14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla's experimental social networking and sharing add-on for Firefox, F1 is getting a major update. At this stage, since Mozilla is still figuring out what works and what doesn't, big changes should be expected and are probably a good thing.
The latest version gets better integration with Firefox 4, it's part of the AwesomeBar now, but also a great new feature, it no longer requires a browser restart for each install.
But the journey is only beginning, Mozilla has big plans for F1, if everything goes according to plan, the add-on will one day become built-in functionality in Firefox, like Personas and Weave, later renamed Sync, before it.
"With this latest release we’re moving the toolbar button beside the bookmark star icon, this is part of an effort to integrate better with Firefox," Mozilla's Bryan Clark wrote.
"Future versions of F1 will be able to update themselves without requiring you to restart your browser," he added.
Restartless add-ons are one of the big new features in Firefox 4. Courtesy of Jetpack technology, add-ons built on this platform can be added and removed with a few clicks, without disrupting the workflow too much.
Along with automatic updates, this means that you will always be running the latest version of F1 without having to do anything. In terms of raw functionality, there's not much new in the latest F1, most of the changes are under the hood.
But more is to come, with the basic functionality in place, the team plans to explore the possibilities and experiment further with ways of integrating a social experience in the browser.
"We’ve started down a new road in the Mozilla F1 project. We have researched sharing on the web and learned a lot about how we can improve it. Our next challenge is to examine what a sharing service would look like if it were integrated into the browser. Not just and as an add-on but a part of your browsing experience," Clark explained.