Jump to content

Mozilla FireFox


Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I wonder when they will be releasing a new version 3.0.

They almost always released a new update around now, but it looks like they are way behind. this old roadmap had 3.0 listed as released in first quarter 2007.

Although I guess they are waiting for gecko 1.9 or something to be finished which will make firefox 3.0 a major upgrade.

Doesn't seem to be much news on it. I've read some blogs or whatever that have shown some screenshot updates.

I want newer firefox! :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Firefox claims over 125 million active users

That is good news.

No wonder Microsoft is spinning the media lots lately. Just the other day it said IE was more secure than Firefox, because firefox makes regular updates, compared to MS who make updates every so often...

Microsoft: Firefox users in danger due to more frequent updates

That makes no sense to me. The more often the updates, the more up to date the product is to protect it from vulnerabilities.

Firefox response:

Firefox Security Head Says Microsoft Obscures OS Holes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of, that PR stuff about which browser is best, is totally worthless.

If you are using Windows. Who cares that FireFox is your webbrowser. Windows can not do without IE or any other form of UML browser (which Explorer and Internet Explorer basically are). So you are using Windows. MS doesn't make any money from selling IE. It does from selling Windows. So go ahead and use FireFox. You are not financially taunting MS with that.

(for those of you who are using Linux and FireFox. . MS couldn't care less from an IE point of view)

On the update part. No sensible company should use software that needs updates every month.. ..

It's about time that PR stuff gets out of the way and companies start making real software again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes it completely depends if you are in a corporate environment or a home environment.

Corporations don't want to constantly update machines (they can disable autoupdate in firefox if they wanted, but all stick with IE, easier to stick with one software distributor). For home users having firefox autoupdate seems quite simple. No need to wait a long time for a security patch or whatever. It tells you there is an update and you can get the update very fast without it affecting much.

It's about time that PR stuff gets out of the way and companies start making real software again.

Sadly that won't happen, everyone will continue to make whatever sells (or gets popular).

And whenever there are companies or individuals who do create great software/services, once they get popular enough they will sell out to a big company and the software turns into crap because it is no longer about the software, it is about profit. I hate when that happens. Just when I get used to a certain piece of software someone buys it and then puts their branding and crap all over it making it useless (lets bundle web browsing toolbars with our product, what a great idea!). I want a product to do what it is meant to do, I don't want to have to sort through all the noise to get to what I want (such as advertisements when you go to a search engine).

People can argue that Mozilla sold out, getting $60 million from Google each year (why not take their money?). Where does all that money go? It shouldn't cost that much to maintain a couple specific pieces of software (they only spend 20% of revenue). But then Firefox etc is opensource so if they did screw up, someone can always make their own version and distribute it.

There are individuals who can create good software not making much money at all (at least compared to corporations). utorrent before it sold out, paint.net which makes money from ads on the website which the author regularly and openly talks about unlike most places. These software projects only had a couple people working on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly that won't happen, everyone will continue to make whatever sells (or gets popular).

There are a lot of good companies that make even better software. It is just that they have to shift from a marketing strategy to an product quality strategy.

The iPod for one might be a very good player. Or it might not. That has to be marketed. Not the billboard on every street corner that dictates you to buy one in order to be hip. Not even to mention the I am a Mac commercials which really tell nothing about what the h*ll he is.

FireFox might be the best browser on earth. About time they act like the best company  and not start PR flame wars for the sole fact of telling everyone how good you really are. It's still a good product. The way it is marketed just isn't.

If you have a good product, others will give you the credit for it (Look at Mercury Mail, or the Pegasus email client), we don't need Apple, Microsoft or a Linux website to show us The best OS on the planet. With all due respect but they just arn't.

If they are, we call them that. No need to give yourself that credit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was Microsoft who started with the "Firefox is insecure because it updates so often". Mozilla just replied to that argument.

Not even to mention the I am a Mac commercials which really tell nothing about what the h*ll he is.

I especially like the Apple commercial where all it does is talk about Vista (how bad it is). They never even mention the Apple product.

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Podium commercial.

Basically what they are saying in the commercial is to switch from Vista to XP, not that they should buy a mac.

I'd definitely agree with you on the Pegasus mail. Word of mouth (on the internet) is how the good, not well known software gets known and popular. I love every time a thread at slashdot talk about software, there usually ends up being a piece of software I never heard about that does something specific which I might need someday. It's how I got to use lots of software.

I also like when someone mentions how slow and crappy adobe reader is and 15 people mention lots of other pdf readers. Interesting how people have not found alternatives yet. I guess people still think that adobe = pdf

Competition is good. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Firefox beta 3 was released yesterday.

According to release notes

Firefox 3 Beta 3 includes approximately 1300 individual changes from the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. Many of these improvements were based on community feedback from the previous beta.

There has been 50 memory leak fixes since beta 2. (350 memory leak fixes in total)

review of new beta. (with pics)

It says new icons are used, although mine is still using firefox 2.0 icons. Probably because I still got firefox 2.0 installed or something stupid with ubuntu hardy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One little addon which I use for FF, is the dictionaries, which are really useful.  You can get them in just about any language, which is really useful as it can correct my French as I write it.

I really don't know what I'd do if I had to go back to IE these days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You mean a dictionary plugin? like aspell/hunspell?

I know about localizations (default) build. I havn't paid any attention to different language spell checkers.

Got a link to this plugin?

I enjoy using spellchecker in instant messenging as well. Same dictionary that is used for openoffice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Firefox has had 500 million downloads.

It will be interesting to see specific download and upgrade information for firefox 3.0 when it is released in a month or two.

Especially since users using firefox 2.0 will get an upgrade notification when firefox 3.0 is released.

heh, I like how this graph shows most downloads come from IE. Guess the old saying that IE is only good for downloading firefox is true! :P

Microsoft is already working on IE8, looks like competition is actually making them work. I hope they continue to lose market share.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firefox has some nice plug-ins, here are a few:

BBCodeXtra, add BBCode and (X)HTML options to right mouse button in textfield. For example, you have an image url copied, just press right mouse button and let it auto put %7Boption%7D tags around it

CustomizeGoogle, improves how google returns searches, no ads, no spam and more nice options. For example, when you search images and click on the image it directly goes there instead of a silly frame - everything is adjustable.

FlashBlock, blocks auto starting flash and puts an play button on them, very handy against flashy flash ads, haha.

Web Developer, the tool for any serious web builder. Gives you information and the options to disable all kind of parts (like images, javascript, css etc.) The thing I mostly like is the CSS, HTML and Javascript error console.

Firebug, another great tool for web builders. This thing let's you look into and instantly change things to the website (HTML, CSS, Script etc). Also you can check the download speed and size of the website, what I like the most.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Beta 4 progress

RC for beta 4 are out (these are RC for the beta, not final version of beta, so don't use them). So hopefully it will be released in less than a week.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 schedule

* String freeze will be on Friday, March 7th, 11:59pm PST

* Code freeze will be on Tuesday, March 18th, 11:59pm PST

So it looks like beta 5 is last beta. So maybe beta 5 will be released near and of march. So final version of firefox 3.0 could be released by end of April?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...