the jorbot

i’m loving the new update to firefox. finally a browser is moving away from proprietary plug-ins *ahem* adobe flash and shockwave *cough* and using in-browser capabilities.  i find this a very big deal. as much as i like standardization and unification on the web, i don’t like how sluggish things have become in terms of user interface. i also don’t like how flash video isn’t optimized as much as it should be.

i googled firefox and this is what i got. meh, good enough.

this is where firefox 3.5 comes in. it uses theora for video, vorbis for audio, html 5 for everything else. it allows lazy designers (like me) to have flash-like functionality without having to use flash.

the upsides

1. no need to worry about killing bandwidth and end-user cpu cycles decoding video and audio
2. html or java-based navigation for said multimedia
3. not reliant on external software to make things work

downsides

1. only available in firefox and opera. not sure if microsoft will adopt this way of thinking
2. the tools are in their infancy and are without a doubt…ghetto
3. EVERY video site uses flash-based video. don’t expect to see this usage for a long while.

so yea… once safari adds these goodies as well, it’ll be an interesting battle for the #2 spot.

ummm… fire? check. fox? check. i guess this makes sense…