Custom Firefox Development, Toolbars and Browser Extensions

Firefox, Netscape, & Mozilla Toolbars (Browser Plug-ins and Extensions)

What are dynamic toolbars?

A dynamic toolbar is a toolbar with more involved features and is usually integrated with a server.

Dynamic toolbars can offer such features as: branding, intricate drop down menus, scrolling or animated buttons, radio controls, speech recognition, and so much more.

Dynamic toolbars are usually formatted based upon server side stimulus, where it may be a remote XML file, a script or a document—whatever the content may be.

We can provide a mechanism to cause the look and feel of an Internet Explorer toolbar to change both dramatically and dynamically and at runtime.

What is Firefox for the Internet Explorer faithful?

Firefox logo Netscape logo IE logo

The Firefox browser is a product of the Mozilla open–source software project and has recently gained a substantial following and market share due to its features and perceived security benefits.

With the rising popularity of Firefox, we have recently received an increase in requests for Firefox toolbars. In fact, since the first quarter of 2005, Firefox has become a good portion of our business, and we expect this to increase despite IE 7.0 looming (our brief commentary on IE 7.0 Beta is on our News Page). Prior to 2005, most of our requests for the Mozilla architecture came from the Department of the Defense and the educational sector.

We have implemented multiple Mozilla/Netscape and Firefox toolbars for all different operating systems in both JavaScript and C++.

To conquer browser market share, we recommend designing both IE and Firefox toolbars.

When planning a toolbar for multi-platforms, what platforms and operating systems do you wish to support?

When this question is answered, the development criteria can easily be planned. This is probably one of the most important questions that you, as a customer, will have to decide.

“GigaSoft produced results that matched and exceeded our expectations. In an extremely tight time-frame, they churned out a product that we could quickly and easily integrate into our own. They understood he functionality requirements and the core of our idea, and made it happen! You can't really ask for more than that.”

Dan Kaplan, VP Marketing & Business Development, TaskCue Technologies, LLC (USA)

For example, if you want to support Windows only, most likely a small amount of code could be shared between IE and Firefox environments. If multiple operating systems, such as Windows and the Mac OSX platforms, are desired, then there are a few more choices:

  • Do you want a JavaScript code base which makes cross platform easy to achieve, but has potential pitfalls with speed and source code visibility?
  • Or, do you want a C++ implementation which conquers the speed and source code visibility issues, but will have specific hardware requirements for compilation?

Don't worry. We're here to help.

We will gladly discuss your objectives and requirements with you and help you decide on the proper solution for your specific needs.

Do you really want to us JavaScript?

While it is easy to use JavaScript to achieve cross platform it also has its pitfalls such as speed and source code that is fairly visible to anyone.

Do you really want to use C++?

While C++ conquers the speed issue and makes it extremely difficult for others to view your source code there are also some pitfalls here as well. One of the most glaring disadvantages is that the compilation of the source code has to occur on the target operating system. So for all practical purpose you will have to have a build procedure for each operating system – be it Windows, Mac Linux, etc.

Once you have decided upon the toolbar that you want and you have chosen the platforms that you wish to support, we can then discuss further requirements (specifications) that need to be defined. At that point, we can pass on a proposal that includes a timeframe and pricing. Defining all requirements upfront, enables the project to go quickly and smoothly for all.

What we have done?

We have implemented multiple Mozilla/Netscape and Firefox toolbars for all different operating systems in JavaScript and C++. Since the first quarter of 2005 we have been inundated with interest and development requests for both IE and Firefox specifically therefore doing some pretty steady development in this arena; now prior to this the development of choice was to support the market share, that of Internet Explorer. Things are changing all the time as we know and there is no doubt Firefox is a very stealth and worthy new opponent of IE and a very viable marketing tool for us all to offer. Prior to this the educational sector and Department of the Defense were just a couple of the clients that requested the Mozilla architecture; both of which we have worked with over the years. Firefox has now become almost half of our business and we expect this to increase with the presence of IE 7.0 looming (our brief commentary on IE 7.0 Beta is on our News Page).

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