Social browsing with Mozilla Labs F1 -- how RockMelt should've been

Mozilla Labs has just let loose the next stage in browser empowerment: F1. In one fell swoop, with just a single add-on, F1 brings social sharing to Firefox. With F1 installed, it's just a matter of clicks to share a site with Twitter, Facebook or Gmail.

The F1 button, which works in Firefox 3.6 and 4.0, sits in the top right corner of your browser, next to the search bar. The first time you use it, you need to authorize any (or all) of the three services. After that, you simply hit the F1 button, select a sharing service, and hit share. In case you were wondering, hitting F1 on the keyboard doesn't work -- that still brings up the Firefox help pages, alas. There's a video of it in action after the break.

It's painfully simple and stunningly effective. Sharing services like AddToAny and ShareThis have been deprecated by a 35 kilobyte Firefox add-on. F1 is faster, more convenient and unfailingly secure -- and this is just the beginning! While it only supports Facebook, Twitter and Gmail for now, Mozilla Labs talks about an API that will allow social sites to hook into Firefox; in theory, F1 could support any and all sharing services, all from within the browser.

This is the beginning of the end for the 'Share' block that hunkers like a hairy, unkempt baboon beneath each and every blog post on the Web. It really makes you wonder what exactly RockMelt spent 10 million dollars and two years of development on. F1 was probably developed in less than a week by a couple of Mozilla Labs code foxes.

Social browsing with Mozilla Labs F1 -- how RockMelt should've been originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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