About:me Extension for Firefox 3.6 Detailed, Prototype Available for Download
While the development process of Firefox 3.5 codename Shiretoko has yet to come to an end – as a matter of fact we are still eagerly waiting Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate – we have a first glimpse of what the next iteration of the Mozilla developed browser has to offer. About:me is a hidden menu in Firefox 3.6 that brings up a bunch of interesting info about your browsing activity.
According to Mozilla Wiki, About:me is “a statistical analysis of the user's history, average tab load, etc.” that has been developed with the goal of “showing users the broader patterns in their interactions with the web, thereby creating a tighter personal bond with it.”
To put it more simply, About:me in Firefox 3.6 will show you precisely what web pages you visit frequently, at what time of day you do the most internet browsing, and so on. If you click the domain name you will be directed to said domain and if you click the bar you will see more detailed info including what pages you visited on a particular domain. If I were to compare About:me to something closer to home, I would have to say that it reminds me of the “Trends” feature in Google Reader.
The cool thing is that if you cannot wait for Firefox 3.6 to be released, you can try out a prototype version of About:me that comes in the form of an add-on that only works with Firefox 3.5 Beta. The About:me add-on can be downloaded here.
Perhaps I should stop referring to the next iteration of the Mozilla developed browser as Firefox 3.6 and start calling it Firefox.next. That is how the Mozilla Foundation prefers to call the next version of Firefox, and for good reason. Firefox 3.5 was initially supposed to be a minor update, and as such it was supposed to be called Firefox 3.2. But once the development team started to add more and more features, it became obvious that the version number needed revising – and so we got Firefox 3.5. If the same thing occurs in the future, then we might not get to see Firefox 3.6, but something completely different – it is better then to say Firefox.next and forget about version numbers for now.
According to Mozilla Wiki, About:me is “a statistical analysis of the user's history, average tab load, etc.” that has been developed with the goal of “showing users the broader patterns in their interactions with the web, thereby creating a tighter personal bond with it.”
To put it more simply, About:me in Firefox 3.6 will show you precisely what web pages you visit frequently, at what time of day you do the most internet browsing, and so on. If you click the domain name you will be directed to said domain and if you click the bar you will see more detailed info including what pages you visited on a particular domain. If I were to compare About:me to something closer to home, I would have to say that it reminds me of the “Trends” feature in Google Reader.
The cool thing is that if you cannot wait for Firefox 3.6 to be released, you can try out a prototype version of About:me that comes in the form of an add-on that only works with Firefox 3.5 Beta. The About:me add-on can be downloaded here.
Perhaps I should stop referring to the next iteration of the Mozilla developed browser as Firefox 3.6 and start calling it Firefox.next. That is how the Mozilla Foundation prefers to call the next version of Firefox, and for good reason. Firefox 3.5 was initially supposed to be a minor update, and as such it was supposed to be called Firefox 3.2. But once the development team started to add more and more features, it became obvious that the version number needed revising – and so we got Firefox 3.5. If the same thing occurs in the future, then we might not get to see Firefox 3.6, but something completely different – it is better then to say Firefox.next and forget about version numbers for now.
