There has been a lot written in the last day about Google Chrome. While I’m not terribly excited, it would be wrong of me to not mention it here on an open source blog. Google Chrome is an open source browser from the people at Google. Why aren’t I jumping up and down with others? Well, right now you can only see Google Chrome on Windows!! When I have an open source browser (Firefox) that works on my Mac, and works really well, why would I be excited about a new browser that I can’t even test?

Want to learn more about Chrome? Visit the official site.

Well, if you didn’t, no worries, it looks like Firefox has most likely broken the download world record and “went from less than 1% of the browser market this morning to almost 3% in a matter of 13 hours.” This from DownloadSquad:

This morning it looked like Mozilla was on track to set a world record by serving up 5 to 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 within 24 hours of the web browser’s release. But by day’s end, (well, 24 hour’s end anyway), you all smashed that number and downloaded Firefox 3 over 8 million times.

Mozilla is still waiting to get confirmation from the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records before proclaiming the official number, but Mozilla Links pegs the number at 8,290,908, give or take a few. And NetApplications says that Firefox 3 went from less than 1% of the browser market this morning to almost 3% in a matter of 13 hours.

Technorati Tags: firefox

Yippee!! It’s coming. This via CrunchGear:

Next Tuesday is Firefox 3 Day, according to Mozilla’s developer news web site. The most recent release candidate was made available on June 5th yesterday, so that’s a pretty quick turnaround – a sign to me that the browser’s definitely stable.

And this via Mozilla’s site:

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

This from DownloadSquad:

Mozilla is attempting to break a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in 24 hours with its upcoming Firefox 3 release.

“Download Day” is nothing new for the Firefox crew, and it’s really a great way to spread the word to the world about software. Sure, people can download things whenever they want, but there’s something cool about all doing it at once…it’s like Hands Across America. Except it has little to do with hands, and it’s global. You get the idea.

Learn more at DownloadSquad and sign up to download Firefox 3!

Technorati Tags: Guinness World Record, Firefox

Brian Herzog writes an interesting piece about how his library switched the browser on their public computers to Firefox.

My library is in the process of re-doing all of our public computers. One major change we’re making is to switch to Firefox for our web browser, instead of the Internet Explorer/Public Web Browser combo we’ve always used.

The reason we’re switching is a simple one - Firefox is just cooler. It lets us have more control over how the browser functions, and lets us offer more tools integrated right into the browser. Better for us, better for patrons.

This is a great guide if you’re considering switching over your public computers to an open source alternative. He lists the add ons they used, settings and customizations. If you’re thinking about making the switch, give his post a look.

I have yet to have a job where I can play with beta browsers - I always have to make sure I’m viewing web sites as the majority of our users. I mention this because I’ve been pining away waiting to try out Firefox 3. Today I read that the release candidate is ready - which means we’re that much closer to the final release of Firefox 3. Those of you that can test the RC, please do - make it so that I can play with it that much sooner

Yesterday Mozilla announced that Firefox has been downloaded 500 million times!!

Firefox just reached 500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station.

To celebrate they’re asking that we help people in need:

OR, you can affect change and invite 15 of your friends to play a game and feed 25,000 people. With your help we can break another milestone today with FreeRice.com –500,000,000 grains of donated rice in one day. Imagine helping to feed the hungry while picking up some new vocabulary too!

This is great news! Now if more libraries would just make Firefox their default browser on patron stations - imagine how many more downloads Mozilla would be able to report??