Firefox, the open source web browser from Mozilla, is continuing to grow at a phenomenal rate, and has now passed the 500 million download mark since its launch in November 2004.
According to the Spread Firefox web site, there had been 500,168,448 downloads as of 6:15 a.m. PST. About 12 hours earlier, there had been more than 499,900,000.
In September 2007, Firefox crossed the 400 million download mark, indicating an average rate a bit shy of 20 million per month at present.
Firefox is the only browser in the market to have somewhat managed to put a dent in the market share of Microsoft Internet Explorer. But even with this level of success, Firefox is still a long way behind Internet Explorer as web browser of choice. While IE has a market share of about 75%, Firefox can only manage 17%.
The developers behind the project have been working on the version 3 of Firefox which is expected to come out in the near future.
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technorati tags: mozilla, firefox
Mozilla Firefox reaches 500 million downloads
Sun Micro Buys Open-Source Firm MySQL for $1B
With Sun Microsystems' $1 billion acquisition of open source database vendor MySQL announced Wednesday, Sun gets ownership of a major player in the open source software industry while MySQL gets the backing of a multibillion-dollar, established systems company.
Sun Microsystems will pay $1 billion for Swedish software company MySQL, whose open source database is used for some of the most widely visited Web sites in the world.
Sun said the deal will augment its position in the enterprise IT market, including the $15 billion database market.
Sun said MySQL's product line will help it give further support to the open source Web application platform known as LAMP, the acronym for the Linux OS, Apache Web server, MySQL database, and the PHP/Perl programming languages.
Databases are crucial for Internet-based applications in sites offering a range of services, from e-commerce to social networking. Sun will pay $800 million in cash and $200 million in options, and the deal is expected to close by the end of Sun's 2008 fiscal year, which will end June 30.
MySQL has become a formidable competitor to other relational database management systems from companies such as Oracle and IBM. The database itself is free for people to download, and MySQL makes money by offering subscription support packages.
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technorati tags: sun, mysql, open source
Mozilla Gets a New CEO
Mitchell Baker has stepped down as the CEO of Mozilla Corporation, where she helped make the Firefox Web Browser a potent rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Baker is handing over the CEO job to John Lilly, Mozilla's chief operating officer, who becomes responsible for pushing out the updates to Firefox and Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail software, the company announced Monday. Baker will retain her role as chairman and stay active within the group, she said.
Lilly will be focused on getting the next version of Mozilla's Web browser, Firefox 3, out of the door. He also wants to be more open about how Mozilla operates and how it will support itself in the future. "I'd like us to start talking more in public about how the future looks for Mozilla," he wrote on his blog.Mozilla, which is a nonprofit foundation with a for-profit subsidiary, has been one of the most marked successes among open-source software developers. Although it has not reported 2007 revenues, it took in $66 million in 2006, largely from a revenue sharing relationship with Google. It said about 140 million people around the world use its applications.
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technorati tags: mozilla,new ceo Read more...
Wikia Search goes live.. but don't expect a Google killer
Jimmy Wales, the famous founder of Wikipedia, just unveiled an alpha version of his Wikia Search engine project. But despite the hype surrounding its appearance, online commentary has been mostly negative.
Across the blogosphere, pundits pounced. But technologists at leading search companies defended Wales and said his efforts could benefit the entire industry.
Arrington of Techcrunch wrote on his blog that the project is "a complete letdown" saying:
Many of us have waited a year as the Jimmy Wales hype machine promised a human powered search engine that could take on Google. Tonight that search engine launched at alpha.search.wikia.com, and it may be one of the biggest disappointments I’ve had the displeasure of reviewing.Wales admitted that the current search results are "pretty bad," saying it will take a minimum of two years before Wikia Search produces results as good as the major search engines. Matt Cutts, who leads Google's Web spam team, on the other hand published a blog entry Monday welcoming Wales to the industry.
congrats to the Wikia crew on your public launch, and welcome to the search industry! I’m glad that you’re jumping into the search space.
Ironically(?), while Wales' team is jumping into the search space, Google is somewhat jumping into the wiki space with their knol project. Cool isn't it?
The basics so far whey you use the search engine, is that you will be presented with a "mini article" at the top of the results list. Most often a text definition of what is determined the best answer to that particular query. Below the "mini article" will be the list of results, picked from the Search Wikia index. And on the right side will display photos of people "matching" with the query (you have to be a member to add your profile). Funny note, Matt Cutts has been kind enough to add his photo when you type "viagra" on the search field (",)Eniweys, regarding the current state of the project I think we shouldn't judge that quickly, give them more time to improve and develop the search engine.. it's still in it's alpha stage, right? So I say let's wait for maybe 6-12 months, and if no drastic changes or improvements were still made.. then I think it will be something to be concerned with. Just my 2 centavos.
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technorati tags: Wikia Search, alpha stage, search engine
Netscape Browser to Die a Quiet Death in February 2008
Come February 1, 2008, AOL will cease development on all Netscape browsers.. according to a blog post by Tom Drapeau, AOL's director of the Netscape brand. He recommends that anyone running a Netscape-branded browser make the switch to Mozilla Firefox, the open-source browser upon which the last few versions of Netscape have been based.
"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," he writes. "Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reigns fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."
Originally released in 1994, Netscape Navigator was the underdog contender in the "browser wars" of the late 1990s, when it faced stiff competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Unfortunately, Netscape, which needed to be downloaded and installed, lagged behind when Microsoft begun including IE on the desktop of every new Windows computer.
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technorati tags: netscape navigator, browser wars, navigator dead