Mozilla: It Has a Spinal Cord

I know I'm a little late with this news, but that's because I was kind of busy earlier in the week. Anyway, the news (Nate Anderson, Ars Technica) is that the US government (specifically, the Department of Homeland Security) tried to force Mozilla to remove an add-on for Firefox called MAFIAAFire. The DHS a few months ago seized tens of thousands of website domains without a warrant and without due process; only a few (countable on two hands) of those were truly harmful in any way, while the vast majority of those sites were perfectly legal. MAFIAAFire, whose name jabs at the RIAA and MPAA (frequently referred to as the "MAFIAA" in technology circles), essentially redirects searches for the old domains to the new domains where the content is now hosted. The DHS claims that such redirection violates the orders regarding the original seizures.

Thankfully, Mozilla is not backing down. Not only is it not removing the extension, but it's also asking tough questions of the DHS and the Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency which also took part in the domain seizures; it's asking about the legality of the seizures and whether there's any real law forbidding something like MAFIAAFire.

If nothing else, this is why I proudly use Mozilla Firefox and why I plan to continue using it for the foreseeable future. Companies like Google and Facebook have obliged to ridiculous demands such as this; keep up the awesome work, Mozilla!

(UPDATE: For the last 24 hours, Blogger had stopped working. I saw that there were a few comments on this post, but I didn't have time to properly respond to each one. When I did have time and came back, Blogger had shut down temporarily. It seems like Blogger has removed all content (posts and comments) written on May 12. Don't worry, I was not the one who removed those comments. I apologize for that inconvenience, and I was a bit irritated by it too.)

Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Mozilla Firefox 4, as customized by me

Mozilla Firefox 4 is out, and I'm using it now. It's now fast enough and stable enough that it has rekindled some of the old excitement I felt when I first started using Mozilla Firefox and when I started using a new version of the browser. At the same time that I started using it, I saw this article (Ed Bott, ZDNet) which posits why Microsoft Internet Explorer will survive and Mozilla Firefox won't, and I felt like I should respond to it.

Before that, there are two things I should disclose. The first is that I initially considered titling this post "Review: Mozilla Firefox 4" but I decided against it because it's more my opinion of the current status of the browser and my excitement about the new release. The second is that I am probably quite biased in favor of Mozilla Firefox, considering that I have been using it since version 0.8. Please keep these in mind when reading the rest of this post.

Basically, he posits that Mozilla has done wrong by letting Firefox sit without a major release for two years, while in two years Google Chrome has gone from version 1 to version 10. Furthermore, Microsoft has been ramping up its Internet Explorer release schedule and coming closer to how often Google releases Chrome and will make bigger strides in market share thanks to integration with Microsoft Windows Phone 7. And finally, both Microsoft and Google have a whole host of web applications coming with Internet Explorer and Chrome, respectively, while Mozilla has nothing of the sort for Firefox, so Firefox is the loser here. Follow the jump to read my take.

Bravo Mozilla!

For Firefox 3.5 is now the most popular web browser globally! Kudos!
It just goes to show that well-developed and well-marketed OSS solutions will work.
'Nuff said.