Later today Mozilla will do something a bit out of the ordinary and release a special “Campus Edition” of their Firefox web browser, just in time for back to school. Firefox Campus Edition is your typical run-of-the-mill Firefox release bundled with three school friendly add-ons: Zotero, FoxyTunes and StumbleUpon.
Zotero is a research tool that helps you collect, manage and cite your research sources. FoxyTunes lets you control your media player from within Firefox while the StumbleUpon toolbar helps you discover interesting web content based upon your preferences.
Firefox Campus Edition isn’t the first Firefox “edition” of something. Last month, Mozilla released an eBay Edition. Now, I can’t help but wonder how much money Mozilla stands to make off such partnerships.
Update: Paul Kim has answered my question:
Hey Paul: There is no money changing hands for the Firefox Campus Edition. We are looking at ways to introduce Firefox add-ons to people who might never otherwise have tried them, and reached out to a few add-on developers we thought had created interesting functionality on top of Firefox.
You can download Firefox Campus Edition at firefox.com/backtoschool later today on Wednesday 8/22. Thanks to Jessica Waight for the info.
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that Firefox will do in reply to Safari! Apple wants to force out Firefox!
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Seems nice enough.
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drill…. what?
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I had never even heard of Zotero. Looks interesting though.
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Yeah Zotero looks nice, just installed it. But I don’t see the point of a Firefox Campus Edition…
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Seems like a nice way to get students to start using Firefox. After all, they will be the market when all these IE using baby boomers die. I don’t think I will download it however. Nice post!
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In May I got my M.Ed. from George Mason University (home of the team that developed Zotero) and I’d never heard of it until just now. That makes me really sad, especially considering that I was in an Instructional (internet-based) Design program.
I used delicious to hold all of my bookmarks, and while it doesn’t have the functionality of Zotero, it does let me see who else bookmarked the same article and lets me look at all of their other bookmarks.
If someone could combine the two I’d be supremely happy.
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Hey Paul: There is no money changing hands for the Firefox Campus Edition. We are looking at ways to introduce Firefox add-ons to people who might never otherwise have tried them, and reached out to a few add-on developers we thought had created interesting functionality on top of Firefox.
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@Paul Kim – Thanks for the update!
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Site doesn’t work for me
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@Don – “You can download Firefox Campus Edition at firefox.com/backtoschool later today. ” emphasis on “later today”
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Safari is better then FireFox, and Apple have nothig to do to improve it, because it true. But we always have a choice what solution to use.
@moz – What’s your reasoning behind that? Any specific features of Safari you prefer over Firefox or vice versa? I used to tout Safari/WebKit because of its speed but I eventually went back to Firefox for the wealth of developer tools.
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Thanks for the info! I’m big fan for Firefox—I’ve been using it since Firebird.
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So when do we get Firefox “Web Developer” Edition that comes bundled with “Firebug” and “Web Developer Toolbar” so we don’t have to download them separately? :)
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Every now and then I go back to Safari, but Firefox always draws me back in. Here’s an example…
Thanks for the info!
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More emphasis on “read the whole article before showing my stupidity”. ;)
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well it’s a bummer that it’s still not up yet, I expected they would have posted it by this time.
concerning safari and firefox, I still choose to use Safari, now Beta 3. I think a lot of it just comes down to preference and while safari doesn’t have anywhere near the development that FF does, I think it has some invaluable options.
here’s my little list:
1) hot-keys tied to your toolbar bookmarks. That means the apple key plus a # 1-9 will launch either a javascript or a bookmark/let that is tied to that particular number. This works really well for using apps like Pukka for posting to delicious, as well as quick access to online apps.
2) inquisitor rocks the house, and it’s customizable.
3) Safari 3 is really fast, and I’d have to say it’s just as fast or faster that FF.
4) the new safari beta search is off the hook.
5) It’s lighter on your system resources, which can make a difference when you’re running a lot of stuff.
6) It’s easy to adblock with proxies.
7) It’s easy to switch tabs – apple-shift and left/right brackets.
I am sure there are more reasons that safari rocks but ultimately I know that most of these reasons will never switch the hardcore FF user over to Safari. I do however think these reasons at least make safari a smart contender – not just for the fan-boys.
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@CWD – for me, I find it much easier to switch tabs with Apple + 1-9, which is why I pick ffox. I always use Apple+1 to go back to my first tab, generally gmail, regardless of what tab I’m on.
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*Can’t believe he has been using CTRL+TAB and CTRL+SHIFT+TAB instead of CTRL+1-9 in FF for so long*
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That’s looking pretty good!! I’ve always been a big fan of firefox.
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Well I see no download link.
Have they decided to not do it?
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Hey folks – we had a slight delay on our end, but the download is live now.
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the page looks cool :)
but I wont download, why should I, I already use ff, but Zotero seems nice, I sure gonna try it some day
@Paul
I like safari over firefox because of the bookmarks bar shortcut. For the short amount of time that I HAD to use firefox, I found no solution to this.
Also, firefox seems to run slow on MY computer. (Macintosh also.) I don’t know why this is.
In addition, I don’t know of a firefox look that I like. If somebody has a firefox look that looks exactly (or close enough) to safari, then I would be interested.
Other than that, I understand why people like firefox. When I’m editing my mac tip blog’s layout, I have to use firefox because safari isn’t quite compatible. That’s one major plus for firefox.
MacTipper
My Mac-Tipping Blog
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