According to Mozilla's own FAQ, There's currently no official record (for the Guinness Book of World Records), so whatever number they end up at is going to be the record.
However, as many people have pointed out several times already, there's probably a lot of things that get more downloads.
It's worth noting though that one of the requirements for the record is that all the downloads should be human initiated (so turn off your download bots).
SproutCore is pretty impressive for building real JS web applications, although the story doesn't real end there.
There's a convergence of other improvements, such as HTML5, CSS, and SVG, that are filling a lot of the multimedia roles previously the domain of flash.
A lot of these things are only available in WebKit right now, although they've all been proposed or will be proposed as web standards in the near future, and provide a nice glimpse at where the web is heading. Web 3.0 (or whatever marketing term people come up with) is clearly though going to be focused on multimedia.
I read that as saying that the suggestion is not being treated as a security issue, but an interface issue.
That doesn't mean that the original issue is not being treated as a security issue. I would suspect that the exploit itself is considered a security issue, and a real fix (not a UI change) will be issued.
I generally agree with your sentiment, although I feel compelled to correct one of your points...
The previous Slashdot article didn't say 66% of all PC's, it said 66% of all PC's (over $1000) sold in retail. That's still impressive for Apple and shows a lot of growth potential as it expands its retail presence, but it's a very different market than 66% of all PC's.
That applies only if you intend to go there and stay. If you plan on coming back to Earth and then selling a product you acquired from the moon, you're going to be subject to whatever laws exist in that nation or nations, on Earth.
This isn't really an official extension of West Point, but rather a club at West Point known as SIGSAC.
The club's members every year get a chance to visit the NSA and see some rather interesting stuff, and so has a rather good relationship with the NSA in general.
The club itself operates out of West Point but has a network connection that isn't attached to West Point's network. It has actually participated in contests in the past as well with other schools/groups, so unless something's changed in the past couple years, that part of the summary is incorrect. If I had to wager a guess I'd say the focus of the group is just being directed purely at defensive measures, rather than actual attacks.
At the time I first read this article I wasn't having any issues accessing CNN, and I didn't remember having any problems on Friday, although today (Sunday afternoon from my location), CNN is now unaccessible.
I think it's very possible that these DDOS attacks haven't stopped yet.
Unchecking it and clicking 'quit' is equivalent to just clicking 'quit'. The checkbox is only applicable if you actually click 'install'.
This has the effect of basically saying "not now", although the update is still remembered and you'll be reminded of it the next time Software Update is set to automatically run (or you manually run it yourself).
If you want to tell it to ignore a particular update/installation forever, go to the "Tools" menu and select something equivalent to "Ignore this Update" (sorry, I have my language set to Chinese right now so I'm not sure what the correct translation should be... anybody care to help me out there?).
Apple's UI philosophy generally requires the user to take an affirmitive action (that includes a verb) to make change something. Just changing a checkbox by itself won't change a setting, unless there's a button you click afterwards that's related (for example, "Save", or "Install"). It might take a little bit of getting used to if you use Windows a lot, but I tend to prefer the consistency it offers on the Mac side, compared to the ambiguity I sometimes see on Windows (sometimes changing a checkbox in a dialogue results in a change, sometimes I have to click "Apply" or "OK" in order for that change to take effect).
You're free to do one yourself if you want, since Safari's engine, WebKit, is open-source. It's kind of odd though that a "rip off" of Firefox would be scoring so much higher than it on the Acid3 (100/100 now as of the latest nightly), and (compared to FF2) on Acid2.
As many people above me have been pointing out, it appears WebKit, not Opera, is actually the first to score a 100/100 on the Acid3 test and also is the first to get a pixel-perfect rendering.
From Ian Hickson's blog (editor of the Acid3 test): "Just as Reddit is celebrating Opera reaching 100/100, with the misleading headline Opera the first browser to pass the Acid3 test (hey, submitter: it wouldn't hurt to read the Opera blog post before submitting it to Reddit), the Apple guys track me down and point out that there's yet another bug in the test. With heycam's help, we have now fixed the test. Again. This presumably means Opera is now at 99/100... the race continues!"
Also, as of at least 6:55pm on Wednesday (going by the Surfin' Safari blog, build r31356), Safari scores a 100/100 on the Acid3 test as well as having a pixel-perfect rendering. This doesn't count as a full pass yet though, as test 26, which is a performance test, is still taking too long (although it appears WebKit also has the fastest implemntation of that). Many people are reporting that on fast machines the test still renders smoothly, which is a bit subjective.
At the end of the day though Acid3 is still going to be relevant for quite a long time, as both Firefox and IE still have some work to do before passing it. Firefox is a ways ahead although has some SVG issues that might delay a full pass, and IE, well... IE is IE.
It doesn't get installed unless you explicitly click "install". You can also quite easily set Apple's auto update to ignore the install forever after the first time it pops up or just take Auto Update out of the scheduled tasks in the control panels so that it never offers any updates at all. I believe Auto Update also has an option to turn off auto updates itself as well.
And with Apple, when you say "never ask me again", it really does mean *never*, as opposed to Microsoft's updaters which used to let you click "never ask me again" and then popped up again 8 hours later. Just look at Microsoft's MSN Messenger software, which now will bug you every time there is an update available and your only option is to say "Ask me again next week". Sure, it's better than the incredibly intrusive Windows Updater, but it's still annoying as hell.
Apple's at least honest enough to tell you clearly that it's offering to install new software, it won't install it without your explicit permission, and you can tell individual updates or the entire updater to never bugger you again. Plus if you do install it, uninstalling isn't that difficult either.
I actually just tried doing this and about 5 seconds after I deleted or changed the name of iexplore.exe, a new one would appear in the same directory with the proper name. Even if I put another file there with the name iexplore.exe, a new one would still appear that was actually IE.
It's BS like this in Windows that really annoys me.
It generally has to do with the size and complexity of the new features, since point point releases for OS X can include new features as well.
For example, 10.5.2 is expected to add the ability to backup to a network drive with Time Machine and allow for CD/DVD sharing. Other examples include adding journaling to the file system in 10.2.2, or including Safari 3 in 10.4.11.
There's no direct comparison that really works for point/point point updates and Windows' service packs. I think the most reasonable attempt I've heard to compare them, is that a Service Pack is the equivalent of 3-4 point point updates.
Actually, before you rant about somebody failing at OS knowledge, you should perhaps check your own facts.
He absolutely can use 32-bit drivers in MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) because Leopard hasn't actually gone *completely* 64-bit.... the kernel is still 32-bit to maintain compatibility with 32-bit drivers. In every other meaningful way though Leopard does count as a 64-bit OS, so you really can have 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit OS.
Most Western Languages are left-to-right. Languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left.
Chinese can be written left-to-right, right-to-left, or top-to-bottom without any problem. Traditionally Chinese is written top-to-bottom with the columns starting at the right and going to the left, although Chinese is more and more being written left-to-right today on most web sites and in numerous popular magazines as well. You will also see left-to-right usually on things like billboards and television commercials, and almost every single television show will by default have Chinese sub-titles (even if the show is in Chinese) which will be written left-to-right, including KTV (Karaoke Television). Books still predominantly are top-to-bottom.
If you read the article, or possibly even the summary, you'd notice that it has nothing to do with running other operating systems other than Vista.
What people are complaining about is that people assumed a "Vista Capable" computer would be able to run any version of Vista when it came out... meaning Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium all the way up to Vista Ultimate. What's ironic is that Microsoft's own marketing director testified that "Vista Capable" meant exactly what many consumers assumed it did.
Microsoft's actual position though is that for a computer to be "Vista Capable" it only had to be able to run Vista Home Basic. That means a computer that can't run Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate could still be labeled "Vista Capable" even though it can't run versions of Vista that have many of the features advertised with Vista.
So some consumers who went out and purchased a "Vista Capable" computer and then later bought Vista Home Premium when it came out suddenly discovered they couldn't use Vista Home Premium on their "Vista Capable" computer.
Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers), it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."
Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:
"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."
Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.
Wired also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."
Perhaps you should do some research before you post.
Well, that's not true. I'm sure there are a number of examples to refute this. The most recent blatantly obvious example (that nobody is going to debate) though would be 10.0 to 10.1. I think that's generally not disputed at all... other releases of OS X are often claimed to be faster as well and probably are in a number of areas, although it's more debatable depending on how you want to measure it.
"'We are sticking with that platform,' said the official, who would not give his name.
The organisation reserves the right to choose whichever platform is best for Nigerian students, which could also include Microsoft's software in the future, said the official."
Does anyone else get the impression that's code for: "$400,000 would go a long way in convincing me that Microsoft's software is best for Nigerian students."? Sounds like Microsoft just forgot to include Nigerian officials in on the deal.
True, but any product competing against an existing popular product has an uphill battle. It's the way the market works.
Yes, I recall MSIE had an extremely difficult uphill battle against the heavily entrenched Netscape. Anytime you're dealing with something even remotely complex in the consumer space that requires a reasonable amount of knowledge/effort to change, the default is going to win by a large margin every time. I talked somebody through installing Firefox over instant messaging two days ago and wanted to stick a fork in my eye... and that was with somebody telling them exactly what to do.
Likewise, Silverlight is almost guaranteed to be a massively adopted technology simply because MS can stick it in a Windows Service Pack or update and in a month get nearly as much penetration as it has taken Flash near a decade to achieve. Should this be considered a hindrance to competition? Absolutely. This is essentially the same scenario as the browser wars... Microsoft used its dominance and influence with OEMs to prevent Netscape from being the default installed browser and usurped it with IE (which I think has done an excellent job at proving its harm to consumers).
Slashdot Mirror
According to Mozilla's own FAQ, There's currently no official record (for the Guinness Book of World Records), so whatever number they end up at is going to be the record.
However, as many people have pointed out several times already, there's probably a lot of things that get more downloads.
It's worth noting though that one of the requirements for the record is that all the downloads should be human initiated (so turn off your download bots).
I don't know about the Japanese site, but Mozilla Taiwan has been advertising June 18th at 1am for several days now.
SproutCore is pretty impressive for building real JS web applications, although the story doesn't real end there.
There's a convergence of other improvements, such as HTML5, CSS, and SVG, that are filling a lot of the multimedia roles previously the domain of flash.
For example, WebKit already supports CSS transforms, gradients, client-side database storage, animation, HTML5 media, downloadable fonts, masks, reflections, etc.
A lot of these things are only available in WebKit right now, although they've all been proposed or will be proposed as web standards in the near future, and provide a nice glimpse at where the web is heading. Web 3.0 (or whatever marketing term people come up with) is clearly though going to be focused on multimedia.
I read that as saying that the suggestion is not being treated as a security issue, but an interface issue.
That doesn't mean that the original issue is not being treated as a security issue. I would suspect that the exploit itself is considered a security issue, and a real fix (not a UI change) will be issued.
I generally agree with your sentiment, although I feel compelled to correct one of your points...
The previous Slashdot article didn't say 66% of all PC's, it said 66% of all PC's (over $1000) sold in retail. That's still impressive for Apple and shows a lot of growth potential as it expands its retail presence, but it's a very different market than 66% of all PC's.
That applies only if you intend to go there and stay. If you plan on coming back to Earth and then selling a product you acquired from the moon, you're going to be subject to whatever laws exist in that nation or nations, on Earth.
This isn't really an official extension of West Point, but rather a club at West Point known as SIGSAC.
The club's members every year get a chance to visit the NSA and see some rather interesting stuff, and so has a rather good relationship with the NSA in general.
The club itself operates out of West Point but has a network connection that isn't attached to West Point's network. It has actually participated in contests in the past as well with other schools/groups, so unless something's changed in the past couple years, that part of the summary is incorrect. If I had to wager a guess I'd say the focus of the group is just being directed purely at defensive measures, rather than actual attacks.
Fission is not Fusion.
At the time I first read this article I wasn't having any issues accessing CNN, and I didn't remember having any problems on Friday, although today (Sunday afternoon from my location), CNN is now unaccessible.
I think it's very possible that these DDOS attacks haven't stopped yet.
Oh, and I'm in Taiwan.
Unchecking it and clicking 'quit' is equivalent to just clicking 'quit'. The checkbox is only applicable if you actually click 'install'.
This has the effect of basically saying "not now", although the update is still remembered and you'll be reminded of it the next time Software Update is set to automatically run (or you manually run it yourself).
If you want to tell it to ignore a particular update/installation forever, go to the "Tools" menu and select something equivalent to "Ignore this Update" (sorry, I have my language set to Chinese right now so I'm not sure what the correct translation should be... anybody care to help me out there?).
Apple's UI philosophy generally requires the user to take an affirmitive action (that includes a verb) to make change something. Just changing a checkbox by itself won't change a setting, unless there's a button you click afterwards that's related (for example, "Save", or "Install"). It might take a little bit of getting used to if you use Windows a lot, but I tend to prefer the consistency it offers on the Mac side, compared to the ambiguity I sometimes see on Windows (sometimes changing a checkbox in a dialogue results in a change, sometimes I have to click "Apply" or "OK" in order for that change to take effect).
Hope this helps.
You're free to do one yourself if you want, since Safari's engine, WebKit, is open-source. It's kind of odd though that a "rip off" of Firefox would be scoring so much higher than it on the Acid3 (100/100 now as of the latest nightly), and (compared to FF2) on Acid2.
You must not come here much, do you?
As many people above me have been pointing out, it appears WebKit, not Opera, is actually the first to score a 100/100 on the Acid3 test and also is the first to get a pixel-perfect rendering.
From Ian Hickson's blog (editor of the Acid3 test): "Just as Reddit is celebrating Opera reaching 100/100, with the misleading headline Opera the first browser to pass the Acid3 test (hey, submitter: it wouldn't hurt to read the Opera blog post before submitting it to Reddit), the Apple guys track me down and point out that there's yet another bug in the test. With heycam's help, we have now fixed the test. Again. This presumably means Opera is now at 99/100... the race continues!"
Also, as of at least 6:55pm on Wednesday (going by the Surfin' Safari blog, build r31356), Safari scores a 100/100 on the Acid3 test as well as having a pixel-perfect rendering. This doesn't count as a full pass yet though, as test 26, which is a performance test, is still taking too long (although it appears WebKit also has the fastest implemntation of that). Many people are reporting that on fast machines the test still renders smoothly, which is a bit subjective.
At the end of the day though Acid3 is still going to be relevant for quite a long time, as both Firefox and IE still have some work to do before passing it. Firefox is a ways ahead although has some SVG issues that might delay a full pass, and IE, well... IE is IE.
It doesn't get installed unless you explicitly click "install". You can also quite easily set Apple's auto update to ignore the install forever after the first time it pops up or just take Auto Update out of the scheduled tasks in the control panels so that it never offers any updates at all. I believe Auto Update also has an option to turn off auto updates itself as well.
And with Apple, when you say "never ask me again", it really does mean *never*, as opposed to Microsoft's updaters which used to let you click "never ask me again" and then popped up again 8 hours later. Just look at Microsoft's MSN Messenger software, which now will bug you every time there is an update available and your only option is to say "Ask me again next week". Sure, it's better than the incredibly intrusive Windows Updater, but it's still annoying as hell.
Apple's at least honest enough to tell you clearly that it's offering to install new software, it won't install it without your explicit permission, and you can tell individual updates or the entire updater to never bugger you again. Plus if you do install it, uninstalling isn't that difficult either.
This is not the story people want to make it.
I actually just tried doing this and about 5 seconds after I deleted or changed the name of iexplore.exe, a new one would appear in the same directory with the proper name. Even if I put another file there with the name iexplore.exe, a new one would still appear that was actually IE.
It's BS like this in Windows that really annoys me.
It generally has to do with the size and complexity of the new features, since point point releases for OS X can include new features as well.
For example, 10.5.2 is expected to add the ability to backup to a network drive with Time Machine and allow for CD/DVD sharing. Other examples include adding journaling to the file system in 10.2.2, or including Safari 3 in 10.4.11.
There's no direct comparison that really works for point/point point updates and Windows' service packs. I think the most reasonable attempt I've heard to compare them, is that a Service Pack is the equivalent of 3-4 point point updates.
Safari 3.0.4 on Windows using WebKit-r29380 (today's nightly build), Safari scores a 70/100.
Safari 3 is available for both Tiger and Leopard. The 10.4.11 update includes Safari 3.
Actually, before you rant about somebody failing at OS knowledge, you should perhaps check your own facts.
He absolutely can use 32-bit drivers in MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) because Leopard hasn't actually gone *completely* 64-bit.... the kernel is still 32-bit to maintain compatibility with 32-bit drivers. In every other meaningful way though Leopard does count as a 64-bit OS, so you really can have 32-bit drivers on a 64-bit OS.
Wow, how many times does this need to be said before people stop claiming OS X isn't UNIX or UNIX-based? Leopard is a certified UNIX 03 product.
Most Western Languages are left-to-right. Languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are right-to-left.
Chinese can be written left-to-right, right-to-left, or top-to-bottom without any problem. Traditionally Chinese is written top-to-bottom with the columns starting at the right and going to the left, although Chinese is more and more being written left-to-right today on most web sites and in numerous popular magazines as well. You will also see left-to-right usually on things like billboards and television commercials, and almost every single television show will by default have Chinese sub-titles (even if the show is in Chinese) which will be written left-to-right, including KTV (Karaoke Television). Books still predominantly are top-to-bottom.
If you read the article, or possibly even the summary, you'd notice that it has nothing to do with running other operating systems other than Vista.
What people are complaining about is that people assumed a "Vista Capable" computer would be able to run any version of Vista when it came out... meaning Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium all the way up to Vista Ultimate. What's ironic is that Microsoft's own marketing director testified that "Vista Capable" meant exactly what many consumers assumed it did.
Microsoft's actual position though is that for a computer to be "Vista Capable" it only had to be able to run Vista Home Basic. That means a computer that can't run Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate could still be labeled "Vista Capable" even though it can't run versions of Vista that have many of the features advertised with Vista.
So some consumers who went out and purchased a "Vista Capable" computer and then later bought Vista Home Premium when it came out suddenly discovered they couldn't use Vista Home Premium on their "Vista Capable" computer.
Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers), it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."
Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:
"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."
Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.
Wired also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."
Perhaps you should do some research before you post.
Well, that's not true. I'm sure there are a number of examples to refute this. The most recent blatantly obvious example (that nobody is going to debate) though would be 10.0 to 10.1. I think that's generally not disputed at all... other releases of OS X are often claimed to be faster as well and probably are in a number of areas, although it's more debatable depending on how you want to measure it.
"'We are sticking with that platform,' said the official, who would not give his name.
The organisation reserves the right to choose whichever platform is best for Nigerian students, which could also include Microsoft's software in the future, said the official."
Does anyone else get the impression that's code for: "$400,000 would go a long way in convincing me that Microsoft's software is best for Nigerian students."? Sounds like Microsoft just forgot to include Nigerian officials in on the deal.
Yes, I recall MSIE had an extremely difficult uphill battle against the heavily entrenched Netscape. Anytime you're dealing with something even remotely complex in the consumer space that requires a reasonable amount of knowledge/effort to change, the default is going to win by a large margin every time. I talked somebody through installing Firefox over instant messaging two days ago and wanted to stick a fork in my eye... and that was with somebody telling them exactly what to do.
Likewise, Silverlight is almost guaranteed to be a massively adopted technology simply because MS can stick it in a Windows Service Pack or update and in a month get nearly as much penetration as it has taken Flash near a decade to achieve. Should this be considered a hindrance to competition? Absolutely. This is essentially the same scenario as the browser wars... Microsoft used its dominance and influence with OEMs to prevent Netscape from being the default installed browser and usurped it with IE (which I think has done an excellent job at proving its harm to consumers).