Mozilla.org offers an early developer release of the mobile version of their web browser Firefox called Fennec. A fennec (Vulpes zerda) is a fox subspecie, which can be found in North-African Sahara and the Sinai. It features huge ears and a extra large tail, making that little night active critter look extremly cute. Thus, so far for the donator of the name, let’s go technical.

The features are:

• Bookmarks, including tags
• Smart URL bar (“awesome bar”)
• Tabbed browsing with thumbnail images
• Integrated Web search – built into the URL bar
• Easy access to multiple search engines
• Maximize content by auto-hiding controls and URL bar
• Zoom in and out
• Instant Web site ID (“Larry“)
• Password manager
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data
• Click on a phone number to initiate a call
• JavaScript API to get device location
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data
• Searchable download manager
• Preferences pane

The mobile desert fox now only runs on OS2008 (“chinook” or “diablo”), like the Nokia Internet-Handheld N810, but there are versions for Windows and Mac OS X available, too.
Mozilla now wants to gather feedback and plans “further alpha releases which focus on performance, including projects like TraceMonkey, speculative parsing, and many Fennec and Gecko optimizations.”

The own browser closes an important gap in the Google web portfolio, offering already email and office applications, online advertisement, analysis tools, a feed reader, an instant messenger, blog software, online photo albums, translators and not to forget the different websearches.

So it’ll be interesting, what exactly they will deliver…

But as Michael Arrington from Techchrunch said, one should think about whether we really want Google to know everything we do online.

(Btw, Techchrunch.com seems to be offline, any coincidence with their critic…?)

• Do not show the “Close Tab” Button on all open Tabs
  FF3 shows the “Close Tab” by default on every tab, if you do not want it to do so, change the config here:

  Parameter: browser.tabs.closeButtons
  Default value: 1
  Possible modifikations:

  • 0 [only shows the close button the active tab]
  • 1 [show it on all tabs]
  • 2 [do not show any close buttons on the tabs]
  • 3 [show only one closing button at the end of the tabs row]
• Adjusting the width of the tabs
  Firefox displays open tabs with a minimum width of 100 pixels, with many opened tabs the user will have to scroll the tab bar. To avoid scrolling or reduce it you can lower that minimal width.

  Parameter: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
  Default value: 100
  Possible modifikations:
  0 [disables scrolling completely, any other values will determine a new minimal tab width]

• Turn off the session restore function
  Personally I do not like this feature very much, I cannot remember having used it willingly (sometimes I clicked the wrong button). So here’s how to turn it off:

  Parameter: browser.sessionstore.enabled
  Default value: true
  Possible modifikations: false [by setting the value to "false", the restore dialog won't appear anymore]

• Countdown timer before installing an Addon
  You’ve just found the Addon you were hoping for aeons of time, downloaded it, but then there are always these horrible two seconds of waiting till the installation begins…
  Get rid of them!

  Parameter: security.dialog_enable_delay
  Default value: 2000 [in milli seconds, which makes in this case 2 seconds]
  Possible modifikations: 0 [by setting the value to "0", the installation starts immediately, all other values, specify a delay in milli seconds]

• Turn off the Anitivrus Scan
  Only in Firefox 3: Downloaded files will have to pass an antivirus scan, which might take a while, if you are leeching a larger file.

  Parameter: browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
  Default value: true
  Possible modifikations: false
  [by setting the value to "false", the scan is disabled, so watch out what you're downloading from which site]

One of the problably most discussed features is “InPrivate”, sarcastically baptised the “porn mode” due to is most striking operation field. But this function is simply an automatism for a standart procedure, which are already offered by several other competitors on the browser market, i.e. “Clear private data” function in Firefox.
By concealing the browsing behavior and thus avoiding the data mining by webpages, this function cuts off targeted advertising, which will not be appreciated by the marketing companies.

So this measure will be welcomed by the data privacy protectors, but certainly not by the greatest online advertiser, namely Google, who has by the lately swallowed DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, who are specialised in targeted marketing.

Hopefully the MS software engineers had been sticking a little bit closer to the standarts defined by the W3 consortium.

On the download page itself M$ only gives common talk:

Internet Explorer 8 is the latest version of the familiar web browser you are most comfortable using, helping you get everything you want from the web faster, easier, more privately and securely than ever before.

• Faster Internet Explorer 8 is more responsive with new pages and tabs, opening up fast and reliably. You can now get to the information you care about most, in fewer steps; one click access to your webmail, favorite news sites or other online services.
• Easier Reduce the steps to accomplish many common tasks, and automate your access to real time information updates. You can keep track of your favorite sports team, news, weather with a single click.
• More Private Helps protect your privacy and confidential information where ever you go on the web.
• More Secure Helps protect and stop malicious software from reaching your PC, and makes it easier to detect when a website is an imposter.