Firefox is making the mainstream. You can see it in yesterday's New York Times article featuring Firefox:
For Katherine Sandlin, a barrage of pop-up ads was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back - in this case, her reliance on Microsoft's Internet Explorer.It's time to push out beyond the blogs and start hitting the mainstream with the Firefox brand and message. The next step in this process is to get a solid team organized to tackle the advertising effort. If you're interested in helping to chase down free advertising opportunities for Firefox, check out Bart's blog post and read how. Posted by asa at August 13, 2004 12:07 PMEven before her home page could load, thumbnail-size advertisements would crowd the monitor urging her to apply for a credit card or find love online. So she asked around for other ways to browse the Web.
One software switch later, Ms. Sandlin is reveling in a pop-up-free existence and spreading the word about Firefox, a free Web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation that has a built-in pop-up blocker. Ms. Sandlin is so devoted to her browser that she has taped a note to her monitor warning guests not to click on the desktop shortcut to Internet Explorer. "Do not touch the blue 'E!' " the note says.
Hey,
I love firefox and I use it exclusively (well, except when I need XSLT support, when I use mozilla). But should we really be pushing firefox on the mainstream media when automatic updating doesn't work properly yet? My gut feeling is we shouldn't. What happens when the next security bug comes out? I just don't want firefox to come under fire due to a security hole.
When automatic updates work, sure I'll all for it. I'll be one of the first people to be dancing on the street yelling "Firefox!" with glee.
The only reason I say it is just after I showed a friend of mine this browser that was "way more secure than IE", 0.9.1 and .2 came out. I have no problem building dailys but my mum for instance wouldn't even know how to upgrade her firefox.
Anko
Posted by: Anko on August 13, 2004 06:28 PMSpeaking of mainstream (well technical mainstream) check out the good things PC Mag has to say about Firefox in this weeks issue or go to www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1622107,00.asp and to www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1622101,00.asp
Posted by: Paul on August 13, 2004 07:21 PMO.K., how do you get rid of the blankety-blank banner ads that Yahoo loves to spew all over the place? I'm not talking pop-ups. Since I've switched to Firefox, Norton no longer blocks all the banner ads...
Argh.
Posted by: Fred Kiesche on August 13, 2004 09:46 PMFound "AdBlock". Now seeing if it'll do the trick.
Posted by: Fred Kiesche on August 13, 2004 10:04 PMi've been using firefox since 0.2 as my main (and only) browser - and i love it.
however I don't like how 90% of the marketing and firefox-pro articles are sooo excited about popup-blocking. it seems like the only good feature is the popup blocker.
it's the most simple thing for ie engineers to implement this - and they do.
i think people should focus more on firefoxes other advantages and the devs should try to keep the headstart.
That's all fine and well, but Firefox needs to work better. It has too many problems and seems to be getting more rather than less of late which is very disappointing. Although I have suggested Firefox as one alternative browser in the past I can not do so at the present time.
Posted by: Richard on August 14, 2004 04:57 AMEven though IE in SP2 has popup-blocking, we still have an advantage. With the popup blocking on, the IE embedded in Windows Media Player still pops up ads.
Posted by: Brant Gurganus on August 14, 2004 06:45 AMTo remove Internet Explorer icon from Windows XP desktop permanently:
Run:
regedit.exe
Locate:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Create new DWORD:
NoInternetIcon
Give it a value:
1
Delete Internet Explorer icon from Windows XP desktop and it won't reappear again.
Posted by: Tar on August 14, 2004 10:51 AMI just removed the IE icon in XP by going to:
Add/Remove Programs -> Set Default Programs and just unchecked "active acess to this program" for IE.
Amazing MS has this feature in a GUI and all, but only after being forced to by a judge of course. :-)
Posted by: Jugalator on August 14, 2004 03:29 PMFirefox is great, except for a few key bugs that ordinary users are driven mad by:
- PDFs don't come up or are reallly slllow with Acrobat 6
Posted by: Brian on August 15, 2004 09:04 PM