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Mozilla The Internet

Speakeasy Embraces Firefox 336

Posted by timothy from the when-free-is-valuable dept.
xdavexxx writes " Speakeasy, one of the largest DSL providers in the United States, recently announced that it will begin offering a specialized version of Mozilla Firefox to its customers. In doing so, they are one of the first internet companies to offer an official customized version of Firefox to its customers. This custom version of Firefox will keep the Firefox Google home page, but have the Speakeasy logo and feature a Speakeasy toolbar filled with links recommended by Speakeasy. No money was exchanged between the Mozilla Foundation and Speakeasy, as Firefox is open source and is freely available for use by anyone. Speakeasy's reasoning for this is simple; to increase the reliability and speed of its internet service." It should be pointed that Slashdot (and OSTG) have a partnership with Speakeasy.
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Speakeasy Embraces Firefox More

Speakeasy Embraces Firefox

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  • SWEET! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 69sofine ( 814153 )
    hope more companies start doing that

  • Branded (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:02PM (#11482359) Journal
    Lets just hope they keep the name Firefox somewhere on the program so they can tell their friends.

    • Re:Branded (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FrYGuY101 ( 770432 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:05PM (#11482404) Journal
      At the very least, let's hope this provides a critical mass which means that site operators have to deal with IE AND Firefox, rather than simply viewing FireFox as a negligable market.
      • Such as Purolator [purolator.com]. I've contacted them several times about their extremely annoying javascript browser check that pops up a warning that online shipment tracking requires IE or Netscape 6. I get a typical canned response about their developers looking at Firefox support.

        Here is the contact form to reach out and poke them about Firefox: Questions to our Webmaster [purolator.com]

      • Re:Branded (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jsebrech ( 525647 )
        Oh, don't worry, if the ISP's start switching browsers, firefox will become the marketleader. IIRC, once upon a time ISP's distributed netscape by default, IE made valiant inroads, and then the ISP's started bundling IE which led to a mad marketshare rush that left netscape a niche player. I think firefox is edging up to that marketshare tipping point now, where it's going to become the default browser to bundle with things, and thereby getting automatic installs on many, many machines.

        Though admittedly, t

    • Re:Branded (Score:3, Informative)

      by windows ( 452268 )
      I've posted elsewhere that this idea isn't exactly new. A few years ago, Southwestern Bell was sending branded versions of Netscape Communicator to users who signed up for their service. It was clearly Netscape, however, and not branded to look like some SWBell browser. It just had a couple of modified pictures, including a chance to the splash screen when opening Netscape to indicate it had been distributed by SWBell. The splash screen, however, retained the Netscape logo. I'm assuming this same sort of th

    • Re:Branded (Score:4, Informative)

      by Misch ( 158807 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:12PM (#11482500) Homepage
      From the download page, it looks like they're just offering a plugin that handles all the customization. Their download page points to here [mozilla.org], and their plugin resides here [speakeasy.net].
    • Lets just hope they keep the name Firefox somewhere on the program so they can tell their friends.

      They probably need to ask the Mozilla Foundation because of the trademarks [mozilla.org].

  • Firefox (Score:2, Insightful)

    by geomon ( 78680 )
    Sigh. I wish more people used it, but IE will just continue to dominate until Microsoft heads to that pasture where all mega-companies eventually end up in (ala AT&T).

    • Re:Firefox (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gandell ( 827178 )
      So far they've been too adaptive for that. Until people embrace another OS in both the corporate environment and in the home, we're stuck with 'em.

      Back to the topic at hand, if pc venders such as HP or Dell would bulk it with their OS, and hide the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, numbers might increase.
      I can see the average user wondering where the "internet" went, though...

      • Re:Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)

        by geomon ( 78680 )
        So far they've been too adaptive for that.

        They *were* adaptive until they had control of the marketplace. Now they dictate the standards and have very little incentive to innovate.

        Until people embrace another OS in both the corporate environment and in the home, we're stuck with 'em.

        That is correct. But large organizations that reach maturity in their marketplace get lethargic and develop so much bureaucratic momentum that when the change comes, it is usually fatal for the corporation. Only those with
    • Every single person I have showed firefox too has used it. Even my wife, who hates when I mess with the computer. I've converted nearly everyone at work, and their home PC's too.

      Do your part to help, show it to somebody, and get them hooked. Tell them to pass it on. Think of possible exponential growth - 1>2>4>8>16>32>64>etc...
      It doesn't take much to convince people to switch.

      Put a positive spin on it!
    • >where all mega-companies eventually end up in (ala AT&T).

      AT&T today is not the same as the mega-corp one in the past. If you want to see where the mega-corpo one is now, take 90% of the telecom companies out there and add them together.

  • Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:02PM (#11482362)
    Fewer Malware programs target FireFox, less security vulnerabilities, means less bandwidth is used by said malware and more by the actual customers.

    Kudos, Speakeasy.

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:06PM (#11482427) Journal
      Yes, but unfortunatly, even though firefox is superior software, eventually there will be spyware targeted to firefox. The spyware and malware writers aren't stupid, unfortunately, and they'll find any way to fool stupid users.

      I'm not saying it will ever be the epidemic IE has, but there will be some spyware that will fool users, whether it be a toolbar, or some other "add on" that sounds good to users.

      Build smarter mouse, someone builds a better mousetrap unfortunately.

      • Re:Makes sense... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by adamjaskie ( 310474 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:11PM (#11482485) Homepage
        Except that Firefox does not do ActiveX, so writing malware for it is that much more difficult. Possible, sure, but quite a bit more difficult.

        • Re:Makes sense... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Masami Eiri ( 617825 ) <brain@wav.gmail@com> on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:17PM (#11482581) Journal
          Yeah, but Firefox has XPI extentions. Granted, you have to whitelist to install, but there are stupid users out there.

        • Re:Makes sense... (Score:2, Insightful)

          by LetterJ ( 3524 )
          While a nice thought, it's not really as safe as you'd like to believe. More than once already, I've seen a site pop up an XPI installer asking for permission. In one of those cases, someone else was at the keyboard and just clicked without missing a beat. Didn't read it or anything. Any browser with any sort of extension mechanism is vulnerable to people just OK'ing whatever they're asked and allowing the installation.

      • Hah hah (Score:2, Funny)

        by gandell ( 827178 )
        Yes, but unfortunatly, even though firefox is superior software, eventually there will be spyware targeted to firefox.

        Well, I'll show them if they do! I'll move to Mozilla...
        Oh, wait...

    • Re:Makes sense... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by northcat ( 827059 )
      Interesting point. And less badwidth used by malware == lesser costs for Speakeasy.

  • This isn't exactly new.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by windows ( 452268 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:02PM (#11482365)
    This isn't exactly new. When I signed up for dialup service through Southwestern Bell back around 1996 or so, I was mailed a CD with Netscape Communicator 4 branded with SWBell logos. I wonder what took so long to have this done with Firefox. After all, Firefox can trace its roots to Netscape. It is good to see Firefox being embraced by a rather large ISP, however.
    • Netscape paid them that time. This time it is because Firefox just plain rules. Even better, NO licensing to deal with, which makes Firefox an attractive option for any company distributing or recommending it.
    • it may not be "exactly" new but don't you think the fact this is the first time something like this was done with firefox is newsworthy, at least to many /. readers.

      i don't understand this "this isn't exactly new" attitude. are you implying that since it's not "new," it's not newsworthy? if not, what exactly is accomplished by the proclaimation that "this isn't exactly new" and bringing up semi-relevant example from 8 years ago?

      if someone overclocks a newer processor, it's not newsworthy because overclock

  • Good way to spread it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:02PM (#11482368) Homepage Journal
    Many ISP customers just do exactly what their ISP tells them to. If this ISP starts shoving Firefox down customers' throats, Firefox market share could drastically increase over IE's.
    • Wouldn't you rather say... spoonfeeding?

      Want shoving? Install winxp and start browsing the web.
    • But Speakeasy isn't your normal ISP: I would say it's a geek's ISP because they offer things that a normal dsl user wouldn't think about like 2 static IP's, one-link service (no need for a dial tone), and most importantaly, no bandwidth caps: the bandwidth you buy is yours! It's great that Speakeasy is endorsing Firefox, but I suspect that their user base has a significant Firefox adoption rate already! Which is great, but I wish a SBC or Earthling would go this route too! Here's to hope! (Disclosure:

  • support calls (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:03PM (#11482370) Homepage Journal

    Weenie: Good morning, Speakeasy Help Desk. How may I help you?
    User: Slashdot renders wrong in your ghey browser~()@*!@!(*
    Weenie: Ah, just ctrl-minus ctrl-plus.
    User: Woot! Thanks, mang!

  • Ads? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by wdd1040 ( 640641 )
    Links that Speakeasy chooses?

    As in their paid advertisers? What's next? Companies integrating spyware into Firefox and redistributing it?

  • Wanted (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:03PM (#11482376)
    What we need is sort of what AOL was rumored to be doing with the next version of Netscape - IE integration. Before the flames start, hear me out.

    Some websites require IE right now. It would be nice for n00bs if they could use Firefox or any alternative browser without this worry. With an IE integration feature, we could amass a list of the websites that need IE rendering and Firefox could automatically render them with IE, if needed. Everything else gets Gecko. And maybe "the community" could put together an action team to help those on the list get off of the list.

    Perhaps there could be job creation involved, to boot.
    • With an IE integration feature, we could amass a list of the websites that need IE rendering and Firefox could automatically render them with IE, if needed.

      I'll pass thanks... since I'm guessing that an ActiveX control would trigger that? I use Firefox *because* it doesn't have ActiveX.

    • Re:Wanted (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jimktrains ( 838227 )
      As a web programmer, it bothers the h*ll out of me to see something that says "This browser not supported." I have no trouble writting some complicated stuff that works in ALL browsers and platforms. I use standrd XHTML, CSS, and javascript. What annoys me is that IE doesn't support all sights... the "hover" midifyer in CSS doesn't work for anythign but a href's, not even jsut a tags, it must have an href. I mean geeze, jsut work. Firefox and Opera are my favorites to use. As for ActiveX, I never saw
    • What we need is sort of what AOL was rumored to be doing with the next version of Netscape - IE integration. Before the flames start, hear me out.

      Some websites require IE right now.

      The absolute worst option would be to continue to enable those disfunctional websites which either through incompetence or collusion with microsoft are rejecting customers who choose to use web browsers and/or operating systems other than the common microsoft variety.

      They need to be brought into the limelight, and complaints
      • The absolute worst option would be to continue to enable those disfunctional websites which either through incompetence or collusion with microsoft are rejecting customers who choose to use web browsers and/or operating systems other than the common microsoft variety.

        Did you not read yesterday's article on IBM's Linux migration [slashdot.org]? They're pretty much stuck because they need IE for so many things. If they could have a browser that would render with IE on-demand automagically, then they could switch to that
        • Much of portals and intranets are made up of activex. Ugly hacks to hide the fact that they cant code very well.

          What IBM should have done is to switch the backends first and then gone for the desktops. Regardless of what the future would hold the effort on making the backend more flexible would be an excellent investment to get return on later on.

          This could serve as an exemple for everyone, dont lock yourself in and throw away the key, use open standards whereever humanly possible.

    • Re:Wanted (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Secrity ( 742221 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:24PM (#11482662)
      This is a modified form of the game of "Chicken". It would be a good thing if Firefox waits and sees whether it needs to lower itself to the level of the broken websites. Firefox is currently gaining market share. If Firefox stops gaining market share before the majority of the important IE only websites get fixed, then it would be necessary to make Firefox work with non-compliant websites. If Firefox gains sufficient market share without pandering to broken (IE only) websites, then the broken websites will have a strong incentive to work with standards based browsers. If Firefox panders to the broken websites, then the broken websites will have no incentive to fix themselves to work with standards based browsers
    • IE has done more to harm the web than anything i can imagine, virii and spyware included. Why on earth would you want to mimic a browser that is utterly broken to begin? The owners of the sites that are broken should fix them and spank the ones who did them silly. The web should work with every browser that adhere to html standards, not just Firefox and Internet Explorer.

      Active X is a horrible thing i wouldnt want in my browser for my life.
  • The name, speakeasy, was used 7 times in 6 sentences on this post. Try some shorter pronouns, I hope we don't charge by the letter.

  • Speakeasy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mboverload ( 657893 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:05PM (#11482417) Journal
    Speakeasy seems to be pretty in tune with the "geek/nerd" community. This shows they have smart managers or a persuasive IT department.

    Anyway, we should commend them greatly. Now we can say that ISP's even recommend it.

  • Does Anyone Know? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How they have modified it? Have they simply added their own set of extensions, sort of an "extension distribution", including a theme extension for branding purposes? Or, have they embedded part of the code in another "shell" of sorts? If so, what is the container technology, i.e. MFC/Java/C++, etc. Also, does this mean that it will be incompatible with Firefox, or at least not compatible with its extensions?

  • This just in... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:06PM (#11482424) Homepage
    ...Microsoft has asked the BSA to investigate claims that Speakeasy is using software without proper licensing and in violation of several patents.

    Stay tuned for more on this story as it develops.

  • support costs (Score:5, Insightful)

    by confusion ( 14388 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:06PM (#11482426) Homepage
    This probably makes a lot of sense from a support perspective. I've got to believe that most of the calls that support people get are related to the 397 spyware apps competing for keystrokes on the customer's computer.

    It problably also has to potential to cut down on spambots & other zombies residing on their network.

    Jerry
    http://www.syslog.org/ [syslog.org]
  • Speakeasy's reasoning for this is simple; to increase the reliability and speed of its internet service.

    If that was true they could bundle the regular ole Firefox distro. I think what they're really trying to do grub some ad revenue and co-branding out of the current Firefox buzz.

    • I think what they're really trying to do grub some ad revenue and co-branding out of the current Firefox buzz.

      So, what you're saying is that by featuring their logo on the version of Firefox that they distribute to their own subscribers, Speakeasy is hoping that some of their subscribers will decide subscribe to Speakeasy. That's brilliant! Step three and profit, here we come!

      • Um, no. I'm saying that Speakeasy is hoping that the halo effect can spill some of Firefox's positive buzz onto the Speakeasy brand if they have the two logos next to each other. Building brand recognition and reputation is very important in the corporate world.

        And then there's the simple money-grubbing of shoving paid-for commercial links onto a "toolbar".
    • think what they're really trying to do grub some ad revenue and co-branding out of the current Firefox buzz.

      You know, they can do both at the same time.
      I wish I could say that Speakeasy rocks, but they don't really. They are way expensive. The alternatives are the phone company and the cable company. In comparison, Speakeasy does rock but the bar ain't that high.

    • by branding it, speakeasy can "appeal" to the less savvy subscribers that it's not just some random new browser. even if people didn't know firefox (and/or knew only IE and distrusts everything else as unfamiliar), they might try and stick with a "speakeasy" browser.

  • Speakeasy is pretty good. (Score:3, Informative)

    by pyros ( 61399 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:13PM (#11482504) Journal
    I used to have DSL with them up in Minnesota. pricaes were pretty good and the plans were pretty flexible. Speed was pretty nice too (I lived like 1000 feet from the CO). But I tought their hosting plans were way overpriced.

  • Options.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by aero2600-5 ( 797736 )
    Speakeasy is wonderful because it's nice to have an option for DSL. If it wasn't for them, there would be no alternatives to Bellsouth other than cable in the area I live in. Now they're supporting Firefox. That just makes it all the better.

    Aero

  • "Free" to use.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:23PM (#11482651)
    No money was exchanged between the Mozilla Foundation and Speakeasy, as Firefox is open source and is freely available for use by anyone

    Although presumably they will have entered into some arrangement with the Foundation (or The Charlton Company), seeing as Firefox is a registered trademark. This is a good thing as it can prevent people spreading bastardized versions of firefox, such as Firefox Claria edition..
    • Presumably this is why they aren't offering their own build but a link to the regular firefox download page and an extension. Trademarks don't enter into it as they aren't actually distributing a browser.

  • About Speakeasy in General (Score:5, Interesting)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:24PM (#11482658) Homepage

    I love speakeasy. Since I switched to their service from AT&T, I have almost no unexplained downtime and no problems with customer support. Their support reps actually speak fluent English without annoying Indian accents and so far all my issues were resolved within a day and no support reps ever mislead me or gave me wrong info (happened with Verizon and AT&T quite often).

    Based on the packages that they offer and on cool things like wi-fi resell and open-server policies, it looks like the ISP is definitely for geeks. Also, I believe that if more ISPs provide users with free software that actually works, IE share will be reduced. 99% of non-techie users that I know use software provided by their ISPs. Anything from browsers to anti-virus programs. If things continue going this way, we'll see more open source products distributed to customers.

    I hope Speakeasy continues to do what it is doing and keep its level of customer support along with other innovative ideas that many companies seem to forget as soon as they become profitable.

  • Tech Support will Help Promote (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brandonp ( 126 ) * <brandon,petersen&gmail,com> on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:27PM (#11482701) Homepage
    Sounds to me that calls to Tech Support will end up being a huge promotion effort for Mozilla Firefox. I'm sure Speakeasy will recommend many of it's troubled customers to download their customized version of Firefox.

    How many customers does this promotion extend to? I'm sure Firefox will be much closer to that 10% Internet usage mark.

    This is fun.

    Brandon Petersen

  • It's a plugin (Score:5, Informative)

    by j2brown ( 149380 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:27PM (#11482703)
    Yes, I actaully followed one of the links. It's a plugin. The FF download it right from mozilla.org

    http://www.speakeasy.net/software/firefox/

    jeff
    sdg
    • Its not a Speakeasy branded Firefox like everyone keeps saying, its a small extension which adds some bookmarks. *Cough*
      Why does everyone keep saying they are distributing a branded version? Am I wrong?

      I hope I am wrong and they will start distributing an actual branded version to customers, but for now this looks like simple Extension to Firefox which is hardly worth the headlines and IMHO is kinda deceiving.

  • Recommended Links (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ad0gg ( 594412 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:32PM (#11482740)
    "... but have the Speakeasy logo and feature a Speakeasy toolbar filled with links recommended by Speakeasy. "

    By recommended, I'd assume sponsered links. But after checking they were actually legit links. I have seen other extensions that set their affliate codes, the last one i saw was the amazon search tool which tags all the search results with their affliate code.

  • If only they embraced lower prices as well (Score:3, Interesting)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @01:36PM (#11482792) Homepage
    I'd be all over their offerings. $39.95 is just too much for low-end ADSL these days. Everyone else is offering it for $29.95. They should at least throw in a fixed IP into the deal to make it attractive.
  • As it is unless you are willing to tweak the code and recompile you don't have a lot of options for customizing Firefox (at least not that I have found, I'd LOVE to be shown that it's doable). I think that corporations, that are struggling with spyware on a regular basis would be willing to switch to Firefox more readliy if they could easily tailor it to their needs, choosing default home page, links, install internal CA root certificates etc. For it's faults IE makes it pretty easy to do this, with the I
    • Open Firefox. Browse to "about:config". Customize to your heart's content. All of these settings are also found in text files in your user profile directory. It would be a piece of cake for a vendor to distribute highly customized versions of Firefox without any recompiling.

      As for the IEAK, bleh. It's virtually unusable. When it works, it's passable, but more often than not it crashes whenever you try to do anything useful with it. I'd much rather edit a few text files.

  • List of URLs (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    >>>>>>drudgereport.com/<<<<<
    >>>>>>kexp.org/<<<<<
    >>>>>>news.bbc.co.uk/<<<<<
    >>>>>>snopes.com/<<< <<
    >>>>>>steampowered.com<<<<<
    >>>>>>waste.sourc eforge.net/<<<<<
    >>>>>>world.altavista.com/<<<<<
    >>>>>>www.achewood.com/<<<<<
    >>>>

  • Cool! My favorite ISP, my favorite browser, and my favorite website all rolled into one!

  • Good job, Timothy (Score:3, Informative)

    by justdisguyyaknow ( 568860 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @02:25PM (#11483563)
    Thanks for disclosing the fact that OSTG has a relationship with the vendor it's promoting.

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