firefox

Google is obligated to support Mozilla’s Firefox browser through a search contract until 2011. But rumors suggest that may be the end of the Google-Firefox alliance. People were relatively stunned when Google launched its own web browser, Chrome, and they wondered allowed what that would mean for Google’s relationship with the browser that quickly rose to the second most used browser in the world.

There has been a lot of talk recently about browsers and the maneuvering that is occurring in that space due to new releases and expiring agreements and more.

Tools for shortening URLs have become very popular in the age of microblogging, but shortening a URL to incomprehensible code makes it impossible to know what you’re clicking on. The now quintessential microblogging service is Twitter, which limits messages sent to a group of followers to 140 characters. This makes it difficult to post URLs with long set of parameters that follow. The necessity to shorten those URLs gave rise to services like tinyurl, is.gd, ping.fm, bit.ly, tweetburner and others.

Google has highlighted a few Firefox add-ons that could be of great use to AdSense publishers. These include:

Google may be used to seeing its market share climb, but it looks like the search giant is getting kicked down a rung or two in one country.  Mozilla has decided to make Yandex, and not Google, the default search provider in future Russian versions of Firefox.

Mozilla, the makers of Firefox internet browser (the only notable competitor to Microsoft's Internet Explorer), has extended its deal with Google - meaning the search giant will continue to be the default search engine on all its Firefox installs until 2011.

Firefox 3, which set a one-day record for downloads recently, has been reconfigured in a way that's setting off alarms for webmasters who haven't renewed their SSL certificates. As the US Army just learned, Firefox won't bring up sites with self-assigned and/or expired certificates. At least, not without some extensive hoop-jumping. If you're a merchant you should know that an SSL certificate encrypts data transmissions between two computers. Credit card information, for example, is protected during transmission between those two computers.

The talent keeps pouring into Facebook headquarters. The most recent addition (and the first of more to come, Facebook sources tells Murdok), is Mike Schroepfer, also known as Mozilla's vice president of engineering.