The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)

NYT ^ | December 19, 2004 | RANDALL STROSS

[mathprof]

FIREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.

Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.

Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.

With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.

[Banjoguy]

NS 7.2 is stable, featureful, and quick. I like it.

[ops33]

Damn, do I feel stupid!!

[HairOfTheDog]

I mostly love Microsoft software, but Firefox is a lot better than IE.

What's to be better? I am not looking for a lot of features I guess... a browser to me is just a box that web pages come in.

[Common Tator]

Yup - DOS was a direct rip off from
OS/8 & PAL-8 from PDP8 DEC minicomputers
It was amazing to be able to run FORTRAN in 4K

Rigth you are... Just like the Corvette is a rip off of the Model T.

[clyde asbury]

[kpp_kpp]

this is starting to sound like a slashdot thread

[PhilSC]

Actually, I think Windows was ripped off from Xerox. I believe Xerox had a graphical interface, network, and mouse before anyone else even dreamed of these. Xerox believed these things were a novelty. Microsoft and Apple realized the value.

I sure am a Firefox fan. Had used Mozilla for a couple of year. Firefox is a little better. IE sure likes spyware.

[Baraonda]

How do you delete IE.

I'd like to know.

[HangnJudge]

They Did....

"Microsoft Windows WAS the subject of an Apple lawsuit that dragged on for years and years. Some elements of the lawsuit were thrown out. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, Apple and Microsoft reached an undisclosed licensing agreement/settlement on remaining elements of the lawsuit that publicly involved a $150 million investment by Microsoft in Apple."

http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1092128190206490.xml

[Fester Chugabrew]

Interesting how a favorable editorial review coincides with a two-page ad in the same publication.

[thirst4truth]

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere. Internet Explorer was purchased, and they renamed it. They also discourage growth in new innovations. When a company announces they are going to develop a type of software, Microsoft soon after, announces they are going to work on the same thing. Immediately the smaller company stops development because they can't compete with MS, then MS simply sits on the project.

Window was ripped off from Apple. Dos was ripped off from Seattle Computers in the 80's and Internet Explorer was ripped off from Netscape. Bill Gates said himself in the book he wrote, "The Road Ahead" the internet is insignificant. He is a farce, the only thing Bill Gates is good at is contracts in his favor and stealing software. We had a computer business in Seattle 1983-1994 and I know many programmers that threw in the towel on writing software. They figured what's the point, Bill Gates will just steal it.

[TomGuy]

There is an FR RSS

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/browse.rss

[clyde asbury]

this is starting to sound like a slashdot thread

What are we all doing up so early?

[ohCompGk]

Microsoft will probably buy Firefox, and rename it.

MS can't buy it. It's open source. They can use it if they give proper attributes (kinda like the "Based on NCSA Mosaic" in the help box of IE).

The problem is that MS is already knee deep in Mosaic not to mention the fact that the whole reason for Firefox's existence is because of IE. MS tried to buy Netscape way back when Netscape was the only commercial browser. When they couldn't buy it they tried to destroy by giving away Mosiac (renamed IE and tweeked a little). Netscape's response was to release their source code to encourage competition. You'd be surprised at how many browsers have been created with mozilla source code.

I doubt MS will ever touch Mozilla if for no other reason than of pride.

[Arkinsaw]

Firefox is an IE killer unless they do something about it.

[TomGuy]

Try on Firefox menubar

Bookmarks >> Manage Bookmarks >> View >> A-Z Sort

[Condor51]

If what Gates “stole” from Apple was copyrightable, Apple would have pursued it in court.

Maybe Jobs and Wozniak were too high on LSD to realize they'd been ripped off? (Or was it only Jobs who 'indulged')

[ops33]

Thanks!!

[TomGuy]

I remember using our high school's TRS-80s

TRS-80, Model II was the first desktop computer I ever used. It had a whopping 64K memory and 2 floppy drives (8" ones) that held something like 124k (IIRC).

[this_ol_patriot]

I just got done putting in adblock and tweak network settings extensions today. FF gets better the more I use it.