It seems that email is a very very unsafe mode of communication. Although I don't have any world domination plans as yet, I would like to keep my things private from intruding governments as well as companies.

I've been looking a bit around and it seems that there is a lot possible, but that it's just very fragmented; GPG and FireGPG together with some extra functionalities would help us get started.

What if you created one package out of Seahorse/GPA/KGPG and FireGPG which after installation had the following functionalities for for example gmail (more email programs should follow);
- The first time you start it up, a key-pair is being made for your email address. The public key is automatically uploaded to the PGP Global Directory which then verifies the email adres with a verification email.
- When you send an email it automatically looks in the Global Directory whether the person you send the email has a public key and if it finds one, it automatically encrypts and sends the message. Also it automatically signs the email using your private key.
- When you receive an encrypted message, it automatically unencrypts it and checks the signatures using the Global Directory.

Using a system like this would get many people to use it since it is not so complicated anymore and just one package. The more people post public keys, the more it gets accepted by other email programs while it doesn't interrupt the current flow of emails since you can still send normal emails as well.

If you think intruding governments are taking a bit too much away from our privacy these days, please vote UP!

Links:
http://www.getfiregpg.org/
http://www.gnome.org/projects/seahorse/
http://www.gnupg.org/gpa.html

[....]

I use Ubuntu 8.04 and I see very bad web pages. The main problem is the fonts. A lot of pages use true type fonts. I think that ubuntu could be more friendly with this kind of font altough they are for windows.

Sorry if this problem was fixed on later versions and the wrong English.

When you ship Ubuntu with Firefox by default you should spend considerable time to generate also default bookmarks that comes with Ubuntu.

If Tags, Descriptions, RSS (maybe by preinstalled Sage extension) and all the possibilities now in FF3 are fully used I think you will
*) support novice users finding their way in Ubuntu and all the default programs that come with it
*) get more volunteers for (actively) supporting Ubuntu

Cheers
Martin

It should be easy to use thunderbird/firefox autoconfig system (http://mit.edu/~firefox/www/maintainers/autoconfig.html). The problem now is that (thunderbird example) "general.config.filename" preference (which you can set in "/etc/thunderbird/pref/thunderbird.js") is filename path relative to the root of the thunderbird binary directory (for example "thunderbird.cfg"). And this directory (/usr/lib/thunderbird-A.B.C) is changed after every thunderbird upgrade in ubuntu. So, after upgdrade I have to copy/recreate my thunderbird.cfg in new directory.
My workaround is to create and edit /etc/thunderbird/thunderbird.cfg and create symlink to it in /usr/lib/thunderbird-A.B.C directory. To automate it after upgrades I created /etc/apt/99thunderbird containing:
DPkg::Post-Invoke "for i in `ls -d /usr/lib/thunderbird-* | grep -v thunderbird-addons`; do [ ! -e $i/thunderbird.cfg ] && ln -s /etc/thunderbird/thunderbird.cfg $i/thunderbird.cfg; done";
Workaround works well, but using DPkg::Post-Invoke is realy nasty way.
I think automatic customization of thunderbird/firefox should be convenient in large environments.

Allow self signed certs (rethink http/https/certificate authorities) me must separate authenticity from encryption. Raise question together with KDE, Gnome, Google and Mozilla. Mozilla/Firefox today supports different levels of authenticity in their awsomebar - develop that further.

Todays scheme prevents site owners from implementing encryption becuase they're not authenticated.

It's okey to show a symbol that say the connection is encrypted - it's not okey to pop all kind of warnings just because the cert is self issued.

I suggest three levels.
1. Not encrypted, not authenticated (i.e 99% of sites)
2. Encrypted
3. Encrypted and verified from trusted CA.

Edit: possibly a bad idea due to what Auzy writes - we can't be assured that a man-in-the-middle doesn't act as a proxy for a secure connection.

On Microsoft's Windows, if you hold the scroll wheel in a browser you get this symbol http://www.plaatjesupload.nl/bekijk/2010/06/09/1276090236-40.png . It's to scroll fast by moving the mous in the direction you want, the more distance the faster it will move you. I've never seen a thing like this in ubuntu, and i really use this a lot. It could be either browser-only or you could put it in the whole OS wich would be awesome.

The FireFox Add-on Piclens is only available for Windows and Mac Users. FireFox Add-On PicLens Needs a Linux Version.

Piclens is AWESOME!!! It is probably the best and most useful ADD-On for at least myself and my use of FireFox. The best way to describe Picslens is view the demo on their website.

www.PicLens.com

From their website here is a brief description:

"Full-Screen, 3D -- PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for finding and viewing online photos and videos. Our "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more."

I've already contacted the company that does PicLens. They responded by telling me that they fully support Linux in general but have not been able so far to create a Linux version.. They are concentrating on making PicLens as stable as possible for the Windows and Mac platforms. They hope to have a Linux version eventually.

If you want a Linux version of PicLens, please vote favorably. I believe its safe to say the developers at PicLens may well also be Ubuntu Brainstorm members like you and I.

There is an extension available for Firefox called FirefoxNotify that alerts you using iNotify when a download is complete. I found this to be really helpful, as I could just minimize Firefox when a large file was downloading and wait for the notification while working on something else.
I often find that on sites like Facebook I don't notice when someone opens a chat with me. Therefore I think it would be useful if websites could trigger iNotify alerts.

We cann't block some pages/info/redirection in simple way. We should have to:
- Block redirection(some sites will redirect us to another; it also using javascript; maybe we don;t need to block all redirection, but only one)
- Block popup's

Some pages are broken. While we using wykop(so we look at pages from other), page at the frame will automatically redirect us to it, so we cann't using wykop functions. when we using proxy, there are the same situation. Maybe we shouldn't using proxy with js enabled, but redirect is most evil than js.

The default Firefox theme in Ubntu is retro and unattractive. There is a 'Strata Human' theme available from the Add Ons menu which fits with the rest of Ubuntus look & feel much better.