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Filed under: Microsoft, Mozilla, Browsers

More ballot screen drama; now Mozilla's executives are up in arms

Ballot Screen

Microsoft's struggle with the European Commission's demands regarding browser choice just never seems to end. Today's soap opera episode introduces another main character into the cast: Mozilla. Earlier this week, Harvey Anderson and Mitchell Baker, two highers-up of Mozilla and the Mozilla Foundation, blogged about concerns and issues they had about the fairness of Microsoft's proposed ballot screen.

Mitchell's post outlined how Internet Explorer remained "uniquely privileged" within Windows (no big surprise there) while Harvey argues various points with the technicalities of the design and functionality of the ballot screen concept.

If Mozilla's suggestions are taken into account for the final release of the ballot screen, users may be provided with a more seamless experience at the ballot screen itself, allowing users to not just download their choice of browser immediately, but also immediately install the chosen browser and set it as the default, with minimal or no extra work required on the part of the user. It could also require that Microsoft prevent future Internet Explorer updates from asking to set IE as the default browser.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly explained that these recently expressed viewpoints on browser choice are a part of Mozilla's plan to "get across our point of view," as he puts it. Mozilla is expected to officially voice their concerns to the EC soon, as final word on the ballot screen is expected before the end of October.

Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Open Source, Browsers

Handful of users re-download Firefox 3.5 for the billionth time

I'm Celebrating 1 Billion DownloadsIt looks like the folks over at Mozilla are quite proud of their flagship product's odometer reading. After all, some time between 10:46 AM and 11:00 AM (our time) this morning, Firefox was downloaded for the billionth time.

Of course, if you're anything like us here at Download Squad, you can probably account for more than simply one download. Lee admits to having downloaded just the latest version 30+ times himself (some day he'll remember to save it to a flash drive), and if I counted all the times I downloaded Firefox... well, I would most likely be counting through my retirement years.

Now, reaching one billion downloads is certainly nothing to shake a stick at! I did a quick news scan for "billion downloads," and only managed to turn up articles on Firefox (of course) and Apple's App Store, which has a total download count of over a billion and a half; however, this count is split up over the tens of thousands of applications served by the store.

So, whether you're a proud Firefox user saying "awesome!" or a proud Opera user saying "another Download Squad post about Firefox?," you should check out their celebratory page. Oh, and apparently something cool is supposed to show up at "onebillionplusyou.com" on Monday, so keep an eye on it.

Filed under: Mozilla, Freeware, Browsers

Cybersearch Addon Puts Results in Your Awesome Bar

Search results in my awesome bar? Hell yes!Firefox is already pretty amazing, but we're always looking for another add-on to make it even more kick-ass. Enter CyberSearch, an update of AwesomeSearch which adds tons of search functionality to your browser. It even displays results right in the Awesome Bar's drop-down.

Search results without Adsense ads? Oh, it's possible.

CyberSearch also lets you set up keyword or letter patterns that tell it to restrict sites to specific URLs - preface your search with 'techy' and you'll only get results from Lifehacker, CyberNetNews(go figure), and Download Squad (we had nothing to do with that, we swear!).

Since it's built on Google's API, you're still getting the same results you'd get if you went to Google first anyways. Hello, efficiency!

You can download the extension from Mozilla's repository.

Filed under: Windows, Mozilla, Open Source, Browser Tips

Firefox Portable 1.5.0.5 Released

Mozilla Firefox, Portable EditionFast on the heels of the 1.5.0.5 Firefox service release, PortableApps (a group dedicated to creating USB Key based version of popular open source applications) has announced an updated and expanded version of Portable Firefox.

The new version, renamed "Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition" is the result of close work between PortableApps and the Mozilla development team and offers a laundry list of new features.

Firefox Portable now supports running from a CD or other read-only media right out of the box, "in place upgrades" that allow you to install a new version on top of the old, and full support for the official Firefox incremental upgrades that allow Portable Firefox to stay in version sync with traditionally installed copies.

Portable Firefox is a great tool for those times when you're stuck using an unfamilliar PC, such as in college labs, on the road or when staying with less geeky family.

[via Digg]

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Open Source

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 released (for real)

Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Beta 1While various blogs and media outlets have been reporting since Monday or even earlier that the first beta release of Firefox 2.0 was out, we knew better. Those were just candidate releases, but today the browser shed its Bon Echo moniker and the real, Mozilla-sanctioned, Firefox 2 Beta 1 was released. What's new in Firefox 2? Here's the list form the official site:
  • Built in Phishing Protection.
  • Search suggestions now appear with search history in the search box for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com
  • Changes to tabbed browsing behavior
  • Ability to re-open accidentally closed tabs
  • Better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
  • Inline spell checking in text boxes
  • Search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
  • New microsummaries feature for bookmarks
  • Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
  • New combined and improved Add-Ons manager for extensions and themes
  • New Windows installer based on NullSoft Scriptable Install System
  • Support for JavaScript 1.7
  • Support for client-side session and persistent storage
  • Extended search plugin format
  • Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
  • Support for SVG text using svg:textPath
As usual, Firefox is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, as well as other platforms. As with all beta releases, you're installing it at your own risk, and it would be wise to back up your old settings and bookmarks with a tool like MozBackup or BackupFox. You'll also find that once you install Firefox 2, most of your extensions will cease to work. There are couple at least partial remedies to this, including an about:config tweak and the Nightly Tester Tools extension.

[Thanks, X Budd!]

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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