Firefox 3 will be released to public in a few weeks. For geek users the release candidate version is out there, ready to be downloaded. Firefox 3 will feature user interface integration, which means that Firefox theme will match your operating system theme. Below you can see some screenshots for mozilla development blog that show that integration. Does this integration though worth that buzz?

First of all user interface is not a measurement for rating an application. Although it is the first thing that the end user sees. Personally I like the idea of making Firefox look like a native application on each operating system. The user interface varies even between windows vista and windows xp. Mac users will feel like home too as Firefox 3 will look similar to safari with the well known minimal mac feel.

I have tested Firefox 3 on a vista system. Bad news is that the web developer plugin did not work. Probably that will be fixed with a newer version of the plugin when Firefox 3 final version is out. Good news is that the browser renders pages much faster and most of the memory leaks that were a pain when using Firefox 2 have been fixed. Web standards are supported as usual with Firefox. Download manager has been upgraded too. A “search” field is there helping you navigate through your downloads. You can pause, resume, cancel or open multiple file locations at any time.

The feature I enjoy most on firefox 3 is the new security features. When visiting a web site, you can click the icon next to the address bar which will provide you information about the identity of the site you are visiting. Also if you want to see as more contest as you can at once, there is a full screen option which eliminates the user interface buttons and fills your screen with web content. Useful improvement, especially for notebook users.

In general web standatds support, native user interface which makes the browser easy-to-use even for users that have used only IE and security improvements make firefox 3 the best browser out there (and IE look like the worst one…).

Mozilla Prism is a project created by the Mozilla Foundation (Firefox and Thunderbird creators). Prism is dedicated to bridge Web apps with desktop apps. The project is based on Webrunner which moved to Mozilla code repository and took the name Prism.

The first thing you may think is that “We have already Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe AIR for that kind of stuff”. Thats true, but first of all Prism is open-source, which means that developers around the world can add features or help to the development and fix security issues. Secondly Prism is not aimed to replace the Web. Its just acts like a bridge (like a mirror) between web apps and your desktop. Lets use an an example to understand how Prism works. Assuming that Gmail is your favorite web app. Prism lets you split Gmail out of your browser window and run it directly from your desktop on its own window.

Prism is built on Firefox, so it supports rich internet technologies like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The Mozilla team works on adding more features to Prism, like support for 3D graphic cards and offline data storage. Up to now though Prism is available only for Windows as it is in beta mode.

When the final version will be released, Prism will probably be integrated with Firefox and you will not even have to download and install it. A button in Firefox that will let you with one-click to add the web app you like on your desktop is also in plans. You can download the current beta version of Prism (Microsoft Windows version only) from here.

If that project succeeds, it will be a great step on improving the web experience and bring the web “everywhere”. Its big advantage agains Silverlight and Adobe AIR is that it can bring any web app in your desktop and not only the apps that are created using specific frameworks. As the project is open-source, you can participate in the development. Most info on that, here.

Mozilla Sunbird™ is a standalone calendar application. Sunbird is being developed for some years. The latest version is 0.7 (far away from the milestone 1.0 which means that some bugs should probably be expected) which you can download here. Sunbird has small system requirments and runs smoothly without consuming much memory.

The interface is simple but usefull. You can view your calendar in day, week, multiweek or month mode. Toolbar is customisable as well (like in Firefox). Adding events is easy: Just click the “New Event” button on the upper left corner, fill in the details (duration, start time, end time), choose wether or not you want to be notified (Sunbird should be running for notifications to work) and click Save and Close. There is an option for repeating events too.

Next to the “New Event” button there is the “New Task” button. Pop-up window for task adding is the same with the event add, but after saving, tasks are listed in the lower left corner, giving you the ability to give them priority, fill the fullfilment percentage and tick the fullfiled ones.

For social people, Sunbird gives the option for exporting your calendar (or importing a calendar) and publishing your Calendar so it can be shared with others. Calendars can be password protected for more security.

In general Mozilla Sunbird™ offers the basics of a Calendar application and is suitable for the home user or users that do not need advanced features from their calendar app. I’ve been using Sunbird 0.7 for two weeks now and it is really stable (has never crashed) which should be considered to pros.