SillyDog701

[ChrisI]

BIG news

The Mozilla Foundation has renamed its next generation browser from the code name Firebird to "Firefox" and has released version 0.8 - the best preview yet.

The new release features streamlined downloading, an installer for Windows users, a new aqua-rific theme for MacOS X users and numerous other improvements. Mozillazine has full coverage. For more information about the name change read the FAQ or read the MozBlog post by Firefox lead Ben Goodger which provides some additional background.

Don't forget to read the release notes.

Firefox product page
0.8 directory on ftp.mozilla.org

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

[Josh]

This sounds great!

I just wish that the windows zipfile come back.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/85.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/85.6

[Mandrake]

FireFox... that's a great name This release is likely faster again, but Firebird already loaded withinn a seocnd, FireFox should be even quicker! I'm slowly downloading it, at a whopping 2.1kb/s off Mozilla.org!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

[orizng]

Thunderbird 0.5 also released.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

[Wellander]

Hi,
Why the name change.
I am not sure I like the name firefox.
It sounds too much like an animal.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)

[Ramona]

I particularly liked this comment from Ben:

In recent months there has been what seems a constant stream of new security flaws coming to light in the dominant Windows web browser. Couple this with bombardments of advertising, spyware and other web annoyances, the magical innocence of the internet that many of us remember has faded. There has never been a better time to kick IE off the desktop. Take back the web. Come download Firefox today!

Ben Goodger; February 9, 2004.

You go Ben!

Bryan,

Don't think "fox" as an animal. Think of "fox" as a sexy lady....

Ramona

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

[Wellander]

Hi,
That one is a funny one Ramona.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 5.0)

[Andrew T.]

Within the constraint of one year, Mozilla's next-generation browser has changed its identity from Phoenix to Firebird and now Firefox. Will they ever make up their mind? But a name is just a name (and a fine one at that), and the browser itself certainly is impressive. Loading time on my computer is approximately 1 second, versus over 3 seconds with Mozilla 1.6. It seems to render pages faster as well, although it's hard to tell for sure. Overall, I'm pleased with this new release, and may even consider using it as my primary browser instead of the Mozilla app-suite.

At the risk of going off topic, should they change the name of the e-mail and newsgroup client to "Thunderfox" for consistency?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

[hartlandcat]

Why Firefox?

It's similar to Firebird. It's easy to remember. It sounds good. It's unique. We like it. And we weren't able to find any other project or company even remotely similar to a web browser that uses the same name.

Maybe it sounds good when spoken with an American accent... but it sounds horrible when spoken with a Southern English accent (which is what I have). In fact, it almost sounds rude.

Although the new Aqua features for Mac OS X look great... I still don't really see any reason to use it over Camino. Can someone tell me... does the rendering engine now have the Aqua feel (like Camino does), or does it still have the Windows-like feel, similar to Netscape 7 on Mac OS X?

Also, the name doesn't go with Thunderbird anymore. Maybe it will get renamed to Tunderfox with the release of 0.6.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1

[ChrisI]

As the original post says:
For more information about the name change read the FAQ or read the MozBlog post by Firefox lead Ben Goodger which provides some additional background.

The name change FAQ answers most, if not all, the questions asked in this thread. Read it.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

[ChrisI]

I just wish that the windows zipfile come back.

http://mozillanews.org/builds/firefox-0.8-win32.zip

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

[Lorraine]

Hi:
I have just been reading Ben Goodger's message, etc.
I think FIREFOX is a fantastic name. I love that name.
The Red Panda is adorable too.

Today my ISP said MSIE was down. They also said they were having
problems with ingress on the lines. I don't know what ingress means.
The techie said, it means noise on the lines. Well, I just know that my PC, which is new, is very slow today.

I guess I will try Mozilla FIREFOX tomorrow, it looks good and to tell the truth, I am really fed up with IE. FIREFOX is a great name as the fox is a very swift, as well as a very sly animal.
-Lorraine

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

[Fulvio]

I just saw this, which is not completely duplicated by other links.
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5156101.html?tag=st_lh

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.7a) Gecko/20040206

[Fulvio]

I was able to get Firefox, at last. It broke the the record for most crashes while I was downloading the extentions. It also puzzled me to see that two of the .xpi downloads were not completed. What is it downloading? I selected to exit , cancelling the downloads (did not not say which), and it crashed at Firefox.exe.
And, talking about speed, I was able to load msnbc.com, but it was painfully slow. In summary, aside from a clever icon, I am much underwhelmed.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

[Ghostman 1]

I downloaded last night and it is real fast.. I like the name change...
How do you guys like it ?
It works for me..

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03)