The watchful eyes at Phoronix noticed that a pair of small changes were announced yesterday on the Ubuntu dev list. Both will affect the browser in Lucid Lynx -- and both have to do with search.
The more subtle of the two is a small tweak within Firefox. When a user changes his or her default search, the Ubuntu start page's search box will send queries to that provider. While most users may never see this in action (just about everyone sets a custom home page, right?), it's a nice change and keeps the search experience consistent.
Now on to the not-so-subtle change.
In the same post, Canonical's Rick Spencer also announced that a revenue sharing deal has been reached and Yahoo! will replace Google as the default search option. Spencer stresses that the deal in no way affects the user's ability to change to a different engine and I'm fairly confident that most Ubuntu users are savvy enough to know how to do that.
The deal will provide additional income for Canonical -- which Spencer says will "will help Canonical to provide developers and resources to continue the open development of Ubuntu and the Ubuntu Platform." That's certainly good news. After all, if you allow users to download your OS for free, it's fairly critical to have alternative revenue streams to fuel your business.
One reply on the dev thread noted that it would be nice for Yahoo! to remove the "unsupported OS" warning from Yahoo! Mail since they're snuggling up to Linux. Seems like a good idea to me...
Comments (0) 27.01.2010. 08:00
Communication software Skype is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. As you probably know, Skype lets you send instant messages or make voice or video calls over the internet. What you may not know unless you're a Mac or Linux user is that the Windows client tends to get all the cool new features first. But eventually they tend to make their way into the clients for other platforms.
This week Skype introduced Skype 2.1 beta 2 for Linux. The most noticeable change is that the Linux client now supports screen sharing, a feature that's been available in the Windows version of Skype since the middle of last year.
Skype 2.1 beta 2 for Linux also supports quoting messages in chat, has a new "report abuse" option, and adds support for localized time formats and UI styles.
You can read about all the changes since the last beta in the release notes.
Comments (0) 22.01.2010. 10:04
It's finally official! Mere days after it hit Release Candidate 2, the finished version of Firefox 3.6 comes out tomorrow. It's been confirmed over at Mozilla's official blog, where there's also an intro video from Mike Beltzner, Director of Firefox. (Or, you can watch the video after the jump.)
Beltzner runs through all the new features in 3.6, including quick theming with Personas - which is up to a whopping 35 THOUSAND themes now. Firefox now also scans for plugins that need to be updated, for extra stability and security. Beltzner also focuses on designer features like CSS gradients, accelerometer support and web standards support.
The timing of this release is perfect, since IE is currently shedding users thanks to its role in China's attack on Google. If Firefox is going to take a bite out of IE and hold off the WebKit contenders like Chrome and Safari, now's the time to do it. So, along comes Firefox 3.6, marketing itself as the best choice for security and stability ... looks like a good sales pitch to me, even if you're not in love with add-ons.
Comments (0) 20.01.2010. 05:06