/Interview/ Q&A: Mike Beltzner
03/03/2010 | Filed under Discover > Interview
At the end of January, Mozilla unleashed Firefox 3.6. We hook up with director of Firefox development Mike Beltzner to spill the beans on the latest improvements, what’s bubbling in the labs and the state of the browser wars
.net: Firefox 3.5 has a tendency to crash, and the first betas of 3.6 seemed to suffer from the same problem. How are you improving the browser to prevent this from happening?
AMB: Firefox has always taken stability seriously; we were the first browser to create tools like Session Restore to help users when we, or their operating system, crashed. As we continue to analyse product stability, we discovered that a large portion of users’ problems with Firefox were with third-party software integrating poorly with the browser. We sent a team, ‘Crashkill’, to dig in deeper to the causes here. Some of the problems were in our code and we fixed those, but we’ve also made changes to the way in which we allow these third-party utilities to integrate with Firefox. The result is a much more stable product than Firefox 3.5.
.net: You claim the new version will be more than 20 per cent faster than 3.5. How have you achieved this, and how does the speed compare with other browsers?
MB: The JavaScript engine Tracemonkey, which is used to run complex, dynamic websites, performs 20 percent faster than Firefox 3.5 on the SunSpider benchmark. This will result in an overall increase in the speed users feel as they browse. But it’s not the only way in which we’ve made Firefox 3.6 faster than its predecessors. We spent a lot of time optimising the product so that pages load faster and are displayed to users more quickly. Network traffic is prioritised to be more responsive for the pages that a user is looking at. And our user interface is more responsive than before.
.net: Which new CSS3 and HMTL5 features are supported?
MB: Firefox 3.6 gives web developers more tools and features to help create the next big breakthroughs in web content. Features such as the new drag and drop API, the File API and support for the newest web technologies - like Web Open Font Format, CSS Gradients and device orientation - enable richer, more interactive experiences on the web for developers to play around with.
In addition, Firefox 3.6 includes our best yet implementation of HTML5 audio and video support (Vorbis and Theora), allowing web developers to include rich media that is controlled using JavaScript, HTML and CSS instead of by proprietary technologies. In Firefox 3.6, videos can be shown in full screen. A full list of changes for web developers can be found at developer.mozilla.org/en/Firefox_3.6_for_developers.
.net: What have you done in terms of location-aware browsing?
MB: Firefox 3.5 introduced support for the W3C GeoLocation API, which is used by sites like Google Maps and Flickr. W3C GeoLocation establishes the user’s location (only with the user’s consent) based on co-ordinates from a GPS device, or the charted location of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots.
.net: Why did you decide to add new personalisation features to change the look of the browser? Wasn’t the add-on enough?
MB: A new type of Firefox theme called a ‘Persona’ lets you instantly change the look of your Firefox. Based on a Mozilla Labs project, this new type of theme has existed as a successful add-on for some time and has been downloaded over 10million times.
Adding this functionality to the browser was an obvious way to share quick and easy personalisation capability with all 350million of our users. With a gallery of over 30,000 to choose from, users can change their look as often as they like.
.net: What have been the main challenges in the development of 3.6?
MB: Firefox 3.6 has been the smoothest development cycle yet. This is quite an accomplishment considering we added resources and infrastructure to develop and deploy for the mobile market as well.
As always, the primary challenge has been drawing a line and deciding which new features would have to wait for a future version. So much new technology and capability is added to our platform on a weekly basis that it can be painful and sad to have to say “this will have to wait until the next release”.
.net: What do you think about the fact that Microsoft has agreed to allow Windows users to choose which internet browser they use, ending a 10-year battle with the European Union?
MB: Mozilla’s non-profit mission is focused on self-determination and individual empowerment; we are gratified to see these principles appear in the settlement. And while the ballot mechanism, which has received most of the attention, might be a useful tool in encouraging user choice, we’re more excited about the adoption of several principles ensuring Windows will not subvert a person’s choice of a competitive browser.
.net: Where are the new browser wars heading?
MB: We’re happy to see that Microsoft and others are continuing to invest in the browser space and the web. Competition forces innovation and that ultimately means a better web experience for everyone, which is what Mozilla is all about. Our large community of contributors enables us to explore and incorporate new features into our products, which we believe deliver what users want. Our efforts are ultimately driven by our mission of encouraging choice, innovation and opportunity online.
.net: What’s next for Firefox? What’s happening in the labs?
MB: The GA of Firefox 3.6 is expected later this month. The Mozilla development community is already planning for the future (which may be Firefox 3.7, or may be Firefox 4.0), including how it will look and what features will be included. In addition, there’s a lot going on at Mozilla Labs with developments in Jetpack, Weave, and the concept of ‘you-centric’ browsing, making the browser become more intelligent, so it acts as a ‘personal agent’.
We’re also proud to be releasing Firefox for mobile devices this year. The release candidate of Firefox for the N900 on the Maemo platform is already available and we’re expecting the GA in a matter of weeks.
.net: Firefox 3.7 alpha features full Direct2D GPU rendering, a feature that’s also promised for IE9. What will it mean for browsing?
MB: Websites have become more and more graphical over time, and standards-based graphics technologies like SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and <canvas> enable web designers to build the same rich visual experiences of traditional desktop applications on the web. By making use of the existing graphics hardware in most modern computers, we can make sure that these graphics are shown to users quickly and smoothly. The engineers working on these features are already seeing great gains, which make applications like animated video games possible using open, web standard technology as opposed to a plug-in, which may not be available for all systems.
Mike Beltzner
Job Director of Firefox development
Age 33
Education Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Science, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario
Previous career User experience lead at Mozilla, user experience designer for IBM Canada
Online beltzner.ca/mike/ and twitter.com/beltzner
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Comments
Adam Web Design / 04/03/2010 / 10:05 / http://www.webdesign-gm.co.uk
As a designer the only problem i have with Firefox is that it's so advanced in comparison to other browsers i don't get to use any of their new features, so it's all a bit of a waste. How can IE not see they're way off the pace?! Look forward to playing with their new mobile browser!
jimthing / 13/03/2010 / 06:15
Just use Safari. Why?
Because as a MobileMe user, everything I bookmark on my Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, Windows machine, and iPhone all sync together flawlessly in the background. Meaning I always have the link with me whatever device I am using without doing anything myself.
Other devices/browsers try this but don't work anywhere near as well (Apple's proprietary nature, but the product actually works!).
I use FF sometimes, but finding "useful" add-ons is just such a pain. Like most people I don't have the time or energy. Yes Safari doesn't do add ons, but Firefox can be as much of a pain with junk add-ons that fail to work, as it is with those that do work; no quality control you see.
The biggest problem generally with tech is *information overload*, whether talking about browser add-ons (FF) or mobile apps (especially Apple's 150,000 of the things!). What user are crying out for desperately are better, clearer, and more concise ways for these "extra's" to be found, show how they work, and what they can & (more importantly) *cannot* do for us.
