As pointed out by mozillalinks, Mozilla is planning to do a major overhaul of their add-on manager UI for Firefox. The new add-on manager will change from the existing popup window, to its own tab.
The add-on manager will move from the existing top navigation to side-tabs, keeping the same list view of available and installed add-ons. Users will be able to manage their languages, search engines, extensions, themes and plug-ins all in the same window, being able to search for addition add-ons through the built in Mozilla search.
The add-on manager now includes search engines, where previously only available on its own, apart from the add-on window. Mozilla has not announced their default list of search engines yet, but will allow a undo and restore search engine option.
Some of the functionality and UI isn’t final yet, and is currently very buggy.
Google said on Thursday that it has made a new Chrome for Mac Beta available which includes extensions support.
The new beta release of Chrome for Mac offers extensions, bookmark sync, and more. Google’s extensions gallery currently includes over 2,200 extensions and these are available for Mac users too. Mark Mentovai, Software Engineer, Google Chrome said the company was focused on “providing a snappy, safe, and simple browsing experience on the Mac.”
Users of Chrome for Mac with several computers are now able to keep their bookmarks synchronized between them. This latest version brings the build number up to 5.0.307 for Chrome Mac. Google originally introduced a beta version of Chrome for Mac in December 2009.
Today Google has released a stable version of Google Chrome for Windows with bookmark sync and extensions. Google Chrome will now allow you to add extensions to your browser to make accessing news sites, activities, and many more things in a single click.
Google Chrome extensions have a one click installation directly in your browser and work instantly without the need to restart your application. Google Chrome Mac and Linux both received extensions back in December, allowing users to customize their browser, personalizing what they see, and how they use it.
Google Chrome for Windows also added bookmark syncing for users with a Google account, allowing them to sync bookmarks to their account. Users with a Google account can sync their bookmarks on different computers.
The wait for Google to bring their browser over to the Mac and Linux platform is finally over, with a new release of Google Chrome today. Google Chrome for Mac is still in beta, so users should still be cautioned that the build may not be completely stable.
Google Chrome 4.0 beta offers gallery support for users that want to customize the look and feel of their browser; the gallery support is identical to the Windows version. However, Google Chrome for Mac relocated the toolbar buttons to the top in the OS X version.
Google will be releasing regular updates for not only the Windows client, but now the Mac and Linux platform. Google Chrome for Windows is said to graduate to 4.0 and be out of beta on January 12.
Chrome 4.0 supports extensions, a similar function to Mozilla Firefox add-ons, something that helped with the wide adoption of Firefox.
Extensions for Windows and Linux are all now live in Google Chrome 4.0 beta. Users can browse more than 300 extensions in their gallery; Mac extensions should be beta available soon, once all the kinks are worked out.
