Slashdot Mirror
Speakeasy Embraces Firefox
xdavexxx writes "
Speakeasy, one of
the largest DSL providers in the United States,
recently announced that it will begin offering a specialized version of Mozilla Firefox to its customers. In
doing so, they are one of the first internet companies to offer an official
customized version of Firefox to its customers. This custom version of Firefox will
keep the Firefox
Google home page, but have the Speakeasy logo and feature a Speakeasy
toolbar filled with links recommended by Speakeasy. No money was exchanged
between the Mozilla Foundation
and Speakeasy, as Firefox is open
source and is freely available for use by anyone. Speakeasy's reasoning for this is simple;
to increase the reliability and speed of its internet service." It should be pointed that Slashdot (and OSTG) have a partnership with Speakeasy.
Lets just hope they keep the name Firefox somewhere on the program so they can tell their friends.
Sigh. I wish more people used it, but IE will just continue to dominate until Microsoft heads to that pasture where all mega-companies eventually end up in (ala AT&T).
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Fewer Malware programs target FireFox, less security vulnerabilities, means less bandwidth is used by said malware and more by the actual customers.
Kudos, Speakeasy.
Many ISP customers just do exactly what their ISP tells them to. If this ISP starts shoving Firefox down customers' throats, Firefox market share could drastically increase over IE's.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Links that Speakeasy chooses?
As in their paid advertisers? What's next? Companies integrating spyware into Firefox and redistributing it?
wdd
And by that, I mean the security holes creaping in.
That very well could be.
The difference between IE and Firefox will be in how well they respond to the bugs that are found.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Anyway, we should commend them greatly. Now we can say that ISP's even recommend it.
This probably makes a lot of sense from a support perspective. I've got to believe that most of the calls that support people get are related to the 397 spyware apps competing for keystrokes on the customer's computer.
It problably also has to potential to cut down on spambots & other zombies residing on their network.
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
If that's not in the slashdot FAQ, it should be.
Netscape paid them that time. This time it is because Firefox just plain rules. Even better, NO licensing to deal with, which makes Firefox an attractive option for any company distributing or recommending it.
Actually by replacing IE they are pretty much ending the use of ActiveX over their network. Less 0wn3ed machines == less spam/zombies/what have you. It is proactive on their part.
Trolling is a art,
If you've got a wheel-mouse, then you can hold control and roll the wheel forward then back.
Speakeasy is wonderful because it's nice to have an option for DSL. If it wasn't for them, there would be no alternatives to Bellsouth other than cable in the area I live in. Now they're supporting Firefox. That just makes it all the better.
Aero
Please stop hurting America -- Jon Stewart
No money was exchanged between the Mozilla Foundation and Speakeasy, as Firefox is open source and is freely available for use by anyone
Although presumably they will have entered into some arrangement with the Foundation (or The Charlton Company), seeing as Firefox is a registered trademark. This is a good thing as it can prevent people spreading bastardized versions of firefox, such as Firefox Claria edition..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Sounds to me that calls to Tech Support will end up being a huge promotion effort for Mozilla Firefox. I'm sure Speakeasy will recommend many of it's troubled customers to download their customized version of Firefox.
How many customers does this promotion extend to? I'm sure Firefox will be much closer to that 10% Internet usage mark.
This is fun.
Brandon Petersen
Your opinion is in complete disregard to the other 90% of users on the internet. There spigot is going to be spewing toxic waste into their house in no time at all. In turn, we all suffer.
I have been using the SlashFix extension and since installing, I have not had that issue anymore. hurray! :)
As it is unless you are willing to tweak the code and recompile you don't have a lot of options for customizing Firefox (at least not that I have found, I'd LOVE to be shown that it's doable). I think that corporations, that are struggling with spyware on a regular basis would be willing to switch to Firefox more readliy if they could easily tailor it to their needs, choosing default home page, links, install internal CA root certificates etc. For it's faults IE makes it pretty easy to do this, with the IEAK you can customize just about everything.
Oh come on. Switching away from IE is a very high bang-for-buck ratio, lots of benefit for little outlay. You sound like one of those people that just wants a bunch of stuff handed out for free.
I hope *fewer* companies start doing this, and more companies make web sites that don't rely on IE "standards" to function properly.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Does that include:
"This custom version of Firefox will have the Speakeasy logo and feature a Speakeasy toolbar filled with links recommended by Speakeasy. No money was exchanged between the Mozilla Foundation and Speakeasy, as Firefox is open source and is freely available for use by anyone."
I know I'm old-fashioned, but I think coders should be paid for their work.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I would like to see ActiveX in FF only if it could be treated like extensions; .e.g. you only can download from trusted sites.