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FireFox Sets the World Ablaze
An anonymous reader submitted a story about Blake Ross and his involvement in the Firefox project. Just the latest in a steady stream of Firefox PR pieces, although with a more human take than just the 'Firefox is a good browser' stories.
Microsoft is probably getting nervous
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Like David and Goliath, the Mozilla Foundation -- a small, nonprofit organization offering open-source software -- is set to battle the software giant Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft in the realm of Internet browsers.
Mozilla's weapon of choice against its Goliath? Mozilla Firefox 1.0: A super-fast Web browser, in part created by Stanford sophomore Blake Ross, set to compete against Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
As in the parable, the little guy's chances are looking good. On November 9, the day Mozilla Firefox was released, over one million people downloaded the browser. People on all seven continents are downloading and using the browser -- yes, even a research group in Antarctica is surfing the Web with Mozilla Firefox.
Balancing his time between classes and the development of the browser, Ross has been working part-time at Mozilla to develop the project and remains part of the Mozilla Firefox core team. The release of Mozilla Firefox has certainly made a mark in Web culture: Ross has interviewed with major publications such as USA Today, as well as with online zines such as Business 2.0.
A Better Browser
Although the process has certainly been exhausting, Ross said he is eager to witness his creation take full flight.
"It's exciting because open-source software hadn't really taken off until Firefox," Ross said. "Other open-source products were more for techie people and weren't really developed for the user."
Ross started working on building "a better" browser while other kids were just getting hooked on instant messenger. He worked on the earlier versions of Netscape at the age of 14 and eventually interned for the company following his freshman year of high school.
Although he enjoyed the experience, Ross found working at Netscape to be somewhat frustrating.
"Larger open-source companies usually have a group of 50 people making decisions on the interface," Ross said. "Basically, if someone wants to have something in the software, they'll include it. There's no review process. So a friend of mine -- David Hyatt, who now works at Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple -- and I started to work on an experimental browser based on the Netscape code."
Their first browser came to be known as Phoenix. The duo promoted the browser to the Mozilla Foundation and began working on fixing the bugs, asking a group of volunteers around the world to help develop the software. Phoenix developed into another version, which they deemed Firebird, which developed into the final version, the now-famous Mozilla Firefox.
Global Effort
The Mozilla Foundation, based in Mountain View, Calif., was established in July of last year and is supported by the Netscape division of American Online. Unlike companies such as Microsoft, which keep their information closely guarded, Mozilla encourages programmers to nitpick through the software and make improvements. Users who locate bugs are highly encouraged to report them.
Kevin Christopher, a senior and resident computer consultant for Faisan, said that he has been using browsers other than Internet Explorer for a few years and distrusts Microsoft's products. He said he prefers using open-source software.
"The concern I share with a lot of other people is a general lack of confidence in Microsoft's code: We don't really know what is well-written versus what is held together by duct tape," Christopher said. "When it comes to the safety of my computer, I'm trusting the application where independent experts can examine the source code, instead of relying on Microsoft's promises."
The Mozilla Foundation is only a tiny organization compared to the market-dominating behemoth, but Mozilla Firefox is already making a dent in Web browsing usage. Since June of this year, Mozilla's share of Web browsing increased three percentage points; Microsoft's share, on the other hand, slipped three, according to the Internet usage tracker WebSideStory.
Challenging Microsoft
"
-Teiresias
Nice article. Too bad there isn't one link to the Mozilla website.
Microsoft used Firefox in a press image they sent out promoting their MSN Search.
On 'linux, the new OS for the Desktop' articles in various local papers. However, I don't know any 'normal' person who has adopted it. People use what they use. I know people who still use NS4. Firefox is great and all, but you stiil have to force people to change. Otherwise, they will just use whatever browser is installed on their computer.
Firefox is good.
Microsoft is bad.
Linux is really cool.
As long as it doesn't come from Red Hat.
We don't like George W.
We do like the space elevator.
And we, for one, welcome our new *fill in the blank* overlords.
OK, now can we go back to things that are interesting?
"Having a good open-source browser that appears to be evolving very quickly exposes Microsoft to the risk that Mozilla will get good enough to start luring folks to it."
Over 1 million downloads in one day. I think the luring may have already begun.
and not only does the spyware stay away, but the net admins won't read your gmail ;)
(The details: Putty now has more than just remote/local port fowarding. You can now select "dynamic" and allocate a local port. This port will then act as a local socks 4/5 proxy allowing you to encrypt/tunnel your web traffic out to another server that is preferably owned by yourself.)
I honestly cannot live w/o Firefox at this point.
Thank you Firefox team!
-- Dave
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
Never underestimate the power of the "word of mouth."
The fox is on FIRE! Haven't you seen the icon? That poor flaming canine is running around the world, setting it ablaze.
What the fsck is this page?
As to the first issue of the above comment taken from the article, the reason FireFox can't open some sites is because the sites themselves are not coded correctly or require ActiveX *cough*SAP*cough*
Run a page through the W3C HTML Validator and you'll see how poorly those sites are coded or are hacked about to render correctly only in IE.
As far as the second issue is concerned, since when are plug-ins part of a browser? The very definition of a plug-in means they are something to added after the fact to do something.
Maybe the author meant Extensions for FireFox.
As far as I'm concerned FireFox does exactly what I want it to do right after the install. Other than making a few tweaks to turn things off and on, just like you would have to do in IE, FireFox runs as right as rain.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Take this paragraph for example:
Their first browser came to be known as Phoenix. The duo promoted the browser to the Mozilla Foundation and began working on fixing the bugs, asking a group of volunteers around the world to help develop the software. Phoenix developed into another version, which they deemed Firebird, which developed into the final version, the now-famous Mozilla Firefox.
Unless I've blacked out and had my memories scrambled as a result, the reason for Pheonix becoming Firebird becoming Firefox were legal and other dificulties over the usage of those previous names. Anyone reading this article would be given the impression that those were desired name changes, not ones that were practically forced.
And if the article can't even get why Firefox is called Firefox right it makes you wonder what else it's less than accurate about.
Elsewhere in the article it says that "one of the novel features is the tab option, which allows users to open several Web sites at once in the same window." Well, if by "novel" you mean copied from another competing browser that has had that feature for ages, yeah, I guess it's novel.
Seriously, this article has some flaws and inaccuracies that you could drive a bus through.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
It's a sad state of affairs when the first 4 to 6 posts on a story are lame attempts to be first, or lame attempts to flame those who tried to be first.
Anyway, I have to give the article points for being readable and informative. It's a nice piece of PR for a browser that really does out shine much if not all of the competition. If you've read the article, good for you. If yoy haven't, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Likewise, if you haven't already tried Firefox you owe it to yourself - even if you're using Safari on OS X. I work in a Microsoft laden department and the official recommendation is for either Firefox, or Safari.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Hackers typically attack the market giant -- Internet Explorer, in the world of Web browsing -- leaving Firefox relatively safe and sound.
Its good to know that journalists are getting it right.
Once Firefox takes the lead in the web client arena, I guess we will all switch to IE because Firefox would be the new target of exploits, not IE.
Now I know that Mozilla and Firefox have not been immune to vulnerabilities, but I would bet that it is in the way they are coded and not just marketshare.
I've heard that there is an open source web server that has more marketsare than say IIS, but does not have the same number of security issues like IIS has.
...put "ac_add_options --disable-freetype2" in your .mozconfig. Otherwise you'll get errors in grx/src/freetype.
The Army reading list
It's listed right there in the article:
It keeps setting stuff ablaze.
I tried it a few weeks ago, but had to stop almost immediately when my harddrive caught on fire, and melted right through the case.
Then the CPU exploded and the ram started smoking.
To its credit, though, Firefox is a pretty good browser. It worked for nearly an hour after that before my monitor melted.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
How long will it be before Firefox replaces IE?
I can't wait till banks and companies to develop IE specific applications are forced to ensure Firefox compatibility, I am still suck using IE in a few cases, would love to just uninstall the thing and be done with it!
"Microsoft has tried to convince users that they need or want to have the browser coupled into every Microsoft application and vice versa ... [which] has led to software that is too 'integrated' to be secure against viruses -- kind of like having a heart attack every time you have a headache,"
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
One of BBSpot's tongue-in-cheek Top 11 Firefox extensions:
:)
MajorityNow - Surfs while your computer is idle to increase the browser usage stats for Firefox.
Should not be too hard to implement.
So why hasn't http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vul nerabilities.html
been updated now that 1.0 is out?
My email addy? should be easy enough.
At 19 I could barely figure out how to roll out of bed before 11:00AM, much less reinvent the concept of a web browser and start my own consulting company. I guess now that I'm 25, I'm doomed to watch teenagers innovate my career out from under me and die sad and alone.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Yes, three things:
Firefox is good.
Microsoft is bad.
Linux is really cool.
That's because the FreeType people keep changing things. I've no idea which version of FreeType it will actually compile cleanly with, but adding
.../layout/svg/renderer/src/libart/Makefile will make it compile with 2.0.9
-DFT_RENDER_MODE_NORMAL=ft_render_mode_normal -DFT_KERNING_DEFAULT=ft_kerning_default
to the DEFINES line in
There was a big push to get contributors for the NY Times ad. I contributed myself. The idea was to have something out connected to 1.0 release +/- 3 weeks.
I can't seem to even find a draft layout of the ad. Am I missing something? Worried that in their excitment at receiving lots of money, they've added a million features to the site, but have slowed up on the ad which attracted folks in the first place.
Probably I just need a clarifying pointer to the place where the mockups are.
These are not flaws in the article, they are called editing. The purpose of the article was to give some background into how Firefox was developed, and how it stacks up to IE. It was not to present the Complete History of Browsers. Nothing they said was incorrect. The browser did go through three names - that is a fact, and the nitty gritty details of why this happened were completely inconsequential to the story. Tabbed browsing is novel for the 90% people in the world who have never seen it, and taken in the context of what about Firefox is better than IE, is a completely accurate statement.
If the author of the article did include the arcane details of every irrelevant piece of information related to the browser, the finished article would be far less readable and interesting - in other words if you had written the article then it would be flawed in achieving its desired intention.
It'll happen after you describe your specific 100% CPU bug on http://bugzilla.mozilla.org
If it turns out that your specific bug is affecting a large number of people, it is likely to be fixed quickly.
Use the system; it's there for YOU.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Just recently got into XUL and it's great! There are still a few bugs but I have no doubt that they'll be ironed out in future versions. Apart from being a more secure and faster browser, IMHO XUL is going to be the final nail in IE's coffin.
Free Firefox news reader.
Kevin Christopher, a senior and resident computer consultant for Faisan, said that he has been using browsers other than Internet Explorer for a few years and distrusts Microsoft's products.
For those wondering just what "Faisan" is, and what it means to be a computer consultant who is both resident and senior, here's the scoop. Faisan is a dorm at Stanford (actually it's a section of a larger dorm, Florence Moore hall, where I spent freshman year about a decade ago). The quoted gentleman is a senior at Stanford, and a "Resident Computer Consultant" which basically means he's the go-to guy for IT questions at that particular dorm.
Apparently the author believed this particular dorm to be so well-known that no explanation was needed.
Not only that, it has already had 1,147,499 downloads through the WIndows Marketplace.
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
I'm running Windows 98SE, and I thought that might be the problem. This now seems unlikely, however, because the reviewer at the Washington Post had the same problem--and I doubt he's running Win98Se.
I played with Firefox anyway, to see what it was like. For me, Ctrl++ doesn't work (although View > Text Size > Increase works fine). Also, there are problems when switching between working offline and online. And on one occasion, Firefox crashed. After the crash, a small application started up and asked me what had gone wrong; I entered a brief description and pressed the Send button, to send the information to Mozilla.org; then the small application crashed.
I've reported problems like this before, both on Slashdot and on Mozillazine, but people seem reluctant to accept it. One slashdotter even claimed I was a troll. I was glad that at least one problem was reproduced by the Washington Post.
Here's my conclusion: switching is too problematic for me to switch without strong motivation, and Firefox is actually less reliable than IE6 on my system. So, I'm sticking with IE6. Yes, I know IE6 is supposed to be insecure, but I run without ActiveX controls, and have not encountered problems.
And to those who want to criticise me for posting this, consider that there are doubtless many others who had similar problems, and didn't report them as I have, and just walked away. And I loathe Microsoft and want free software to win.
I don't want one application running that uses as much RAM and processor as 5 seperate applications, when all I really want is a fast simple email client and a light, fast web browser.
Moz Suite is a bloated resource hog that should have been sent to the butcher's long ago. Regarding your suggestion about not using the mail client if you don't like it fine. Tell me how to get the stupid browser not to load the mail client when all I want is just a browser.
The combined beauty of Moz Suite is analogous to the combined beauty of peanut butter and a '57 chevy... sure some things can be smashed together, but why?
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I've read better articles on firefox and Interviews with their creators. I found it sad that they didnt include probably the most powerful feature of the browswer that is leaps and bounds ahead of explorer. That feature that wasn't mentioned was KeyWord bookmarks, basicly the association of a keyword to your bookmarks! Imagine using the address bar on your browser as if it were a customizable search engine unto itself. An example is that you can bookmark FedEx.com then right click on it and attach multiple keywords to the bookmark, now if you need to track packeges via fedex.com there is now no need to actually visit the site; all you have to do is type in your address bar: track: (enter tracking number here) and firefox will plug that tracking number into FedEx and immdiately return the status of your package and all pertinent details. The possibilites of this feature are endless and saves so a lot of time that you would be normally be spending on load times from navigating said site. Like I said this feature is so awesome and unique I fail to see why anyone would leave it out when talking about FireFox.
r ch/
to read more about this feature: http://mozilla-europe.org/en/products/firefox/sea
Ok, fine then, analogy time. Lets say someone is shopping for a car. They are looking for something that is quick, small and simple. You are the car dealer. You keep suggesting SUVs and Minivans to this person. They don't need the space, but hey, its there if they want it. However, having that capability means they don't get the features they wanted, small and fast. I had the mozilla suite before I had firefox. The suite was a pain because it had to run in the taskbar and just ate up memory. And if you didn't want it in the taskbar, it took forever to load up. With Firefox, there is nothing running constantly in the background, there is no absurd load time, and there is no bloat. I just don't understand why you can't understand that many people just want something small and quick for their browsing needs.
-Doug
I've known several people who've used Netscape 4 until at least very recently, and at least one person who still does. The main reason they don't use Firefox, short of not having heard of it, is that it's not a complete replacement for Netscape 4. All it does is browse the web.
In every case that I've known, the barrier to change hasn't had anything to do with web browsing. It's all been about mail storage, since they've used Netscape for managing their email.
These people are used to an integrated browser/mail-reader, so switching to Firefox and using a separate email program is unnatural, especially considering that its email-equivalent (Thunderbird) hasn't yet reached version 1.0.
When I've been able to switch these people to anything, it's been either the branded Netscape 6/7 or the less-branded complete Mozilla suite. Compared with Netscape 4, the complete Mozilla is a resource hog. With decent hardware it's okay, but conisdering that some of these people's systems are relatively limited, Mozilla becomes much less of an option.
I hope that Thunderbird is completed soon. It'll still be difficult to convert people from a browsing/email application to two separate applications, but at least there will be a viable replacement to the complete Netscape 4 that won't be quite as resource intensive as the current options.
With my IE security settings set to High, and regular Windows Update patches, I have never caught a virus/trojan. Not one.
... I'll throw together a website that will turn your computer into a paper weight. Just make sure you hit it with IE. Thanks!
Oh okay. Give me a couple minutes
Remind me why I should be using Firefox?
Tabbed browsing, built in pop-up blocking, Google search, RSS headlines, a download manager, cross-platform compatability.
With my IE security settings set to High, and regular Windows Update patches, I have never caught a virus/trojan. Not one.
You're very lucky. Perhaps you have a ton of spyware installed on your system and don't even know it. Try running ad-aware and see what it comes up with.
Should I "punish" them by using something other than IE? That's just silly.
Agreed. However, if you've come to the conclusion that MS has achieved dominance despite the quality of their products, it is reasonable to want to try something else. I don't mind i.e. particularly, but don't trust it either given my experience with their office suite and operating system.
The Pentium started life as a 60, 66 and 90MHz chip. There was later a 75MHz chip (with 50MHz front end: usually with a 486-style chipset), but those are as slow as it goes.
Reference
I still use Netscape 4 on a couple of machines (NT4 fileservers). Last time I used Netscape 3.x was on a Windows 3.1 computer dialing in via SLIP! :)
Linux IT Consulting and Domino Development in Michigan
If users become comfortable, in small steps, with open source software, that could be the beginning of a migration.
Right on -- it's more a psychological thing than anything else. The internet is THE killer app for home users. It's why Grandma and Aunt Bee are getting computers. In the past, the "face" of the internet has been IE.
Once the Internet looks like a little fox wrapped around a globe, it's psychologically a much smaller step to switch from Windows to an alternative, less expensive operating system next time they're shopping for a new PC.
"I don't know, that start up screen looks different... but oh, here's my internet. I know this part. It's exactly the same, and not some kind of shady knockoff! So why would I pay more for that other computer? My grandkids keep telling me that one has spam and ads, and it spies on me."
Also, FUD tactics against OSS will be less effective as more people are very familiar with a piece of high-quality, open source software.
First off, even if it is true, I am sure FireFox is not the only browser with a memory leak. Second, I use FireFox all the time and use tabs constantly. In any given day I might go thru 50-100 tabs, some days stretching into the the hundreds. Through out the course of the week i will hit a thousand tabs easily, no reboots or new browser windows opened mind you. All of this with no noticeable problems or slow downs. I do not have a stellar amount of RAM either. So if there this so called bug (I am not doubting there is) it does not affect me noticeably so I am fine with it, assuming it will get fixed eventually, thus it is not not ready for prime-time. With the boat load of bugs and terrible exploits in IE, I would rather think a memory leak is nothing in comparison.
Have a good day.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
To promote an open web where users can choose to use whatever browser they want. All too often these past few years, users have been "forced" to use IE to view some sites. If enough users use any other browser, that puts pressure on web developers to test their sites on some browser other than IE/Win. With IE usage starting to drop below 90% for the first time in years, we're getting close to the critical mass for this to happen.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.