Firefox

Hey all, we are part of the Stanford U team trying to spread firefox. We have recently started firefoxies.com to spread the word on firefox and get some fun laughs and smiles from the many users of firefox. Most of the time we don't actually get to see each other, so we thought that this may be a great way. Best of all, you get to vote who the most "firefoxy" firefox user is.

Just as I was reaching my threshold for being ticked off & seriously contemplating a permanent flip to Google Reader, Kinja is back and they're back strong, with an extreme makeover and some great new features. (Please forgive the reproduction of the entire list... I'm a fan, not a plagiarist!)

An hour into it they finally start the demo. The screen is blank, the guy is talking. It's live.com. The demo didn't work. A total demo disaster. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Doesn't work with Firefox. Screen shot.

The inertia of Web development is tied directly to that of the browser market. Browsers stagnated from late 1999 to early 2004 (from the release of IE5.5 to the first builds of Firefox and Safari), and development stagnated, having no new front end innovations to embrace. For most commercial work, developers are shackled with the limitations of IE, which haven’t really changed since 1999.

Jumping forward to the present date we can see a very interesting situation forming. IE has slipped below a 90% market share for the first time in years and Firefox has been quickly rallying support from users across the internet. Whether you are "taking back the web" or rediscovering it, FireFox is en vogue right now with groups as diverse as IBM, web developers, and college campuses. This is due to its tight security, quickness, extensible platform, tabbed browsing, and accurate reproduction of page coding.

I'll note that we never use IE except to test websites. My personal favorite is Opera, but Firefox has gained about 10% of the marketshare:

All in all, however, Safari seems like a solid replacement for Firefox or the Mozilla browser--and as such, beats the hell out of Internet Explorer every day of the week and three times on Sunday. There are more features I didn't go into here, but you can find them like I can--if you have a Mac, of course.

Microsoft finally told Web developers what they've wanted to hear for years, promising support for graphics and style sheet standards.

In a blog entry posted Friday, a member of Microsoft's Internet Explorer development team said the company plans to support key elements of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations Portable Network Graphics (PNG), an image format, and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), a Web page styling standard.

An unpatched flaw in some versions of the Netscape browser could let an attacker into vulnerable systems, security company Secunia has warned.

The vulnerability is "highly critical," according to an advisory released by the Danish company late Tuesday. Version 6.2.3 and 7.2 of Netscape are affected and other versions may also be susceptible, the company said.

Any day now, we'll be offered a new version of Firefox from a startup called Round Two, drawn from members of the Mozilla Foundation.

It's also sponsoring development of other products, including FlashGot, which lets Firefox work with third-party download managers; Bandwidth Tester, which lets people determine their connection speed; and SwitchProxy, which lets people surf anonymously with Firefox by configuring Firefox to work with multiple Web proxy servers. Round Two is providing developers of these extensions with technical resources including Web servers, bandwidth, project management resources and some financial support.

The Playstation portable has only been out a few days here in the states and there is already a really cool hack for it- using it as a web browser. There are a few ways to do this and here are a couple- all require (for now) the game "Wipeout Pure" and redirecting the traffic via a proxy. Wombat Mobile has a great how-to here for Windows users... and here's one if you have a FreeBSD machine- roto/moxy have some info. While I don't think this is any scientific indicator of success- the portable gaming console that has the most hackers will "win".

There was one part of the piece that I wanted to comment on though:

Part of Firefox's better security profile comes from how it is developed, compared with Internet Explorer, she said. "Not being in the operating system is a phenomenal advantage for us," Baker said.

Now I'm pretty confident that Mitchell doesn't actually know the details of how IE is developed so I don't fully understand the basis of the statement. As we develop IE we go through very thorough and stringent security reviews to ensure that every change is secure and does not expose the user to attack. The issue of not being part of the Operating System is an interesting one though that is frequently the subject of misunderstanding. IE is part of the Windows Operating System so that parts of the OS and other applicaitons can rely on the functionality and APIs being present. IE in turn relies on Operating System functionality to do it's job. To be clear there are no Operating System APIs that IE uses that are not documented on MSDN as part of the platform SDK and available to other browsers and any other software that runs on Windows. The security of any browser is irrelevant to if it is part of the operating system.

Even with increased popularity, the Firefox Web browser won’t face as many security problems as Internet Explorer, according to the president of the Mozilla Foundation.

“There is nothing that will be perfect,” said Mitchell Baker, president and chief lizard wrangler of the Mozilla Foundation, during a panel discussion at PC Forum here. (PC Forum is owned by CNET Networks, publisher of News.com.)

Still, Firefox, developed by the Mozilla Foundation, won’t harbor nearly as many security flaws as those that have Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and increasing popularity won’t change that, Mitchell predicted.

Some critics challenge that assumption. Symantec CEO John Thompson and other security executives have claimed that open-source programs will become more vulnerable as they pick up more users, because more hackers will become attracted to it.

When Bill Robertson decided last year to switch 450 workers and 100 desktops at De Bortoli Wines to the open source Firefox web browser, he had the company's future in mind.

In moving to the free Firefox, he did more than just install a web browser that rivals Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which comes for free with every PC running the Windows operating system. The CIO defined a radically new desktop interface for the company and forced his software suppliers to comply with his technology direction, which had a heavy emphasis on open standards so he would no longer be locked into any one vendor's products.

Firefox is a small and streamlined web browser created by the US-based charity The Mozilla Foundation from the bones of the Netscape and Mozilla browsers. It runs on all desktop computers and supports most languages.

Firefox is often paired with its open source sibling, Thunderbird, a free email client that competes with Microsoft's Outlook in the enterprise.

Firefox continues to steal market share from Microsoft Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications, a maker of Web-monitoring software. According to the company's February figures, use of Firefox rose to 6.17% from 5.59% in January.

Firefox's gain comes at the expense of Internet Explorer, which dropped to 89.04% market share, from 90.31% in December. Net Applications reports that other browsers maintained their user base.

But there's one area where Microsoft won't be winning a lot of applause.

The company will continue to drag its feet by refusing to provide full support for the CSS2 (Cascading Style Sheets Level 2) W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) standard, Microsoft partners say.

Sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft's IE 7.0 plans said the company will add some additional CSS2 support to its new standalone browser.

Despite promises earlier this week, Yahoo is backing away from it's pledge to ensure Firefox compatibility with future services. Despite the Gecko core technology being around since 1998, Yahoo has justified backing away from the seven year old rendering engine by stating, "In the grand scheme of things Firefox is still a new technology." With Yahoo recently celebrating it's tenth anniversary, one must wonder when a technology is mature to the Sunnyvale California company. The company representative continued, "I�m not saying we are not going to be developing and exploring other areas -- we are. But there are so many different products on the Yahoo network that there may be some products that are, perhaps, not appropriate for that browser." Yes, Firefox just reached version 1.0 recently, so please don't browse the racier parts of Yahoo without parental supervision.

Since Chatzilla was the only part of Mozilla I used besides from the browser, I figured I could start using Firefox, the browser only implementation of Mozilla. Since the default theme in Firefox has the HUGE tabs, I had to go and hunt down another theme. I settled on Phoenity Neo.

Of course, with a new theme for my browser I had to find a new theme for Windows. For that I settled on Corona is now! The two themes, Phoenity Neo and Corona is now! match surprisingly well. The final trick is to find a theme for Winamp that matches too.

This task has proven to be a bit harder. I have looked through thousands of Winamp skins and haven't found the perfect one yet. The best I have come up with is the Winamp Modern theme with the Artica color scheme. It's pretty good, but a bit too dark.

So let me ask you, why don't people make themes for all these programs? Why can't I find a Phoenity Neo theme for Windows or Winamp? If I ever make a theme—which I have been tempted to do for quite some time—I'm going to make one for each program I use that uses themes so everything matches. The problem is, I tend to change my computer's theme monthly. It's kinda like my website that way.

Some useful citizen has created an installer that will nail IE with spyware, even if a surfer is using Firefox (or another alternative browser) or has blocked access to the malicious site in IE beforehand. The technique allows a raft of spyware to be served up to Windows users in spite of any security measures that might be in place.

Christopher Boyd, a security researchers at Vitalsecurity.org, said the malware installer was capable of working on a range of browsers with native Java support. "The spyware installer is a Java applet powered by the Sun Java Runtime Environment, which allows them to whack most browsers out there, including Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape and others. In the original test, only Opera and Netcaptor didn't fall for the install but Daniel Veditz, who is the head of Mozilla security, has since confirmed to me that this will also work in Opera and Netcaptor," he explained.

And this all brings me to something I was complaining to my manager about the other day. Why did we just all of a sudden decide to stop innovating in the browser space? I mean it’s still in the top 2 things that people do on the Internet. Do we feel that IE is perfect and that further innovation is no longer warranted? Is it because it’s the dominant browser, end of story? Well we have other products that are market leaders and we still pour R&D into them. Well, it’s more than likely that it’s because it generates no direct revenue. However, it’s a part of Windows and that generates a lot of revenue. I’m personally upset that nothing is being done to enhance my productivity when browsing the web. Right now it’s atrocious, with all the windows that I can never track down, the annoying disappearing status bar, the CSS bugs etc. I’ve used Avant Browser and Firefox, but still find myself coming back to IE because it’s the default, and it’s there.

Development problems concerning the Mozilla Suite have led to some soul-searching in the Foundation, with some calling for Firefox to be spun off

The survival of the original Mozilla Suite is very much in doubt as developers question whether the success of stand-alone products Firefox and Thunderbird mean the death of the integrated suite that spawned them.

Mozilla developers on the 'netscape.public.mozilla.seamonkey' newsgroup have been in fierce debate over the future of the open source suite since the minutes of the 28th February mozilla.org staff meeting were posted online on the 7th of March. At that stage the demise of the Mozilla suite was hinted at by one solitary line: "*Mozilla 1.8 final* — to be discussed tomorrow whether we do one".

Discussion on the newsgroup focused on the fact that nobody was currently taking responsibility for the suite (code-named 'SeaMonkey'). As developer Robert Kaiser put it, "What we badly need is an active core developer group and an 'app czar' or project leader". Fellow developer and MIT graduate Boris Zbarsky answered the call, saying: "Absolutely. Do you have people in mind who have time to do this? If so, I'd love to know who they are. They are sorely needed."

The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced the launch of www.mozilla.org.cn and the creation of Mozilla China, a non-profit organization to help develop, promote, and deploy Mozilla products in China. The launch of Mozilla China follows similar international affiliate programs Mozilla Europe and Mozilla Japan. The Mozilla China project has been spearheaded by the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS) and the Sun (China) Engineering and Research Institute (ERI). ISCAS is a leading government funded research institute in China which focuses on the fundamental theories of computer science as well as software technologies and their applications. ERI is an integral part of Sun's international R&D program.

However, the speed at which Firefox is gaining market share has slowed down, WebSideStory said. Firefox's market share grew 15 percent over the last five weeks, compared to growth of 22 percent in the period between December and January. From November to December, it was growing at 34 percent.

Microsoft is promising a more-secure, Internet Explorer 7.0 this summer. Firefox, rather than becoming the savior of safe surfing, might end up the next Netscape instead.

There is an article on CNet called, “Ups and downs for Firefox”. As Firefox becomes more widely used, hackers and their criminal counterparts called crackers, are finding more ways to penetrate its weaknesses. Firefox was pretty much ignored by the criminal element when fewer people were using the product.

Amsterdam-based OneStat awarded Firefox with 8.5% share of the browser market. According to its Web research, the share of IE has fallen to 87.3 percent. Niels Brinkman, the founder of OneStat.com, admitted that the "global usage share of Mozilla's Firefox is still increasing," mostly because 'browser users of Internet Explorer 5 are switching to Mozilla Firefox instead of upgrading to Internet Explorer 6.0."

Next time you complain to me that an image doesn't show up or that there's too much space between so-and-so, I will open up a can of whoop-ass. I can forgive you for running Windows, but not for running IE.

Spread Firefox.

I hate Internet Explorer. I hate EVERY.SINGLE.VERSION. It sucks. It sucks the life right out of me, like some sort of electronic, soul-sucking vampire beast.

Anyways, a new bug has been found and described. This bug, involving IE jumping text on hover, is due to quirky percentages in IE6’s visual formatting model.

I can’t even begin to go into the depth of this bug, but I was shocked to see how long the page was, and how it just kept on going.

I've been beta testing the new microsoft anti-spyware, and have been 100% impressed with the results.

Not only have microsoft rounded on traditional threats like gator, but their appraisal of firefox was absolutely spot on, and confirmed what i already knew..

Check out this screenshot i took.

This bit below is part of a very good analysis of Firefox market share and market penetration. I highly recommend clicking through to the entire article if you're interested in Firefox market share. IE support costs may drive companies to switch to Firefox to reduce their support costs, thus opening up more distribution for Firefox.

So, will Firefox tip? How would we know if it had? Has it tipped already?

My gut feeling is that it has not hapened yet. The stats from W3Schools, westciv, and other developer oriented sites definitely suggest a major adoption by developers, the web's "early adopters" and "visionaries", not just in terms of testing and playing with Firefox, but in using it in their everyday use.

The difference between westciv's stats and those of w3schools I'd suggest reflects the different kinds of developer who use these sites. W3Schools users are more likely to be less advanced developers than westciv's (this is not a criticism of anyone, simply an observation about the different kinds of content the sites provide). I'd predict Slashdot's stats would show an even more marked adoption of Firefox over IE (which in part would reflect the larger user share of Linux among slashdot readers). Taco, any chance of publishing your stats?

But the rate of adoption in more mainstream use of Firefox appears considerably slower. This is not necessarily something to be discouraged about (if you, like me, and most web developers, want to see at least a significant non-IE browser at play to push innovation, and stop stagnation in browser development).

The Chasm and tipping point models of adoption would suggest that wild growth among the early adopters is a necessary precursor to more mainstream adoption. But it's not sufficient.

How do you get a job at google? Help program a wildly successful open source browser called "Firefox".

In a move that is sure to fuel speculation that Google is planning to launch its own Internet browser, it was announced this week that Google has hired the lead programmer, Ben Goodger, of the Firefox browser. Here's what they had to say on Wired:

Among other clues pointing to browser interest at Google are the registration of the gbrowser.com Internet address, the hiring of some key programmers, and sponsorship of a Mozilla programmer meeting. Even without a browser, Google is involved in significant competition with Microsoft. Both companies are working on desktop search tools, and Microsoft is pushing its MSN Search service as an alternative to Google.

I was waiting for the big search companies to take in Firefox as one of their own, and now they are.

Finally, a search engine is getting around to recognize the Firefox browser. Yahoo! has acknowledged the browser's increasing market share by making available the Yahoo! Toolbar for Mozilla Firefox.

Let the games begin.

February 15, 2005

IE7

Will this be the last gasp of a dying empire - or will it be the moment when, given the best chance in years the followers of open software and standards turn and flee?

You decide.

Game on.

Firefox is on fire!

On February 15th, exactly 99 days after it was released, Firefox 1.0 smashed through the 25 million download milestone.

Thank you.

Thank you for helping us take this product from 25 to 25 million, from our little corner of the world to yours, from the technically elite to Karen and Rimone.

With a minimal set of tools—an affiliate system, a small donations fundraising system, blogs, galleries, forums, and the good old human larynx—you all are spreading Firefox to a quarter of a million people a day. More than 500,000 sites now link to Firefox according to Google—a fivefold increase from six months ago.

What was just a small flame 100 days ago has since exploded into a phenomenal demonstration of the power of open source. Tens of thousands of devoted users and fans are a powerful and capable force of change. We have created a special commemorative image if you would like to mark this milestone on your own site.