Mozilla News

The folks at the Mozilla foundation have announced the finalists in their Extend Firefox Contest. The judges are looking for the Firefox extensions that are the most useful, the most innovative, and the easiest to use. Extra points go to the extensions that integrate with web services like map tools, weather tools, RSS and search. The list of finalists includes the almighty Web Developer Toolbar, the Deepest Sender blog tool, and the Reveal history browser.Winners will be announced by the Firefox team in mid-february. [link via digg]
The next release of the Opera browser will feature integrated BitTorrent functionality for file transfers. According to Norway's Opera Software and ZDNet, the second preview release of Opera 9 is due tomorrow. Widgets, sort of little floating browsers that run dedicated web services, are familiar to anyone who runs the latest version of Mac OS X. Widgets can be used for things like stock tickers, webcams, weather and traffic reports, and news aggregators. The nice thing is, these widgets will not be as resource hungry as the ones that run on your desktop locally. But it's the BitTorrent integration that really exciting. Users will be able to download and share torrents through the browser's downloads manager. Maybe the rest of the planet will see how useful torrents are (like RSS) by having this integration. Opera Software developed the BitTorrent support alongside BitTorrent, Inc., as noted in Opera's press release from today:
BitTorrent's technology will be made available to users of the Opera browser in two ways: first, users can search for torrent files in the Opera browser's integrated search field, and second, when a file has been selected, Opera's Transfer Manager feature will handle the download. As a result of integrating BitTorrent into the Opera browser, users no longer need separate software for the searching and downloading of torrent content.
Look for other browsers to pick this up really soon. We'll be keeping an eye on AllPeers and MozTorrent for Firefox, as well. [link via digg]