11.23.2007 | Fired up about Amazon's Kindle

Poster child: Bezos' new toy

Leave it to Newsweek to try to get out in front of a technology trend. But this time they may have gone too far.

It began innocently enough — without notice or a buildup of anticipation that normally accompanies the introduction of such gadgets, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled a new eBook reader at an Apple-like special event Monday. What followed was predictable — gadget sites online got their hands on one ASAP to give their take on the device. The verdict? A great leap forward, but not the be-all end-all of eBook readers. (Sony, after all, has had theirs out for a while now; Microsoft took a crack at it with their Reader software nearly a decade ago).

So I walk into a drugstore today, and see this on the cover of Newsweek: "Five centuries after Gutenberg—" stop right there. If anything should be compared to the invention of the printing press, it's the digital word, a phenomenon that goes way beyond any one device. The hyperbole left me wondering whether Newsweek was incapable of making a good analogy at best, or allowing themselves to be used as a free advertisement at worst (c|net's Amy Tiemann "had to check twice to make sure the article wasn't a paid product placement").

I can't be sure how the Kindle will fare, but my guess is that it will remain a niche product for the following reasons:

• One screen is not enough. You read a book two pages at a time; an electronic reader should have two screens (or at least a wide screen that folds in the middle) with opposing faces.


• It should be familiar. Open the cover of a Kindle, and it doesn't feel like a book. It feels like a PDA. People like the way the weight of a book feels in their hands. They like to take the book in their hands and flip through the pages. Until a reader mimics these existing ways of interacting with the medium, I don't think it will have mass appeal.


• Ditch the keyboard. Like Apple's brilliant stroke with the iPhone did to the smartphone, an e-reader should not have a keyboard that distracts you when you're trying to focus on reading the screen. It should just be you and the words. Even Bezos said he wanted the Kindle "to disappear in your hands — to get out of the way — so you can enjoy your reading." It's hard to do that with a keyboard staring back at you at the bottom — and what about accidental taps? Like the iPhone, fixing this will require a touchscreen replacement (all the better to simulate flipping pages with?) — Apple's approach in a recent patent filing is one way.

The X factor in all this is Apple's response. The Kindle's launch has inspired comparisons to the iPod, and reviewers have mentioned the iPod and iPhone's potential to be used as an eReading display. I, for one, wouldn't mind using a click wheel to scroll down a chapter of text after selecting it from a playlist-like selection menu (are you listening, Apple?).

Whatever the case, the Kindle did get two things right: wireless downloads wherever you are, and page-turn buttons that don't leave you feeling all thumbs. Is that enough to spend $400 on a device that looks like it would have been at home next to a 1980s PC? Time will tell. But at least for now, it seems the reports of the book's death at the hands of the Kindle are greatly exaggerated.

10.26.2007 | Liveblogging* Leopard: First impressions

Rite of initiation: Getting a free T-shirt for being one of the first to show up. And Photo Booth doesn't look half bad, either.

Okay, so now that I'm an Apple geek I get to take part in one of the Apple fanboy's time-honored transitions: slavishly whoring oneself out for Apple's marketing purposes the day they launch their new operating system (or is that just all the time?).

In other words, I waited in line. In front of people. Showing up at an Apple Store the day of a software release announces to the world either that their latest release was really worth waiting that long for – or that you're a hopelessly devoted nerd devoid of friends, girlfriends, social skills, or all of the above (there were a few of those in line, no doubt).

But it wasn't all geekiness. Or maybe it was, but it was geek chic.

Apple's stores were closed Friday, presumably to upgrade their machines to Leopard, the latest release of Apple's flagship Mac OS (or Macintosh Operating System, in 1980s speak – this is version 10.5 for those of you who are counting). The 6 p.m. Friday release echoed a similar event this past summer when Apple chose the time and day of the week to release its much-hyped iPhone (and given the iPhone's strong numbers, the hype appears to have been deserved).

As the premiere event approached, a roped-off line snaked halfway down the plaza, cameras snapped, and Apple Store associates served Starbucks coffee to those waiting in line. And at the grand moment, the opening of the door, store associates clapped and cheered, I grabbed my T-shirt and promptly exited the line for those waiting to buy the new software. I headed instead straight for the bank of computers awaiting an OS that I had been waiting for since I got my first Apple in 2005.

Did it live up to the hype? Well, as much as I love Apple, I have to say it doesn't match the groundbreaking release of the iPhone. Instead, Leopard is just a nice refresh to keep the OS as useful as ever and shiny and new. I'll go over the main features here:

• Time Machine. This is the biggie. Basically, your computer is now able to backup every change you ever make in real time, and you can go back in time whenever you want. Pretty cool, but get the largest hard drive you can if you want this feature to work the way it should. A terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) no longer sounds quite so large.
  
  
• Spaces. If you hear something about Leopard "conquering time and spaces," this is why. You can now have multiple desktop spaces to keep windows open in, a handy way for a chronic multitasker like me to stay organized. As you can see, I have my movies playing in one window; working on photos in another; my calendar in notes in one … let's just say I could get used to this. Oh, and one more thing: you can make more than 4 spaces if you want – up to 16.
  
  
• Quick Look. Not revolutionary, but potentially incredibly handy. For applications that support it (Microsoft Office excluded at the moment), you can see what a document looks like without having to open a separate program. It saves time and keystrokes.
  
  
• Grid and Fan. It seems simple enough, but it's probably one of the greatest leaps forward in Mac OS usability yet. It would be even better if Applications were one of the default icons in the dock so you could use it like a faux Start button (something to help the switching Windows users out there). But when you add it, you have instant access to your programs. Cool beans.

• Finally, Cover Flow. Now you can look at the files on your hard drive like you can browse album covers in iTunes. This is especially useful for photos, and as more applications support Quick Look, can get really exciting. But I'll try to contain my enthusiasm for now (Apple has spoiled me into thinking that features like this are something to be taken for granted).
  

So that's a "Quick Look" at the features of Leopard – I didn't even get into the add-on software that comes with the OS, and there are more features that can't be captured in one photo. Aside from having the first computer I tried crash on me twice when I tried to use Photo Booth's more advanced effects (hopefully not an omen), everything was surprisingly slick and smooth. Computing has definitely been vaulted into the next generation, at least until Apple releases its next update in 12-18 months.

* The asterisk in the title? It would have been liveblogging, but I had to yield my computer for about an hour while an Apple Store associate gave some pretty impressive demos of Leopard features (thank goodness for Blogger's autosave feature; I almost lost this post). So while I may not have been impressed with Leopard's features on my first go around, it just goes to show that if you take some time to sit down with it, you might be surprised by what you'll find. In other words: there's more than one way to skin a cat.

9.11.2007 | AT&T cuts the cord

Pity the reader who didn't read beyond the headline of this USA Today story about AT&T's new chairman and CEO, Randall Stephenson. Their choice for a headline? "AT&T shifts to wireless focus with new ads and color" (yawn). The color orange isn't new for AT&T, which has kept the color during its transition away from the Cingular brand. What is new is that AT&T is no longer going to require landline phone service to benefit from package pricing for its broadband Internet service. Now there's a story.

Also of note (at the very end of the story):

AT&T is beefing up its global profile and trying to cut better "roaming" deals with international wireless carriers to carry calls from iPhones and its other devices.

"We pretty much cover the globe now," Stephenson says. "We just want to cover it cheaper."

Last time I checked, AT&T's roaming plan requires charges of at least $1 a minute. That their CEO is focused on making that price lower, along with his willingness to end the requirement of landline phone service for broadband, is a good sign that AT&T may finally be grasping the potential for wireless communication in the global age. My one criticism: the tagline. "Your seamless world"? I suppose it's a start.

9.08.2007 | Apple's 'beat' falls flat

Whither the 16GB iPhone? That was the question I was left with last week as Apple's much-anticipated special event left me wondering, "Huh?"

Blame the rumor mill. Unlike previous Apple events where people were left largely in the dark, this time the analysts got it mostly right. Maybe too much right. So much right, that by the time the event was over, it was what they didn't get right that left me distinctly unsatisfied.

Okay, so nobody predicted a 16GB iPhone (except me), but it's gotta be coming. Apple can't let iPod touch go too long having more storage capacity than its phone-enabled cousin, though I can understand that, large flash drives being a relatively new technology, it would make sense to use the limited supply there first.

But that's not even what has me most riled up. What's got me stinking mad at Apple is for toying with our expectations by using "The beat goes on" as their tag line for the special event. Used in the Beatles' final press release, the phrase got the rumor mill guessing, yet again, that Beatles would be available on iTunes. So when Jobs got to his "one more thing" announcement, downloading music wirelessly at Starbucks wasn't all that fantastic.

"A ship that leaks from the top." It has been said of the ship of state, and of Apple, which has been notorious for acting to squelch rumors (though recently it seems to confirm them). After this year's spoiler, I can understand why.

Hit and miss

Rumor	Result
Touchscreen, wireless, flash-based iPod	iPod Touch
OS X-based iPod with Cover Flow	iPod Touch, iPod Classic, iPod Nano
"Fatty"	iPod Nano
iPod Touch	iPod Touch
Ringtones for iPhone	Ringtones for iPhone
Wireless iTunes downloads	iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store
Beatles on iTunes	—
—	Free downloads at Starbucks
—	$200 iPhone price cut

8.25.2007 | The Internet is dead. Long live the Internet.

… so says Mark Cuban, the somewhat reclusive billionaire investor who made his fortune selling his Web 1.0 enterprise, Broadcast.com (formerly known as Audionet) to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.6 billion in Yahoo! stock. His best-known venture since then, besides owning the Dallas Mavericks, is HD Net, which has hired on former CBS anchor Dan Rather to do some reporting on the side.

Anyway, all this just serves as prelude to what Cuban is trying to say. When Condé Nast Portfolio asked him what he meant by saying "the Internet is dead" and "for old people" in a Senate hearing, he explained it this way. In his own words:

Think of it this way. Way back when, electricity changed the world. … Do you get excited about electricity or is it just a utility? … The internet is in the same position today. It’s no longer an exciting platform for societal and business change. It’s a utility. It’s something that is exciting to people who remember the old days of the internet. The only way to change that is to upgrade the platform for bandwidth transport across the country to a minimum of 1 gigabyte per second throughout (sic)* to every home. At that point kids will come up with new and unique applications that we can’t imagine today. That’s when it becomes exciting. Until then, it’s dead and boring.

Comments on one technology news site disparaged Cuban as a "dead and boring" attention whore, turning his own words against him. Perhaps, but it's not too often that I'm prompted to think of the Internet on such a grand scale.

Thinking of Cuban's background in streaming multimedia content online, I'd be disappointed with today's Internet too. At one point I had expected television programs and radio stations to become readily available online. To a large extent, that never happened, and limited bandwidth is one reason why. What video we do have comes in small, digestible bits (though that may be the result of our short attention spans rather than technical limitations). But I can't fault Cuban for trying to get people to think beyond today's Internet. Processors improve exponentially, doubling their power every 18 months according to Moore's Law. Why not broadband speeds to match?

* The (sic) is to point out that Portfolio editors probably don't know the difference between a gigabit and a gigabyte, as one Digg commenter pointed out, and that Cuban had probably meant to say "1 gigabit per second throughput." There are eight bits in every byte.

8.07.2007 | Anorexics protest new iMac slogan

Okay, not quite. But Apple is definitely relying on sex appeal to sell these new, thinner iMacs. When they introduced the 3rd-generation iMac in 2005, they looked to the iPod for design cues. Is it any coincidence, then, that this new iMac looks more like an iPhone? I don't know what Apple had in mind — that the new iMac was supposed to sell more iPhones or vice-versa, but the effect is clear: I want one.

In the days leading up to the iMac's release, a fake article made it to the front page of Digg.com promoting "leaked" pictures of the "new iMac." It was just a photoshopped version of the Apple Cinema Display, but darn if I don't want the next iMac to look more like that. Perhaps the faker of the photos achieved an insidious alternative effect: spoiling the release of Apple's new product by creating unreachable expectations. Cointelpro from one of Apple's competitors? Say it ain't so.

5.31.2007 | When crashing can be a pleasant surprise

My PowerBook G4 has served me faithfully for nearly two years now, and for the first time I had reason to bring it into the Apple Store for a potentially perplexing problem – when I selected a certain font in Fireworks MX 2004, the whole program came crashing down, and sometimes it brought down other applications with it. One incident caused a systemwide crash.

But even as I was experiencing these problems, I was still impressed with some of the recovery features of Mac OS X. For one, the systemwide crash I mentioned simply closed all my programs and logged me out instead of giving me a blue screen of death – no restart necessary. But the biggest surprise came after I took my computer in for repair.

I was told I was going to have to reinstall the operating system. Instantly I had painful flashbacks of sitting in front of a screen for hours watching a progress indicator while backing up important files before having to go through the laborious process of changing all my settings in every application. But this is Mac – they have something better.

By selecting an option during the reinstall process, Mac OS saved all my settings and applications exactly the way they were. After the process was complete, everything was preserved so perfectly that even my Firefox browser remembered the page I had been looking at when I last used it. I encountered only two minor glitches – I lost my user account picture, and I had to reinstall Flip4Mac, a program that lets me see Windows Media in QuickTime on Mac OS. But other than that, the process was painless and flawless. And most importantly, my problem was fixed.

So now though I can't say my Mac hasn't crashed, I can say that when it does, it does so more gracefully than Windows, and with a lot less time and effort lost. Kudos to the designers at Apple, and I look forward to their next release of Mac OS (10.5 "Leopard") in the fall.

11.30.2005 | Thinking about a new PC this Christmas?

This year there's no way to go but Apple, at least if you believe the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg. Not only does Apple's Tiger operating system already have the features that Microsoft is promising for Windows next year, but it is more secure, easier to use, better integrated, and all-around hassle-free. These are all the same reasons I got my Powerbook earlier this summer. And combined with Apple's student discounts of up to $200, Apple can be the affordable choice for even the most budget-minded student.

But Tiger isn't just better because it's more secure. It has one feature in particular that Windows just doesn't have, and may not even have in its next version, due out this time this year. It's called Exposé, and it allows you to see all the windows you have open within any one program, or in all programs at once. And as this Apple pro tip of the week shows you, you can even use the feature while videos are playing, and the videos will continue to play.

No other computer offers this robust set of features, and none is as much of a joy to use. I will continue to be glad I got an Apple at least until the end of 2006, and possibly beyond. You should consider getting one too.

The end of Blackberry?

It just doesn't seem fair. While NTP certainly deserves damages for Blackberry's alleged infringement, it just doesn't seem fair that millions of customers will have to suffer as the result of enforcement of patent law. Many other cases have been settled out of court. Even in this case, where a punishment must be rendered, why not levy Blackberry with a fine or force it to pay royalties to the patent holder?

11.29.2005 | Best Firefox promotion ever

Found this in a Google image search. The caption says: "Firefox is the free web browser that offers greater privacy and prevents pop-ups, spyware and viruses."

The Web can be a dangerous place. Be careful out there.

Firefox 1.5 unleashed

New browser, new Web site. Mozilla.com officially launched today, the online home of the newly formed Mozilla Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the non-profit foundation that first spawned its namesake browsing suite and now the browser that goes by the Firefox name. Key to Firefox's success has been its corporate branding, and with today's launch of Mozilla.com the open-source organization takes it a step further by making themselves more accessible to the public with a dot-com address. Go them.

Meanwhile, you should really download the latest version of the Mozilla Firefox browser. It's faster and better than ever, with built-in support for some surprising features, all with still under a 5 MB download for Windows users. If you're still using IE, which still goes basically unchanged since 2000, it's time to try something new.

7.23.2005 | Microsoft Cheated

So Microsoft announced today that their new version of Windows would be called "Vista," for the "pleasing view" it offers PC users of the information on their computer, with featurs such as "virtual folders" that collect lists of file names based on certain criteria, like files edited in the last week. That's actually a lot like a feature in Apple's OS X Tiger that was released last month, and it's a feature that won't be available in Windows until Christmas 2006.

And, as it turns out, to avoid further delays, Microsoft is stripping its next version of key features such as WinFS, a new file system for quicker searching and sorting, to make sure that it comes out on time. So basically they just want to get something out there to keep Apple from making them look bad and keep their 90-percent stranglehold on the PC market. Even with the rushed schedule and stripped down features, Windows Vista is the longest time between Windows releases ever, a time period of more than five years, half a decade, an eternity in PC terms.

I'm getting an Apple Powerbook this summer, and I'm relieved to know it will have features that won't be available on Windows for at least another year and a half. And there's no chance I'm switching back to Mac until WinFS finally gets its act together.

6.06.2005 | Apple & Intel together "at last"

So I learned today that Apple is finally switching to the dark side. After shunning Intel's x86 architecture in the entire 20-30 year history of computing, Apple is finally making the switch to Intel, meaning no major computer manufacturer will be using non-x86 architecture. What is x86 architecture? It's the same thing that powered the first IBM personal computer, MS-DOS, and all the old junky stuff we'd like to forget from the early days of computing.

This isn't the first time Apple has made a deal with the devil. In 1998 it announced a partnership with Microsoft in which it distributed Microsoft's Internet Explorer with every Mac, for a time making every computer in the world come with Microsoft's ubiquitous browser. It seems with each new deal Apple's reason for existence -- raison d'être, that is -- seems to fade into the distance.

Not necessarily. The adaptation of Mac OS X to Intel's x86 architecture means that the operating system could someday be offered for ordinary PC users to be installed on their systems, which was always maintained as a possibility when Mac OS X, based on NextStep/OpenStep, Steve Jobs' old company, became the primary operating system for Macintosh systems. In fact Jobs revealed at this week's conference that every version of OS X since the first in 2001 has been "living a secret life" -- capable of running on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based systems (PowerPC are the IBM chips Apple currently uses to power its systems).

The ability to run on Intel processors also introduces some tantalizing propositions. In 2007 the new version of Windows (codenamed Longhorn) will be out, and its requirements of advanced graphics rendering capabilities similar to those already found on the Mac might enable PC users to run Mac OS X on their PCs (though we'll have to see if this is the route Apple decides to take to promote its OS).

The most powerful case Steve Jobs made for switching to Intel was a performance indicator called "performance per watt" -- a watt being the amount of power a processor has to use to achieve a certain number of functions. PowerPC chips, including the latest G5 which for now can only run on desktops, require too much power to fit into laptops and provide the advanced performance that Intel will be offering in the near future. This is the most commonsense reason Apple had to make the switch.

Now, what does it mean to Mac users, or those who are planning to buy a Mac? Not to worry. The switch to Intel in no way means your existing PowerPC Mac is outdated. At the conference Jobs demonstrated some amazing capabilities of OS X which will provide backward-compatible support for PowerPC programs on Intel computers, and the transition to Intel-based programs will allow for "double binary" programs that can run on both Intel and PowerPC systems for the foreseeable future.

The most exciting aspect is that PowerPC programs will be able to run on the Intel machines with amazing smoothness and reliability, with no visible program or emulator running. A feature of OS X called "Rosetta" automatically translates PowerPC programs onto the Intel architecture, allowing the system to run flawlessly. Meanwhile, existing PowerPC users will be able to continue to purchase new programs offering support for both PowerPC and Intel-based OS X processors.

After watching the Developers Conference video on apple.com, I am still 100% convinced that I still need to buy a Mac now to take advantage of OS X Tiger's latest features, features that won't be available on Windows until 2007. By then, Apple will have a new version out already, and you can buy a new Intel-based Apple as time (and budget) permits. This is a major shakeup in the computing world, but everyone can continue to benefit from Apple's superior feature set and enjoyable user experience.

If you haven't already, you can watch the video here. On Apple QuickTime, of course.

3.05.2005 | More Apple coolness

A few weeks ago I got an Apple AirPort Express, a handy portable little device that lets me bring wireless Internet wherever there's a wired Ethernet port and a power outlet close by.

It also has ports on the bottom for a printer to be able to print wirelessly, and an audio out port for AirTunes, which lets me use iTunes to listen to my songs wirelessly through powered speakers connected to the AirPort Express. I'm definitely loving the Apple lifestyle. Setup was a snap (just insert the CD and go), and the price wasn't too bad, either -- the only other wireless router out there that lets you print wirelessly costs $30 more, and it isn't portable.



What surprises most people: AirPort Express uses the 802.11g wireless standard, which means it works with PCs just as well as Macs. Thank you Apple, for learning to play nicely with Windows. I'll buy a Mac one of these days...

12.19.2004 | AIM ads getting out of hand

So yeah, I use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) not because I want to, but because I pretty much have to. I much prefer Yahoo! Messenger for a number of reasons, but because the instant messaging networks don't work with each other, I have to keep AIM open while I'm using Yahoo! to be able to talk to most of my friends. It wasn't much of a bother really, having two IM programs open at once -- until, that is, AOL's ads started going psycho.

The small box at the top of the AIM buddy list window evidently isn't enough for AOL's advertisers, who have begun using more intrusive measures to get AIM users' attention. Recent examples include (among other things) opening a pop-up ad in Internet Explorer when your mouse cursor moves over the ad, automatically playing sounds and animation, and extending ads larger than the AIM window when they first appear.

Now, I understand AOL needs this ad revenue because unlike Yahoo!, which offers free Web content to deliver its ads, AOL only has its instant messenger (Yahoo's messenger, by the way, is ad-free). But once the ads start annoying users, this can only be bad for AOL, since it only gives one more reason for people like me to stop using AIM.

Stop using AIM? Impossible! Exactly: I'm waiting for the day when it won't matter what network you use, and people with any instant messenger client can contact people with any other instant messenger. Way back in 2000 when AOL first merged with Time Warner, government regulators were considering requiring AOL to open its instant messaging network to competitors as a requirement for the merger. But AOL instead promised to hold talks on creating an instant messaging standard, which have gone nowhere since.

In 2000, we had an administration that used government's regulatory power to ensure competition would benefit consumers. In 2004, we have an administration that lets business do whatever it wants, like push ads on unsuspecting users without giving them a real alternative. I like Yahoo! Messenger better than AIM, and I'd like to be able to use it to talk to my AOL friends. That would be real competition.

But for now I'm stuck with having to keep AIM open in the background. At least I can use the Yahoo! messenger window to cover over AIM's ads.

12.18.2004 | Firefox ad in New York Times

My name is in the New York Times! Thanks to a fundraising effort by Spread Firefox, I was able to get my name in the full-page ad announcing Firefox 1.0 to the world. The ad was made possible by small contributions from thousands of Firefox supporters, including me. In return for a $30 donation, people got to have their name be a part of the ad, which used the names of thousands of donors to communicate the grassroots support behind the browser as an alternative to Microsoft's aging Internet Explorer.


For those of you who may not be familiar with the story behind it, Firefox is basically the result of a years-long effort to improve the once-dominant Netscape browser. When AOL purchased Netscape in 1998, the company donated Netscape's underpinnings to the newly created Mozilla Foundation, which then used the browser's source code to solicit input from programmers and ordinary users from around the world. This model of software development, called open source, allowed Mozilla to draw on the expertise of thousands of volunteers, making for the best product possible.

Microsoft, meanwhile, has used its 90 percent market share of browsers to rest on its laurels and release only minimal improvements, with no new version released since 2001. And since the browser is integrated with the operating system, only people who have Microsoft's latest version of Windows benefit from the updates. According to the New York Times' Randall Stross:

Stuck with code from a bygone era when the need for protection against bad guys was little considered, Microsoft cannot do much. It does not offer a new stand-alone version of Internet Explorer. Instead, the loyal customer must download and install the newest version of Service Pack 2. That, in turn, requires Windows XP. Those who have an earlier version of Windows are out of luck if they wish to stick with Internet Explorer.

Mr. Schare of Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer. By the same reasoning, the security problems created by a car's broken door lock could be solved by buying an entirely new automobile. The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."

In this case, the very latest model is not a 2001 Internet Explorer, but a 2004 Firefox.

Firefox is smaller and more intuitive than the original Mozilla/Netscape browser, and it's faster, safer and better than Internet Explorer. Before I start sounding like an ad, though, let me just invite you to download and try it for yourself. The download for Windows users is only 4.5 megabytes, installation is quick, easy and painless, and you really have nothing to lose. Visit GetFirefox.com to get your own copy, and enjoy the blazing speed and advanced features.

Speaking of advanced features, Mozilla has an e-mail client called Thunderbird that gets better at filtering spam the more you tell it what's spam and what isn't. It also handles multiple e-mail accounts and RSS news feeds. Check it out.

Oh, and did I mention? It's all free.

9.29.2004 | Consider the Browser Wars Reignited

If you've been murking around in Internet Explorer land for too long, there's a bright new alternative burning on the horizon. From the people who brought you Netscape, it's Mozilla Firefox, the browser reloaded. Faster, leaner, and more useful, this browser takes the Internet's latest features while keeping you more secure. Find out more at getfirefox.com.

If you're already familiar with Mozilla and Firefox and know why it's important to maintain browser choice in the marketplace, you might consider joining Spread Firefox at spreadfirefox.com. Built by the same people whose tech prowess helped to propel Howard Dean to the top of the Democratic heap early on in the presidential primaries, Spread Firefox is a grassroots community of tech enthusiasts dedicated to making the Web a more open environment supportive of more platforms than just Microsoft's Windows and Internet Explorer.

Choice is what makes competition thrive, and when we make better choices we make competition work better for all of us. Please consider downloading Firefox today at getfirefox.com, and be sure to tell your friends.

The browser wars are back on, and the winner is you.