
Firefox 8 beta gets Twitter search straight from the browser - darkduck
http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2011/09/30/firefox-8-beta-gets-twitter-search-straight-from-the-browser-39748021/?s_cid=557
======
gcp
The implication here is probably that Twitter is now paying some amount of
money to the Mozilla Corporation.

Which is good, because being too dependent on your competitor (Chrome) for
income could be tricky at some point.

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hornokplease
There's an official Twitter add-on that enables this on earlier versions of
Firefox as well:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/twitter-
addre...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/twitter-address-bar-
search/)

~~~
gkoberger
This is slightly different. This add-on (along with the Twitter Firefox build,
<https://twitter.com/#!/download/firefox/>) also lets you search Twitter using
@ or # in the address bar.

The beta 8 stuff just adds Twitter to the list of default search engines.

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ghurlman
DuckDuckGo[1] can give you this today.

[1] <http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html>

~~~
magicalist
So can Firefox[1] :)

[1] <http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Search%20bar>

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nextparadigms
Firefox has an increasing mindshare problem now. And that comes from the fact
that they're losing all the "early adopter" types to Chrome, which then
promote the new beloved browser to everyone else, friends, family, etc.

They started "winning" a few years ago because they got all the early adopter
types. Then Chrome came and stole them away from them. Mozilla needs to add
stuff to their browser that will make these early adopters come back.

And they really need to fix that whole compatibility issue with add-ons. I
couldn't believe I couldn't use Ad-block in Firefox 7 because it wasn't
compatible.

The developer is obviously at fault here, too. Firefox 7 has been available in
some form for 2-3 months now, since just like Chrome, all their Firefox
version go through a process of pre-alpha, alpha, beta, stable, and each one
lasts about 6 weeks. So how come Ad-block is still not available for FF 7
then? Is the developer taking a long break or something?

But the fact that Firefox makes all add-ons incompatible _by default_ without
any modifications from the developer, is also _unacceptable_. Either get rid
of the old add-on system completely and leave that mess behind, and fully
support the new extension engine (the one similar to Chrome's), or make it
work already! What's the point of an old add-on system if only 10% add-ons
work when the new version launches?

Also they might need to reconsider their current design, too. I don't know
what it is, but something seems _off_. Maybe it's their 2 column menu that
seems weird to use to me, or maybe it's just because I've been using Chrome
for a long time and FF is too different from it now. I don't know, but I think
there's work to be done on the design.

And do we really need that small search box in the right? I think it clutters
the bar. Being able to search on any browser using the TAB key after typing
the site name is also something I love about Chrome.

~~~
onosendai
You took a link about FF adding a twitter search option and turned it into a
rant about how FF sucks and Chrome rules. But ok, I'll bite.

I've used the two extensively, and the only thing (for my use case) that
Chrome has over FF is interface speed. Here are a few things FF does really
well over Chrome.

Low level extension access to the browser: This is the reason you don't have
Noscript or HTTPS Everywhere in Chrome, it's also the reason mouse gestures
are fundamentally broken on Google's browser. For example perform a gesture to
open a new tab, then perform a gesture to close it. Oops, you can't, since
extensions are disabled in certain types of pages on Chrome due to its
security model.

Search as you type: You actually have to hit CTRL+F in Chrome to start finding
stuff, versus just starting to type in FF.

Tab activity notifications: On FF, I can have Gmail, Reader, etc.. pinned as
app tabs, and if they get updated with new items the tab gets highlighted.
Chrome, for some strange reason doesn't do this and you have to keep opening
the tabs to check for updates.

Search keywords: Much more straightforward to add in FF, just click on a
search field and select "Add keyword for this search". Chrome automatically
adds just about every search engine/form you come across to a huge list, which
you then have to trawl in order to customize the one you want.

Bookmarks & History: Chrome's bookmark manager sucks big time, I guess Google
wants you to search and not bookmark. FF has a half decent manager with tag
support. The Wonderbar also works a lot better than the Omnibar when searching
your history and bookmarks.

Tiddlywiki: This is the big one for me (although only tangentially Chrome's
fault), I use tiddlywiki extensively and FF is the only working browser on
non-Windows platforms.

So all of these annoyances in Chrome negate the gain I get from its speed by a
large margin. Again, this is my particular use case, but I definitely get
stuff done quicker in FF than in Chrome.

And by the way, the initial extension breakage is fixed on FF 7.0.1, which was
just released.

~~~
Pewpewarrows
I also don't think this thread is the place to discuss these things, but since
it's here already...

Wouldn't search as you type be fundamentally broken on any website featuring
keyboard shortcuts? (I'm not a Firefox user, so I don't know how that's
handled).

Pinned tabs are highlighted in Chrome when they receive updates. The pulsing
used to be very eye-catching, but for some reason they now reduced it to an
almost unnoticeable searchlight-like effect from left to right over the tab
chrome and favicon.

In Chrome you right click any search field and choose "Add as Search Engine",
just like Firefox. It also picks up on any search that you've done
automatically, so you can just tab-search from the URL bar as you're typing a
site name that you haven't explicitly added a shortcut for.

At the end of the day, they're both very excellent browsers that have almost
reached full feature parity with one another. I don't think either one is
better, it's just a personal flavor and preference at this point that you
can't qualify, equivalent to preferring Chocolate over Vanilla ice cream. In
fact, users now have 5 competing, well-built and standards based browsers to
choose from. The true winner of this browser "war" was the end-user, which is
who should have won.

------
gto16108
I just love the fact that twitter is being integrated into more systems now.
Even Apples integration into iOS 5 is a serious move up for twitter. Business
seems good on their end.

------
nextparadigms
They should add Blekko and DuckDuckGo as options, too. I don't know if
DuckDuckGo can pay them, but Blekko probably can.

~~~
darkduck
I think DuckDuckGo is already in the list. At least I saw it in Aurora channel
for Firefox 8.

~~~
darkduck
Just checked in Aurora again. It is now v.9. And DuckDuckGo is in the default
list.

~~~
cainetighe
@darkduck - There must be some kind of misunderstanding here. I've got the
latest source and we're nowhere to be found.

[nil@tmbg ~/mozilla-central]$ grep -r duckduckgo . [nil@tmbg ~/mozilla-
central]$

Furthermore, the list of the default / available plugins can be found here:
[http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-
central/file/a896a9e237a0/brow...](http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-
central/file/a896a9e237a0/browser/locales/en-US/searchplugins).

If you have any information about the future of this, we would be really
excited and interested to know, but we would appreciate a screenshot or a link
to verify. I expect you have DuckDuckGo in your search list from before
(thanks!) and the new installations are just picking up on that in the
preferences directories generated upon install.

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jimktrains2
Glad to see what's on their list of priorities.

I'm sure they're getting a kick-back, but still.

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justinhj
not sure if this is useful to any real users?

