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Firefox hits 25M, Bill Gates interview

02/17/05 | by [mail] | Categories: computer/tech

25000000_firefox.pngLess than 100 days after the 1.0 release, Firefox has reached 25,000,000 downloads. Most of my readers have heard me talking about how great of a browser Firefox is and how much better it is than Microsoft Internet Explorer. But if you're a new reader, or you've never tried it before, then by all means, get Firefox.

Bill Gates sat down with Peter Jennings in an interview recently. Jennings brings up Firefox:

JENNINGS: I read an article coming up here on Firefox (Web browser) and its perceived ability to do this better than you. Is that fair?

GATES: Well, there's competition in every place that we're in. The browser space that we are in we have about 90 percent. Sure Firefox has come along and the press love the idea of that. Our commitment is to keep our browser that competes with Firefox to be the best browser — best in security, best in features. In fact, we just announced that we'll have a new version of the browser so we're innovating very rapidly there and it's our commitment to have the best.

The fact that Gates admits that Firefox is even worth being called a competitor is fairly impressive. I think their public strategy has been to write Firefox off. He uses a very Bushian style when he sort of dismisses Firefox's popularity and blames it on the press. Gates and Jennings go on to discuss open source software in general.

In other Firefox news, I've switched a few people over at the office, and my dad has started telling his coworkers about it, too. I'm just waiting for the day when computer manufacturers start preinstalling it.


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5 comments

Bushian? Nice job on the create-a-word. Don’t know how else you would put that. First time I had come across it.


Honzo [Visitor]http://honzo.brendoman.com02/17/05 @ 16:21

“best in security"….bwahahahahha

It’s easy to be at 90% and not have the best browser. Just ship it with the most pervasive OS.

I get the shakes these days if I have to fire up IE, even if it’s just to go to windowsupdate.


Brendon [Visitor]http://www.techfreak.net02/17/05 @ 16:25

I’ve seen “Bushian” before. It turns up at least ten pages of hits on google, too.

That doesn’t mean I think you lied about not coming across it, just sayin.


Brendon [Visitor]http://http:://www.techfreak.net02/17/05 @ 16:30

Honzo! I clicked on the comments link to make the very same point, but you beat me to it.

Anyway, kudos to Danny for the first use of Bushian that I’ve seen, as well.


Kyle [Visitor]http://kyle.brendoman.com02/17/05 @ 17:38

Was that the same interview where he called Open Source users and evangelists commies? Cause that was really funny as well. My respect for Gates did rise though when I saw that he donated a ton of money to the Africa AIDS relief efforts.


brendoman [Visitor]http://brendoman.com02/17/05 @ 20:15


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