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Over the weekend, potentially tens of millions of users around the world booted their Firefox browser and were told that their Microsoft add-ons were being blocked (see my screenshot left).
The importance of Mozilla and its Firefox browser went up a notch last week. For it was then that it became clear that Microsoft has little intention of following a very particular standard – its own OOXML, pushed through the ISO at great cost to that institution's authority.
Odd isn't it, how Microsoft kicked up a fuss when Google announced the Chrome plugin for Internet Explorer on the grounds that it could make the browser more insecure. Indeed, it went as far as to suggest that it doubled the potential surface area for malware and scripted attacks. Yet, amazingly, Microsoft sees no such problem with installing a plugin into the Firefox browser.
When Mozilla released the Firefox browser in 2004, Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominated the market with a whopping 95 percent share. Now Firefox has 18 percent of the market and Apple's Safari has another 6 percent.
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.5 has been released and is currently being distributed to Firefox 2 users via the application's built-in software update system. The browser upgrade fixes several security bugs, which are detailed in the Firefox 2.0.0.5 section of the Mozilla Foundation Security Advisories page.
Most Firefox users don't realize that Firefox's current existence is owed almost exclusively to its search partnership with Google wherein Mozilla Corp receives a portion of ad revenue from Google queries initiated from Firefox's search bar. This revenue amounts to tens of millions of dollars.
Although Firefox 3.5 (formerly Firefox 3.1) is still in beta, Mozilla is already developing Firefox 3.6 code-named Namoroka. Slated for an early-to-mid 2010 release, the browser will be marketed as Firefox.next (FX) moniker in a nod to new technologies set to take Firefox to the next level.
Stuart Parmenter, from the Firefox for mobile devices team, has announced that Mozilla will stop development of Firefox for Windows Mobile, expected to be released in final form later this year.
