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Firefox's NY Times Ad a Reality

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

December 16, 2004, 3:28 PM

Firefox's New York Times ad finally made it to the paper Thursday after several delays. The two page spread listed the 8,000 users who contributed to a fund for the creation and placement of the advertisement.

The ad had been delayed due to production issues, namely an incorrect setting in the software used to design it. Designers had to wait hours even after adding only one name to the list to allow the ad to fully render. The problem was fixed through the weekend allowing the organization to finish the ad, although two weeks later than hoped.

Christopher Messina, volunteer leader for Spread Firefox, the upstart browser's promotion arm, was the ad's chief designer. "What we have accomplished so far is nothing short of incredible -- and I know full well that this is only the beginning," Messina wrote on Spread Firefox's blog Thursday.

Colin Crook, spokesperson for Mozilla, called the ad a major milestone for the Firefox movement. "The NY Times ad shows that there are millions of people using Firefox today," Crook told BetaNews. "The Firefox web browser is in the mainstream and it's great to see."

Crook said Mozilla has no plans to place future advertisements at this time.

Add a Comment (21 Comments)

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By BklynKid

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 12:45 PM

Opera still sh*ts on every browser out there in terms of built-in features and speed.

Score: 0

By DAVIDGR

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 7:13 PM

So there's an ad in the NY Times. Big Frickin' Deal. I use FF sometimes, but I also use IE. I'm not here to debate which browser is better, but what's up with an advertisement being placed. Except for those in the publishing or advertising business.... WHO CARES?

Score: 0

By marcos_cu

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 1:53 PM

I really love FF. I remember having a single crash! and I am using it every day at least 8 hours!
and yes, it did open the PDF link correctly, no crash whatsoever...
And those IE sparkling starters there... we DO not ask you to move to FF. It's your own decision;
Don't forget: If you are happy with your IE then we are happy for you!

Score: 0

By alexrhcosta

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 10:11 AM

I guess it happened because they probably used openoffice or some other open source crap to make the ad... LOL!

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 6:56 PM

i GNU it!
Really I do

Score: 0

By grkn

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 12:26 AM

The ad itself is a bit cheesy/old fashioned, but it gets the message out and the name thing is just plain cute.

I guess they didn't dare to gamble with its content/design. Nevertheless, very impressive that the community has pulled this off. And it'll be interesting to see how big effect it has, and I'm sure it will make the "brand" firefox even stronger.

Regards yohan, maxthon user. (A browser that will never have the same success because of its name alone).
http://melonia.net

Score: 0

By amitpagarwal

posted Dec 16, 2004 - 11:57 PM

What software was used to do this ad ? Was that some Open Source stuff like GIMP ?

Just another Firefox user
http://labnol.blogspot.com

Score: 0

By irdepesca572

edited Dec 16, 2004 - 3:56 PM

BTW: Here's a link to the ad: http://ftp.mozilla.org/p...times-firefox-final.pdf

:P Go Firefox! Own IE!

Score: 0

By Isoptera4

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 12:03 AM

Question...who are the people whose names are underlined in the ad?

Score: 0

By Bugs4HJ

edited Dec 18, 2004 - 6:25 AM

Community Champions (those who signed up ten or more donors).

p.s. there are more Community Champions but they didn't get their names underlined properly!

Score: 0

By normangerman

posted Dec 16, 2004 - 10:21 PM

“ I installed Firefox on my laptop
today. It’s so fast — I never knew
there could be that much of a
difference.”

IE's just as fast, I would say.

“ I was tired of my browser crashing everyday, so
I tried Firefox. Now I can’t live without it. Pop-up
blocking, secure browsing and no spyware. Best
of all... not a crash since I switched.”

No crash in IE yet, and i've had it for ages. It now also has Popup blocking as well. No spyware to date either, just harmless cookies.

“ I thought changing and learning a
new web browser would be difficult,
but with Firefox I had no problems
at all. Browsing is now smooth.”

Sure, but IE is already included in XP, so why download it in the first place? It is customizable too, and themes can be changed with XP.

Score: 0

By mstamper

posted Dec 18, 2004 - 11:39 PM

Tabbed browsing is where it is at. Being able to open a group of tabs at the same time is such a time saver for me.

I also like the fact that I can auto-refresh individual tabs each at a different rate - very handy for me.

I use Maxthon and Firefox. I really like the look and feel of Firefox and it is my main browser. If something doesn't render correctly I jump to Maxthon.

I believe it boils down to personal preference - but I firmly believe that Tabbed browsing is the way to go. It took me a while to fully appreciate tabs but now I cannot live without them.

Browse in peace.... Maxthon and Firefox can co-exists but don't try to sell me on that outdated piece of crap IE - no way.

Score: 0

By Bugs4HJ

edited Dec 20, 2004 - 5:30 AM

I like people to remind where the Mozilla TAB UI started:

http://www.mozdev.org/so...pe=text/x-cvsweb-markup

and read the text next to "introtext.description"

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 6:53 PM

I ran Internet Explorer (service pack 2) and Fire Fox through some pop-up tests at http://www.popuptest.com/

Results:
Explorer allowed 4 bad pop-ups
Exploerer blocked 0 good pop-ups

Firefox allowed 2 bad pop-ups
Firefox blocked 0 good pop-ups.

Just thought you guys would like to see results

Score: 0

By Bugs4HJ

posted Dec 18, 2004 - 6:38 AM

Here is another one:

http://www.popup-blocker.info/testpage/test2.html

scroll down to: "Non-navigational Click Test" and click at Click Here, result, a new window will be opened, unlike Mozilla (The Suite) with MultiZila installed :-)

Score: 0

By SG1969

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 12:10 PM

what makes you think those people are comparing FF to IE? could be a mac user or a linux user who's just switched browsers.

Score: 0

By LunaHa1o

edited Dec 16, 2004 - 10:56 PM

Look, I'm sure we all appreciate your efforts to start a browser flaming war here at BetaNews, but quite honestly that wasn't even what this article is about.

If you don't agree with placing the ad in the Newspaper thats fine... if you don't agree with what was said in the article... thats fine, but as you can very well see that the statements made are true for some people and untrue for others. This is similar to your statements.

If you have had a good experience with whatever browser then thats great. The whole point of this all is not to put any one piece of software down, its to make sure the experience is great no matter what choice you make.

Notice there was no mention of a specific browser in the article. So to say that one thing is more simple or is easier than another would be the inference of you and not the actual inference of the article.

This posting is in no way meant to be malicious toward any one. It only stands as a mediation among all parties involved.
(edited: spelling corrections)

Score: 0

By fanbanlo

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 4:18 AM

As much as I like Firefox (my default browser).. It does crash, more often than the more stable IE6.

Score: 0

By Beau71

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 11:16 AM

The funny thing about this is that Firefox crashed when i tried to open the PDF. They should have included tabbed browsing in there ad.

Score: 0

By justinb

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 6:38 PM

i'd say it was probably acrobat that crashed FF not FF :/ PDF's always crash the browser for me, even if it is IE

Score: 0

By Maxwolf

posted Dec 17, 2004 - 11:22 AM

Now they actually register on the board! Horray!

Score: 0

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