Are they serious?

Not sure when this started occurring exactly, but Yahoo is apparently now letting Firefox users know that they’d be better off switching to the “new, safer Internet Explorer 8″. Apart from this tweet sent out yesterday, we haven’t noticed anyone noticing, so we suspect it’s fresh and a direct result of the recent Yahoo and Microsoft love-fest.

How ironic. About a year ago, following a failed acquisition attempt by Microsoft, Yahoo ran a very different recommendation from their front page, advising Internet Explorer users to switch to the “NEW safer, faster Firefox 3″ instead.

Apparently, Yahoo recommends browsers based on what their latest business alliances are.

Maybe they should just develop and market their own browser and rid the confusion?

via techcrunch.com

Mozilla Fennec

Is a full-fledged, add-on-powered mobile browser something you want for your phone? Jay Sullivan, Mozilla’s Vice President for mobile, works every day to make it happen. Read what Sullivan has to say about Fennec, iPhones, Android, and all things mobile.

Sullivan leads the team at Firefox maker Mozilla creating a mobile version of Firefox, dubbed Fennec, which would be available as both a pre-installed browser on cooperating phone makers’ models and as a free download for as many phones as possible. We’ve taken screenshot tours of the first alpha, and newer betas and alphas are available for download for touchscreen Windows Mobile phones, Nokia tablets, and for desktop testing.

Sullivan talked with us by phone just under two weeks ago about where Fennec is at the moment, what platforms we might see it on, and what it could mean for the future of web development.

Read the full interview on Lifehacker.com…

Windows/Mac/Linux: Google’s popular offline browser plug-in Google Gears has been broken ever since Firefox 3.5 was released weeks ago. Frustrated users created their own workarounds, but now Gears is officially back up and running with Firefox 3.5.

Just point your browser to the Gears homepage to download the latest or update through the Firefox Add-ons window by clicking the Find Updates button. After you update, you should be back up and running with Gears, enjoying all the great offline options it has to offer, including previously mentioned Gears-supported features like Offline Gmail, Offline Google Calendar, and Offline Remember the Milk. Google Gears is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, works with nearly any browser you’d like. Thanks Roy!

Gears [Google]

via Google Gears Officially Updated for Firefox 3.5 – google gears – Lifehacker.

Windows only: Firefox lovers have no doubt already updated to the recently released Firefox 3.5 for its amazing new features, but if you’re more the portable type, Firefox 3.5 Portable Edition is officially available for download.

This portable version comes to us from the reliable folks at PortableApps.com, makers of the popular, previously mentioned Portable Apps Suite, and brings all the goodies of Firefox 3.5 to your thumb drive. You may still need to perform a little about:config tweaking to get your extensions working with Firefox 3.5, but apart from that the portable version looks like it’s ready to go.

Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition [PortableApps.com]

via Lifehacker – Firefox 3.5 Portable Available for Download – Firefox 3.5 Portable.

Windows/Mac/Linux: The final version of the Firefox is starting to show up on Mozilla’s web site, and some readers are reporting update notices.