| Subject: Mozilla-helping to make Web better for all |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 06:59:48 11/22/04 Mon
In reply to:
Betty-repost
's message, "PCs infested with 30 pieces of spyware" on 11:05:02 04/16/04 Fri
In the past two weeks, Internet users have downloaded over 4.5 million copies of Firefox, the excellent browser available for free from the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation. Yes, there are hundreds of millions of IE users, but Firefox is gaining fast, and IE is losing market share for the first time in years. The switch to Firefox will happen even faster as more people realize the full power of this browser, much of it provided by computer hobbyists who are scrambling to create a cornucopia of useful add-ons.
They're called extensions, handy programs that fit seamlessly inside Firefox and augment its original functions. There are dozens of them, ready to do for you just about anything IE will do and a bunch of stuff you never even thought about before.
What's the latest weather? There's WeatherFox, an extension that will pop up the most recent forecast in a corner of your browser. Do you enjoy music while you surf? Check out FoxyTunes, which adds a toolbar with controls for your favorite music player. How fast is your Internet connection? Bandwidth Tester will tell you at the touch of a button.
Try a few for yourself. For the browser, go to www.getfirefox.com. Once it's installed, use Firefox to return to the site and then scroll down the page and click the Extensions link.
All of these gadgets are being hammered out by talented amateurs with time on their hands. The Mozilla Foundation is glad of the help; indeed, it was counting on it. "We've designed our software to support extensions," said Ben Goodger, lead designer of Firefox, "and we've put a lot of things in it with extensions in mind." For instance, Firefox extensions can be created by amateurs with limited programming skills. "With IE . . . you need to be a sort of hard-core Windows developer," Goodger said. "With Firefox, you just need to know the kinds of things a Web developer might know," relatively simple scripting languages like Javascript. Lots of people know that stuff. Firefox users get free access to the fruits of their effort, and the Mozilla Foundation gets one more weapon in its campaign to make Firefox the Web's dominant browser.
Firefox will need plenty of help, despite its deserved reputation as a safer way to visit the Internet. Public disgust with computer worms and spyware attacks, many of them made possible by security flaws in the Microsoft browser, gave Firefox a toehold in the market. Microsoft has issued some major repair patches, but the company says it won't offer a total browser overhaul, because that will come in a couple of years with its future operating system, codenamed Longhorn. Too bad for Microsoft that nobody wants to wait till 2006 for a safe browser. Throw in a lingering and well-founded distrust for the world's biggest software company, and plenty of people were ready for an alternative.
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