A Firefox Add-On for App Addicts: App Discover
When you visit a web site how do you know you're getting the best experience for you? That's the question the new Firefox add-on App Discover aims to solve. Once installed, the app could alert you if there were any enhancements (Greasemonkey, Firefox add-ons) or applications (Adobe AIR, Appcelerator Titanium, Fluid, Mozilla Prism) that work with the web site you're visiting.
Today, finding the latest and greatest apps involves a lot searching around, but with the App Discover add-on, you could potentially discover new apps just by visiting the web pages you use every day. The site would actually tell you if there is an enhancement application available through a notification that appears at the top of the page.
For example, visiting the site Twitter.com could alert you to the availability of the TweetDeck AIR application.
Before you get too excited, understand that App Discover does not quite work just yet - it's only a proof of concept. In order for it to work, the add-on created by Dion Almaer (who blogged about on Ajaxian) requires the developer to enter a link tag to their web page in order for the it to find the available apps. Because of its newness, no developers have done so just yet.
If App Discover became popular, it could be further customized to include user preferences so you could let the app know what sorts of apps you want to be alerted about - e.g. yes to Greasemonkey, no to Titanium apps. It could also include a social feature which would let you know how many of your friends had also installed the app being suggested.
We love the idea of this Firefox add-on, so we put the question to you developers out there - would you support this add-on? Please?
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This would be great, BUT you would need regexes to detect if the page is the right one and central repository of them, so they don't get tainted.
Also only apps from Mozilla Add-ons should be promoted this way in order not to make it a point of new evilware infections.
However this would be great for us... we'd just say that Zemanta Firefox extension should be suggested on Wordpress/Typepad/MovableType web pages.
This could be a great vehicle to promote innovative extensions, but a lot of care has to be put into security.
Andraz Tori, Zemanta
A neat idea in theory. But pop-up reminders can become pretty irritating and if you visit the kind of site where extensions are available on a regular basis, I can see it being a source of frustration.
Could also lead to some interesting stats (for the app makers) to see where their users are defecting to, if care is taken to make reports anonymous.
@Kenny,
In my original article I talk about minimizing the popups with some smarts.
For example, if you go to a website frequently, then show it (e.g. "You have visited Twitter X times a day for the last week, maybe you would like an app")
And then there is the social aspect letting you know that friends use an app often for the site.
Cheers,
Dion
Seems to be another useful Add-on from Firefox .
Is a amazing extension, could be a excellent utility but like kenny say pop-up reminders can become pretty irritating.
But i dont care this extension will getting a better experience for me when im looking for a apps for interacting with the website.
thanks...
DNS Bank SMS
Snapped - seems my xmas carols moment has been preserved in RWW history! :)
Now, if only app upgrade could be used to get IE6 users to a more modern browser...