Sunday, June 05, 2005
Techtalker - Fox on fire
It is a fox that is threatening to set the net on fire. It has registered 25 million downloads in the first 99 days ot its release, and is supposed to be the biggest challenge posed to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), ever since the decline (or should we call it demise) of Netscape.
From the time that Netscape lost its market share to IE, the browser has had no challenges and maintained an undisputed supremacy as the gatekeeper of the internet. Netscape officionadoes tweaked their browser, inserted some add ons, but nothing seemed to help. Till one bright morning, they decided to reveal their `source code' to the public. So that everyone and anyone could look at the code and modify it to create a new browser.
A dedicated pack decided to do away with Netscape, and create a new browser. If can't improve on the old one, start from scratch, they thought. As the mozilla browser came in its first avatar at http://www.mozilla.org/, those looking for an alternative to IE lapped it up. But the major thrust came with the launch of Firefox, the superfast and sleek browser from the mozilla foundation.
For long hackers have been claiming that IE has too many holes, and that Mozilla offers a good bet. Firefox literally spread like fire in the cyber community.
With its foxy assets, the latest version (1.0.2) is very light, and offers greater protection against hacking attempts and viral infections. You can easily create toolbars by dragging and dropping icons, or type Google search queries on the address bar itself. Advanced settings allow use of XML, CSS and JavaScript.
There are few estimates of the popularity of Firefox, though everyone agrees that it is galloping at a fast pace. Last month it recorded a 34 per cent increase. But given the dominance of IE, it is still long long away from dethroing the ruler, which hovers around over 90 per cent of net users.
Firefox also derives a loyalty which thrives from the countless hours spent by people like you and me, who worked to create a product that would be distributed free. Being an open source product, its source code is available to all and sundry. Unlike IE, there is no secrecy involved. So young programmers sat down on their machines trying to built a new product, continously interacting with each other so that the net could be a better place for browsers and seekers.
No wonder they came with one of the smartest browsers available on the planet. One of the smartest, you ask? Why not the smartest? Well, you haven't tried Opera. Have you?
More on Opera later but keep writing at techtalker at gmail yes gmail dot com.
From the time that Netscape lost its market share to IE, the browser has had no challenges and maintained an undisputed supremacy as the gatekeeper of the internet. Netscape officionadoes tweaked their browser, inserted some add ons, but nothing seemed to help. Till one bright morning, they decided to reveal their `source code' to the public. So that everyone and anyone could look at the code and modify it to create a new browser.
A dedicated pack decided to do away with Netscape, and create a new browser. If can't improve on the old one, start from scratch, they thought. As the mozilla browser came in its first avatar at http://www.mozilla.org/, those looking for an alternative to IE lapped it up. But the major thrust came with the launch of Firefox, the superfast and sleek browser from the mozilla foundation.
For long hackers have been claiming that IE has too many holes, and that Mozilla offers a good bet. Firefox literally spread like fire in the cyber community.
With its foxy assets, the latest version (1.0.2) is very light, and offers greater protection against hacking attempts and viral infections. You can easily create toolbars by dragging and dropping icons, or type Google search queries on the address bar itself. Advanced settings allow use of XML, CSS and JavaScript.
There are few estimates of the popularity of Firefox, though everyone agrees that it is galloping at a fast pace. Last month it recorded a 34 per cent increase. But given the dominance of IE, it is still long long away from dethroing the ruler, which hovers around over 90 per cent of net users.
Firefox also derives a loyalty which thrives from the countless hours spent by people like you and me, who worked to create a product that would be distributed free. Being an open source product, its source code is available to all and sundry. Unlike IE, there is no secrecy involved. So young programmers sat down on their machines trying to built a new product, continously interacting with each other so that the net could be a better place for browsers and seekers.
No wonder they came with one of the smartest browsers available on the planet. One of the smartest, you ask? Why not the smartest? Well, you haven't tried Opera. Have you?
More on Opera later but keep writing at techtalker at gmail yes gmail dot com.
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