Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

KNOWN as the alternative web browser to Microsoft's market dominant Internet Explorer, Firefox is inviting users to organise their own launch parties worldwide, this Friday, to celebrate its new version 2.0, made available for download yesterday.

Among those who have already signed up on the Firefox Party website is someone in Jamaica, registered as 'Digerati'. Digerati is planning the 'TJ Firefox Bash' with time and venue to be announced.

The party reflects the 'open source' policy of the Mozilla Corporation, which relies on the input of volunteers to develop its software, including one million who contributed to Firefox's 2.0.

When The Gleaner checked the Firefox Party website yesterday afternoon, 3,754 partygoers had registered, attending 454 parties.

Other Caribbean parties

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Firefox users are planning two parties in the Dominican Republic, one in Cuba and another in Puerto Rico.

Party planning appears to be informal with partygoers willing to club together.

Firefox has used novel marketing tactics before via its marketing website, Spread Firefox, which encourages user participation. Two years ago, when it famously launched its first browser, Firefox 1.0, Mozilla raised money from its users to purchase an advertisement in The New York Times newspaper which featured the signatures of 10,000 users.

Firefox 2.0 includes anti-phishing technology to prevent data theft, spell-check and a search engine manager.

Consumers have been increasingly turning to Firefox which is reputed to be more secure than the dominant Microsoft browser which launched its version 7.0 last week.