DonsDeals Blog: Firefox Friday Five: 4.0 news round-up, 2 billion add-on downloads, Thunderbird 3.1, and making text editing on websites easier

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Friday, July 9, 2010

Firefox Friday Five: 4.0 news round-up, 2 billion add-on downloads, Thunderbird 3.1, and making text editing on websites easier

by Sebastian Anthony (RSS feed) Jul 9th 2010 at 12:00PM

These Firefox Friday titles are really getting out of hand. Perhaps I should shorten them... or simply use more buzzwords... and square brackets (Firefox Friday Five [FEATURE]: news round-up, 2 billion incentivized [ADD-ON] downloads...) Still, at least you know, at a glance, exactly what you're getting. There'll be none of that sensational 'look at me!' crap here on Download Squad.

Moving swiftly along: this week was a big one for Mozilla! Not only did they release Firefox 4.0b1, but there was tons of other goodies too! Ever heard of Bespin? Thunderbird's Quick Filter or Mailing List Manager add-on? How about the fact that over 2 billion Firefox add-ons have been downloaded in just five years?

In fact, let's lead with that one.

1. Firefox reaches 2 billion add-on downloads; 150 million add-ons in use every day

It took three years, from 2005 to 2008, to reach 1 billion downloads. Now, just 18 months later, the counter has reached 2 billion. I think it's safe to say that add-ons are very much a primary feature in Firefox!

The more important statistic is the the every-day usage figure, though. I'm sure a large number of those 2 billion downloads are by bleeding-edge users, like you and I, who update their add-ons regularly -- but 150 million add-ons are being used every day. I wonder if Mozilla has statistics on how many add-ons the average user has installed -- I wonder how many of those 150 million add-ons are installed by regular users.

Incidentally, Mozilla pointed me to a site I've never seen before: Rock Your Firefox. It's a great (and easy) way to get your friends and family using highly-rated Firefox add-ons -- send them the link!

2. Firefox 4.0 beta 1 round-up
Go there to read more...

Skipping on down to Thunderbird...

3. Thunderbird isn't dead, nor is it forgotten! Check out these two very cool features: Quick Filter & Mailing List Manager

I don't know if this sudden burst of Thunderbird news was planned for the same week as Firefox 4.0 -- but who cares! After months and months of nothing, any Thunderbird news is good news.

Quick Filter, previously an add-on, is now a built-in feature of Thunderbird 3.1 (yes, 3.1 was released last month; download it!) I'm not a Thunderbird user, so I can't comment on its functionality -- but it looks like it works really well!

Mozilla Labs also released Mailing List Manager, a Thunderbird add-on. It does what you might think (automagically organize mailing lists) and, if you watch the video, it looks like it handles them even better than Gmail. Maybe it's time to give Thunderbird another chance...