I don't load my computers down with useless toys. My systems tend to be somewhat basic and if I don't use an application much, I tend to get rid of it. Maybe that's due to my years as a Resource Management Analyst on the former NZ Dairy Board's mainframe systems, trying to better just a little bit more out of the hardware and software by making most efficient use of it.
Yesterday I discovered Mozilla's "Ubiquity". It's a sort of command-line for the Mozilla Firefox web browser.
But much more than that. I've been having fun working out how to most effectively use it - particularly the ability to highlight some text on a web page, invoke Ubiquity, and watch it find resources, from a variety of sources, related to those selected words. There is much more to it than that, despite the first version being described, at v0.1, as a prototype.
Watch the video below and see how easily Aza Raskin is able to create a "mash-up", using Ubiquity, into an e-mail he's drafting. The potential for it to be a very powerful tool is there.
It's available on Mac, Windows and Linux. You can checkout the tutorial and it installs in a handful of seconds. It's only 185k. You can learn how to develop your own Ubiquity commands, too.
Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
General Debate 06 October 2025
1 hour ago
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