try firefox 2.0 beta 1

hey everyone, please try firefox 2.0 beta 1. it was just released a few days ago. i have found most firefox extensions work perfectly on it, but you will have to get new themes for firefox 2 since the old themes do not work anymore. you will also need an extension to re-enable your other extensions: the nightly tester tools. with the nightly tester tools, you can get all of the extensions for firefox 1.5.0.x to run in firefox 2.0 beta 1. almost all of them will work perfectly. none of the extensions i use have had any problems. anyway, this is a good way to test things out so that when firefox 2.0 is released (probably in september), there will not be any problems. if you have any problems with extensions or themes, please email whoever made the extensions or themes, so that we can get as many extensions and themes working on the new version of firefox as possible. this new version of firefox is codenamed “bon echo”. firefox 1.5 was codenamed “deer park”, and firefox 3.0 is “gran paradiso”. i would not recommend trying out “gran paradiso” any time soon, as it has many big big changes in it. “bon echo” makes hardly any changes in the underlying way things work, which is why almost all extensions still work, but “gran paradiso” will be a much bigger deal. so i urge everyone to go ahead and download firefox 2.0 beta 1, even though mozilla only recommends that developers and testers download it. go ahead! be a beta tester! it is fun!

and check out this video with 2 firefoxes in it! they are an endangered species! the firefox is more commonly known as the “red panda”, or ailurus fulgens. it is found in the himalayas, in nepal, bhutan, myanmar, china, india, and laos. in the past, they have been classified as bears and raccoons, but now they are classified in their own category. firefoxes are incredibly cute. “panda” is the nepalese word for a creature that eats bamboo, so firefoxes really are pandas. in china, they are supposedly called “hunho”, which translates literally as “firefox”. however, i read on another website that the chinese actually call them “xiao xiong mao” or 小熊猫. try searching google for 小熊猫. (more results than in english!) so where does the name “firefox” come from? i think it is actually from the latin name of the species, ailurus fulgens, rather than from the chinese or nepalese names. fulgens means fire-colored and ailurus means fox, so ailurus fulgens is latin for “firefox”. they are also known as the “lesser panda” or the “bear-cat” or “cat-bear”. first discovered by whitey in 1821, thomas hardwicke originally called it “wah”, but that was a stupid name. he also reported the nepalese name “poonya”, which was bastardized to “panda” in english. frederic cuvier, a french naturalist, was responsible for coining the latin name “ailurus fulgens”, from which the english word “firefox” is most likely derived, and he called the species the “bright panda”. then, in 1869, when the white man discovered the giant panda, the firefox was renamed the “lesser panda”. nowadays, the most common term is “red panda”, because they are red and they are pandas. anyway, here is the video, i think from japanese television:



the bbc has some more videos of firefoxes here. they are sooooo cute! some japanese site called popncall.com has some more videos of them here. and here is a picture from china’s xinhua news agency of 2 baby firefoxes, that are ultra super cute: