Mozilla in Japanese
Following reports of a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer and much concern about an impending attack, US-CERT (the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team) issued a warning that urges people to use a different browser.
As Wired.com reports, the warning led to a big increase in Mozilla downloads, reinforcing a trend away from Microsoft’s browser.
A quick check of our server statistics revealed that Tawawa page requests originating from Mozilla browsers are increasing indeed; from below 20% only a few months ago, Mozilla now accounts for almost 30% of all traffic.
Earlier today, Yukiko-san remarked that her mother doesn’t like Mozilla because of its English interface. I have just poked around among Mozilla’s localisations, and it turned out that a Japanese version is available. I installed it on two of the English Department’s library machines and it seems to be working fine.
If you’d like to try the software on your own computer but fear it might affect your current browser, you need not worry: it won’t. A new version of Internet Explorer will invariably disable the old version, but Mozilla will happily run alongside any other browsing software.
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Two more links for good measure: Paul Boutin’s take on How Mozilla’s Firefox trumps Internet Explorer and Stephen H. Wildstrom’s Why I’m Staying Away From Internet Explorer.
Here’s a passage from Wildstrom’s piece:
The biggest security problem in IE — one that has plagued Microsoft and its customers for at least four years and is at the heart of the recent exploit — is a flaw that lets a Web site trick the browser into running an alien program in violation of its own security settings. In effect, an unknown program on a Web site is treated as though it were a trusted program on your computer. Compromised Web sites can covertly install programs ranging from nuisances that cause ad pop-ups to real threats that record your keystrokes to steal passwords and account information.
This is what has already happened on at least one of the three new XP boxes here at the Department library. I’ve reported the problem and it should be cleared up soon.
I downloaded the Japanese version of Mozilla the other day. What it does is the same as IE, but I feel somewhat strange because of the difference of the appearance…
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And just so you know you’re not alone when you switch: a recent article (english) on how Downloads of Firefox & Mozilla are increasing, and it’s user base doubling every few months :)