Firefox Extension Lets You Pick the Name 479
Rovaedne writes "Mozilla
Firefox , the web browser
formerly known as Firebird,
formerly known as Phoenix, has a new extension which allows you to change the name to something palatable. The extension called
Firesomething lets users change the name seen in the browser titlebar, Help menu, and About dialog, thus erradicating all traces of "Firefox" in
Firefox (currently version 0.8). There is a
name change FAQ, but it currently does not mention this extension. This extension should hopefully help curb some of the criticism that Mozilla has received from its most recent
choice of name."
Re:What about Thunderbird? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about Thunderbird? (Score:5, Insightful)
LetterRip
Re:I'm calling mine slash dot.dot (Score:1, Insightful)
That's 4 names but I guess only 3 changes, and only if you really push to count mozilla in the first place
finally, a reason to switch from... (Score:2, Insightful)
Diluting Mindshare (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On a more serious note, this extension is GREAT (Score:3, Insightful)
Just call it OpenSourceBrowser... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, OpenSourceBrowser isn't very 'sexy', neither is OpenOffice.org, but that seems to work for them...
This will "help curb some of the criticism" ?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean the criticism that Mozilla cannot come up with a decent and consistent naming strategy?
Giving users the ability to rename the browser to Mozilla (anything) will really help build brand awareness and promote a consistent naming strategy.........
i see it differently (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Firefox because it's trimmed down and has a smaller footprint. If I want to use mail I just start up Thunderbird. The calendar plugin works from both Thunderbird and Firefox.
I suppose if I regularly needed all the features in Mozilla I'd feel differently. No disrespect to Mozilla, but I really prefer using Firefox and Thunderbird.
Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good for a few jokes, yes; worth a whole story, no.
Re:Isn't it time to work on essential things? (Score:3, Insightful)
Try the user-agent options (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux branding oppoptunity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, because ,while you may be using only one of them, the Distro-makers can not know WHICH one.
Therefore.. choice.
And rest assured that there ARE reasons for choosing one, even if many use the same rendering engine.
I, mean some people use Konqueror (KHTML) , others Mozilla (gecko) and all the variations (that make a difference on the Interface and features side) , while still others like to browse without X.
So why whould distro makers remove choice so that you can brag about your "Fedora the exlorer"?
Windows Update (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On a more serious note, this extension is GREAT (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait until they have to use some poorly built online banking software or online billing system that blocks Mozilla users. Keeping people in the dark about what browser they're using will give them a reason to badmouth Mozilla for not working properly when they find out what you did.
I like Firefox, but as long as certain websites require IE you're doing your "neophyte" friend a disservice by "purg(ing) Internet Exploder from the system."
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
just because linux is open source and people have problems with linux, does NOT mean that people have problems with all open source apps. theres plenty of open source apps for windows that are just as good, and easy as closed source ones.
unpalatable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows Update... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like making your own urpmi source for Mandrake and then setting all the clients to hit it as part of a cron job or as part of login. But with the added bonus of being able to easily change the configuration in a central location and have it take effect for all clients.
And as someone who has been bit by the "you can only use IE to get this file" problem, I can tell you that I would like to bash the person who made it ie specific.
Re:On a more serious note, this extension is GREAT (Score:5, Insightful)
Banking on the Web should be IE only? Imagine the parking lot at the local bank will only allow Fords. What do you do with your BMW then? It runs better, smoother, faster, looks nicer, doesn't include clunky features, and follows the same 4 wheels/brake pedal/steering wheel/etc. standards needed for road use...
I'd like to hear any good reasons why a website should function in IE on Windows only. Anyone who replies "ActiveX" should be modded +1 Funny.
Phoenix rises from the ashes! (Score:3, Insightful)
what's so bad about firefox? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
A much better extension would be (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's anal morons like you who distract the reader, not the spelling. I honestly hadn't noticed the misspelling until you pointed it out (and I have better then average spelling abilities). What you need to remember is that most people posting to Slashdot aren't English majors. We're usually people posting a thought fairly quickly. Even if we know the correct spelling, it's easy to make a typo when you're typing quickly. Sure, you should catch the error when you preview, but not everyone will.
What you need to learn is that spelling & grammar != intelligence. I know several people who are smarter then me, but who can't spell worth crap. At least one is dyslexic, the others may just have actual important things on there minds.
Good spelling important in many contexts. Fortunately for us, slashdot isn't one of them. If you're that bothered by the problem, I suggest that you go elsewhere since the problem is fairly pervasive here.
Re:Actually (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm, maybe it's not a trivial fix, but wouldn't it help to instead make a web browser that doesn't have such a pathetic security model? I mean, it's none of that poker site's damned business what OTHER windows I have open on my machine, and it shouldn't be able to detect anything like that. (Even if they are both windows of the same web browser.) Maybe I misunderstand the situation, but it's really surprising to me that this is even possible in any web browser.
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:1, Insightful)
Or indeed native english speakers at all....
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
This post is off-topic as is the parent.
No, it's anal reactionaries like you who dilute the English language to the point of nonsense. Things have gotten so bad, college students commonly submit resumes riddled with typos, newspaper letters to the editor are incomprehensible, and business proposals look wholly unprofessional. And it all stems from slack usage of English in casual settings such as Slashdot.
It's embarrassing that you think that only English majors should have a solid command of the language. It just shows what a failure today's educational institutions are. When a person makes a typo, he should immediately realize it and correct it. If a person is unsure if the word is "consistent" or "consistant," then he should make the ten-second effort to find out and commit the fact to memory. This is what educated people do.
What is unacceptable is people that furiously type their thoughts and then do not even look over what they wrote to see if any of it makes sense.
Oh, cut it out with the holier than thou bull. If a person cannot effectively communicate his intelligence, then that intelligence is worthless. Smart people cannot get far in modern times without being able to write. And smart people won't be heard if they treat the English language like a redheaded stepchild.
By the way, have you ever considered readers not fluent in English? When they encounter a misspelled word, they have no way of initially telling if the word is misspelled or if it is a word they just haven't encountered before. How about having some consideration for foreign readers?
By the way, have you ever considered blind readers who use screen-reading software? When you misspell words, you make your writing inaccessible to the blind. How about having some consideration for the blind?
People used to have pride in the things they wrote. Now instead of people sucking up their egos and admitting their mistakes, we have people that now argue that making mistakes doesn't matter.
There is a difference between making an honest mistake and continually choosing not to care. You encourage this recklessness. And now we have college graduates who think spell checking is what word processors do, and not what humans do. Even after running a spell check, students submit papers full of flagrant violations of the language. Because people continually abuse English in places such as Slashdot, they believe college papers and business proposals shouldn't be scoured of all errors.
Good spelling is important in all contexts.
How Many Slashdot Members Does It Take to... (Score:2, Insightful)
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
1 to move it to the Lighting section
2 to argue then move it to the Electricals section
7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb"
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
19 to post that this topic is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb topic
11 to defend the posting to this topic saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this topic
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"
5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"
13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
1 slashdot lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again
Re:Next step for microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
I see it to be the complete opposite case: grammar and spelling is best corrected at the source.
But people submitting typo-ridden resumes are getting hired, error-plagued letters to the editor are being published (because the proofreaders at the newspapers themselves have no grasp of the language), and people who routinely misspell in business documents are not being fired or reprimanded. Learning suffers, communication suffers, business suffers, and the rest of us have to deal with it.
The cause is teachers who do not flunk high school students who consistently turn in nonsense papers and the parents who just don't care. But discussion groups such as Slashdot do not help the cause when error-ridden posts get +5 Insightful.
The original post that started this subthread humorously pointed out how a supposedly educated man in business could misspell the word "corporate." It was a tongue-in-cheek joke and certainly not an example of "lambasting."
Misspelling "corporate" is not so bad, but then Felinoid went into a ridiculous rant about how incomprehensible communication is okay. Felinoid even argues that nobody should care about spelling because we'll just let Microsoft Word and paid proofreaders deal with our problems. Ironically, Felinoid's post has dozens of spelling errors in his post. It was a struggle to read through. Had he taken the time and effort to review his prose, I could have read it in half the time.
Yes.
Actually, by politely correcting an honest mistake, the foreign poster learns a valuable tip and avoids misuse in the future. It's better than letting a learner of the language eventually embarrass himself by misusing a word in an important situation. As long as we're not being vicious about typos, everyone wins!
Content is meaningless if the presentation obscures its meaning. In fact, it frequently occurs where someone thinks he learned something, but in fact he learned the incorrect thing because the spelling and grammar implied something else.
I do not find misspelling "corporate" to be a grievous crime. I do not correct misspellings on Slashdot out of habit. But when people argue that misspelling is a-okay in some contexts, of course I will jump in to set things straight.
I'm tired of people not taking pride in what they do. Spelling is just one example where people seem to not care about improving themselves. But, it's a particularly important one because so much can be discerned from it.