Geode in the press
Yesterday we announced Geode, an experimental add-on designed to explore geolocation in Firefox 3 right now, ahead of the planned implementation of geolocation in Firefox 3.1. Future versions of Firefox (and Fennec) will support the new W3C Geolocation Specification, which adds the native ability for Web sites to request, and you to optionally grant access to, your location.
As of this morning there were more than 50 total articles posted on Geode, with the majority of the coverage in the technology, consumer technology press and blogsphere. Coverage has been primarily neutral with many reporters comparing Geode to Yahoo!s Fire Eagle and Google Gears.
We accompanied this announcement with a few use cases to illustrate the benefits of the technology, which helped provide a more thorough understanding of Geode as everyone was able to see the immediate benefit, making the exploration of the technology very “real”. However, we saw some confusion about whether geolocation would make it into Firefox 3.1 or Fennec, and difficulty understanding that when the beta comes out next week, users and developers could experiment with geolocation in that result.
Some highlights from the coverage include CNet, PC Magazine, Mashable, and New England Cable News.
08 Oct 2008 Nicole Loux
One Response to “Geode in the press”
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Two things:
1. Domain name whitelisting (as opposed to blacklisting) should be supported. Remember NoScript.
2. A priori, the user should manage his own geolocation data, which he can choose to disclose. Firefox must not attempt to automatically figure out a user’s geolocation data by asking a remote service provider. This is similar to the default blacklisting of dangerous web sites by comparing their URLs to a local, infrequently updated database instead of communicating with Google in every single instance.
The browser must be given priority over the web server.