Firefox

Firefox 3 downloads clear 8 million mark

Take this statistic with a grain of salt, but Mozilla said more than 8 million copies of Firefox 3 were downloaded in its first 24 hours online.

Mozilla, which is behind the open-source Web browser, was trying to set a download record for the software. The 24-hour period lasted from 11:16 a.m. PDT Tuesday to the same time Wednesday, and Mozilla said it's waiting for the Guinness Book of World Records to review the results.

The download rate, which peaked at 14,000 per minute Tuesday, was still going strong at more than 6,000 per minute … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 748: At play in the Web of Misery

Somehow today's show suddenly turned into a poetry slam, replete with economic gloom, the devastating hackery of coffee pots, and the slow creep of a fox on fire. All right, that's about enough of that annoying crap. In other news that may or may not be news, a new study finds that folks who are enthusiastic about technology may also be enthusiastically jerky. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 748

Flickr co-founders depart Yahoo http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9971209-7.html

Statistics show Firefox 3 spreading fast http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9971672-7.html http://mashable.com/2008/06/18/firefox-record/… Read more

Daily Debrief: Mozilla exceeds expectations of Firefox 3 launch

With less than an hour to go in Mozilla's 24-hour attempt to set a record for the most downloads, I check in with CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland, about the launch of Firefox 3. Despite Mozilla's temporary site outage, it appears to have been a success, both with the numbers (7 million plus) and content.

As a Firefox user myself, I initially switched over for the tabbed browsing and some of the third party add-ons. Little did I know that I was building my "nerd cred" by choosing it over Internet Explorer or other browsers. … Read more

Statistics show Firefox 3 spreading fast

Firefox 3 is spreading fast, claiming more than 4 percent of the share of Web browser usage less than 24 hours after its release.

According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage at major Web sites, Firefox 3 rapidly ascended to what I'd call force-to-be-reckoned-with status, something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring. For comparison, Apple's Safari had 6.25 percent share in May, and Opera had 0.71 percent.

Undoubtedly, most Firefox 3 activity is from existing Firefox users, but it's still a notable achievement, given that software companies constantly struggle to get users to adopt … Read more

12 must-have add-ons for Firefox 3

Extensions, plug-ins, add-ons, whatever you want to call 'em, Firefox 3 has 'em. In fact, though it may seem that many of your favorites haven't yet updated, you might be in luck. By visiting the home pages of several of the plug-ins I use, I found that most of them had either a functional, stable beta or a full update ready to use with Firefox 3. This collection of add-ons I use both at home and in the office, and can be used for the Windows, Mac, and Windows Portable versions of the browser.

You wouldn't think that … Read more

Video: Disable Firefox 3's 'awesome bar'

Delighting some Firefox browsing loyalists and distressing others is the so-called "awesome bar" in Firefox 3 (download for Windows and Mac).

Officially known as the Smart Location Bar, it has earned a mixed reputation by suggesting 12 bookmarks and URLs of previously visited sites as the user types keywords into the URL field. If you're one of those users clamoring for an option to silence the 'helpful' new feature in Firefox 3, released on Tuesday, look no further than this Quick Tip video. CNET Editor Tom Merritt, working off a user tip, demonstrates how it's done.… Read more

The producer's view: Firefox 3

As a Web producer at CNET for ZDNet, I've been testing pre-release versions of Mozilla's Firefox 3 since November. I'm eager to see the final version adopted by users. Here's why.

The third incarnation of Firefox rides on the new Gecko 1.9 rendering engine. This means stability and speed. The new version of Gecko improves on Javascript 2 compatability and adds better support for XUL applications. HTML5 and CSS3 definitions are still not fully supported, but Javascript developers will be able to create more advanced plug-ins, like FireFTP and maybe even a smoother version of … Read more

News.com Daily Podcast: Launch delay can't thwart the Firefox faithful

On launch day, the Get Firefox site experienced an outage for at least an hour--just before Mozilla was expected to make the new version of its Web browser available for download. Reporter Stephen Shankland joined me in the podcast studio today to talk about what happened, and whether it'll affect Mozilla's goal to set a new software record.

About a dozen DNA companies have been issued cease-and-desist letters to stop selling their consumer genetic test kits. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander finds a mysterious white substance in the Martian soil (Is anybody else channeling Jack Skellington after … Read more

Mozilla blows big Firefox 3 debut? Relax

I know things go bump in the night. That's the nature of the beast. Especially when your servers are spitting out 14,000 downloads per minute. So for the hair splitters out there turning purple over a temporary glitch at Mozilla's Web site, have a Coke and take a few minutes to inhale.

Shouldn't it have gone smoothly from the get-go? Natch. But there are worse things in life. The site was flakey for the better part of two hours (depending upon your time zone), but it's working now. Hey, if the engineering Einsteins over at … Read more