What The World is Reading

I8217;m still waiting, Washington Post

With all heavy Firefox users queuing up for a download, all TechCrunch.com8217;s Erick Schonfeld could do was wait. Firefox 3 was supposed to release at 1 pm ET. It didn8217;t go as planned.

1:11 p.m.: The Firefox download page seems to be inundated right now. I am still waiting for it to load.

1:19 p.m.: Still waiting. Now the page loads, but it8217;s the old page with Firefox 2.

2:30 p.m.: Back from lunch. Still waiting.

4:37 p.m.: Mozilla is reporting 14,000 downloads a minute. But access is still spotty. I8217;m still waiting.

4:43 p.m.: Someone sent us this 8220;secret8221; link where you can download Firefox 3 from a different server than the ones on the main site. It is only for Windows8230;. I have a Mac. So I8217;m still waiting.

6:50 p.m.: I am finally downloading Firefox 3.0

Nifty, packed with handy features, USA Today

The experts8217; verdict is in: It8217;s snappier than Internet Explorer and uses less memory8230; Edward C Baig explains why we need Firefox: 8220;Through the years, Microsoft has been slow to innovate. Guess that comes with owning a monopoly share8230; And for a while anyway, Internet Explorer seemed to have more gaping holes than Swiss cheese, though to be fair it8217;s gotten a lot more secure in recent iterations.8221;

First Impressions, PC MAG

It took just hours to find the spoilers: 8220;They messed up the Clear Private Data feature. Their support for certificate revocation lists is so lame that it8217;s useless8230; Printing is second-rate.8221;

Why Firefox Matters, Forbes

Here8217;s Brian Caulfield on the bigger picture. 8220;Firefox has become one of the most important pieces of software around today as consumers shift from using their PCs to run applications living on their hard drives to a communications device able to connect with applications living on distant servers.8221; Mr Gates8217; friends at Google are in the game too: 8220;Google funnels tens of millions dollars to Mozilla in exchange for a valuable spot on the default home page of the browser8230; as long as Google keeps the money flowing, Firefox8217;s small team of developers moves quickly.8221;

Mozilla chief executive John Lilly answers some queries from Forbes.com

What is Firefox8217;s single biggest advantage over Internet Explorer?

Lilly: I8217;m probably a little numb to it because it fits me like an old glove. Mostly, it is that the Web works better.

Why?

Lilly: It8217;s how we implement standards, how we made sure to be compatible with the existing Web.

What are some of the things of that might be overlooked?

Lilly: It8217;s hard to find stuff that has not been raked over 8230; If you go up to the top left hand corner of the browser you8217;ll find that the 8216;Back8217; button is a little bigger than the 8216;Forward8217; button8230; We know people click the 8216;Back8217; button much more than they click the 8216;Forward8217; button. It8217;s one of the little tweaks that improve human performance.