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A Few Firefox 3 Followups

An anonymous reader writes "Using data generated by the Mozilla Firefox download pledge page, the map on this blog post ranks countries, not by absolute number of pledges made, but rather on a per capita basis. This analysis yields some interesting conclusions about where open source is strongest and weakest." Anonymous Warthog writes "That didn't take long. In a blog posting from the TippingPoint DVLabs security team (of Kraken and CanSecWest hacking contest fame), they confirmed that they reported a vulnerability in Firefox 3.0 to Mozilla a mere five hours after it was released. Additionally, there was a posting on the Full Disclosure security mailing list from someone that purports to have another vulnerability in the works as well. In the grand scheme of things, this probably means nothing to the general security of Firefox, but you can be sure the browser zealots on all sides will be watching carefully." Finally, from reader Toreo asesino: "Microsoft have congratulated the Mozilla team by sending them their second cake (minus recipe) to Mozilla's Mountain View headquarters to congratulate them on shipping FireFox 3, which went live right on time last night." Congratulations are indeed due on both the browser and the release process — looks like the Firefox fever (despite some seriously taxed servers) resulted in more than 8 million downloads in 24 hours.

21 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Is it finally safe to download? by WaltBusterkeys · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I gave up yesterday after a few too many server errors.

    That said, the map of countries is pretty cool. Ignoring the island micro-nations (the Falkland Islands won with 2% of 3000 people pledging to download), it's interesting to see how high Firefox penetration is in Eastern Europe. I wonder if that's a function of very connected economies without a lot of love for Microsoft and a strong desire for free software?

    Oh, and good luck to the Firefox team trying to save the "E" logo from this year's cake! That thing is HUGE!

    1. Re:Is it finally safe to download? by evilviper · · Score: 5, Funny

      it's interesting to see how high Firefox penetration is in Eastern Europe. I wonder if that's a function of very connected economies without a lot of love for Microsoft and a strong desire for free software?

      I wouldn't be surprised if it's both directly and indirectly fueled by the far superior native language support included in Moz.

      Way back when Mozilla was still early milestones, I directed a Russia exchange student to try it, when IE wouldn't allow the proper entry of Russian characters for a URL.

      No doubt he went back home, spread the word about Mozilla, and is single-handedly responsible for the popularity of Firefox across Eastern Europe... *cough*

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  2. Hey timothy: by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What happened to backslash?

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:Hey timothy: by timothy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, I went to law school, and it just sort of got dropped as a priority during that time :)

      Perhaps it'll return one day -- or not.

      timothy

      --
      jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  3. Re:OSS Incompetence by pandrijeczko · · Score: 5, Funny
    This is just further proof hat Open Source Software is most useful for little independent projects - not trying to win download records or writing secure software.

    Hey! Guess what, Einstein! It's FREE! So if you've tried Open Source and don't like it, then it's really no great loss to you, is it?

    I mean you show up at their website when all kinds of news outlets are running stories about firefox download day and the website doesn't even say that download day starts at 1 EST. What kind of amature shit is that?

    Yes, they underestimated demand and probably have a little egg on their faces. But Firefox WORKS! And it's FREE! So what's your problem?

    Oh, and it's spelt "amateur".

    Then you finally download it and it's full of security holes. What the fuck?

    No, it has A security hole. It will be fixed. Someone will find more holes. They will be fixed. So don't use it. Whatever the hell works for you.

    I put more effort in to jacking off than these clowns put in to their "Record Download Day". What an embarassment.

    Perhaps this explains your short-sightedness and/or blinkered vision. And your obvious frustration. Maybe keep it in your trousers for one day, see if you feel better then, eh?

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  4. Re:Why is this considered a world record? by Toreo+asesino · · Score: 5, Informative

    My guess is this is a record for a complete application downloads in a day, rather than patches or add-ons.

    As in, it's supposedly unique people choosing to download the setup package, and presumably running setup thereafter - not some automated installation.

    --
    throw new NoSignatureException();
  5. Re:Why is this considered a world record? by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who cares? It's called publicity and they got it.

  6. Wow, that's a strange map by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I managed to get connected; but the map is kinda boring; just black on white.

    Strangely, it also looks exactly like the letters "Error establishing a database connection".

  7. No recipe... by rocjoe71 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft have congratulated the Mozilla team by sending them their second cake (minus recipe)...

    Well of course there was no recipe-- that cake was a proprietary, closed-source dessert.

    --
    Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
    1. Re:No recipe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Microsoft have congratulated the Mozilla team by sending them their second cake (minus recipe)...

      Well of course there was no recipe-- that cake was a proprietary, closed-source dessert.

      ...and possibly full of bugs!
  8. Re:Instructions Please!!! by lordofthechia · · Score: 5, Informative

    Amen to that. Too many apps distributed in tar.gz format have no instructions with them (or on the website). How hard is it to include the following lines of instructions (preferably near the download link):

    1. First you should check your OS repositories to ensure you cannot install this program via that method. Search for: blah
    2. If the program is not available in your distro's repositories (or you desire a newer version)
            a. Download the following tar.gz file to your HDD
            b. Move the downloaded file to the location you wish to install it
            c. Open a command window and type:
                      blah -xyz filname.....
    3. To launch the program type "blah"

    About your 2nd question though. I would go ahead and select "Bookmarks" -> "Bookmark all tabs" and save them in 1 folder. Then if it works and your session is still there you just need to delete that folder. Else, just go to your bookmarks and right click on the folder you created and select "Open all in tabs".

    --
    Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
  9. Self-centered, even in kindness by superyooser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, and good luck to the Firefox team trying to save the "E" logo from this year's cake! That thing is HUGE!

    Really, if you didn't have the story behind the photo, you'd think that the IE Team was congratulating itself for shipping IE.

    Memo to MS: When you give someone a cake, it only makes sense to put the RECIPIENT's name on the cake. I mean, you're recognizing the shipping of Firefox. Why didn't you put a Firefox logo on the cake? That's the object of the celebration.

    1. Re:Self-centered, even in kindness by BlackSnake112 · · Score: 5, Funny

      They did. That is the cake the IE team received when they shipped IE 7. They just 're-gifted' the cake.

    2. Re:Self-centered, even in kindness by AHuxley · · Score: 5, Funny

      Its MS cake, so after you consume it, 2 ports will open and you will be ejecting data for days.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  10. All your Cake... by AllIGotWasThisNick · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was also revealed today that Mozillians keep the IE logo piece frozen since then! Looks like Mozilla can have IE's cake, and eat it too!
  11. Re:MS Cakes by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 5, Funny


    Nah. Classic Microsoft.

    They set DefaultLogo OnCake to "Blue-E".

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  12. Re:CPU and memory hogging bugs still there? by raddan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You're kidding, right? Do you have any idea how complicated a modern web browser is?

    Let's see, Firefox:
    • Can render many different doctypes: HTML 4.01 traditional, HTML 4.01 Strict, XHTML 1.0 Strict, XHTML 1.1, RSS, etc, etc, etc
    • Includes a Javascript interpreter
    • Has its own platform-independent GUI drawing code, and those widgets are designed to match the native widgets on each platform
    • Supports UTF-8 and many, many other character encodings.
    • Stores bookmark and preference data in a RDBMS (not a very capable one, admittedly, but still)
    • Has a plugin framework
    • Runs on virtually every OS that is still in use
    • Is very friendly to web developers (e.g., supports neat stuff like Firebug)
    • And a zillion other features.
    This is a serious piece of work, under active development. The fact that they were able to add more features, plus stability, plus better memory management, plus better security handling (like seriously addressing XSS), PLUS address many of those only-a-problem-for-technical-twits issues that are out there says to me that the Firefox development team really has their shit together. This is an application that I have open all day, every day, and for me, it works great.

    (of course, I'm currently posting using Safari, so YMMV)
  13. Re:Foolish idea: Millions of downloads on the 1st by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should they have waited when there were no bugs? Hmmmm...

    "June 17, 2028. Firefox 2.9.948 released. Soon we'll go to 3.0 RC1!"

    And why am I suddenly reminded of WINE?
  14. Re:CPU hogging bug not fixed: Top 20 excuses by ClamIAm · · Score: 5, Informative

    You've posted references to or versions of this little diatribe three times in this thread. This is rather tiring, because the only reference I see you making to any actual Bugzilla entries is in a post from over two years ago. Of the two bugs you reference in that post, one is marked "fixed" and the other "invalid".

    Now normally I would request that you either give us links to actual bugs that are outstanding. But I'm not going to do that, because I know you can't be objective when discussing this issue.

    How do I know this? Because the bug marked "invalid" appears to be submitted by you. Thus I suspect that your vitriol for the Firefox/Mozilla people is a personal response to feeling scorned or something, and I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone who argues because they had their feelings hurt and therefore holds an irrational grudge about something.

  15. Re:8 million, all set to exploit by edschurr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (yes you can destroy the home directory and perhaps add in a keylogger but that is about it).
    Personally, those are about the two worst things that could happen to my computer.
  16. Re:Download safe, but useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm using FF3, have one tab open and FF is using 94,865 K of RAM. And they were supposed to have fixed all those memory leaks?! Doesn't look like it from here. It's about:config time again, I see.


    Meanwhile, here are some unbiased results from Ars Technica, showing the memory usage of firefox 3 in comparison with other browsers, with 50 tabs open.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080317-firefox-3-goes-on-a-diet-eats-less-memory-than-ie-and-opera.html

    If you want lower memory usage than what firefox 3 can give you ... you would need to use no browser at all it would seem.