With 80,000 computers in the military using it, the French government thought it imperative to adapt it to their needs—which Mozilla evidently liked, as they included some of their code in Thunderbird 3, which launched this week.

David Ascher, Chief Executive of Mozilla Messaging, explained:

"The primary changes (the military) have made allow them to know for sure when messages have been read, which is critical in a command-and-control organisation"

As well as using the open source Thunderbird, the French government is also adopting Linux as its primary OS, and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. [Sydney Morning Herald]

Image credit: Isafmedia

Om Malik's got a little embryo of a theory, and it revolves around Mozilla's hosted services/browser sync service called Weave:

I sat around gabbing with Lilly and Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's VP of Mobile, talking about Weave and the Awesome Bar, which is a way to get access to all your browsing history and bookmarks by just typing them in the URL bar on your browser. And while we were talking about Weave, I asked them if it was going to be part of this new, mysterious iPhone app. Lilly and Sullivan smiled and remained silent. Interestingly, they didn't correct me.

It's a telling anecdote, and nearly enough to assume that Weave will be some part of the app, and if the alternative is a browser—which Apple probably wouldn't be too excited to approve—then maybe the whole app. But goddamnit, let's indulge our depressingly modest mobile Firefox fantasies anyway! Lifehacker flags a (cautious) thesis by Kevin Tofel at JKOnTheRun, who sees a Fennec hiding behind the smoke:

Apple did begin to approve third-party applications earlier this year, so a Mozilla browser does have a chance for approval. And that could open the door for the Weave service, as well. Apple's Mobile Me service doesn't sync bookmarks or web passwords over-the-air currently, although I suspect these functions could be added in the future. In light of that, I'm thinking we're about to see Fennec on the iPhone.

So in conclusion, Mozilla: ^This.^ [GigaOm and JKOnTheRun via Lifehacker]

No, it's not Explorer. Originally, Microsoft wanted to order browsers from left to right in order of market share. That meant Explorer was going to go first, then Firefox, then Safari, Opera, and Google's Chrome. The EU objected, so Microsoft complied and offered a very reasonable solution: Alphabetical order.

That puts Apple Safari in the number one position, followed by Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Looks good enough to me, but Jenny Boriss—a Firefox user experience designer—disagrees:

This ordering is about the worst option possible. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that 'nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser,' but this is exactly what the current design does. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.

The disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor," she said, citing several studies that claim first position in a ballot gives an advantage, in part because Western voters scan from upper left to lower right when they read.

She goes on and on and on about this, but her basic message is: If Firefox is not first, this design is BAD. She timidly proposes a random order every time the selection screen opens, but she argues that this is bad because "unfortunately does not provide users with any information about what browsers are preferred" (according to who, Jenny? Maybe user would prefer Safari over Firefox—I know I do. Or maybe they would prefer Chrome if they could try it, as it seems to be a lot faster than Firefox).

Then she shows her true colors, proposing the order according to market share—what Microsoft proposed—but excluding Explorer from that ordering and leaving it to the last position. Wouldn't that be unfairly helping Firefox and putting Safari, Chrome, and Opera in a bad position? And why discriminate Microsoft Explorer too?

Finally, she also proposes probability ordering by market share excluding Internet Explorer, which again gives Firefox the advantage over the rest 50% of the time.

In other words, Microsoft and the EU should help Firefox to become the new monopolistic browser, no matter what. Jenny, please: Stop. Saying. Words. [Boriss' Blog via Computer World]

As with any marketing statement, I'd encourage people to be somewhat sceptical about large number claims. It's an interesting number and I have not seen the math [but] how many internet connected users are there? 1.1 billion, 1.5 billion, something in that area.

She described the number as "interesting math," even while that 1 billion figure includes every download and update since Firefox launched since 2004. Repeated downloads too. And people having multiple computers.

Knowing that, it doesn't seem that crazy to me. What do you think about Amy's claims? And about Firefox figure? [The Guardian]

The one billion downloads milestone includes users downloading multiple copies for different computers as well as any manual downloads for upgrading purposes, though not any automatic updates. With so many users, it's now holding about 31% marketshare, second only to that ornery old dinosaur Internet Explorer at around 60% (Opera, Chrome and Safari are all below 5%). Once Firefox Mobile and the oddly Chrome-like Firefox 4.0 come out, we can expect that number to skyrocket even more. Congratulations and mazel tov, Mozilla. [BBC]

Internet Explorer isn't mandated in every governmental department, and Firefox has been vetted and cleared as just as secure as IE (duh), so it's a legitimate question: Why not use the faster, safer, more customizable and more reliable browser? Clinton has no idea why Firefox is barred, which is totally fine with us—we really are happy she's spending her time on other things.

But Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy chimes in that it's "an expense question," at which point he is promptly and rightfully shouted down that Firefox is free, for god's sake. He goes into a lot of nonsense about "patches" and how even things that are free aren't really free, which sounds to us like a lame attempt to explain away his first answer—he probably didn't know Firefox was free when he cited expense in the first place. If Firefox has already been implemented in other sectors of government, it stands to reason that it could be adopted by the State Department fairly easily and quickly, and with minimal expense.

The rest of both his and Secretary Clinton's answer is mostly impenetrable, metaphor-laden government-speak about cutting costs that, sorry guys, isn't going to make us forget that you just claimed a free and vastly superior program, one that's already in wide use in other sectors of government, is too expensive to implement.

Pat Kennedy, you're officially on my bad side. [State Department via Switched]

Newly added treats include updated themes and a tweaked UI, improved add-on support and numerous bug fixes. We gave the alpha a quick spin and found that while a bit slow, it shows plenty of promise. The interface and overall experience is actually pretty usable, and it renders pages beautifully.

A corresponding Maemo release for Nokia's N810 has also been made available. If you want to know what all the fuss is about (or you're one of those add-on writing folks we love so much), then you can experiment with the desktop versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Update: And it looks like there may be some reprieve coming to neglected Android users as well, eventually. [Mozilla—Thanks, Tim!]

It might've been hard to tell through the thick fog of Palm Pre coverage, but it's been a good month for Windows Mobile. We got free online backup from Microsoft, along with a new Facebook app and a hefty update to the already-great Skyfire browser. Windows Mobile 6.5 inched closer to release, and I showed you how to try it out ahead of time. And even though the Windows Mobile Marketplace isn't open for business yet, there's still plenty going on in the world of WinMo apps:

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Fennec: The Windows Mobile version of Mozilla been available for a few months, but it has so far lacked some important features, like, uhh, the ability to connect to the internet. Now the project has gone Alpha, and the new version actually works. It's an early, early build and still quite slow, but I already like their new navigation system, and page rendering is close to perfect. For VGA phones only. Free.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Kinoma Play: There's a special kind of expensive, power-user mega-app that you only really see on Windows Mobile, which Kinoma exemplifies gloriously. The app, which is, or was, primarily a media player/viewer, has expanded its purview to include social media sites as well. A short list of capabilities: video playback; music playback; picture viewing; YouTube browsing/playing; Twitter integration; Flickr support; Last.fm streaming and scrobbling; and RSS reader; an interface for the MobiHand app store; and too many more too list. It's pretty cool, but also $30: maybe a reasonable price for a mobile OS or really good shell conversion, but for a single app? Ha. UPDATE: There's a free version, appropriately called Freeplay, and it's got a fair portion of the pay version's features. Definitely worth a try.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.SugarSync: A years-old cross-platform backup service, SugarSync has undergone a nice little transformation this month: now that Microsoft has opened up their 200MB My Phone backup service to everyone, SugarSync is giving away 2GB accounts for free. The Windows Mobile client is simple and tidy, just like a backup app should be.
(via Modaco)

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.SportyPal: For GPS-equipped phones only, SportyPal is a workout tracker—that is, if your workouts are based around running, biking, rollerblading or otherwise moving yourself from on place to another. It plots your journey on a Google Map, and gives you a rundown of distance traveled, calories burned and speed sustained. The app is free and fairly easy to use, as is the accompanying site, which you'll need to register for.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.VLC Remote: A nice little remote app if your digital media life is centered around VLC, the cross-platform, do-it-all media playing app. It's stripped down, efficient, minimalist, and free, just like its control-ee.

Windows Mobile On Giz:

• How To: Install Windows Mobile 6.5 Right Now
• Cashmere and Alchemy: The New Heart of Windows Mobile (and Maybe More), Not a Ladies' Soap Store
• Windows Mobile's App Sharing Feature Isn't Really Sharing At All
• Microsoft My Phone Beta Open to the Public
• Windows Mobile 7 May Get Gesture Controls After All
• Windows Mobile Team Admits, Explains 6.5's Half-Assed UI
• Windows Marketplace for Mobile Now Open to Developers
• Windows Mobile Official Facebook App: Unpretty But Useful
• This Is What the Windows Mobile Marketplace Looks Like
• Skyfire Leaves Beta, Steals Windows Mobile Browsing Crown

This list is in no way definitive (especially cause it's our first!). If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this month, give us a heads up or let us know in the comments. Have a good rest of your weekend everybody!

If you feel like 3.5 has kind of appeared out of the blue, you're not crazy—the Firefox team deemed this set of changes as too significant for a 3.1beta4 designation, and gave it a more impressive name.

But boring Mozilla politics aside, this release—the final beta for this cycle—is more than another 3.1 build, and actually deserves its half-step name boost: The private mode is accompanied by much broader options than either Chrome's or Safari 4's, the geocaching and HTML 5 video and audio features are pretty cool, at least on concept, and an undo close feature can heroically salvage lost tabs. Most importantly, with TraceMonkey and a few other rendering engine tweaks, the browser at least feels faster than 3.0, so it's definitely worth a download. Full feature list below. [The Inquirer]

Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 10 months. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use, and adding new features for users:

* This beta is now available in 70 languages - get your local version.
* Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode.
* Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine.
* The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation.
* Support for native JSON, and web worker threads.
* Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering.
* Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 and elements,
downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data
storage for applications, and SVG transforms.

The build is very rough and probably not usable for day-to-day browsing—early reports suggest that the loading time is very long, and that page loading is quite slow pretty much broken—but it might provide a glimpse of where Firefox Mobile is headed, how it will render pages and if its novel control scheme is usable on a device smaller than the N810.

The CAB download is available here, but I had no luck launching the app on my T-Mobilized HTC Touch Diamond variant. Let us know about your successes and failures in the comments. UPDATE: A consensus has emerged! It's not at all ready yet. It's to be taken as an assurance of forward movement, I guess. [WMExperts via Slashphone]

The quote isn't gospel, but it's a pretty solid indicator:

We are targeting a Milestone release for the first week of February, targeting the HTC Touch Pro

The Touch Pro is an interesting choice for the first release; the decision, I'd wager, stemmed from the ease of porting—resizing interface elements and managing the GUI is much easier when you got the Pro's 480x640 display to work with, and dealing with performance issues, which were evident in the early Nokia N810 build as well as the emulator, wouldn't be so hard on this relatively beefy piece of hardware. Not to mention the fact that the QWERTY keyboard simplifies finger-friendly text input.

Whatever the reasoning, the release of a Windows Mobile version of Fennec represents significant progress toward a wide Windows Mobile release. Plus, I don't see why this build wouldn't at least sort of work on other VGA WinMo phones like the functionally identical Touch Diamond. [ElectricPig via ShinyShiny]

Last time I checked, I don't physically browse the internet any different than anyone else—evidenced by the fact that Blackbird UI looks exactly like Firefox (both are based around Mozilla), except, you know, with a black color scheme. And great, it comes preloaded with a bunch of bookmarks that might be of interest to the black community. But I'm pretty sure the same thing can be accomplished with an effectively marketed website (black people DO know how to use Google, after all. Shocker!).

Maybe 40A, Inc. meant well with Blackbird, but it comes off as a lazy marketing ploy that plays on the emotions of people who are (admittedly) still marginalized when it comes to the online world. And playing along with the notion that blacks and whites (or anyone, for that matter) can't enjoy any of the same things, is the same retarded line of antiquated, ethno-centric thinking that the internet is supposed to destroy. Blah. [Blackbird]

Obviously, most of the sites on the web are not currently compatible with Geode, but it is easy to see how something like this could really change the way you surf the web on your laptop—much like the iPhone has with handsets. In the meantime, a preview version is available to Firefox 3 users starting today—so you can kick the tires on it a bit before it is fully integrated into 3.1. [Mozilla Labs via Lifehacker]

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