The open source Web browser FireFox, has experienced a humongous surge in popularity over the last year according to a report by Nielsen//NetRatings.
In March last year, the Internet research firm reported that Mozilla.org had a unique audience of 1.1 million home and work Internet users in the US – and that number has now soared 284% to 4.1 million unique users last month.
Similarly, the Firefox home page has been given a right royal battering, with figures from Nielsen/NetRatings recording a unique audience of 2.7 million, up 237% from the 795,000 it drew in June 2004.
(It seems that someone must be telling porky pies here, because the SpreadFirefox community marketing site has claimed that Firefox has been downloaded approximately 44.7 million times thus far.)
“The search for an alternative browser has grown in recent years, as the Internet’s early adopters have begun to think of the browser as something other than a commodity,” says Ken Cassar, director of strategic analytics for Nielsen/NetRatings.
“FireFox gives Web surfers a simple tool that blocks unsolicited windows, is less susceptible to virus attacks and offers a unique means of navigating multiple sites within a single browser”, Cassar added.
For reasons best known to themselves, Nielsen/NetRatings also broke down the Mozilla.org audience by sex and – not surprisingly – discovered that gadget-tastic, tech-loving blokes accounted for 71% – or nearly 1.9 million site visitors – compared to the lay-deees who comprised just 29% of traffic.
FireFox was created by a group of former Netscape programmers under the banner of the Mozilla Foundation, and its extra security features – such as the ability to block all pop-up ads and protect against spyware – has led to a steady exodus from Microsoft’s all-conquering Internet Explorer browser.
The browser is also supported by an enthusiastic coding community who offer a raft of free add ons, browser themes and extensions.
Although Microsoft is expected to adopt many of FireFox’s features in its new Internet Explorer version 7.0 (expected this summer), the browser’s exponential growth may force lazy coders to ensure that their sites are also compatible with the upstart browser.
Moreover, FireFox’s growth may have a significant impact on online marketing, with its cookie blocking measures wreaking havoc with companies tracking the results of third party ad campaigns.
What a shame!
Stratospheric iPod sales send Apple executives into raptures of hugging joy, with profits almost quadrupling in a year. 
The Power Mac desktop computers were among the worst performers, with year-over-year shipments declining by 19 per cent. 
Although sales of iPods increased by 16 per cent, revenue from the product dropped by 16 per cent after Apple added the lower-cost iPod Shuffle to its range. 
TComm has launched a mobile TV service capable of delivering live, streamed and downloaded audio/video content to mobile phones. 
Subscribers currently have a choice of six premium channels with another eight channels rolling out over the next 60 days. 
Tony Johnson, the Content Manager of TComm (UK) Limited, was on hand to lavish praise on his own service: “With content from UK and US production companies such as 2 Minute TV, Fearless Music, Sandy Frank Entertainment and Hungry Biker, TELLYfone sets a new standard in content provision for the mobile phone market.” 
A special promotion is offering free access to the service throughout April, after which access will be on a paid subscription basis. 
Google plans to invite users to submit personal video clips for archiving as part of its recently launched video search service. 
The company also announced that it would provide data about popular Web searches to Current, a new television network for the 18- to 34-year-old audience, backed by former US Vice President Al Gore and other investors. 
Online retail giant Amazon.com has scooped up the ‘printing fulfillment’ company BookSurge, which maintains a catalogue of thousands of book titles available for users to print on demand. 
The company will now offer (cue: North American accent) “inventory-free book fulfillment” to publishers through BookSurge Publisher Services and to authors through BookSurge Publishing. 
Although e-books are still a small part of the current online book market sector, significant growth is expected by publishing companies and online retailers. 
Channel Five yesterday became the first UK broadcaster to launch a legal video download store, offering DVD-quality downloads of some of the most popular features of its flagship car show, Fifth Gear, from its Web site. 
Powering the UK’s first legal video downloads store is a system developed by 7 Digital, the company behind download stores for a raft of leading music companies including Universal and EMI. 
Legal music download sites have become hugely popular in recent years, but TV companies have so far not used the same technology to put programmes online – despite British viewers being the 
A large question mark hangs over the future of aggregated news sites supplied by Web companies such as Google after it was revealed that Agence France-Presse had sued the world’s most popular search engine for alleged copyright infringement. 
“AFP has over 600 online clients using their news services, sites like Political Gateway. Being blacklisted by the number one search engine in the world is enough to make a news site immediately drop AFP and go to another news service like AP, Reuters, UPI, and the like. We know this to be true because Political Gateway is looking at options right now. 
Xdrive has announced an expansion to their service that gives roaming consumers wireless access to their files through any Internet-connected cell phone, smart phone or handheld device. 
“As the Digital Lifestyle continues to become more and more engrained into our everyday life, people are beginning to break away from the concept of one stationary computer,” states Xdrive CEO Brett O’Brien, “People strive for mobility, yet yearn for connectedness. Xdrive’s new wireless features give people just that.” 
Yahoo has whipped out its wildly wedgified wallet and snapped up the online photo-sharing service Flickr, less than a week after launching a beta test of its new blogging tool. 
There will be some early integration, however, with the ability to log into Flickr using a Yahoo ID and password. 
The wires are buzzing with rumours that Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp (IAC) is set to buy the Internet search engine service Ask Jeeves for almost $2bn. 
We tried to check the story by visiting Ask Jeeves and typing in, “are you being bought by InterActive Corp?”