The clash of the free browsers

The question of who gets the title of ‘safest internet browser’ isn’t one that is answered easily.
Of all the respected internet browsers, (programs with which you can surf on the net) Firefox was the ultimate ‘champion of security leaks’ in 2008, and not in a positive way. According to the Danish company Securnia (a company who specialises in finding these leaks) , the Firefox browser counted 115 security leaks last year. The average amount of leaks that were found in other browers was significantly lower, for example, the amount at Internet Explorer was 31. Luckily for Firefox it has one monstrous advantage, it can close the leaks much faster than it‘s biggest competitors (Microsoft for example). I fear the solution for this epic struggle between Internet Explorer and Firefox about who may call himself the safest internet brower isn’t one for the nearby future.

Carl Van Acker

Source: http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=GBU2706IH_2&word=Firefox+is+%27kampioen%27+van+de+beveiligingslekken

Free Software doesn’t mean no earnings

The Mozilla Foundation, the makers of the famous (and free to download) browser Mozilla Firefox and the e-mail program Mozilla Thunderbird, earned about 79 million dollar in 2008. If you know that none of their programs need to purchase a license,  it’s a rather high amount of profit. The greatest part of the 79 million comes from another enterprise in the same market, Google Inc. Now, Google has his own Open source web browser like Google Chrome etc. The profit of Mozilla has grown a lot in the years where Google didn’t have his own browser (in 2007 the earning of mozilla has grown about 12%, in 2008 just a little growth of 5.3%). Before google you just had Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox as the 2 great oligarchs. Now Google is penetrating the market.  The contract between Google and Mozilla is still going until 2011. We all hope Mozilla can stay in Business after 2011!

Read the Article on ZDnet

Wouter Snoeck

All-in-one

Mozilla Labs started a new open source project : Raindrop . This service uses a mini web server to pull your messages from multiple sources (Email, Twitter, Facebook…)  and organizes it in one place. What’s more, Raindrop is able to place the most important messages first in order to relieve the user of a lot of useless information. It also allows you to interact with them using your favorite web browser. Since Raindrop is an open source project, all interested people are invited to contribute to its design, development and testing by using standard open Web technologies.

Pieter Parret

Windows 7′s share jumps 40% in first week of release

Web measurement company Net Applications announced that Windows 7’s market share climbed nearly 40 % in the week following its release and later on even more. Net Applications concluded that about one in every 44 personal computers used Windows 7 last month.  Some countries  like Russia and many Eastern European countries took pride in a much higher Windows 7 share, but in these countries illegal copies caused the high rate. Despite the good results of Window 7, Windows’ share shrank  world-wide (steep decline in Windows XP). As usual Apple’s Mac OS X picked up most of that loss and climbed to a new record.

Pieter Parret

Why open source software

Computer Economics recently asked this question to the visitors of its website : What are the main benefits of using  open source software? Their answers  were certainly surprising. The main advantages were ‘reduced dependence on software vendors’ (44 %) followed by ‘lower total cost of ownership’ (22%)and ‘easier to customize’(17%). This means  that software buyers first and foremost detest  their dependence on vendors for maintenance and support and the necessity to accept version upgrades. IT decision makers also realize that open source is not always completely free and that software license costs are not their only expenses. Administration and support costs give them even more trouble with most types of software.

Pieter Parret

Why open is not free

In the world of technology, patents usually protect an invention and this makes it very hard to get  knowledge free of charge. Nowadays free software licenses try to make it easier to share information. Attention! ‘Free’ doesn’t always stand  for completely free of any charges.  Free licenses rather give  the user the freedom to improve a concept and share it with other people. The standard copyright license is not flexible at all. The original author better chooses a license that he can adapt to his individual needs.  GFDL and Creative Commons (two widespread licenses) are now stimulating the spirit of free software by making mutual adjustments in order to obtain compatibility of their products.

Pieter Parret