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Mozilla is investigating why Dell UK is charging £16.25 to install Firefox, says no such deal exists with anyone

Mar05
by on March 5, 2014 at 7:54 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

firefox logo new 520x245 Mozilla is investigating why Dell UK is charging £16.25 to install Firefox, says no such deal exists with anyone

Dell is charging customers £16.25 ($27.18) to install Firefox on a newly purchased computer. We contacted Mozilla to find out more. The company told us it is investigating the issue and denied it has any such a deal in place.

“There is no agreement between Dell and Mozilla which allows Dell or anyone else to charge for installing Firefox using that brand name,” Mozilla’s Vice President and General Counsel Denelle Dixon-Thayer told TNW. “Our trademark policy makes clear that this is not permitted and we are investigating this specific report.”

Nevertheless, the option is there on Dell’s UK site, on at least one model:

dell uk firefox Mozilla is investigating why Dell UK is charging £16.25 to install Firefox, says no such deal exists with anyone

A Mozilla spokesperson further pointed us to the specific section in the company’s trademark policy covering such activity. Under Software Distributions, the document states:

If you are using the Mozilla Mark(s) for the unaltered binaries you are distributing, you may not charge for that product. By not charging, we mean the Mozilla product must be without cost and its distribution (whether by download or other media) may not be subject to a fee, or tied to subscribing to or purchasing a service, or the collection of personal information. If you want to sell the product, you may do so, but you must call that product by another name—one unrelated to Mozilla or any of the Mozilla Marks. Remember that we do not want the public to be confused.

News of the suprising practice first came via a report from The Register. TNW checked Dell’s website in the US, the UK, and Canada to verify the authenticity.

We could not locate a Firefox option on the customization page for any Dell product in the US or Canada, but the UK site did have the option for the Optiplex 7010. We have contacted Dell for more information and will update this article as we learn more.

Update at 5:30PM EST: Dell has responded by saying that this practice is okay because the company is charging for the service and not the product.

“Dell Configuration Services, including the application loading service, ensure customers have a complete, ready to use product when it arrives,” a Dell spokesperson told TNW. “In this particular situation, the customer would not be charged for the Mozilla Firefox software download, rather the fee would cover the time and labour involved for factory personnel to load a different image than is provided on the system’s standard configuration.”

This is a fine line Dell is dancing on. Mozilla’s policy doesn’t just encompass the software, but its installation as well, as noted in the earlier quote.

See also – Firefox 27 arrives with simultaneous Social API services, SPDY 3.1 and TLS 1.2 support, more languages on Android and Mozilla previews Firefox Launcher for Android with adaptive app search from EverythingMe

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Mozilla launches JPEG encoder mozjpeg to reduce webpage loads, results show up to 10% decrease in file size

Mar05
by on March 5, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

1414234 49900723 520x245 Mozilla launches JPEG encoder mozjpeg to reduce webpage loads, results show up to 10% decrease in file size

Mozilla today announced a new project called mozjpeg, the goal of which is to provide a production-quality JPEG encoder that improves compression rates. That being said, the company wants to maintain compatibility with “the vast majority” of deployed decoders.

Over the years, the number of images an average website displays has exploded, as has the file size of each image. Since HTML, JS, and CSS files are relatively small in comparison, Mozilla points out photos can “easily make up the bulk of the network traffic for a page load.” The company thus wants to reduce the size of these files, and while JPEG has been in use since around 1992, it is still the most popular lossy compressed image format on the Web.

JPEG is the only lossy compressed image format which has achieved nearly universal compatibility, not just with Web browsers but all software that can display images. As such Mozilla argues that it’s worth trying to optimize it, even with the ongoing search for a successor:

Production JPEG encoders have largely been stagnant in terms of compression efficiency, so replacing JPEG with something better has been a frequent topic of discussion. The major downside to moving away from JPEG is that it would require going through a multi-year period of relatively poor compatibility with the world’s deployed software. We (at Mozilla) don’t doubt that algorithmic improvements will make this worthwhile at some point, possibly soon. Even after a transition begins in earnest though, JPEG will continue to be used widely.

The company talked to engineers and concluded that JPEG encoders haven’t yet reached their full compression potential, even after 20 years and within the constraints of strong compatibility requirements.

Today’s mozjpeg version 1.0 release is a fork of libjpeg-turbo with ‘jpgcrush’ functionality added. The latter is a Perl script written by Loren Merritt which losslessly reduces file sizes by figuring out which progressive coding configuration uses the fewest bits. Results for mozjpeg range from 2-6 percent for PNGs encoded to JPEG by libjpeg-turbo and 10 percent on average for a sample of 1,500 JPEG files from Wikimedia.

Mozilla says it is not aware of any other production encoder that has this functionality built in, so the company decided to include it as mozjpeg’s first feature. The project’s next goal is to improve encoding by making use of trellis quantization. We’ll keep you posted as the project progresses and Mozilla shares its results.

➤ mozjpeg (GitHub)

Top Image Credit: Andreas Krappweis

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Facebook bans posts selling guns without background checks

Mar05
by on March 5, 2014 at 5:59 pm
Posted In: Around the Web

144638499 520x245 Facebook bans posts selling guns without background checks

Facebook today unveiled new measures to toughen up its position on firearm sales promoted across its social network.

While Facebook doesn’t allow its users to advertize illegal drugs, weapons, prescription medicine and other sensitive items, it’s fairly common for people to post on their timeline offering spare rooms, second-hand cars and increasingly, it would seem, regulated firearms. Today, the company said it would delete posts that were advertizing guns without the necessary background checks.

“We will not permit people to post offers to sell regulated items that indicate a willingness to evade or help others evade the law,” Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management for Facebook said.

“For example, private sellers of firearms in the US will not be permitted to specify ‘no background check required,’ nor can they offer to transact across state lines without a licensed firearms dealer.”

Furthermore, Facebook said it will now show “special in-app education” to Instagram users who are frequently searching for firearms.

As part of the new measures, the company will also limit posts that advertize regulated item, including firearms, to users over the age of 18. It will also send a message to the creator reminding them to comply with the law.

Finally, Facebook Pages that are used mostly to sell regulated items will need to make it clear that all sales and transactions must be carried out in accordance with the law. Access will also need to be limited to Facebook users over the age of 18, if and when it’s required by legislation.

➤ Facebook, Instagram Announce New Educational and Enforcement Measures for Commercial Activity

Image Credit: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

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Yahoo acquires visual identity platform startup Vizify, will shut the service down and issue refunds

Mar05
by on March 5, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

103799517 520x245 Yahoo acquires visual identity platform startup Vizify, will shut the service down and issue refunds

Yahoo today acquired visual identity platform startup Vizify for an undisclosed sum, closing a deal that has been in the works for months. Founded by Todd Silverstein, Eli Tucker, and Jeff Cutler-Stamm in 2011, the service will be shutting down for existing Vizify bioholders and accounts.

“Since last summer, we’ve been engaged in a conversation with some of the incredible folks at Yahoo about the ways this more visual approach to data can inspire and entertain,” the Vizify team explains. “As our conversations progressed, we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information. Ultimately, we just couldn’t say no to the opportunity to bring our vision to the hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo every day.”

Here is how Vizify will be handling the transition:

  • Those with a current paid plan will receive a full refund for everything you’ve paid Vizify.
  • Premium customers who registered a domain through Vizify (like your-name.com) will receive instructions so they can assume ownership of their domain, free of charge.
  • All bioholders, free and paid, will get a way to opt-in to “archive” a snapshot of their current bio that will remain live at the same URL through September 4, 2014.

If you’re a Vizify user, you’ll want to check out the FAQ page for more information as to how exactly this affects you. Vizify says it “can’t talk specifics just yet” in regards to what its employees will be doing at Yahoo, but it did say “a more visual approach to data at Yahoo” is in order.

See also – With 250k users, Vizify moves out of beta and launches mini self-infographics called Vizcards and Vizify joins forces with Twitter, now you can create an instant ‘movie trailer’ bio in no time at all

Top Image Credit: John Moore/Getty Images

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Yahoo acquires visual identity platform startup Vizify, will shut the service down and issue refunds

Mar05
by on March 5, 2014 at 5:38 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Insider

Yahoo today acquired visual identity platform startup Vizify for an undisclosed sum, closing a deal that has been in the works for months. The service will be shutting down for existing Vizify bioholders and accounts.

“Since last summer, we’ve been engaged in a conversation with some of the incredible folks at Yahoo about the ways this more visual approach to data can inspire and entertain,” the Vizify team explains. “As our conversations progressed, we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing information. Ultimately, we just couldn’t say no to the opportunity to bring our vision to the hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo every day.”

Here is how Vizify will be handling the transition:

  • Those with a current paid plan will receive a full refund for everything you’ve paid Vizify.
  • Premium customers who registered a domain through Vizify (like your-name.com) will receive instructions so they can assume ownership of their domain, free of charge.
  • All bioholders, free and paid, will get a way to opt-in to “archive” a snapshot of their current bio that will remain live at the same URL through September 4, 2014.

Vizify says it “can’t talk specifics just yet” in regards to what its employees will be doing at Yahoo, but it did say “a more visual approach to data at Yahoo” is in order.

More to follow.

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