The Mozilla Blog

This Friday, support.mozilla.com will be hosting a Support Firefox Day that focuses on extending the global impact of Firefox support and looking forward to Mozilla’s goals for the next two years. support.mozilla.com — or SUMO for short — is the new online help system introduced in Firefox 3. Relying on a community of contributors from around the world, SUMO offers help to hundreds of thousands of users every week through our knowledge base articles as well as through forums and Live Chat services. As Firefox users span the globe, we are looking to expand the site’s coverage through translation and by reaching out to the wide userbase for their input. One of our events in Support Firefox day will be a series of presentations on how to get started and dive into this project and making a contribution right away.

This Support Firefox Day also hopes to engage users, contributors and localizers in a discussion about the directions Mozilla will be taking in the next couple years. Mozilla is not traditional organization — it’s a global community that spans not only the people involved in making software products, but the people using them as well. As such, we feel that it’s important to have input from this greater community when looking forward and planning goals. The highlight of one of these sessions will be a live discussion with Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla board, where we will be taking your comments, questions and suggestions on Mozilla’s goals for 2010.

As this event is fully interactive, we’ll be running a live video stream and chat channel from the Support Firefox Day main page, tailoring our presentations and discussions to focus on what you are interested in. All you have to do is go to that page during one of the times listed below, scroll down to the video and join our chat room.

Reflecting the international nature of the Mozilla community, there will be three sessions across a number of time zones. Each session will have a number of main events as follows (all events will be held in English):

Friday Nov 21st, 2 PM Tokyo time (5 AM GMT, 6 AM Central European time, Thursday 9 PM PST)
(These times below given in Tokyo time, GMT+9)

• 2 PM: Introduction to Support Firefox Day and support.mozilla.com
• 2:10 PM: Getting started with localization, translating your first article and some advanced tips.
• 3:00 PM: Questions and answers.
• 3:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with Cheng Wang, SUMO team member
• 4:30 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

Friday Nov 21st, 1 PM Central European time (noon GMT, 9 PM Tokyo time, 4 AM PST)
(These times below given in Central European time, GMT+1)

• 1 PM: Introduction
• 1:10 PM: Getting started with localization, translating your first article and some advanced tips.
• 2:00 PM: Questions and answers.
• 2:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with David Tenser, Mozilla Support Lead
• 3:30 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

Friday Nov 21st, 11AM PST (7 PM GMT, Saturday 4 AM Tokyo time, 8 PM Central European time)
(These times below given in PST, GMT-8)

• 11AM: Introduction to Support Firefox Day and support.mozilla.com
• 11:10 AM: Getting started with Firefox support, translating articles and advanced tips.
• 12:00 PM: Questions and answers
• 12:30 PM: Mozilla goals for 2010 discussion with Mitchell Baker, chairman of the Mozilla Foundation
• 2 PM: Open meet and greet — get to know the other people who showed up and meet other people interested in Firefox.

We’re really looking forward to seeing you there!

Today Mozilla released Fashion Your Firefox, a new Web application that enables Firefox users to customize their browser based on their interests and online activities. With Fashion Your Firefox, add-ons that fit people’s online lifestyles are organized in easy to discover ways and are available for installation in just a few easy clicks.

Fashion Your Firefox presents add-ons in activity-based categories that make them easy to find and install. Categories in Fashion Your Firefox include:
•    Shutterbug: View and share pictures and videos online
•    Rock Star: Listen to music while surfing, working, emailing or researching online
•    News Junkie: Get the most up-to-date news and weather
•    Shopaholic: Shop and take advantage of online deals
•    Digital Pack Rat: Keep track of favorite sites, bookmarks and blogs
•    Social Butterfly: Share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via an array of social networking & bookmarking sites
•    Finder and Seeker: Find and make information on the Web more relevant
•    Decorator: Apply browser themes
•    Executive Assistant: Organize online activities

For more information see our press release, FAQ, and David Rolnitzky’s, Mozilla’s add-ons program manager, blog post.

Editor’s note: Mozilla released a security and stability update for Firefox 2.x and 3.x users today. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below for more details.

As part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.0.4 and Firefox 2.0.0.18 are now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as free downloads:

• Firefox 3.0.4 is available at http://getfirefox.com/
• Firefox 2.0.0.18 is available at http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all-older.html

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3 or Firefox 2, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox 3.0.4 Release Notes and the Firefox 2.0.0.18 Release Notes.

Note: All Firefox 2.0.0.x users are encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3.0.4 by downloading it from http://getfirefox.com/.

Mozilla Messaging today announced the beta launch of SpreadThunderbird.com.  Spread Thunderbird is the volunteer-run Mozilla Thunderbird advocacy site where community marketing activities are organized to raise awareness and to promote the adoption of Thunderbird.  The Spread Thunderbird site is powered by the open source Drupal web site software.

Community members may submit ideas and join in the effort by visiting today!

Join us at the Green Festival in San Francisco this coming weekend, Nov. 14-16!  Green Festival is the largest green conference in the U.S. and looks at clean technology, green building, socially responsible investing, eco-fashion, renewable energy, and more.  So why Mozilla?    We’re a global community of thousands working to make the Web better for all — that’s why!  The Web is a critical platform for bringing people together and enabling them to organize and communicate to make change.
We have a host of activities lined up:

• We’re participating in the Green Web Pavilion with the ACCRC (Alameda County Computer Resource Center).  The ACCRC saves computers from landfills, refurbishes them and gets them into local Bay Area schools.
• Asa Dotzler, our favorite storyteller, will be covering the history of the Mozilla project, and how a small community of activists is building an inclusive Internet on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. PST.
• Paul Kim will be taking part in a Green Web Pavilion panel on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. PST.
• Clint Talbert will be demo’ing Firefox in the Green Web Pavilion on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PST.
• Mozilla community members and employees are hosting a booth to educate people about Mozilla and Firefox.

Please drop by and see us or better yet - come participate!

Four years ago today, Mozilla announced the release of Firefox 1.0. and delivered a better Web experience to millions of users.   Top features included pop-up blocking, fraud protection, integrated search and tabbed browsing. What made you decide to give Firefox a try?  And what were your favorite features in Firefox 1.0?  2.0?  3.0?  If you’re interested in what’s coming next for Firefox, you can download and help test Firefox 3.1 beta 1.

Happy birthday Firefox!  Here’s to many more years of a healthy, open, participatory Web!

One of our Mozilla Campus Reps came up with the idea last year, and today we launched the Mozilla “On the Street” Interviews project!  It’s the first experiment we’re doing for the 2008-09 school year and we want our campus reps to grab their video cameras and interview people around town, on their campus, or even at local landmarks.

Our Mozilla Campus Reps community is growing quickly, with students on the ground at many campuses around the world… so this project will be a great way to broaden our reach and learn more about the people that are using Firefox, those that aren’t, and even the few that don’t know anything about it (hard to believe, I know).

I think this project will be an interesting, and fun, exercise to find out what people from different places have to say about Firefox.  By going straight to the people, we can also get a better sense of how much they know about Mozilla and spread the word about Firefox 3 to those we might not be reaching online or through our other marketing efforts.

Stay tuned for some great videos, which will be broadcast on Air Mozilla shortly after the submissions deadline on November 30.

This is great opportunity for our Mozilla Campus Reps to get creative with just a video camera, a few questions, and people nearby to show us their part of the world and share a bit about their local communities with us.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Editor’s note: Mozilla released Firefox 3.1 beta 1 on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 at 2:42 pm PT. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below for more details.

Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 is now available for download. This milestone is focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3.1. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3.1 can be followed at the Firefox 3.1 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #shiretoko.

New features and changes in this milestone that require feedback include:

• Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine
• Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties
• A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to
• Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search
• Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio> elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.

More information about new web developer features are available in the Web Tech blog post.

Testers can download Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 builds for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in 36 different languages. Developers should also read the Firefox 3.1 for Developers article on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Note: Please do not link directly to the download site. Instead we strongly encourage you to link to this Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 milestone announcement so that everyone will know what this milestone is, what they should expect, and who should be downloading to participate in testing at this stage of development.

The Mozilla marketing team is always looking for new ways to involve other community members (and the outside world more generally) in our marketing efforts and our decision making.  With that in mind, today we launched a marketing challenge – Impact Mozilla – with the following goals considered:

• Solve a key Mozilla marketing problem
• Provide an additional open avenue for participation in our marketing efforts
• Create a forum for shared learnings across similar hybrid organizations

The specific “marketing problem” we’re hoping to address is retention marketing.  For example, over time we know that tens of millions of people have downloaded Firefox, but don’t continue to use it today.  How do we either win some of these users back or how do we reduce this attrition rate with future new users?

We’re open to other ideas as well.  If you feel particularly inspired by another area of Mozilla’s marketing efforts – e.g., acquisition marketing, social media marketing, international marketing – we’re open to suggestions and submissions in those areas as well.

Please visit impactmozilla.com for full details (did we mention that there is a $3,000 prize?), and we look forward to your participation.

Editor’s note: Mozilla released a security and stability update for Firefox 3.x users on Friday, September 26, 2008 at 1 pm PT. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below for more details.

In order to repair a problem experienced by some users with the Password Manager feature in Firefox 3.0.2, and as part of Mozilla Corporation’s ongoing stability and security update process, Firefox 3.0.3 is now available for Windows, Mac, and Linux as free downloads at http://getfirefox.com/

We strongly recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release. If you already have Firefox 3 or Firefox 2, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting “Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.

For a list of changes and more information, please review the Firefox 3.0.3 Release Notes.