4th 2011 6:16PM
H.264 is not a version of WebM. The two codecs are similar but unrelated.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 4th 2011 6:25PM
@Broam Hehe, sorry if it wasn't clear -- I wasn't suggesting that they're the same codec. Just very similar, functionally.
NathanFeb 5th 2011 5:05PM
@Sebastian Anthony
No you're wrong Sebastian.
They are only comparable at low resolutions e.g. 480p. The minute you goto 720p and 1080p H.264 blows VP8 out of the water. H.264 is used for Blu-Ray discs remember.
Android underlingFeb 4th 2011 11:17PM
Chrome is not that agile, it just seems like it is due to a faster release schedule. Firefox would do well to copy this move.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 5th 2011 1:33PM
@Android underling New features do seem to pop up in Chrome faster than Firefox -- but at the same time, Firefox is ancient in comparison, and already has a lot of features that Chrome is busy adding.
SilverWaveFeb 5th 2011 1:29PM
Boox 3 alpha 1 for Firefox 4 is Available!
http://joliclic.free.fr/blog/index.php?post/2011/01/22/Boox-3-alpha-1-for-Firefox-4&pub=1#pr
---
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Deepest Thanks to joliclic!
OK... it works! WHOOT!
I think I can now move over to FF4.0 full-time
---
Yes I know got a little carried away there ;-)
NathanFeb 5th 2011 4:57PM
Sebastian. I can't believe you're this clueless.
> They're both high-quality MPEG-4 codecs.
No they aren't. VP8 is not part of MPEG-4 and when you compare 720p and above versions of the two. There is no contest. H.264 is much, much better than VP8.
> H.264 is a closed-source and patent-encumbered version of VP8.
H.264 is not closed source. It's a specification.
> Put simply, once Flash supports VP8, there doesn't seem to be a reason for the continued existence of H.264.
That is so ludicrously stupid. H.264 is used for Blu-Ray discs, is supported by ALL smartphone platforms, is the standard for video cameras and is widely supported by all editing and special effects software. VP8 has NONE of these.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 5th 2011 5:05PM
@Nathan But it COULD be in all of those, no? The reason it's used across all those platforms is because Sony (and others) are members of the consortium behind H.264, right?
VP8 is a recent addition, and it was open sourced long after H.264 had become entrenched.
I think I was wrong on the MPEG-4 thing though -- I got carried away thinking about DivX and XviD. It's fair to assume that hardware MPEG-4 decoders could be made to handle VP8 along with H.264 though, right?
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 5th 2011 5:07PM
@Nathan Do you have some sources on H.264 being better at higher resolutions?
Blu-ray uses H.264 because Sony is invested in MPEG LA, the licensing body behind H.264.
(Also, the AVCHD format, which is used by most digital cameras, was created by Sony/Panasonic -- that's why it's H.264)
MxxConFeb 6th 2011 3:19AM
@Nathan don't confuse quality of a codec with bandwidth.
Bluray discs are ~50GB each. at such huge capacity you can have huge bitrates, and at huge bitrates even GIF will have good picture quality.
NathanFeb 5th 2011 5:16PM
It could have be. If Google had all of this a few years ago. Now they have no chance.
1) H.264 hardware decoder sales grew 51% last year and prediction for 20% growth YOY for the next 5.
2) VP8 videos are unable to be played on any mobile device right now and won't be until new hardware is available. PowerVR (who make most of the mobile GPUs) have only just announced VP8 support. That means there are what 150+ million devices out there (iPhone, Android, WM, iPods) that will never be able to play VP8.
3) H.264 is supported by so many, many companies including all of the big players. VP8 had no support when it was owned by On2 and won't have much more success with Google.
http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/mpeg-related-companies-and-organizations/
4) Blu-Ray also included the VC1 codec from Microsoft which was widely agreed to be similar in quality to H.264. And Blu-Ray is much more than just a Sony technology.
MxxConFeb 6th 2011 3:25AM
@Nathan point #1 is irrelevant and very vague.
#2 is easily changed. Android will have VP8 and will get rid of h264, when that happens the only viable options will be WP7/iOS vs Android/WebOS.
I'll put my money on Android/WebOS
#3 all those companies will be more than happy to dump insanely expensive h264 and switch for a free one.
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 6th 2011 6:50AM
@Nathan Hehe, well, don't get me wrong, H.264 isn't going to vanish over night (for the reasons you listed). But as Mxx says, in time, it will be phased out -- or be reserved to Blu-ray and digital cameras.
(Incidentally, this story was angled at the Web and HTML5/Flash video. All sorts of crazy, proprietary tech is used in the consumer electronics world. The 'Open Web' is very different.)
Sebastian AnthonyFeb 6th 2011 6:38AM
@MxxCon You know, I'd love to see an entire movie as an animated GIF...
sclericeMar 24th 2011 6:27AM
I made a directory of these games and other, there : http://www.gameshtml5.net