Firefox 3 launch a success: 8 million downloads in 24 hours

Mozilla’s Firefox 3 release event yesterday was an epic success. The servers logged over 8 million downloads during the 24-hour download day, and Mozilla has declared victory after exceeding its initial goal of 5 million downloads.

The rapid pace at which the downloads are occurring makes it difficult to compute an exact total. The counter appears to be lagging behind the actual count, and Mozilla’s statisticians say that the number could be as high as 3 million just four hours after Firefox’s official launch. Users can follow along at home by watching the counter at the official site.

Firefox 3 downloads have already exceeded the total number of downloads that took place in the first 24 hours after the Firefox 2 release. This is a significant milestone for Mozilla, which hopes that Firefox 3 will set the world record for the most software downloaded in a 24-hour period.

The display shows a breakdown by country, which indicates that the highest number of downloads is coming from the United States, followed by Germany and Spain. The US alone has reached over half a million downloads.

[ Spread Firefox | Download Day 2008 ]

Coming Tuesday, June 17th: Firefox 3

Whenever we’re asked “when is Firefox going to be released” we endeavor to answer to the best of our abilities, but the truth of the matter is that we’ll only ever ship “when it’s ready”. We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the Internet.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

[ Source: Mozilla Developer News ]

Firefox community to set Guinness World Record

The Firefox community is always up to some cool, collaborative way to declare their passion for Firefox. What better way to do this than band together to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours?!

With your help the Firefox community can go down in history! If you have any questions or ideas please drop us a line at worldrecord @ mozilla.com.

[ Source: The Mozilla Blog | Download Day Headquarters ]

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 Released

Mozilla Firefox has recently released 2.0.0.8 version. This version has some security fixes which were not there in previous versions.

[ Source:  DiggItLive ]

Sites that make Firefox sad

The following is a list of sites that actively block browsers other than Internet Explorer or have some serious problem that prevents the site from being usable in Firefox…. Come on people! Its 2007 already, NOT 1997! Get with this century! There is no excuse for these kinds of sites!

[ Source: Site that make Firefox sad ]

Mozilla drops $3m on new company to develop Thunderbird

Mozilla announced plans this week to sink $3 million into a new Mozilla Foundation project designed to enhance the Thunderbird mail client. Early reports indicate that the as-yet-unnamed newly formed company will focus on positioning Thunderbird for use in Internet communications, including Web-based email, IM, and SMS.

The new organization, code-named MailCo, will be headed up by longtime Mozilla community member and CTO of ActiveState, David Ascher. Along with Mozilla Foundation chair Mitchell Baker, he will lead a new development team that is “dedicated to developing, innovating, and improving Internet mail and communication software,” using Thunderbird as a starting point. Ascher acknowledges that such a project is a massive undertaking but says he is dedicated to “making email better.”

On her Mozillazine blog, Baker writes that the initial seed money will be primarily spent on building a small team for the project but additional funding is expected. The company already has a preliminary plan, however, and Baker says they center around four goals:

• Take care of Thunderbird users.
• Move Thunderbird forward to provide better, deeper email solutions.
• Create a better user experience for a range of Internet communications — how does or how should email work with IM, RSS, VoIP, SMS, site-specific email, etc.
• Spark the types of community involvement and innovation that the project has seen around Web browsing and Firefox.

[ Source: Linux.com ]

The 7 hidden pages within your Firefox browser

about: A simple prompt without any parameter will display the Mozilla “about” information. Since it’s accessible from the top menus as well, it’s not quite a hidden feature.

about:buildconfig Obviously, it will show the build platform configuration and parameters

about:cache Will display info and statistics regarding your disk’s cache, including the name of your cache’s directory and a list of the entries you can find there. By default, Firefox doesn’t allow you to view the cached webpages, so this can be an useful option.

about:config Oh look, many many info. Indeed, it’s the most complex and meaningful of them all. Careful on what you plan to change here, your browser won’t run properly after if you play with the wrong things.

about:plugins Of course, what is Firefox without it’s powerful extensions? This option will display detailed information about all the plugins installed for Mozilla Firefox.

about:credits It’s time to give the credit to whoever deserves it. There’s an alphabetically sorted list of all the people that gave their contribution to the development of Firefox.

about:Mozilla This is a weird thing. It will display the so-called “Book of Mozilla”. Something similar was present in Netscape too. There’s actually no real book although the quotations might give you that impression.

[ Source ]

Firefox 2.0.0.3 Available

Although not officially announced, Firefox 2.0.0.3 is available on ftp sites. This release fixes several security issues described as a memory corruption issue making users vulnerable to phishing and spoofing. This release is also the first to have been tested through a newly executed beta testing program for security and update releases.

[ Source ]

Quick Firefox Tip: Single-key search tool

When you press slash (or the apostrophe key), you’ll see a little Quick Find field in the lower-left corner of the screen–not unlike what you get from pressing Ctrl-F (but without any of the Find controls). Start typing and you’ll see instant results. Wait a moment and Quick Find disappears on its own.

[ Source ]

10 Signs you’ve been using Firefox too long

Funny top 10 signs you’ve been using Firefox for wayyy to long.

Link: 10 Signs you’ve been using Firefox too long