Firebird dies, Firefox rises from the ashes
The Mozilla based browser Firebird has been upgraded to version 0.8. At the same time the browser has been renamed to become Firefox. Whilst this may conjure up images of a rubbish 80's film featuring Clint Eastwood, it appears there is a good reason for the change as follows -
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The standalone Mozilla Firebird browser has been renamed to Firefox and received an upgrade to version 0.8. This latest release features a new download manager, bookmarks enhancements, better support for extensions and several thousand other improvements. Windows users can benefit from a new installer, while Mac OS X users will enjoy the new Aqua-style theme, Kevin Gerich and Stephen Horlander's Pinstripe.
Firefox is the browser's third name. The last name, Firebird, drew strong objections from the Firebird database community when it was announced in April. The database community's supporters and commercial backers waged a high-profile campaign against mozilla.org and affiliated parties until mozilla.org announced that Firebird would only be used as a codename. The new Firefox moniker is intended to be used as a permanent product name and a strong brand identity will be built around it. The new name was chosen after extensive international trademark searches and consultations with lawyers. The process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office began in December last year.
Even with the new name it's still one of the best browsers around and is a small 6.3 Mb download. For those of you still using Internet Explorer, give Firefox a try. You might like it, just don't watch the movie.
