Mozilla Phoenix^WFirebird^WFirefox...

[pne]

timwi brought to my attention that the Mozilla's browser-only project has been renamed again, this time to "Firefox" [page currently overloaded], now that 0.8 is out. ("Thunderbird" is still called that, though.)

See also his journal entry.

(Random linguistic note: at first, I wrote "Timwi made me aware of the fact that..." but I discarded that as being too close to the German construction "Timwi machte mich darauf aufmerksam, dass..." which led me to doubt its idiomaticity(?).)

Edit: Their roadmap says that they want to "be building up an aggressive campaign to market the Firefox browser".

Renaming it fits right into a marketing campaign, I'm sure! Nothing quite like it to boost brand recognition!

Edit 2: See also the press release and the name change FAQ (if you can get it to load), as well as the SlashDot article.

Edit 3: Apparently, Mozilla have trademarked "Firefox" in the class of "Browsers, namely, software for browsing and interacting with data on the global computer network and secure private networks, and software programs to connect computers to the global computer network and to secure private networks", so hopefully this name change will be the last one.

Comments

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

re your linguistic note... if you had written that, I don't think I would have noticed it as being idiomatically odd.

I'm calling it TBFKAP

[jordik.livejournal.com]

I'm tired of their name changes now, I'll refer to it as Mozilla Lite or TBFKAP.

No doubt with 1.0 they'll get yet another namechange, because IIRC TBFKAP 1.0 should completely make obsolete the Mozilla BLUI…

Re: I'm calling it TBFKAP

[pne.livejournal.com]

No doubt with 1.0 they'll get yet another namechange

Well, their renaming FAQ (http://mozilla.org/projects/firefox/firefox-name-faq.html) says "Will this name be permanent? - We sure hope so."

Take that for what it's worth.

Re: I'm calling it TBFKAP

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

> Take that for what it's worth.

Which ain't a lot for me! I didn't much like the name phoenix, firebird was a good name, but firefox is dreadful :/

What's with the screening of comments?

Re: I'm calling it TBFKAP

[pne.livejournal.com]

I didn't much like the name phoenix, firebird was a good name, but firefox is dreadful

Somebody wrote that they liked all of the old names better: Phoenix, Chimera, Minotaur - which became Firebird^H^H^H^Hfox, Camino, and Thunderbird, respectively.

What's with the screening of comments?

Temporary due to a meme I've posted (which you can't see since you opted out of that filter); see my explanation to Jo (http://www.livejournal.com/users/pne/208501.html?thread=562549#t562549).

Re: I'm calling it TBFKAP

[jordik.livejournal.com]

I fully expect TBFKAP 1.0 to be called 'Mozilla': no additional names, since it has been stated many times by Ada etc. who should be in the know, that they want to retire Seamonkey for TBFKAP.

Hence Mockingbird, err Firebi^WFirefox will be renamed at least one more time.

Re: I'm calling it TBFKAP

[pne.livejournal.com]

Though as I understood it, "Mozilla" is the name for the application suite, so the browser component may have a different name even if TBFKAP becomes the browser part of Mozilla.

[rho]

Firebird and thunderbird always made me think of the legendary bird pokemon, moltres and zapdos. Now they've changed it to firefox, I'm just going to start thinking of it as entei, I think.

(Yes, I'm sad)

Re:

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

There's one called Magmar that's a Fire type and is foxish...
Though Moltres/Zapdos is definitely cooler than Magmar/Zapdos =P

Pokémon

[pne.livejournal.com]

I have little idea of what either of you is talking about...

...but I'm sure you're both right :)

[bride.livejournal.com]

Well, it's kinda their own fault for picking something so popular and generic in the first place.

I'm waiting for the "Thunderbird (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%2B%22Thunderbird%22+-%22Mozilla%22+-%22browser%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta=)" scuffle to start. =}