MOZILLA EXPANDS

Source: CNET

As it marked the 75 millionth download of its Firefox Web browser, the Mozilla Foundation said it was expanding in several directions.

Mozilla on Tuesday marked the 75 millionth download of Firefox. That number has only a hazy relationship to the number of people actually using the browser.The milestone provides at least a psychological boost to the foundation's volunteers and staffers, who have watched growth rates slip this year amid a string of security problems.

On the mobile front, Mozilla on Monday released Minimo 007, the latest version of the prerelease mobile browser with an interface built in XUL (Extensible User Interface Language).
A XUL interface makes it easier for Mozilla to use Firefox features in Minimo and make the browser work on a wide array of device operating systems, including those produced by Microsoft.

"This may be the first handheld browser to have both tabbed browsing and Web services support," said Doug Turner, the Mozilla engineer heading up the Minimo project. "It offers desktoplike browsing functionality optimized for small screens...so you can access Gmail or Google Maps.

Mozilla was in discussions with phone makers about using Minimo, but he did not name them (the project counts Nokia as a funder). He did say that Pioneer planned to use the project's "Spatial Navigation" feature for surfing Web pages with directional keys, a feature Pioneer funded. Minimo plans within the next five to six months a "beta" test version for use with Windows CE PPC and Windows CE SmartPhone.

As the proverb goes "Accept nothing short of perfection", Mozilla Firefox is moving swiftly in grabbing the market share from MSFT crowned IE. The Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), has still fuelled for Firefox's growth since its too much burden for Windows users to go through series of unnecessary checks despite their use of genuine version of windows.

Category: Firefox