A couple of years ago I switched from using Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's Firefox for my internet browsing needs. A friend of mine swore by Firefox and told me I had to try it. Back then it was all about the tabs. "Once you use tabs, you won't ever go back to IE", he claimed. He was right, but tabs were only a small part of it.

For a part-time web developer like myself, the add-ons that Firefox allowed its users to install became invaluable. Extensions such as Firebug, Web Developer, YSlow (to name a few) became essential tools as I developed my little hobby (this site!). However, there were always the times I had to go back and "fix" the site in Internet Explorer and when those times came I felt nearly helpless without the Firefox extensions I became so reliant on.

I soon was telling everybody I know, "IE blows, you have to switch to Firefox". Well, IE doesn't really "blow", but for what I was trying to accomplish, IE just didn't cut it anymore. Until something comes along that's more developer friendly (hard to imagine that will happen in the near future), Firefox will be my browser.

Today I learned that Firefox 3 has an extremely promising new prototype: Ubiquity. Ubiquity is a Firefox extension that allows for user-centric mashups.

What does that mean exactly?

It means that developers are now free to write little javascript programs that perform a single function on the internet. Users can then subscribe to these "Ubiqs" as they please - allowing them to create any kind of web experience they wish.

For example, the Mozilla team created a Ubiq to generate a google map from text highlighted on craigslist. Another useful Ubiq is a translation command that (appropriately) translates web text.

It's like having a command line interface for the web.

I had to dive in so I wrote a Ubiq for myouvies.com. You can find it on our ubiquity page.

I'm really intrigued by what the Mozilla team is trying to accomplish with Ubiquity. I hope more developers jump on board and start creating some cool commands*.


*like highlight a game on espn.com and instantly bet on it at the offshore gaming site of your choice... just a thought