Link of the Day: Open Government and Browsers

Primary version of this post, with visual content, at Barry Stocker's Weblog

‘Transparency Chic’ by Katherine Mangu-Ward. Wall Street Jounral. 21st August 2009.

Link to Recap extension for Firefox, designed for accessing subscription firewalled US court archives, which has to be paid for, but then stores pages in an open access archive.

If you don’t know what Firefox is, it is a browser which can be downloaded for free and can be use on any computer running Windows, Mac or Linux (usually has Firefox preloaded anyway) operating systems. It is open source, which means anyone can design modifications for it compatible with the source code. I don’t use it much myself (I prefer Safari, the native browser on Mac), but it’s very universal in its applicability, very stable, and is ideal for anyone who likes modifications through a download that takes a few seconds. Go here for more information and download.

Mangu-Ward makes two major points in the article.

Barack Obama has yet to implement promises about open government, which includemaking information about government spending available on line in real time. Mangu-Ward mentions to links to private websites which made this information available more quickly than the government which holds the information. OpenRegs which makes information about government regulations freely available. RecoveryOrg which makes information about economic recovery measures freely available.

Barack Obama, and his predecessors, have only made information about court cases available through the online service PACER, but PACER is only ‘freely’ accessed by subscription packages which are ‘freely’ available to many academics and legal professionals through institutional subscriptions. ‘Freely’ because the cost of institutional subscriptions creates downward pressure on salaries paid by those institutions. Anyone else encounters a cost of 8 cents a page, which mounts up into serious money for anyone doing serious research on the law. As Mangu-Ward points out, Obama’s hero Abe Lincoln, made this kind of information available for free within the technology of that time. As with the issues of regulatory and financial transparency private voluntary issues have made information available for free.

RECAP. The name comes from reversing PACER. The RECAP extension enables users to access PACER, the first time a RECAP user accesses a certain page that user has to pay. However, RECAP automatically creates a a free open access archive, This is completely legal, though very unpopular with the subscription providers.

Safari Browser for Windows might be better than Firefox 3

Safari for Windows can be downloaded from here Download Now Free for Mac and Windows

I've been arguing for the merits of Firefox as a browser, and particularly Firefox 3, beta 5.  This reflects my experience on Windows XP on a desktop PC.  I'm switching to Mac OS X Leopard on a MacBook (leaving aside office computers)  next month.  Friends who use Mac computers also use Firefox rather than the native browser, Safari.  I've tried out Safari since Apple released the Windows version, it is now on release 3.1.  Earlier versions impressed me with their aesthetics, but were very unstable, crashing and freezing at slight provocation.  I also found that the chat function had disappeared from my Gmail account.  

What is the situation now?  Gmail chat has disappeared on Firefox 3 beta 5, and I've had many problems with slow running and crashing.  Very likely my fault for not only using a beta version, but for doing things which made the browser perform worse: add the Night Tester extension which enables existing extensions on the browser that are not compatible with 3 beta 5 to become forcibly compatible.  I suspect also that Windows XP has difficulty running several applications, especially when one is an unstable browser on the 512 mb of ram (memory) I have at present, though that is standard.  Probably best to have 1 gb of ram if running several widgets, iTunes and a beta browser at the same time as I often do, and even more so if I'm running a sweep for spyware or viruses.  I do not see this as outrageous use of the computer.

I'm amazed to see that PCs are being marketed with 1 gb of ram for Vista premium.  Unless users stick to the Vista Basic limit of 2 programs at once, I'm sure they are plagued by slowness, freezing and crashing given that  2 gb is clearly minimal for Vista, and some reviewers claim that Vista is too slow even on that amount of ram.  

Back to browsers.  I've downloaded all the upgrades to Safari, and the last version, 3.1 is running beautifully.  No crashes or freezing, just some slowness which probably reflects the tendency of my 512  mb of ram to fill up all too easily.   

I was excited by the flexibility of Firefox, all those themes and extensions, and by the greater sense of aesthetic unity of the page in 3.  Safari does not give much  flexibility  or choice but it has a beautifully integrated aesthetic well beyond Firefox 3.  Like everything else from Apple everything feels seamless and gives you exactly what you need.  At first I was confused by the lack of restore closed tab option, but it can be done easily after clicking on History. At first I could not see how to close tabs, but go to File and the option is there, and I memorised control+w for that operation anyway.  Click on Develop and there are options to 'open page' with all the browsers I have loaded on the PC (Firefox, Opera and Explorer).  I was a bit startled by so many links opening in a new window, but right clicking on a link gives a speedy was to choose opening in a new tab or a new window and other options, including 'Inspect Element'.  It seems less happy with many tabs than Firefox, and opening new Windows causes less slowness than opening many tabs beyond those visible in the tab bar.  

Page loading is indicated by translucent blue bar spreading over url in address window, spell check comes in quickly and automatically.  A beautiful effect of curvature in three dimensions and 

Try it out. Download Now Free for Mac and Windows

I'll wait to try it out on my MacBook, and other browsers, properly when the Mac arrives.  So far I've just fiddled about on friends' Mac computers.  I'll also try out the following: 

Firefox 3 beta 5

Camino (a version of Firefox for the Mac OS which resembles Safari)

Opera

If I'm now finding Safari best for Windows, I guess I'll find it ever better for the Mac OS.