Category: Firefox

Behold Chrome: New contender in Browser Wars Arena!

by
Inf

ChromeLogo

Google just released the Beta version of its browser, called Google Chrome (why chrome anyways?). Since a few days, I’ve been seeing that pokeball-like logo all over the Internets and I thought I must add my piece of text to the already long list of blog posts about the newest browser out there. Seriously, nearly 12 million results on Google when I search for “Google Chrome”.

What’s the hype about it? Everybody is “Chrome released”, “Chrome does that”, “Chrome does this”, “Chrome makes tea”, bla bla… Let’s see… Before I move on, I need to say that Chrome is released under BSD license, and it’s Open-Source!

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NetPC, Low-cost AMDs, Asus Eee: Which one is best for me?

by
Inf

A number of interesting developments occurred in a short time in Mauritius. Of these, the oldest was the introduction of the NetPC by Mauritius Telecom. Recently, the Minister of IT and Communications of Mauritius, Mr. Etienne Sinatambou announced that a deal was made with AMD (yes, the CPU maker) to provide low-cost computers to Mauritius at around Rs.10,000 a machine. Again, not bad.

The NetPC and the AMD initiative as I shall call it are good moves, but they each have their respective advantages and disadvantages, which you will learn in this post. You will also learn that there are other alternatives, which are either cheaper, or offer much more value for money at nearly the same price. Ready? Read on…

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Firefox 3 hits 8 million+ downloads!

by
Inf

Foxkeh

Well, considering that I was supporting the Firefox 3 Download Day to help with the world record initiative, I thought I might update a bit about the number of downloads Mozilla Firefox 3 Final got in the first 24 hours.

Well folks, be amazed, for it is a whooping 8 million downloads in 24 hours, crushing the 2 million downloads in 24 hours set by Firefox 2. Mozilla has gone beyond their expected 5 million downloads. All this came at a price: The Mozilla servers were brought down to their knees (if ever they had knees), and a lot of users got timeouts or “page cannot be displayed errors”.

For the record, Firefox 3 got 1 million downloads in 4 hours, following its release.

The number of downloads is still going up, even after the 24 hours period. If you want live updates on the number of Firefox 3 downloads, check the page that Mozilla has setup here.

Also, from here, it can be seen that Mauritius registered 1055 downloads, 205 for Reunion Is., 286 for Madagascar, 4 for Comoros. So, we are the leading small island in the Indian Ocean? Sri Lanka got 2214 though!

At the time of writing, there are more than 9.3 million downloads registered, with around 2600 downloads per minute. The US folks is leading the race with 2 million+ downloads. Simply amazing!

Big congrats to the Firefox team in any case!

Ps. In case you are wondering, that incredibly cute fox above is called Foxkeh, and is the mascot of Mozilla Japan. More info available here.

Other Firefox 3 articles:

Firefox 3 Final: The Review

by
Inf

Firefox 3.0 Final has just been released today, 17th June 2008 (it’s already 18th in some countries though), and I already downloaded my copy to help establish the Firefox World Record. Now that it is installed and ready to work, I am going to review it. I’ve been using Firefox since the early 1.x versions, and I kind of saw its evolution. If I could resume Firefox 3, it would be “Shiny Search Boxes”, with respect to the glass buttons and the large number of new search boxes scattered everywhere.

FFox31

Without much delay, on with the review. But first, you might consider getting your own copy here, and help with the World Record initiative (you need to download from the official mirrors of Firefox, else the download does not count!). Beware though. Some of the pages of the Mozilla website have yet to be updated, and are still showing Firefox 2.0 downloads. Also, the page is taking a significant time to load, probably considering that lots of people are currently downloading.

A word of warning. Before installing Firefox 3, make sure all your add-ons are compatible with the new Firefox. A number of my add-ons are not yet compatible with the Firefox 3 Final. Specially Tabmix Plus, which is not yet compatible. Even Unplug is not yet compatible, according to the default install. So, check beforehand, or simply backup your Firefox profile before upgrading, in case you want to revert. As you can see below, some of my extensions are not compatible with Firefox 3.0. Unfortunately, you will have to check manually via the Mozilla Addons site.

FFox33

To backup your Firefox profile, you could use the FEBE extension (cross-platform) (doesn’t work with Firefox 3 Final yet), or you could use the MozBackup (Windows only) application. More info about manual profile backup is available from Mozilla, here.

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Firefox Download Day

by
Inf

Download Day - English

EDIT: In case you don’t already know, the Firefox 3 Download Day is on the 17th of June 2008 (expected). Yes. Tuesday. Pledge now, if you haven’t done it yet.

Firefox 3. This is ONE software the whole of the Internets is waiting for. The expected release date is somewhere in mid-June 2008.For this special day, Mozilla team wants to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours.

Well, I was checking the Pledge site, and guess what I saw. Apprently, 192 person from Mauritius pledged to download Firefox 3 on that day! That’s NOT enough! 😀

So, I’m dedicating this post so that you can go and pledge to download Firefox 3 on the Download Day! Follow the banner above! Let Mauritius be shown on the map!

Edit: (14.06.06) : 292 pledges and climbing! Keep it up! 😀

Brief VS Sage – The Feed Reader Duel

by
Guru

In today’s article I will be talking on how to read feeds (your favourite ones). Brief and Sage are Firefox’s two most popular feed reader. Hanging out with one is a wise decision, that’s another chance to take your browser one level up. Before going any further, we must not forget, there are also web based feed readers like Google Reader, Bloglines, alongside we also have specialised applications meant just for reading feeds.

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