AfterDawn: Tech news

The Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is out!

Written by Lasse Penttinen @ 09 Nov 2004 10:23 User comments (43)

Even though this barely touches the topics of this site, it is well worth mentioning that the Mozilla Firefox browser has finally reached the 1.0 milestone. This is an extremely significant software release, as Firefox has been considered as the ultimate alternative to replace the insecure Microsoft Internet Explorer. And best of all, the Firefox is open-source and totally free. so if you are not already familiar with it, I strongly encourage and recommend that you download it and give it a whirl. I have used it since the early beta versions, and never looked back.
The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced the worldwide availability of the Mozilla Firefox 1.0 web browser. Development of Firefox has been driven by a desire for a more robust, user-friendly and trustworthy web experience. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 arrives on the heels of last month's highly successful Preview Release that over eight million people downloaded, contributing significantly to the final phase of its open source development.
Today's announcement marks the worldwide launch of Mozilla Firefox-with immediate availability for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux-as a free download from mozilla.org and by CD from the Mozilla Store. Firefox is now available in over a dozen languages, with many more on the way.



"We are delighted to be announcing this major milestone for the Mozilla Foundation and for the Firefox browser, which has been made possible thanks to the tireless effort of hundreds of community volunteers and developers around the world," commented Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. "Now millions more will be able to enjoy a better web experience."
You can download Firefox at Dawnload.net or, of course, Mozilla.org.

Source: Mozilla.org

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43 user comments

19.11.2004 10:57

for your own safety and comfort please download this now NOW! :) --unofficial spokesman-- to quote Wendy's god I hate that Wendy's idiot - and his kids are little fagtards

29.11.2004 12:46

I think im the only one in the world who actually thinks firefox/mozilla is poor. I especially dislike the tabbed browsing, it's horrible. Dont get me wrong, im not saying its not better than internet explorer in security ways, because it is. But doesnt anyone else think that, well, its only really getting all this attention because its the 'best of the rest'? I'm happy sticking with IE for now. Spooky2k/Dan

39.11.2004 13:03

you get to use "extensions" and change the themes did you ever try adblock? that's one reason in it's own to get FireFox. you are complaing about tabbed browsing but you want to stick with IE? wtf look...I was hesitant about getting FireFox so I stuck with IE. Then when I began dual booting with linux I had to use mozilla. I found that that wasn't so bad so I tried FireFox. It slowly grew on me and now I NEED it. lol right now I have googlebar and adblock for extensions but there are many more. (make sure you pick up adblock if you get firefox) For a theme I'm using mostly crystal 1.0 - I don't think it's on mozilla so google it. Sticking with IE is stupidity. Stupid Analogy - If FireFox is to 'best of the rest' then IE is to 'worst of the rest'

49.11.2004 13:45

I use FireFox exclusively...I will never use IE ever.. It's the BEST!

59.11.2004 14:45

Die hard FireFox user here.

69.11.2004 16:06

firefox all the way.

79.11.2004 16:37

I like FireFox, and love the tabbed browsing. My only thing about it is that it doesn't handle Java very well. Never works for chatrooms for me.

89.11.2004 16:37
FrankLion
Inactive

Warm greetings from Mozilla. I am most impressed with your site here and will be posting a link to it in our AfterDark forum : http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=22 Please drop in anytime. Just to mention to anyone who has not tried FireFox, that as well as FireFox,you will still have IE browser on your PC, - so you can take all the time you like, getting to know and enjoy it.

99.11.2004 17:20

I use Opera, but, have been waiting for FireFox to reach the 1.0 mark, out of beta, to give it a try. Definitely if you find something you like better than IE, use it. :)

109.11.2004 23:05

I've tried firefox/mozilla. I kept them on my comp as well as IE for about a month cos i thought 'wee, everyones raving about them. there has to be something good about them'. so i used them for a month. I very very much disliked them. Of course, i can see why someone who is totally against microsoft using it, and if u don't wanna use IE, then FireFox is DEFINETLY the way to go. But so far, firefox/mozilla has provided no reason for me to make a switch as of yet, in the future maybe, but not yet (apart from security issues, but as long as you keep an eye on things on ur comp, they should not be a problem). I tried the 'adblock' and 'google toolbar' extensions, and still didnt feel satisfied after a month. One of the major 'put-offs' was that i use 'favourites' a hell of alot. And in IE, you can open fav's, and it stays on the side whilst you click thru diff web sites. With firefox/mozilla i had to keep going into the taskbar, and then selecting my fav from the list, which, may i add was extremely unorganised, and i didnt find a way to change this. PLUS, it kept crashing...it crashed about 85-90% more than IE ever has on me (well, on windows XP Pro anyway...lets not mention windows 98 :) ). Spooky2k/Dan

119.11.2004 23:22

I've been using the Firefox 1.0 Preview version for about two weeks now, and I think it is flat-out wonderful in every respect. Thanks to AfterDawn for putting out this update notice. I used to be an IE-6 devotee until I got zapped (twice) with a persistant dialer virus which, quite frankly, sabotaged my online activities and bogged everything down to a crawl. I had to wipe my hard-drives and re-install Win98SE and Win-2K twice. Mozilla's Firefox is 100% bulls--- free. Quite refreshing in this day and age of promises, it does exactly what it says it will do without the bloated baggage that IE-6 carries, and it is SO nice to be able to surf the web in peace and quiet now. Encouraged by my eye-popping success, I also switched to Mozilla's Thunderbird email client, a terrific replacement for Microsoft's Outlook Express, and I have NO plans whatsoever for switching back anytime soon. I love Thunderbird's ability to flag incoming KRAP-MAIL of which I have received truckloads lately. (OK, it did once flag my afterdawn forum post-update notices as junkmail, but that was easily and quickly correctable). That's one of the nice things about Thunderbird -- it learns as you go along, what does and does not constitute spam-mail. Frankly, I was geting pissed off at unscrupulous vendors stealing MY email address to send out (source) THEIR spam-mail !!! To anyone concerned about installing either product -- there's no need to worry. They install in a _flash_ and you can easily import all your settings from IE and OE with your eyes closed. You don't need to uninstall IE or OE to use either Mozilla product, but I wasted no time in taking them off my desktop anyway. Both of these now-indispensible programs are two efficient, slick pieces of work and were carefully and thoughtfully put together by people who know a lot more about the internet than I do. [Disclaimer] I work for the Mozilla organization and they are sending me scads of money for saying all this nice stuff. -- -- NOT! -- (I'm just kidding!) -- THANK YOU MOZILLA !!!!! -- Klingy --

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 09 Nov 2004 @ 11:45

129.11.2004 23:40

just downloaded it and its faster than ie the only thing i dindnt like was the way it downloads from the net gonna keep it for a while to see if its what everyone says fast fast fast

1310.11.2004 05:45

Firefox and the like are absolutely amazing. If you don't like the tabbed browsing, don't use it. If you don't like the downloading aspect, use a dl manager. (That's what I do. I used to use a dl manager for IE too, so no big difference there.) You just get to do more, customize more, and make your browser yours. Make your browser work the way you want it. I like that. (If IE's just your flavor, fine by me, but there's so much more out there.)

1410.11.2004 05:46

I'm in the same boat as A_Klingon in the fact that once I used FireFox it didn't take me long to switch to Thunderbird. I've been using them both for well over a year and I couldn't be happier with the both of them. They just keep getting better and better with each release :) And welcome to FrankLion!

1510.11.2004 05:58
FrankLion
Inactive

[quote="spooky2"]One of the major 'put-offs' was that i use 'favourites' a hell of alot. And in IE, you can open fav's, and it stays on the side whilst you click thru diff web sites. With firefox/mozilla i had to keep going into the taskbar, and then selecting my fav from the list, which, may i add was extremely unorganised, and i didnt find a way to change this.


View > Sidebar > Bookmarks. :) (note'Search'on Bookmark Sidebar, as well.

1610.11.2004 07:51
lajr1980
Inactive

MY IE IS MESSED UP NOW AFTER I CLEAN UP SOME AD/SPYWARE! LOL! IT KEEPS CRASHING! THE ONLY WAY I CAN USE IE PROPERLY IS TO OPEN UP A FOLDER AND TYPE IN A WEB ADDRESS! IT'S CRAZY! I'M USING FireFox 1.0 WHILE TYPING THIS. I STARTED USING FireFox MORE OFTEN NOW AND USE IE WHEN I REALLY HAVE TO!

1710.11.2004 07:59

I´ve been using Opera for a few years now and I´m very happy with it, but I´m definetely going to try FireFox out. I´ve just been waiting for the 'final' release.

1810.11.2004 08:08

Been playing with FireFox for a day now. I've decided it makes a good replacement for Netscape 7.2... but not for Opera. :) Just my opinion, of course, but, FireFox needs two small things from Opera to make me want to switch over to it. First, the ability to reopen pages that were opened when the program is closed. I like that feature in Opera a lot. Second, when using tabbed browsing, Opera resizes the tabs so they all fit on the screen. Netscape and FireFox have adopted tabbed browsing, BUT they don't resize the tabs. Sometimes, you will need many pages open at a time. If the tabs go off the side of the screen, it becomes more difficult to navigate through them. Otherwise, FireFox is a lot like Netscape and Opera. My main beef with Opera at the moment is a lot of times, it just closes itself off when trying to open and if pages were open when it was closed, it can take, well, too long to open them.

1910.11.2004 08:23

I also tried opera and FireFox as well and both of them lack a lot of things, like someone said before, java, flash, strange appearences on letters and forms, etc. My IE together with installed google bar and pop-up blocker works perfect, tired of trying always something unnecesarily new.

2011.11.2004 07:18

Quote:
Been playing with FireFox for a day now. I've decided it makes a good replacement for Netscape 7.2... but not for Opera. :)
Agreed. I tried out FireFox a bit yesterday. It has some cool features (allthough nothing new) and it sure is fast. The user interface isn´t anything special and the browser has kind of an overall amateur feel to it. I guess it depends on what you are used to using, and for me that´s Opera. I´m sure a lot of stuff could be fixed by writing a new theme for FireFox (themes improve the features, something I noticed yesterday). And of course I haven´t even touched Mozilla yet. Opera just seems to do more and in a better way. I´m used to browsing in a certain way using a certain combination of keyboard and mouse. That was interrupted when using FireFox.

2112.11.2004 16:47
Spoilage
Inactive

Why do some software developers have a problem developing software for more than one Operating System. Linux and open-source are the future, embrace it.

2213.11.2004 04:44

Just wanted to say: Ignore all my above comments about FireFox, i just downloaded the 1.0 release, everything i disliked has been sorted, and more importantly, i've found a use for the tabbed browsing. Not indispensable, but certainly makes things easier. It's certainly faster too...with IE, when i was uploading at max the browser wouldnt even respond. With FireFox, it runs as normal..which is great! I now officially recommend switching to FireFox 1.0! Spooky2k/Dan

2313.11.2004 10:29

I've discovered a few minor oddities. Like with mouse clicks. It seems to handle standard links and images, but, depending on the type, some content like Flash, etc. if you right click on, it treats it as a left click and opens the link. So far, though, I've only seen it on Flash, etc. content that opens a window if clicked. If it just displays animation, then, right click brings up the associated context menu.

2415.11.2004 03:44
sedgly
Inactive

I think FireFox is so much better than IE, a lot quicker and safer.

2515.11.2004 07:24

Strange. I've never had that problem with flash.

2615.11.2004 08:09

Spooky: Comments ignored. ;)

2721.11.2004 18:46

man, this new version crashes a lot. finally a use for the qualty feedback agent, i guess. i love FireFox, but this version seems the most unstable yet. i don't want to go back to an older version though, so Mozilla should get things right.

2821.11.2004 22:21

I recently had issues with it earlier. I was getting this error code saying "Error launching browser window : no XBL binding for browser" And it was pissing me off >:S and the only way i was able to load the browser was in safe mode. I later found out that one of the themes was not compatible with the new version of FF and so I deleted all the themes I had and BAM!! it worked. If I remember correctly the older version of FF told you that certain themes would not work and you could not download them....maybe this is a bug in the new version...dunnno *shrugging shoulders*

2922.11.2004 14:37

yeah, the thing is, i dont have any themes other than default installed. it would just crash whilst sitting there doing nothing sometimes. i never experienced a crash ever in the entire time using .6.0-1.0PR. i just dont know...

3022.11.2004 15:00

just to throw in my two cents: firefox is great. i've been using it for about 3 months now, and it's something i've come to love. at first, it took a little getting used to, but that's because the only browser i had used beforehand was (i'm shuddering as i am about to type this) AOL. i still use the AOL dialer (stupid sister) but i never start the software. Firefox needs far fewer system resoures, has no crap to come with it, and uses more universal formats for backing up, say, a favorites list. i still have IE (getting dusty in that corner of my desktop), but at this point i'm even using FF to play flash movies offline that i have saved. my compliments to the chef, or in this case, the programmers.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 22 Nov 2004 @ 3:04

3122.11.2004 15:13

wow, Auslander, I had a very similar experience. Used AOL my whole life, because the only other browser I knew of was IE. Then I discovered FireFox, and it was like everything started working as it should and the world was in the right place. I also used Firfox to play flash movies! But then I got Swiff Player, I use it because it handles the way the movie is displayed with borders and stuff a lot better. The only thing I use IE for anymore, is on the rare occasion that FireFox doesn't like a certain web page's coding.

3211.2.2005 13:08

I wanted FireFox because I thought it would be faster than IE, but I was wrong? Am I missing something? I thought that was one of their selling points?

3311.2.2005 13:30

it is faster.

3411.2.2005 13:47

it uses few system resources and is very efficient; with a side-by-side comparision, most people will see a definite difference between FF and IE.

3512.2.2005 22:13

IE has some sort of dumb limit on the amount of connections you can have at once also; something like 4 max. FireFox should be much faster and is much more innovative than IE, seeing as how the only thing Microshit has changed in years is they added that popup blocker, that really bad one. there is a Mozilla Team IRC channel you can ask questions in if you are having speed problems.

3613.6.2005 07:19
flamin3
Inactive

i really really love FireFox but i have one major gripe is that it does not open all the pages ie could do. i believe that there is an addon for FireFox which makes the site see FireFox as ie. anybody know where we can find it

3713.6.2005 12:57

What do you mean by "it does not open all the pages ie could do" ?

3813.6.2005 16:40
flamin3
Inactive

hi what i mean is that certain sites do not allow you to log on such as our lottery site when you want to make a payment you have to change to ie. thwe same goes for purchasing from some shops you can surf but it wont allow you to buy so off you go to ie again. i have had the same problem downloading as well. its not all sites just some. bit of a recognition problem really.

3913.6.2005 17:39

I know of one that FireFox won't open. The Java real time tech support chat client for Adelphia Powerlink.

4013.6.2005 19:05

reason for this is, these sites codes are only writen for IE. Since IE was the main web browser back in the day these sites were writen for IE. Soon enough web sites will become universal.

4113.6.2005 19:55

Netscape 8 had a pretty good idea to include the IE engine along with the FireFox one. Still crashes a lot, though ;) but it's a fairly good starting point.

4213.6.2005 22:34
flamin3
Inactive

still doesnt help me for the hunt for that elusive software that makes sites think FireFox is ie. i know it exists and is not on the official site , i read about it in the micro mart a few months back.

4314.6.2005 05:39
flamin3
Inactive

right i have found the magazine buried under a pile of them. heres the link for all those who are interested http://useragentswitcher.mozdev.org hope this helps

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