Is this internet prodigy about to knock Microsoft off its pedestal? Bill Gates' nightmare? FIREFOX

Times Online ^ | 01.04.05

[Coleus]

At $30 billion and counting, I don't think Bill Gates is worrying. Reading threads from many freepers I see a trend where they are switching to Firefox.

Blake? That's a first name for someone?

[randog]

Blake? That's a first name for someone?

That's the 'in' thing to do--give your kid a surname as a first name, or, as another freeper calls it--a "soap opera name".

[Maigret]

Thanks to recommendations of freepers, I switched to Firefox a couple months ago and LOVE IT! Not only is it troublefree so far, my spyware shows it has decreased spyware being picked up by more than 90%.

[holymoly]

I don't think Bill Gates is worrying.

Nor do I. IE comes pre-installed on every Windows machine. Sadly, many people are unaware of the threat IEs' numerous vulnerabilities (e.g. ActiveX) pose, and that safe alternatives to MSIE exist.

[silent_jonny]

I skimmed through the article. Where did you get Firefox? How much did it cost? I'm about sick of Windows.

[Uncle Miltie]

This is impossible! Microsoft has a monopoly! The Clinton Administration said so!

[Doohickey]

Boy this free software war is getting intense! Sombody's going to lose...well...nothing!

[Edgewood Pilot]

I also agree. Thanks to the others on FreeRepublic, I gained confidence and downloaded FireFox. It is an incredibly sweet browser and within the first five minutes, it became our DEFAULT browser.

[groanup]

Here ya' go:

http://www.mozilla.org/

[Arkinsaw]

I skimmed through the article. Where did you get Firefox? How much did it cost? I'm about sick of Windows.

Firefox....and it costs Zero.

[Edgewood Pilot]

Well, just do a google search for FireFox and download it from their website. The program imports all your bookmarks from IE. Sorry I did not give you a URL.

[mdittmar]

Since I.E. and firefox are both free,I don't see Gates worrying,not that he would ith his billions.

A new O.S. to rival windows may cause some concern,but I don't see that happening.

[Wingy]

I use Netscape for the email package mainly. I'll wait for Firefox's email program to come out to try it. I HATE OUTLOOK!

[Arkinsaw]

Boy this free software war is getting intense! Sombody's going to lose...well...nothing!

There is a lot to lose. Microsoft dominates the browser market, so it can have a huge influence on forcing standards that are favorable to it....and if it can't force a standard, it can just violate it and make it the default standard. If they lose the majority, that power goes away. Thats worth quite a lot.

[Last Visible Dog]

Is this internet prodigy about to knock Microsoft off its pedestal? Bill Gates' nightmare? FIREFOX

Browser war ended years ago - nobody cares and there is nothing to gain

They give FireFox away for free - if every American got a copy of FireFox this guy would make zero dollars. Some clown actually thinks Bill Gates is losing sleep over this?

If this guy wants to "knock Microsoft off its pedestal" he might consider creating something he does not give away for free. Reinventing the wheel is not that exciting - no matter how cool the new wheel is.

BTW: I use FireFox. I like it. From what I understand it currently has CSS problems so it is not a business contender.

Microsoft's success is not build on the browser they give away for free.

In the late-90's Linux was going to knock Microsoft off its pedestal (funny how the free software model never really works out as planned)

[beef]

I think the biggest barrier to software like this is inertia. You can say what you will about Microsoft, but lazy and compliant users are what keeps them on top.

[Honcho Bongs]

I used Firefox and I got a bigger, firmer, better quality web surfing experience.

[Maceman]

It hailed Mr Ross, now 19, as a software prodigy. He is also a talented pianist and “an unbelievable creative writer”, according to his mother, Ross. “Anything he does, he does well,” she said. As a seven-year-old Mr Ross became hooked on the popular computer game SimCity, designing and budgeting his own virtual city. By 10, he had created his own website. He later created his own computer applications and online text games.Soon he was reporting computer software flaws to manufacturers online. At 14 he was offered an internship at Netscape in Silicon Valley. His mother drove him out to California for three summers in succession.

I'm a waste.

[Edward Watson]

I installed Firefox two weeks ago and have never used IE since. I no longer worry about the security problems and most especially the hated pop-ups that frequently occured with IE. Also the abominable hijacking and re-routing of websites have now stopped.

The nice thing about Firefox is you can use it just like IE, no programing knowledge required. But much safer and with some nice features like the tabbed pages.

Go to http://www.spreadfirefox.com/ and click on the "Get Firefox" button.

Ed:-)

[SnuffaBolshevik]

Edgewood, MD?