14 DAY TRIAL // Launched three months ago, Personas is a Firefox extension that allows for easy customization of the browser's appearance. Though in the works at Mozilla Labs since 2007, just recently the organization put its weight behind the project and pushed to make it an integral part of the Firefox 3.5 experience and now it is announcing some new features on the site as well as a new theme category, 'Film', with some Harry Potter themes.
“Today, we are excited to announce two new features to the online gallery: search and favorites. Both of these are important not only because they help make the Personas experience stronger, but also because their release was a collaborative effort within the Personas community,” Toby Elliott, Myk Melez, Ryan Doherty, and Suneel Gupta wrote on behalf of the Personas development team.
Personas is a lightweight theming engine for Firefox designed to allow users to easily customize their browser but also make it easier for the less tech-savvy to create a theme. Firefox already has a full-blown theme system but Personas has a different approach as it doesn't change any of the interface buttons or layout, just the “background” of the current theme. In fact, anyone can create a new “Persona”; all they need to do is provide two photos, the header and the footer, and the text color for the interface.
Today Personas has been downloaded 6 million times and the online gallery boasts 17,000 designs, up from 500 in March, so the new search and favorites features should come in handy. The Personas rage from nature to fashion to sports and now movies with the introduction of four Harry Potter-themed designs from the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” The themes are very easy to install and preview. Hovering the mouse cursor over a design will allow you to preview it and see exactly how it will look without losing your current one. If, however, you want to change it, just click on the “wear this” button and that's it.
Personas can be downloaded right here.
