ReadWriteWeb

A post on the Mozilla blog yesterday has the company, makers of the Firefox Web browser, pondering the creation of an "open" Web application store and imagining what such a store should look like. Although the musings come across as a bit "me-too"-ish considering that Google just announced its own Chrome Web Store earlier this week, it's hard to argue with the principles Mozilla sets forth. An open Web app store should "exclusively host web applications based upon...other widely implemented open standards in modern web browsers," reads the post. It should "be open and accessible" and "set forth...guidelines and processes that are transparent."

Of course it should. But the subtext here is that Mozilla is proposing a Web App Store that's open, as if Google is not doing the same. But is that the truth?

Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, introduced a "plugin checker" page last fall that analyzed whether the plugins you had installed in your web browser were up to date. Now that tool has been updated to check plugins installed in other web browsers too, including Safari, Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer.

According to the Director of Firefox Development, Johnathan Nightingale, plugin safety is an issue across the web. "Outdated plugins are a major source of security and stability risk for web users," he wrote in a recent company blog post.

Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) is now available for phones running Google's Android OS. This highly-anticipated web browser is a mobile-ready port of its desktop cousin, Mozilla Firefox. Like its predecessor, Fennec offers tabbed browsing and add-ons. It also offers an optional add-on called "Weave" which allows you to sync your Fennec history, passwords, bookmarks and tabs between the mobile and desktop versions of the browser.

But before you rush out to install Fennec now, be warned: this download is "pre-alpha," which means you should expect to see some bugs, kinks and other issues.

The team behind Mozilla's Firefox browser announced today the availability of experimental code that website owners can add to their pages to allow site visitors to create an account, log-in or switch users with just a few simple clicks and no password to remember.

The unveiling comes a week after Facebook fired a big shot across the web, staking a claim as the dominant provider of one-click portable identity. These two technologies seem aimed right at each other and engineers at both companies have no doubt been following each others' work closely.

Mozilla Contacts, the experimental project from the organization behind the Firefox web browser, has released a new version of their Contacts add-on which introduces Facebook integration. Previously, Mozilla Contacts allowed you to import your various address books spread out across the Web (think: multiple email accounts, Twitter friends, LinkedIn colleagues, Plaxo contacts, Mac OS X address book, etc.) into the Web browser itself - in this case, obviously, Firefox. Once there, the combined address book information could be used in form autocompletion everywhere across the Web and more.

Now, an updated version of Mozilla Contacts (download link) introduces a number of new features, most notably integration with Facebook Contacts and something called a "person URL."

Korean company Egoing has introduced MonkeyFly, a browser plugin that allows a user to customize their Twitter. For users who feel the abiding need for monkeying around (rimshot) with everything they use, this could come in handy.

Among the features the plugin powers are a grid-style interface, lightbox profile, link tracking and easy photo upload.

Firefox has released a new beta of their web browser called Firefox "Lorentz," a test build of Firefox 3.6.3 that's designed to minimized crashes. Previously, when a plugin caused a crash in Firefox, the whole browser went down in flames too. But in Lorentz, this will no longer be the case. The page running the errant plugin will offer you the ability to submit a crash report while the rest of the browser remains up-and-running like usual. The improved stability is due to Lorentz's process isolation, a feature which runs plugins as processes separate from the web browser itself.

Does this sound familiar? It should, if you're a Google Chrome user.

Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox browser, just published its first quarterly State of the Internet report. With over 350 million users worldwide, Mozilla collects a lot of interesting data and the organization decided to start sharing more of this data in these quarterly reports. Firefox's worldwide market share is now hovering near 30%, with Europe (39%) and South America (31%) leading the pack and North America coming in last (26%), even though it has the highest total number of Firefox users.

Fennec, the mobile version of the Firefox web browser, is now available in an early build designed for Android handsets thanks to a fan-compiled download posted on an Android developers forum. And by early, we mean unofficial, pre-alpha, device-specific and downright buggy. But for anyone interested in mobile browser developments, this port is an interesting sneak peek into the future of Firefox's mobile plans.

A new service from AwayFind lets you ignore your inbox without worrying that you're going to miss an important message. It's one of those ideas that seems so obvious, you're left wondering "why didn't someone think of this already?"

With the new service and its optional web browser plugin, you're able to configure alerts for critical, "can't miss" email messages and can choose to have those alerts sent to you via instant message, Twitter, SMS text message or even a phone call.