The incident report narrates how the teacher apparently asked the class to do some work through an internet browser, only to catch a student starting a program called foxfire.exe. Said teacher meted out two warnings, but the student continued using foxfire, insisting that it was a better browser. The teacher, probably having no idea what Mozilla Firefox was and tired of challenges to his authority, handed the student two hours worth of detention.

I’m thinking that, if this were real, Mozilla should use the incident as a marketing tool. The new kind of brand evangelism apparently involves exposing the stupidity of authority figures, while taking the heat for your belief in a product or service.

The high school in question? Big Spring High School, according to the image currently making the internet rounds (above). The names of the teacher, student, and parents were redacted. All I know is that I wouldn’t want my child to be studying under such a reportedly clueless teacher!

Source

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Firefox 3 on Windows 7

Yet Firefox’s developers have never made the browser more memory-friendly. Understandably, keeping multiple windows with multiple tabs open is very demanding. But Mozilla should’ve realized that a long time, as people started keeping tabs (pun intended) on things, and opening multiple windows to ensure they wouldn’t miss out on apparently compelling content. Users installing myriad add-ons probably didn’t help too.

It’s good that the Firefox 3.5 preview shows support for open source video. But I hope Mozilla takes steps to make their flagship browser less demanding on computers. It can demand a performance rating system for adds-on and help users stay away from unnecessary yet demanding plug-ins (non web-designers would find no need for Firebug for example), while concentrating on making the code do more for less.

That’s how I’d change Mozilla Firefox. What about you?

Post from: The Gadget Blog