Mozilla Firefox

However, according to a Microsoft SEC Filing on June 30, 2005, it acknowledged that browsers such as Mozilla are competitive threats to Internet Explorer: "Competitors such as Mozilla offer software that competes with the Internet Explorer Web browsing capabilities of our Windows operating system products."^[36].
. Vamos stated that he himself never used it personally.^[34] Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has used Firefox, but he has commented that "so much software gets downloaded all the time, but do people actually use it?"^[35]. Clicking on the "More" tab at the top directs the user to even more Google Services such as Blogger, University Searches, Google products in their Labs section, Help and Alerts. Despite Firefox's apparent gains on Internet Explorer, Microsoft head of Australian operations, Steve Vamos, stated that he did not see Firefox as a threat and that there was not significant demand for the featureset of Firefox amongst Microsoft's users. For users searching for more specific results, at the top of Google pages are additional tabs to more narrowly define a user's search results. There is even interest in the Pocket PC community about having Firefox as an option for web browsing. See also List of Google services and tools.

A number of applications are already using Portable Firefox Live to deliver a browser and HTML-based content from CD. The design of the system also has minor privacy implications that Google does not make explicit on their Video site; namely, Google learns who purchases each movie and what computers they watch it on [40]. Haller has also started development work on Portable Firefox Live, which aims to run on CD-R or other read-only media. The fact by itself that Google was using DRM was enough to cause criticism by some bloggers, even before Google Video was launched. It also uses compression (courtesy of UPX and 7-Zip) to reduce the overall footprint and increase speed. To protect the copyright of these popular shows such as MacGyver and The Twilight Zone, Google created a Google DRM (Digital Rights Management) lock for certain paid content. It includes a specialized launcher that adjusts extensions and themes to work as they are moved from computer to computer. Initially this service is restricted to the United States and certain other countries.

Haller released the first packaged version and then led development from there. Announced on January 6, 2006 at the CES in Las Vegas, the Google Video Store sells copyrighted content at the Google Video website. John T. See Google bomb and Spamdexing. It arose out of a mozillaZine thread in June of 2004. The system is also susceptible to manipulation and fraud through the use of dummy sites, an issue which does, however, plague all search engines. Portable Firefox is a repackaged version of Firefox designed to run from a USB flash drive, iPod, external hard drive or any other portable media. It remains unclear whether any process could assert the importance of a page in a way that would draw less criticism than the current PageRank system.

And a start-up, Flock (formerly Round Two, MozSource and more formerly E-Flo), plans to build enhancements for Firefox.^[33] Firefox is also used by the 3B browser, which browses the web as a 3D city of web sites or a 3D store. However, it must also be stated that Google's system relies on human oversight, and use of company names on Adwords, or deletion of critical sites from Google results (for example, sites critical of Scientology), is decided by individual human beings according to company policy. The current version of Netscape, known as Netscape Browser or Netscape 8, combines the functionalities of Firefox and Internet Explorer. It must be stated in Google's defense that PageRank is a fully automated system which is impartial insofar as it knows no personal bias. A number of commercialized versions of the Firefox browser have developed outside the not-for-profit Mozilla Foundation. Common arguments are that the system is unfairly biased towards large web sites, and that the criteria for a page's importance are not subject to peer review. Google released two new Google Extensions for Firefox on December 14, 2005, further affirming the company's interest in Firefox. Some, such as Daniel Brandt, call it "undemocratic".

Search engine companies including Google, Yahoo! and A9.com now also offer Firefox extensions for accessing their services, in addition to their original Internet-Explorer add-ons. Google's central PageRank system has been criticized. also recommends Firefox as the browser for its Blogger.com weblog service.^[31] On May 18, 2005, eBay announced support for Firefox for its eBay Picture Manager.^[32]. becoming a serious privacy threat.". (Link prefetching involves a standards-compliant optimization technique that utilizes the browser's idle time to download or prefetch documents that the user might visit in the near future.) Google, Inc. Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC warned that "As courts become more frequent integrators of electronic records, there is a greater risk of Google .. Since March 30, 2005, the Google search engine has utilized the link prefetching feature of Firefox for faster searching. Other popular email services such as Hotmail also scan incoming email to try to determine whether it is unsolicited spam email (which Gmail also does).

Since the pre-1.0 stages, a number of well-known websites and web applications, including Gmail, have supported (and in some cases, required) the use of Firefox. Google claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being beyond the account holder, and is only used to improve relevance of advertisements. ^[30]. The point is often made that people without Gmail accounts, who have not agreed to the Gmail terms of service, but send email to Gmail users have their correspondence analyzed without permission. In December 2005, it was announced that Dell UK were to start shipping the Firefox browser pre-installed on their PCs. Some users believe the processing of email message content by Google's Gmail service goes beyond proper use. The Networking Services and Information Technology department of the University of Chicago started to include both Firefox and Thunderbird in its connectivity package for all incoming students on the third quarter of 2005.^[29]. The use of cookies with such distant expiration dates is common.

IBM encourages its employees to use Firefox as the company's standard web browser, with support from the company's help desk staff. In response Google claims cookies are necessary to maintain user preferences between sessions and offer other search features. According to a CNET article published on May 12, 2005, about 30,000 of IBM's staff (about 10% of the total) already use Firefox. The cookies possess notably distant expiration dates and it is claimed users' searches are recorded without permission for advertising purposes. Those companies remained reluctant to publicize the migration, due to in-house concerns that this might damage their relationship with Microsoft.^[28]. It has been claimed that Google infringes the privacy of visitors by uniquely identifying them using cookies which are used to track Web users' search history. During the FOSDEM 2005 conference, Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe, said that he knew "a few companies" that had deployed the Firefox browser or the Thunderbird mail client across a million seats. government, or any other government of a country which Google serves.

From time to time, the SFX team or SFX members launch marketing events organized at the Spread Firefox website. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. The site lists the top 250 referrers. Some have pointed out the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users' searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. The portal enhanced the "Get Firefox" button program, giving users "referrer points" as an incentive. The Wikipedia article and Jew Watch are consistently the top two hits, but they often switch positions. On September 14, 2004, a community-marketing portal dubbed "Spread Firefox" (SFX) debuted along with the Firefox Preview Release, creating a centralized space for the discussion of various marketing techniques. As a reaction, some webloggers launched a Google bomb to put the corresponding Wikipedia article at the top of the search results.

For example, Blake Ross and Asa Dotzler organized a series of events dubbed "marketing week". [39]. The rapid adoption of Firefox apparently accelerated in part due to a series of aggressive community-marketing campaigns since 2004. Google responded that this was due to the content-neutrality of the PageRank algorithm, and the fact that anti-semites used the specific word "Jew" (as opposed to "Jewish" or "Judaism") more often than others. It should be noted that a download count is not a user count, as a single download can be installed over many machines, or one person can download the software multiple times. In April 2004, Google received complaints that a search for "Jew" on its site listed the anti-Semitic website Jew Watch at or near the top of the list. The download counter is available as an RSS feed, so that the Firefox download can be added on websites to keep track of the number of downloads in near-realtime. Google Somewhat Lifts Oceana Ad Ban.

These download counts did not include downloads using software updates and downloads from third-party websites. Google claimed that their editorial policy states, "that Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations." In 2004 this ban was partially lifted, allowing more positive ads from Oceana to be displayed, however there remains some confusion concerning banning criteria. None of the Mozilla Foundation's previous product releases experienced that kind of growth. In February 2003, Google banned the ads of Oceana, a two-and-a-half-year-old non-profit organization, which was protesting the environmental effects of a major cruise ship operation's sewage treatment practices. In other words, the download rate remained fairly stable. She also refused an offer from Shona Brown, Google Vice President of Business Operations, to reinstate her to a "low-level operations position". Cumulative downloads increased in a near-linear fashion during the first quarter of 2005. After the loss of 3 of her quadruplets, which she claimed was due to the stressful circumstances created by Google, Elwell sued the company.

Europe, according to a study released by the firm XiTi on 2006-01-08, generally had higher percentages of Firefox use, with an average of 20%. On August 18, 2005, former Google sales executive Christina Elwell, promoted to national sales director at Google in late 2003, accused her supervisor of discrimination against her when he terminated her employment after she informed him of her pregnancy [38]. According to several sources (as listed in statistics reference), by November 2005, Firefox had around 9.4% of global market share, and 10% for North America. [37]. Web-surfers have adopted Firefox rapidly, despite the dominance of Internet Explorer in the browser market. The text of the Justice Department's motion is accessible at FindLaw A court date of Feburary 27th has been set, where a federal court in San Jose, California will hear the case. This is rarely a Firefox-specific problem, and is usually caused by the respective websites using code that does not adhere to W3C standards—such as code specific to Internet Explorer's quirks—or utilizing ActiveX controls or VBScript scripts, which are not supported in Firefox. It has since bounced back somewhat.

Users switching from Internet Explorer sometimes find that certain websites do not render as expected in Firefox. to turn over "a multi-stage random sample of one million URL’s" from Google’s database, and a computer file with "the text of each search string entered onto Google’s search engine over a one-week period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query)." Noticeably, on January 20, when both the DOW and NYSE fell around a percent, Google stock fell close to 10%. ^[27] Another known frequent cause of memory leaks is misbehaving extensions, most notably Adblock. District Court in San Jose seeking a court order that would compel search engine company Google Inc. This has been reported as memory leaks ^[26]; Mozilla developers claim it is sometimes at least partially an effect of blazing fast backwards and forwards (FastBack) feature. Justice Department filed a motion to compel in U.S. Another mentioned criticism is that a small percentage of users complain of Firefox using much more memory than other browsers. On Wednesday, January 18, 2006, the U.S.

IE also launches faster than Firefox on Windows as some of its components are loaded at Windows startup. The settlement cost Google around $275 million which resulted in the company posting a net loss in the third quarter of 2004. Other Gecko-based browsers such as K-Meleon, which use platform-native user interface implementations, generally run faster than Firefox. Yahoo! had earlier alleged that Google's AdSense program violated a patent held by Yahoo!'s Overture unit. The non-Windows-native XUL implementation of the user interface may be the cause of this perceived delay. Google recently settled a patent infringement lawsuit with Yahoo! by issuing 2.7 million shares. Some note that Firefox takes longer to launch than other browsers such as Internet Explorer or Opera on Windows. In May 2004, the Baltimore Sun interviewed Peri Fleisher, a great-niece of Edward Kasner, the mathematician whose nephew coined the word googol, who said Kasner's descendants were "exploring" legal action against Google due to its name.

This difference of opinion was one of the motivating factors behind the development of the Flock browser, which is a Firefox fork. A judge subsequently threw out SearchKing's lawsuit in mid-2003 on precisely these grounds. However, not all users wish to install extensions for the features they want, preferring to see them included in the official software package. In its defense, Google stated that its rankings are its constitutionally protected opinions of the web sites that it indexes. (The developers state in response that they intend for Firefox to be a fairly minimal browser in order to reduce software bloat and bugs, while retaining a high degree of extensibility.) Most of these features, and many others, exist as installable Firefox extensions, or third-party software. Google's efforts to refine its database have led to some legal controversy, notably a lawsuit in October 2002 from the company SearchKing which sought to sell advertisements on pages with inflated Google rankings. Many users observe that the developers have not implemented frequently requested features. On February 5, 2006, google.com was banned by China Telecom, only use google.cn can be visited, but unfortuntely, the blocking released after several hours.

Firefox has at times attracted criticism for lacking features found in some other browsers. Most Chinese Internet users did not express much concern about Google's choice, with one blogger saying that censorship is a fact of life in China and Google could not have done any better.[36]. No publicly known attacks since its launch have been discovered. [35] Google states on its help pages that it does not censor content, but it does block pages as demanded for in certain jurisdictions, such as DMCA requests in the United States. Another security source, SecurityFocus, reports no known vulnerabilities in Firefox 1.5.0.1, versus 65 unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 on Microsoft Windows XP SP2. The company does not plan to give the government information about the users who search for blocked content, and will inform users of restricted categories. As of February 2006, Secunia has reported 2 unpatched vulnerabilities in Firefox 1.x (with the most serious one marked "less critical"), versus 21 for Internet Explorer (with the most serious one marked "highly critical"). Google was heavily criticized for the move, yet it claims it is necessary to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely.

While similar to other "responsible disclosure" policies operated by software vendors such as Microsoft, this policy falls short of the full disclosure principle favored by some security researchers. The restrictions will apply to thousands of terms and websites.[34] The censored content will appear on a website called google.cn. This approach aims to minimize the exploitation of publicly known vulnerabilities and to give the developers time to issue a patch. In January 2006 Google affirmed its intent to filter certain keywords given to it by the Chinese government. The Mozilla Foundation has implemented a policy on security bugs in order to help contributors to deal with security vulnerabilities.^[25] The policy restricts access to a security-related bug report to members of the security team until after Mozilla has shipped a fix for the problem. In October 2005, Blogger and access to the Google Cache were made available in China; however, in December 2005, some Chinese users of Blogger reported that their access to the site was once again restricted. In addition, the Mozilla Foundation operates a "bug bounty" scheme: people who report a valid critical security bug receive a US$500 cash reward (for each report) and a Mozilla T-shirt.^[23] According to the Mozilla Foundation, this "bug bounty" system aims to "encourage more people to find and report security bugs in our products, so that we can make our products even more secure than they already are."^[24] Also, all users can have access to the source code of Mozilla Firefox, to the internal design documentation, to forum discussions, and to other materials that can help in finding bugs. However, the government remains active in filtering Internet content.

Once placed in the software, changes become visible for anyone else to consider, protest against, or improve.^[22]. This complete ban is currently lifted. At least one person besides the coder reviews proposed software changes, and typically yet another person carries out a "super-review". The mirror search site elgooG has been used by Chinese citizens to get around blocked content. Open source advocates argue that an important characteristic of Firefox security lies in the fact that anyone can see its source code and that it therefore must rely upon sound security mechanisms rather than security through obscurity. The People's Republic of China, whose human rights record has been widely criticized by the international community, has in the past restricted citizen access to popular search engines such as Altavista, Yahoo!, and Google. Some of Firefox's key security features include the use of the sandbox security model^[20], same origin policy and external protocol whitelisting ^[21]. Any data stored on Google is therefore subject to being turned over to any country, including China.

By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user's desktop on Windows and Mac OS X or to the user's home directory on GNU/Linux, but users can easily configure it to prompt for a specific download location. Google's Terms of Service allow it to comply with the laws of any one country, providing information that was originated (or that Google stores) in another country. Users can configure the browser to either open downloaded files automatically or save them directly to the disk. Google complies with these laws by banning keyword searches related to these terms. Firefox also includes a customizable download manager. According to American law, any copyright owner can require material to be removed via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, whereas under French and German law, for example, hate speech and Holocaust denial are illegal. However, use of web feeds (RSS/Atom) has grown tremendously recently, making RSS-support an essential feature for a growing number of people. In order to comply with the varying laws of these countries, several versions of Google restrict very specific keyword searches.

When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, some users worried that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features, and succumb to bloat, much like the Mozilla Suite. Google is a multinational corporation, having offices in over a dozen countries [33]. Powered by RSS or Atom feeds, "Live Bookmarks", another feature of Firefox, allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. In a concession to general concerns about the nature of their project, Google had announced plans back in August that they would respect the wishes of copyright holders who contacted the company to inform them that they did not want their works included in this digitization project. Firefox supports a number of extensions that assist in web development, including the powerful Venkman JavaScript debugger. Many commentators in the world of copyright law and technology were not surprised by this development as the Authors Guild has also been involved in attempting to make online publishers pay royalties to writers whose stories appear in any number of online databases without their express consent. While not installed by default, the tools become available via a "custom" install. Arguments in the case will hinge around the interpretation of the four factors of Fair Use.

Firefox aficionados claim that no other browser includes the DOM Inspector, and that Firefox's JavaScript Console surpasses the consoles available in other browsers. The lawsuit seeks damages and an injunction that will prevent the company from continuing their very ambitious digitization project. Like the Mozilla Suite, Firefox comes with two web-development tools: a DOM Inspector and a JavaScript Console. authors, including a former Poet Laureate of the United States, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Because of the use of DTD and property files for storing the string literals displayed to users, even users without a programming background can easily complete part of the internationalization and localization process, requiring only a simple text editor. On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. Contributors throughout the world have collaborated in translating the Firefox browser into many frequently used languages/locales, including some of the least often supported locales, such as Chichewa, but excluding Latvian, Malay, Arabic, Thai, Vietnamese, Hindi and Persian. Google could even argue that it "adds value" to AFP's news without harming the French news wholesaler.[32].

However, it may occasionally cause problems, especially with extensions. The lawsuit's outcome will likely depend on whether Google can successfully argue that its use of AFP's material constitutes "fair use" under copyright law. This functionality is useful for users who dual-boot their machines. AFP's lawsuit, if successful, is bound to have a major impact on how news is delivered on the Internet.". Therefore, a profile may be used on multiple platforms, so long as all of the platforms can access the profile (e.g., the profile is stored on a FAT32 partition accessible from both Windows and GNU/Linux). It seems that the basis of the lawsuit is just the abstract notion of copyright without any real damages to justify the action." The article concluded "It would be a sad day for those who look to the Internet for news if AFP is successful in limiting what Google can display.. Firefox uses the same format to store users' profiles (which contain their personal browser settings) even on different operating systems. is now attempting to remove all postings of Agence France-Presse material from its site, although AFP spokesmen say that even if this is done, the lawsuit will continue..

Builds for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition also exist. According to the Canada Free Press, "Google Inc. Operating systems not officially supported by the Mozilla developers, but known to run the browser include:. [31] Still, AFP argues that the headline and first sentence of an article constitutes the "heart" of the work and that reproducing it is copyright infringement. Since the Mozilla Foundation makes the Firefox source code available, users can also compile and run Firefox on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Additionally, "in 2002, a federal appeals court ruled that Web sites may reproduce and post 'thumbnail' or downsized versions of copyrighted photographs," so Google News' thumbnails are likely legal. Firefox does not officially support Windows 95, but reportedly functions properly after the application of a few tweaks.^[16]. It was argued that had AFP wanted to prevent free use of its articles, it should have asked its providers to require subscriptions rather than suing Google.

Releases available on the primary distribution site support the following operating systems^[15]:. It is possible that AFP will make additional arguments in court that it has not yet made in public, but currently, many pundits are confused by the decision to sue [28][29][30] because Google does not display the full article on its site, provides a link to one of AFP's 600 online clients such as Singapore's Channel NewsAsia (which presumably benefits AFP because more people view the article and advertising), and because the articles are available via the providers' websites regardless of Google's actions. Mozilla Firefox runs on a wide variety of platforms. In March 2005, Agence France-Presse (AFP) sued Google for $17.5 million, alleging that Google News infringed on its copyright because "Google includes AFP's photos, stories and news headlines on Google News without permission from Agence France-Presse." [27] It was also alleged that Google ignored a cease and desist order, though Google counters that it has opt-out procedures which AFP could have followed but did not. Some of the Mozilla standards like XBL are also making their way to open standards (via WHATWG). The contract says that it will comply with "fair use", an exemption in copyright law that allows people to reproduce portions of text of copyrighted material for research purposes. Also, work continues on implementing standards currently missing such as APNG and XForms and improving support for SVG. of Michigan does make it clear that Google will provide only excerpts of copyright text in a search.

Firefox has already implemented most of CSS Level 2 and some of the not-yet-completed CSS Level 3 standard. The contract between Google and the U. Mozilla contributors constantly improve Firefox's support for existing standards. Meanwhile, Google claims that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books. Firefox also supports PNG images and variable transparency as opposed to Internet Explorer, which will not support it fully until the not-yet-released version 7.^[14] Indeed, Internet Explorer's lack of support for PNG images has occasioned much debate, as many web developers want to move away from the old GIF format, which does not have the same capabilities and image quality as PNG. Also, Google is setting a new precedent by making digital copies of copyrighted material on a wide scale without explicit permission from copyright holders. Firefox has extensive support for most basic standards including HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, MathML, DTD, XSL and XPath. There are claims that it is a violation of copyright laws to use copyrighted material for profit by placing search ads beside the search results of these digitized books.

The Mozilla Foundation takes pride in Firefox's compliance with existing standards, especially W3C web standards. This contract is part of Google Print's effort to digitize millions of books and make the full text searchable. Experimental features like HTTP pipelining often lurk hidden in the about:config menu. On June 2005, Google Watch revealed the details of a contract between the University of Michigan and Google to create digitized copies of the copyrighted materials stored at the University's library. This mechanism enables features such as single-window mode and error pages, or speeding up page rendering by various tweaks. However, Google provides mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled (which Google respects; it also honors the robots.txt file which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results). Additionally, Firefox stores many hidden preferences that users can access by typing about:config in the address bar. There have also been complaints that Google's Web cache feature violates copyright.

A Firefox installation can keep all extensions and themes available on the Mozilla Update site up-to-date through Firefox's interface, which periodically checks for updates to installed themes and extensions. Google typically handles this by removing the link as requested and including a link to the complaint in the search results. Beyond adding a new theme, users can customize Firefox's interface by moving and manipulating its various buttons, fields, and menus, and likewise by adding and deleting entire toolbars. A number of organizations have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyrighted material on other sites. The Mozilla Update web site offers many themes for downloading. They also offer a download of Firefox with the Google Toolbar pre-installed. Themes consist of packages of CSS and image files. This is confirmed by a job listing posted on Google.

Firefox also supports a variety of themes/skins, which change its appearance. Google is looking for software engineers to join them in collaborative development on the Firefox browser. Occasionally, an extension becomes part of the official product (for example tabbed browsing, a feature which proved popular through the MultiZilla extension, eventually became part of standard Mozilla). Google has an unknown partnership with the Mozilla Foundation. One can view the extension system as a ground for experimentation, where one can test new functionalities. As part of the partnership Google will hire employees to help the open source office program OpenOffice.org. Many features formerly part of the Mozilla Suite, such as the ChatZilla IRC client and a calendar, have become Firefox extensions. Google also has a partnership with Sun Microsystems to help share and distribute each other's technologies [26].

Wikipedia editors using Firefox v0.8-1.0.7 can even download a customised toolbar for Wikipedia editing. [25]. Through extensions (installed via XPInstall modules), users may activate new features, such as mouse gestures, advertisement blocking, proxy server switching, and debugging tools. The new building would also include labs, offices, and housing for Google engineers. The design of Firefox aims at high extensibility. As reported by SearchEnginejournal.com, NASA and Google were said to be planning to work together on a variety of areas, including large-scale data management, massively distributed computing, bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial space industry. When a user enters a keyword into the address bar that is not recognized by Firefox (for example, simply typing "apple"), it automatically redirects the user to the first result yielded by a Google search for the word (or words). On Sept 28, 2005, Google announced a long-term research partnership with NASA which would involve Google building a 1-million square foot R&D center at NASA's Ames Research Center.

Custom keywords are provided "out of the box" for Google Search, Google Stock Search, Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia. Display advertising throughout the Google network will also increase. For example, using a custom keyword, a user can type "google apple" into the address bar and be redirected to the results of a Google search for "apple". This will allow users of Google Video to search for AOL's premium-video services. This feature allows users to access their bookmarks from the location bar using keywords (and an optional query parameter). [24] As part of the collaboration, Google plans to work with AOL on video search and offer AOL's premium-video service within Google Video. Additionally, Firefox supports the "custom keyword" feature introduced by the Mozilla Suite. 21, including an enhanced global advertising partnership and a $1 billion investment by Google for a 5% stake in AOL.

Users may download more search plugins (including one for Wikipedia) from the Mycroft project or remove any unwanted ones. Time Warner's AOL unit and Google unveiled an expanded partnership on Dec. By default, Firefox allows users to search Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Creative Commons, Dictionary.com, and eBay. The New York Times article was headlined, "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain" [23]. Firefox also sports a built-in search toolbar with an extensible search engine listing. In 2005, articles in The New York Times and other news sources [22] began suggesting that Google had lost its anti-corporate, no evil philosophy. Also, if the user's exact query does not appear anywhere on the page, the "Find" box turns red. Page said, "We think a lot about how to maintain our culture and the fun elements.".

As the user types more of the word, Firefox refines its search. Later Mr. With this feature enabled, a user can simply begin typing a word while viewing a web page, and Firefox automatically searches for it and highlights the first instance found. In a report given to potential investors, co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page promised that the IPO would not change the company's culture. First, Firefox has an incremental find feature known as "find as you type". Also, it may be more challenging for the company to maintain a collegial atmosphere when approximately 1,000 (30%) of the employees are paper-millionaires. The browser has a number of features which help users find information. Many people have suggested that after Google's IPO the corporate culture will not be able to stay so "fun" and focused on the future.[20] [21] The company may be required to answer to its new shareholders who may press the company to reduce employee benefits and to focus on short term advances.

Firefox 1.5 (Windows version) is also the first browser to meet US federal government requirements that software be easily accessible to users with physical impairments. Some people thought the announcement of Gmail in 2004 around April Fools Day (as well as the doubling of Gmail's storage space to two gigabytes in 2005) was a joke. It also supports various forms of keyboard navigation such as tabbing navigation and caret navigation (and in some builds, spatial navigation). They also offer versions in Pig Latin Elmer Fudd, and Klingon. Firefox also belongs in the group of browsers which were first to adopt customizable pop-up blocking. Bork! is the mock Swedish of the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef. This feature originated in the Mozilla Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla. In the languages list one can find the Bork! Bork! Bork! version.

Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple web pages in the same browser window. One can find other pranks hidden between Google's pages. The design of Firefox's option panels leaves many of the infrequently used options found in the Mozilla Suite not visible in Firefox. In 2004 it featured Google Lunar which featured jobs on the moon and in 2005 a fictitious, brain-boosting drink termed Google Gulp was announced. As a result, the interface appears less cluttered than that of many other internet suites. In 2002 they claimed that pigeons were the secret behind their growing search engine. Developers put in a large amount of work towards simplifying Firefox's user interface. Google has a tradition of creating April Fool's Day jokes such as Google MentalPlex which featured the use of mental power to search the Web.

Those interested can add (as extensions and plugins) many features not packaged with Firefox. The building also offers state-of-the-art bathroom facilities featuring digitally controlled toilets [19] which are similar to Japanese toilets. The developers of Firefox aim to produce a browser that "just works" for most casual users. In addition to the rec room, there are snack rooms stocked with various cereals, gummy bears, toffee, licorice, cashews, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit, and dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda, and make-your-own cappuccino. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and future releases of Camino will also include the Java Embedding plugin,^[13] which allow Mac OS X users to run Java applets with the latest 1.4 and 5.0 versions of Java (the default Java software shipped by Apple is not compatible with any browser, except its own Safari). Recreational amenities are scattered throughout the campus, and include a workout room with weights and rowing machines, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a baby grand piano, a pool table, and ping pong. Likely goals for Firefox include:^[12]. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center.

^[11]. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Mozilla is developing versions 2.0 and 3.0 simultaneously in order to ship front-end innovation in version 2.0 built on a more stable back-end, while completing major architectural changes for version 3.0. The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, and a real-time projection of current search queries. Development for version 2.0 will occur on the 1.8 branch from which version 1.5 was released, with release coming off of the yet-to-be-created 1.8.1 branch, while development on version 3.0 occurs simultaneously on the Mozilla trunk. Google's headquarters is called the Googleplex. According to the roadmap, future Firefox development will include version 2.0 and version 3.0. Some of Google's newer services, such as Gmail, Google News and Orkut, are said to originate from this possibility.

Some of the changes:. The time can be allocated to one day a week, or pooled into a month. On November 29, 2005, Firefox 1.5 was officially released. Every Google engineer is encouraged to spend 20 percent (20%) of their work time on projects that interest them. In an attempt to dissuade end-users from downloading the preview versions, "Deer Park" versions do not use the standard Mozilla Firefox branding. Google's relaxed corporate culture can also be seen externally through their holiday variations of the Google logo. However, Mozilla Foundation decided to change the version number of the next major release from "1.1" to "1.5", since it contained more new features than originally planned. Twice a week there is a roller hockey game in the company parking lot.

"Deer Park" was originally destined to become Firefox 1.1. The company encourages equality within corporate levels. I was riding LIRR a few weeks ago and saw the name go by and I thought it sounded nice." Therefore, this name probably references Deer Park, New York, a CDP on Long Island. Google's corporate philosophy is based on many casual principles including: "You can make money without doing evil", "You can be serious without a suit" and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun." A complete list of corporate fundamentals is available on Google's Web site [18]. According to Goodger, "Deer Park is not Deer Park, Victoria, but just a symbolic name. Google is known for its relaxed corporate culture, reminiscent of the Dot-com boom. Several builds codenamed "Deer Park" were released in 2005. Page and Brin, however, had sold $2 billion before some of the largest stock gains.

The other codenames included in the Firefox roadmap derive from an actual roadmap of a journey through California to Phoenix, Arizona.^[9]. In late 2005 Google shares were valued at $400. Ben Goodger, the lead developer of Firefox, who grew up in Auckland, chose these codenames. When recorded on the Forbes 400, Google's stock was around $111. These have a basis in real locations, with codenames such as Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill, Mission Bay, and Greenlane all referencing suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand, and the name Whangamata coming from a small seaside town on the Coromandel Peninsula, southeast of Auckland in New Zealand. But due to the recent surge in stock price (April 2005-June 2005), their net worth is significantly higher. Throughout its development, Firefox versions have had internal codenames. According to the Forbes 400 list (2005), the combined net worth of Larry Page and Sergey Brin is $22 billion US.

Pre-1.0 releases suffered many issues with extensions, as the code for handling them changed from version to version. As a result, Google Inc.'s (CGQ®) as of January 2006 is better than 31.7% of Russell 3000 companies and 41.4% of Software & Services companies. Firefox has developed considerably since its first release as Phoenix on September 23, 2002. Also, Google has changed some of its board governance practices, and disclosed its executive compensation policies. For this reason, software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox cannot use the Firefox icon. However, after that ranking came out, ISS revised its CGQ® ranking methodology. Although Firefox uses open source core software, free licensing does not extend to the artwork. [17] The primary contributor of the low ranking was due to how Google's dual class share capital structure was used by ISS to determine the Corporate Governance Quotient (CGQ®) ranking for Google.

The Firefox icon functions as a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software. In 2004, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ranked Google's corporate governance dead last in the list of members of the Standard & Poor's 500, even though Google is not yet a part of the S&P500. The logo depicts a stylized fox, since the Red Panda (to which the term "Firefox" was originally referred^[7]) did not "conjure up the right imagery" for Hicks.^[8] The specific logo won selection because it makes an impression, while still not "shouting" with overdone artwork. [16] Page, Brin, and Schmidt have all declined recent offers of bonuses and increases in compensation by Google's board of directors. Jon Hicks designed the icon for Firefox 0.8 and up. The CEO also agreed to accept an annual base salary of $1 for 2006. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of new branding efforts, including new icons. Founders Brin and Page reportedly earned $1 billion in 2004, but after the IPO in Aug 2004, it became public knowledge via annual SEC filings that their base salary is $1 for 2004, 2005, and now 2006.

Such opinion held that the early releases of Firefox sported "reasonable" visual designs, but did not regard them as of a standard equivalent to many "professionally" released software packages. Position: name, age, compensation in USD (as of June 2005). Some people have noted that free software frequently suffers from poor icon and user interface design and from a lack of a strong visual identity. (It is estimated that less than one job offer is made per thousand resumes submitted.) Google reportedly employs one in-house legal recruiter just to assist the legal department in evaluating the high volume of resumes from attorneys seeking to join the corporation. The adoption of a new visual identity marks one of Firefox's most visible enhancements from its previous versions. Beyond monetary compensation, Google's workplace amenities, culture, global popularity, stellar prospects (relative to most Bay Area companies), and strong brand recognition continues to attract far more applicants than there are positions available. To avoid any potential further name changes, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003.^[6] As "Firefox" already existed as a registered trademark in the United Kingdom, the Mozilla Foundation licensed the name from the trademark's owner. In 2005 Google has implemented other employee incentives such as the Google Founders' Award, as well making higher salary offers to new employees.

The Mozilla Foundation chose the name "Firefox" for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. Nevertheless, Google's excellent stock performance following the IPO has enabled these early employees to be competitively compensated by participation in the corporation's remarkable equity growth. However, continuing pressure from the FLOSS community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short). For instance, some system administrators earned no more than $33,000 — while $40,000 at that time was considered to be low by Bay Area employment market levels. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always bear the name Mozilla Firebird in order to avoid confusion with the Firebird database server. Prior to the IPO offering, typical salaries at Google were considered within the industry to be quite low. The new name, Firebird, provoked mixed reactions, particularly since the free database software Firebird uses the same name. We try to see new problems and new markets using the technology that others use and we build.".

The Phoenix name survived until April 14, 2003, when it changed due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). We look at markets as they exist and we assume they are pretty well served by their existing players. When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix. And so if you try to predict our product strategy by simply saying well so and so has this and Google will do the same thing, it's almost always the wrong answer. The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). During the third quarter 2005 Google Conference Call, Eric Schmidt said, "We don't do the same thing as everyone else does. The Mozilla Foundation will continue giving support (such as CVS hosting) for the Mozilla community developers. [12].

These community releases will be called SeaMonkey, and will start out at version 1.0 to avoid any possible confusion for organizations or people still wanting to use the original Mozilla Suite. [11] Google and Microsoft reached a settlement out of court on 22 December 2005, the terms of which are confidential. The Mozilla community (as opposed to the Foundation) will release the next version. Microsoft sued to stop his move by citing Lee's non-compete contract (he had access to much sensitive information regarding Microsoft's plans in China). The Foundation continues to maintain the 1.7.x branch because of its continued use by many corporate users, and because makers of other software still often bundle the product. This feud boiled over into the courts when Kai-Fu Lee, a former vice-president of Microsoft, quit Microsoft to work for Google. On March 10, 2005, the Foundation announced that official releases of Mozilla would cease with the 1.7.x series. Many Microsoft employees who worked on Internet Explorer have left to work for Google.

The Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox. This corporate feud is most directly expressed in hiring offers and defections. Initially, these add-ons raised security concerns, so with the release of Firefox 0.9, the Mozilla Foundation opened Mozilla Update, a website containing themes and extensions "approved" as not harmful. Rumors of a Google browser are fueled by the fact that Google is the owner of the domain name "gbrowser.com". Through Firefox's support of XUL, users may extend their browser's capabilities by applying themes and extensions. Some have even suggested that in addition to an Internet Explorer replacement Google is designing its own Linux based operating system called Google OS to directly compete with Microsoft Windows. Mozilla Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser by using the XUL user interface markup language. Hotmail), search (both online and local desktop searching), and other applications (for example, Microsoft's Virtual Earth competes with Google Earth).

To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a pared-down browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. Furthermore, the two companies are increasingly offering overlapping services, such as webmail (Gmail vs. They believed that the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. Microsoft has been touting its MSN Search engine to counter Google's competitive position. Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross began working on the Firefox project as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project. One such example is the rivalry between Microsoft and Google [10]. . With Google's increased size comes more competition from large mainstream technology companies.

As of November 2005, estimates suggest that Firefox's usage share is around 9.4% of overall browser usage (See market adoption below), with its highest usage in Finland (nearly 40% as of January 2006). On June 7, 2005, Google was valued at nearly $52 billion, making it one of the world's biggest media companies by stock market value. Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to other browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. URL accessed on June 1, 2005.) When companies are first listed on the S&P 500 they typically experience a bump in share price due to the rapid accumulation of the stock within index funds that track the S&P. Although other browsers have introduced these features, Firefox became the first such browser to achieve wide adoption. L.A.Times. Firefox includes an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, support for open standards, and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. (Source: Google Shares Rise on New Price Target.

Before its 1.0 release, Firefox had already gained acclaim from numerous media outlets, including Forbes^[2] and the Wall Street Journal.^[3] With over 25 million downloads in the 99 days after the initial 1.0 release, Firefox became one of the most downloaded free and open source applications, especially among home users.^[4] On October 19, 2005, Firefox had its 100 millionth download, just 344 days after the release of version 1.0.^[5] Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005, with more than 2 million downloads within the first 36 hours. On the same day, rumors circulated in the financial community that Google would soon be included in the S&P 500. Mozilla Firefox is a free, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and hundreds of volunteers.^[1] The browser began as a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite; Firefox has since become the foundation's main development focus (along with its Thunderbird mail and news client), and has replaced the Mozilla Suite as their official main software release. On June 1, 2005, Google shares gained nearly 4 percent after Credit Suisse First Boston raised its price target on the stock to $350. BBC News. Jessie Stricchiola, president of Alchemist Media, called Google "the most stubborn and the least willing to cooperate with advertisers" when it comes to click fraud. The assault on software giant Microsoft. Google's CFO George Reyes said in a December 2004 investor conference that "something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model."[9] Some have suggested that Google is not doing enough to combat click fraud.

Weber, Tim (May 9, 2005). Click fraud is a growing problem for Google's business strategy. New York Times. Page says in the prospectus that Google has "a dual class structure that is biased toward stability and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me." The company has not reported any treasury stock holdings as of the Q3 2004 report. The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating). The actual voting power of the insiders is much higher, however, as Google has a dual class stock structure in which each Class B share gets ten votes compared to each Class A share getting one. Stross, Randall (December 19, 2004). The two founders are said to hold almost 30% of the outstanding shares.

Mozilla's security concept is not invincible c't magazine 14/2005, page 202. In January 2005 the shares outstanding was up 100 million to 273.42 million, 53% of that was held by insiders which made the float 127.70 million (up 110 million shares from the first trading day). Chrome-plated holes. On August 19, 2004 the number of shares outstanding was 172.85 million while the "free float" was 19.60 million (which makes 89% held by insiders). Schmidt, Jürgen (July 13, 2005). Since the IPO, Google's stock market capitalization has risen greatly and the stock price has more than quadrupled. Wall Street Journal. [8].

How to Protect Yourself From Vandals, Viruses If You Use Windows. Google said it would use the money for "acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets". (September 16, 2004). The move would double Google's cash stockpile to $7 billion. Mossberg, Walter S. On August 18, 2005 (one year after the initial IPO), Google announced that it would sell 14,159,265 (another mathematical reference as π = 3.14159265...) more shares of its stock to raise money. Hacking for Christ. The company was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol GOOG.

Firefox Language Coverage. Yahoo!, a competitor of Google, also benefited from the IPO because it owns 2.7 million shares of Google. Markham, Gervase (November 30, 2004). Many of Google's employees became instant paper millionaires. Forbes. The IPO gave Google a market capitalization of more than $23 billion. Hesseldahl, Arik (September 29, 2004).Better Browser Now the Best. The vast majority of Google's 271 million shares remained under Google's control.

Retrieved September 22, 2004. The sale raised $1.67 billion, of which approximately $1.2 billion went to Google. Mozilla Firefox Development Charter. Of that, 14,142,135 (another mathematical reference as √2 = 1.4142135...) were floated by Google and 5,462,917 by selling stockholders. Goodger, Ben (2004). 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of $85 per share. O'Reilly (2005), ISBN 0-9752402-4-2. After some initial stumbles, Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004.

Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide. The SEC (Security & Exchange Commission) forbids giving out information pertaining to a company's specifications before an IPO is launched. Yeow, Cheah Chu. Before Google initiated its initial public offering, Larry Page & Sergey Brin faced legal action for giving Playboy an interview about themselves and Google. Wiley (2005), ISBN 0-7645-9650-0. The public valued it at $100.34 at the close of the first day of trading which saw 22,351,900 shares change hands. Hacking Firefox : More Than 150 Hacks, Mods, and Customizations. The initial offering of shares was sold for $85 a piece.

Reyes, Mel. In the run-up to the IPO the company was forced to slash the price and size of the offering, but the process did not run into any technical difficulties or result in any significant legal challenges. O'Reilly (2005), ISBN 0-596-00928-3. The smallest required account balances at most authorized online brokers that are allowed to participate in an IPO, however, are around $100,000. Firefox Hacks. They chose the unconventional way of allocating the initial offering through an auction (specifically, a "Dutch auction"), so that "anyone" would be able to participate in the offering. McFarlane, Nigel. In May 2004, Google officially cut Goldman Sachs from the IPO, leaving Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston as the joint underwriters.

Prentice Hall PTR (2005), ISBN 0131870041. The deadline imposed by this requirement accelerated our decision." The SEC filing revealed that Google turned a profit every year since 2001 and earned a profit of $105.6 million on revenues of $961.8 million during 2003. Firefox and Thunderbird Garage. By law, certain private companies must report as if they were public companies. Hofmann, Chris, Marcia Knous, & John Hedtke. As Google stated in the filing, their "growth has reduced some of the advantages of private ownership. O'Reilly (2005), ISBN 0-596-00939-9. April 29 was the 120th day of 2004, and according to section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, "a company must file financial and other information with the SEC 120 days after the close of the year in which the company reaches $10 million in assets and/or 500 shareholders, including people with stock options.[7] Google has stated in its Annual filing for 2004 that every one of its 3,021 employees, "except temporary employees and contractors, are also equity holders, with significant collective employee ownership", so Google would have needed to make its financial information public by filing them with the SEC regardless of whether or not they intended to make a public offering.

Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox. On April 29, 2004, Google made an S-1 form SEC filing for an IPO to raise as much as USD $2,718,281,828 (with a touch of mathematical humor as e = 2.718281828...). Granneman, Scott. According to a banker involved in the transaction, the deal would yield an estimated $12 billion market capitalization for Google. MozillaZine. That IPO (one of the most anticipated in history) was projected to raise as much as $4 billion. ^  Firefox a threat. In January 2004, Google announced the hiring of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group to arrange an IPO.

BBC News. In October 2003, while discussing a possible IPO (Initial Public Offering of shares), Microsoft approached the company about a possible partnership or merger; no such deal ever materialized. ^  The assault on software giant Microsoft. Around six months later, a much larger round of funding was announced, with the major investors being rival venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital. ZDNet. After a frantic few weeks, this was topped up to give an initial investment of almost $1 million. ^  Microsoft: Firefox does not threaten IE's market share. The first funding for Google as a company was secured in the form of a $100,000 contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given to a corporation which didn't yet exist.

MozillaNews. Products and demos Google Labs, the experimental section of Google.com help Google maximize its relationships with its users by including them in the beta development, design and testing stages of new products and enhancements of already existing ones. ^  Round Two looks to launch enhanced Firefox. Frequently, new Google enhancements or products appear in its inventory. eBay. Analysts speculate that Google's response to Yahoo! will be to continue to make technical and visual enhancements to personalized searches, using the personal data that is gathering from Orkut, Gmail, and Froogle to produce unique results based on the user. ^  eBay Picture Manager Enhancements. The logo is notorious among web users for April Fool's Day tie-ins and jokes about the company.

^  Where can I upgrade my browser? Blogger Help. Not only may decorative drawings be attached to the logo, but as well the font design may mimic a fictional or humorous language such as the Star Trek Klingon[5] and Leet[6]. blakeross.com. The Google site includes humorous features such as cartoon modifications [4] of the Google logo to recognize special occasions and anniversaries, known as "Google Doodles". ^  Firefox shipping on Dell UK. This is interpreted by some activists as against the "Don't Be Evil" spirit. Inside Aebrahim's Head. Google.cn search results are filtered so as not to bring any results up on Tianamen Square, the independence movements of Tibet and Taiwan, the Dalai Lama (any results describe him as a troublemaker), Falun Gong and anti-Communist information.

^  UChicago to Distribute Firefox and Thunderbird. Some controversy has occurred over Google's decision to participate in the Chinese government's Internet censorship policy, colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China". ZDNet UK. Google's declared code of conduct is "Don't Be Evil", a phrase which they went so far as to include in their prospectus (aka "red herring" or "S-1") for their IPO, noting "We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains.". ^  Firefox sneaks into the enterprise. Yet Yahoo!'s move highlighted Google's own distinctiveness and today the verb "to google" has entered a number of languages first as a slang verb and now as a standard word meaning, "to perform a web search". Mozilla.org Bugzilla. Google lost user share of the search market.

^  Bug 319262 - Significant memory leak. At its peak in early 2004, Google handled upwards of 84.7 percent of all search requests on the World Wide Web through its Web site and through its partnerships with other Internet clients like Yahoo!, AOL, and CNN.[3] In February 2004 Yahoo! dropped its partnership with Google in order to provide users at its site independent search results and to maintain their loyalty. InternetWeek. However, the acquisition secured the company's competitive ability to use information gleaned from blog postings to improve the speed and relevance of articles contained in a companion product to the search engine, Google News. ^  Firefox 1.5: Not Ready For Prime Time?. Some analysts considered the acquisition inconsistent with Google's business model. Mozilla.org. In February 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs, owner of Blogger, a pioneering and leading weblog hosting Web site.

^  Handling Mozilla Security Bugs. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. Mozilla.org. Patent 6,285,999 describing Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001. ^  Mozilla Security Bug Bounty FAQ. U.S. Mozilla.org. While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

^  Mozilla Security Bug Bounty Program. The model of selling keyword advertising was originally pioneered by Goto.com (renamed Overture, and now Yahoo! Search Marketing)[2]. Mozilla.org. It also only cost a very small amount per click to the websites that advertised this way. ^  Hacking Mozilla. The ads were text-based in order to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Neil Turner's weblog. This strategy was important for increasing advertising revenue, which is based upon the number of "hits" users make upon ads.

^  External Protocol Whitelisting. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with the search keyword to produce enhanced search results for the user. After installation, they have full access to the operating system (with the user's privilege level) via XPCOM-interfaces. This appearance, while imitating the early AltaVista, had behind it Google's unique search capabilities. ^  Extensions, however, are not sandboxed at all. They were attracted to its simple, uncluttered, clean design — a competitive advantage to attract users who did not wish to enter searches on web pages filled with visual distractions. ^  Firefox Port to RISC OS project page. The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users.

freshports.org. Silicon Graphics leased these buildings to Google. ^  FreshPort entry on Firefox. After outgrowing two subsequent sites, the company settled into a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, in 2003. Mozilla.org. Google quickly outgrew its University Avenue home. ^  Firefox release notes for the 1.x series. This unexpected change alienated part of AltaVista's user base.

Details a procedure to install Firefox on Windows 95 and the original release of Windows 98. Google received a big break in 1999 when one of the most popular search engines, AltaVista, relaunched itself as a user Web entry point, or portal. Source: John Haller's website. In March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, home to a number of other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. ^  Run Firefox in Windows 95 (and Windows 98 original release). They formally incorporated their company, Google Inc., on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. Mozilla.org. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997.

^  Firefox System Requirements. Originally the search engine used the Stanford website with the domain google.stanford.edu. We have certainly heard the clear feedback from the web design community that per-pixel alpha is a really important feature.". (A small search engine called RankDex was already exploring a similar strategy.) Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. We've actually had this on our radar for a long time, and have had it supported in the code for a while now. (Contemporary search engines essentially ranked results according to how many times the search term appeared on a page.) It was originally nicknamed BackRub because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance. In the blog entry, Chris Wilson said that Microsoft would soon "[s]upport the alpha channel in PNG images [in Internet Explorer 7]. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between Web sites would produce better results than existing techniques.

Source: Internet Explorer weblog. students at Stanford. ^  IE7 beta 1 – A few details… (April 22, 2005). Google began as a research project in January 1996 ^[1] by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. MozillaZine. . ^  Mozilla to include Java Embedding plugin. See Google platform for more details on their technology.

A document that describes the product requirements for Firefox 2, and also anticipates an interim milestone marker for Firefox 1.5. While the company does not provide detailed information about its hardware, it was estimated in 2005 that they were using over 100,000 Linux machines. [37]. Google's services are run on several server farms, each consisting of many thousand low-cost commodity computers running stripped-down versions of Linux. ^  Mozilla Wiki. multiplex, cineplex, etc). Source: Asa Dotzler's weblog. As a further play on this, Google's headquarters are referred to as "the Googleplex" — a googolplex being 1 followed by a googol of zeros, and the HQ being a complex of buildings (cf.

^  1.8 alpha 6 around the corner (December 26, 2004). The name "Google" is a play on the word "googol," which refers to the number represented by 1 followed by one hundred zeros. ^  Ben Goodger discusses the Firefox update system (May 2, 2005). Eric Schmidt, formerly chief executive officer of Novell, was named Google's CEO when co-founder Larry Page stepped down. ^  Mozilla Firefox Roadmap (see also: Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Roadmap). The company employs approximately 5,700 employees and is based in Mountain View, California. John Hicks' weblog. public corporation, first incorporated as a privately held corporation in September 1998, that designed and manages the Internet Google search engine.

^  Branding Firefox. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is a U.S. Mozilla.org. Catalogs: Catalog Search allows the user to search and browse mail-order catalogs. ^  Mozilla Firefox - Brand Name Frequently Asked Questions. Non-peer reviewed material is also included in the index. ^  Firefox trademark, USPTO. Scholar: Allows users to search some peer-reviewed, scholarly journals.

^  Mozilla Firefox Download Counts. Although it allows you to search specific blogs, this feature is currently malfunctioning. (Your children in college are already using it.)". Results can be sorted by relevance or by date. The article states that "With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. Blogs: Blog Search allows the user to only search blogs based on RSS feeds. December 19, 2004. See Google Video.

^  Stross, New York Times. Videos: Allows the user to limit a search to videos on the Internet; Use Google to find reviews and showtimes for movies playing somewhere near you. It's not only more secure but also more modern and advanced, with tabbed browsing, which allows multiple pages to be open on one screen, and a better pop-up ad blocker than the belated one Microsoft recently added to IE.". See Google Talk. I recommend instead Mozilla Firefox, which is free at www.mozilla.org. Talk: Allows users with Gmail accounts to communicate with each other through instant messaging and have online conversations. Walter Mossberg wrote : "I suggest dumping Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser, which has a history of security breaches. See Google Desktop.

^  Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2004. Desktop: Allows the user to search their computer for files, folders, and emails. ^  Forbes, September 29, 2004. See Google Earth. ^  Mozilla contributors list, Mozilla.org. Earth: Allows the user to download a program to have a 3D version of satellite pictures. RISC OS (ARM)^[19]. Currently it provides full service only in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Ireland.

SkyOS. See also Google Maps. BeOS. Maps include road maps, medium-resolution satellite images, and "hybrid" maps combining both. OpenBSD. Local: Searches for places (such as shops or other landmarks) in a geographical area, and displays maps and driving directions. NetBSD. See Froogle.

PC-BSD. Froogle: Allows the user to shop online searching websites within a user specified budget. FreeBSD^[18]. Google.com.au allows selection criteria for Australia. AIX^[17]. The search page provides the option for twenty countries. OS/2 and its successor, eComStation. News: Brings the user directly to the Google News search page, formatted similar to news websites such as MSNBC or BBC News.

Solaris (x86 and SPARC). Groups: Allows the user to create, search and browse groups for discussion. Many Linux distributions come with Mozilla Firefox already installed. Images: Allows the user to limit a search to images on the Internet; the images are identified by Google by the image name saved on the webpage and context information about the page. Linux-based operating systems using X.Org Server or XFree86. Washington Post 20 September 2005 "Google library push faces lawsuit by US authors". At the 2005 WWDC, Apple programmers created a Firefox version for Mac OS X on the Intel platform, which worked well. The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis - .pdf.

Mac OS X. Scout Report "Authors’ group files lawsuit against Google" Sept, 2005. A version for USB Smart Drives exists (see "Portable Firefox" below). Drummond, 42, $776K. Various versions of Microsoft Windows, including 98, 98SE, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, and Server 2003. Counsel: David C. Anti-phishing features. Development, Secretary and Gen.

Improvements to the search service. VP of Corp. Download resuming across browser sessions, detection of signed executables. VP of Worldwide Sales: Omid Kordestani, 41, $572K. Accessibility compliance. Sr. Find Toolbar, Software Update, Search enhancements. Page, 32, $1 see [15].

Extension system enhancements. President of Products: Larry E. Specific options per site. President of Technology: Sergey Brin, 31, $1 see [14]. Tabbed Browsing improvements. CFO: George Reyes, 51, $781K. New "Places" interface for Bookmark and History. Schmidt, 50, $1 see [13].

Firefox 1.5 also includes a backlog of bug fixes that were fixed between the 0.9 and the 1.0 release which were previously unavailable due to branching from the trunk around the 0.9 release. CEO: Eric E. Gecko 1.8, an updated version of Firefox's rendering engine. Users will have the option of clearing all privacy-related settings simply by exiting the browser or by using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. A "Clear Private Data" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button.

A new, reorganized options dialog box for changing settings of the browser. Support for the non-standard HTML canvas element. See Firefox 1.5's SVG status page, or to see SVG in action visit the SVG repository. This move makes Firefox the second major browser to support some form of SVG natively (Opera 8.0, released on April 19, 2005 supports most of the SVG 1.1 Tiny Specification).

Partial support for SVG 1.1 Full Specification. An improved Software Update System that will ease distribution of important security patches and help keep users up-to-date.^[10].