MozillaZine

Mozilla Recommended by Mainstream Media in Brazil and Denmark

Thursday September 4th, 2003

Marcelo Bastos wrote in to tell us that the major Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo recently recommended Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird. Google's automatic translation of the article is not brilliant but it's better than nothing.

Meanwhile, Bjarne D Mathiesen writes: "The Danish National Railroads has a monthly magazine called Ud & Se that's distibuted free of charge in every train and station in Denmark. In the September 2003 issue, they have an article about virii and the dangers associated with using IE and Outlook. They mention Mozilla as a very viable alternative."

In addition to recommending Mozilla's security and anti-spam capabilities, the article also features a more general piece about the browser and the project. Bjarne provides a translation, which we've edited slightly for clarity (note that there are some minor factual errors in the text): "Mozilla is a browser, that is a program that shows webpages just like Internet Explorer. The difference is that just by using Mozilla one gets rid of security holes. Not only can someone using Mozilla choose to get rid of all of those windows that are constantly popping up during surfing. Mozilla also contains an excellent email program protecting you from spam. If spam should get through you just push a button. Then Mozilla remembers that one doesn't at all like to receive email from that particular sender with exactly those contents and will block in the future. To top it off Mozilla is gratis and obeys the standards. Which means that it's easy to take secure copies of your email and that webpages that obey the World Wide Web Consortium specifications are shown correctly.

"Mozilla.org arose in the wake of the fight between the giants over the browser market. In 1996 92% of all internet users used the browser Netscape. From 1996 and forward Microsoft spent millions of dollars on developing and marketing the browser Internet Explorer. In the summer of 2002 Internet Explorer was present on 95% of the machines that are on the net. During negotiations between Netscape and Microsoft, Netscape put part of their program code to the nerds on the net, who promply made lots of new browsers based on the foundations of the old Netscape. Mozilla became one of the most popular results because it can do almost anything and can be had for both Windows, Mac and Linux. Netscape is as well as dead, but Mozilla is todays best bid for a good browser. The browser takes up 11MB and can be downloaded from www.mozilla.org."

#1 three words

by morg

Thursday September 4th, 2003 9:30 PM

Best of breed.

#2 Re: Problematic behavior with tab groups

by fczuardi

Thursday September 4th, 2003 9:45 PM

The article from the Estado de São Paulo list some features of Thunderbird but the junk mail controls is not mentioned :(

#3 Where do people get this?

by RobertM

Friday September 5th, 2003 5:15 AM

Where in the world do people *get* this kind of "mis-information" about the project?! :-)

- "If spam should get through you just push a button. Then Mozilla remembers that one doesn't at all like to receive email from that particular sender with exactly those contents and will block..."

- "The browser takes up 11MB." (Yeah, to *download*. My Mozilla 1.5b folder is over 29 MB, and that doesn't count the profile, etc. information stored in other folders.)

And the funniest ...

- "Mozilla.org arose in the wake of the fight between the giants over the browser market. . . . During negotiations between Netscape and Microsoft, Netscape put part of their program code to the nerds on the net..."

Who in the world came up with *that*?

Maybe something was lost in the translation, but I suppose--all in all--it's not terribly bad. Publicity is publicity--even if nobody bothered to verify information. :-)

#5 Re: Where do people get this?

by doron

Friday September 5th, 2003 8:16 AM

If you install only the browser, its roughly 11 megabyte on disk

#4 A "bettered" translation of the "O Estado" article

by sch

Friday September 5th, 2003 7:43 AM

Firebird makes the browser wars revive Agility of the browser created by the Mozilla community has been captivating Internet users [caption] The Firebird browser (photo) and the Thunderbird e-mail program: speed In a time no so far ago, until 1995 to be precise, there was a browser so popular as is today the Google search engine. And it wasn't Internet Explorer, from Microsoft. It was Netscape. Eight years gone by, two new by-products of Netscape are making some noise on the Internet: Firebird (6.66 MB), for site browsing, and Thunderbird (8.95 MB), e-mail client. Netscape lost almost all of its market share when Bill Gates shipped Internet Explorer integrated with the Windows operating system. The rest of the story everyone knows. Microsoft won countless law suits and Netscape practically went bankrupt. Even more tragic: recently AOL – the software's current owner – fired the browser's whole programming staff. What was left of the brand was only a portal (http://www.netscape.net) and a large legacy, “hidden” until now: the Mozilla.org open-source community, maintained by AOL, Sun and Red Hat (one of the largest Linux distributors of the planet). It is who is responsible for the pair Firebird and Thunderbird. “Powered” – It must be said that the programs are still being tested, but yield an attractive stability. Right at Firebird's installation, tested by “Informática”, you can see how it is faster to star, load pages and use less of the PC's memory. By the way, the installation is a piece of cake. You just extract content of the archive to any folder and run the executable .EXE. This is the trump: speed. It's expected that Firebird will have at most 5 MB in the final 1.0 version (for Windows). The same is to be expected of Thunderbird. The design is based on the XUL language (Extensible User Interface Language), used to created custom interface elements or components. What do you mean? It's very easy to create plug-ins (additions) for the browser, and they don't stop coming out (see the Box [available only in print, I imagine]). The existence of these extensions eases the development of the standard version, preventing it from becoming a gigantic mass of features and leaving in the hands of the users the choice of wich features to add (or not). At first, only the common browsing icons are present (back, forward, refresh etc) on the toolbar, but others can be added. To do that click with the right button of the mouse anywhere on the toolbar and select Customize. The most interesting is the Bookmark Manager icon (that allows you to manage your Address Book [??]). Firebird allows you to open several sites in the same browser window (does it remind anyone of Opera?). To open a new URL you have two options. Click on a link with the Control key pressed or click on the link with the right button of the mouse and select Open link in new tab. The image by the side shows two pages open in the same window [a reference to an image availble in print, I presume]. One detail mustn't be forgotten. Automatic pop-ups, those little windows that don't stop springing up, are blocked. You cand add sites that have permission to open pop-ups in the menu Tools, Options and Web Features. As to the e-mail and newsgroups client, Thunderbird, it is flawless. The software offers an address side bar and can be customized with themes downloaded form the official site. Besides these optional gadgets, there are all the features a e-mail program has, including the creation of filters and folders to separate the messages that come in.

#6 Firebird in the Press

by bcortez

Friday September 5th, 2003 8:22 AM

I thought this was an "internal working name" and not a name that should be used in public press? Or am I mistaken?

#7 Re: Problematic behavior with tab groups

by fczuardi

Friday September 5th, 2003 9:21 AM

Acording to http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap/branding.html it should be Mozilla Firebird before or during the 1.4 release cycle and Mozilla Browser after.

#8 Re: Firebird in the Press

by AlexBishop

Friday September 5th, 2003 7:40 PM

"I thought this was an 'internal working name' and not a name that should be used in public press? Or am I mistaken?"

You think the Mozilla Foundation can control what the public press think? Anyway, last I heard, the branding document was being revised.

Alex

#9 Bjarne D Mathiesen's Original Translation

by AlexBishop

Friday September 5th, 2003 7:44 PM

For those who are interested, here's Bjarne's original translation of the 'Ud & Se' passage, in case anything has been lost in the translation and subsequent editing:

"Mozilla is a browser, that is a program that shows webpages just like Internet Explorer. The difference is just, that one by using Mozilla gets rid of security holes. Not the least one can by using Mozilla choose to get rid of all of those windows that are constantly popping up during surfing. Mozilla also contains an excellent email program protecting you from spam. If spam should get through you just push a button. Then Mozilla remebers that one doesn't at all like to receive email from that particular sender with exactly those contents and will block in the future. To top it off Mozilla is gratis and obeys the standards. Which means that it's easy to take security copies og your email and that webpages that obey the World Wide Web Consortium specifications are shown correctly.

"Mozilla.org arose in the wake of the fight between the giants over the browser market. In 1996 92% of all internet users used the browser Netscape. From 1996 and forward Microsoft spent millions of dollars on developing and marketing the browser Internet Explorer. In the summer of 2002 Internet Explorer was present on 95% of the machines that are on the net. During negotiations between Netscape and Microsoft, Netscape put part of their program code to the nerds on the net, who promply made lots of new browsers based on the foundations of the old Netscape. Mozilla became one on the most popular results because it can do almost anything and can be had for both Windows, Mac and Linux. Netscape is as well as dead, but Mozilla is todays best bid for a good browser. The browser takes up 11Mb and can be downloaded from www.mozilla.org"

Alex