With the global release of Web browser Firefox 3.0, Mozilla Corporation, the operator of Firefox in China, has begun to turn its eyes to the campuses of Chinese universities and the mobile phone field in the hope of seeking a favorable position in the two sectors.
On June 18, Mozilla released its open source browser Firefox 3.0. At the same time, the Chinese beta of the browser was also released in China. Statistics show that within 24 hours after the release, the software was downloaded 8,249,092 times, including 172,899 times from China. Gong Li, president and CEO of Beijing-based Mozilla Corporation, expected that the total downloading of the software would reach seven million on the release day.
Firefox 3.0 was developed over a span of three years by several thousand programmers, software security experts, localization teams and community members as well as over ten thousand testing personnel. The new beta features up to 50,000 personalized components and it can support both English and Chinese.
China's Firefox camps have long started their work at campuses. In March 2008, Nankai University's Firefox team successfully developed a campus browser Nankai beta Firefox. Mozilla Corporation also began to hold a software design competition at Tsinghua University which is open to all Chinese university students and will last until December 3, 2008.
