Firefox on Campus
Earlier today, we launched Firefox Campus Edition, a bundle of Firefox 2 with add-ons from FoxyTunes, StumbleUpon and Zotero.
For several reasons, I’m really happy about this latest Firefox edition.
Good timing. This is the first time that we’ve coordinated a product release with a seasonal event (the back to school season here in the US). Being in sync helps us gain mainstream press coverage and drive additional exposure for the Campus Edition.
Great partners. FoxyTunes and StumbleUpon are well-known in the Firefox add-ons community. Zotero is a more recent addition but has gotten a bunch of attention and praise for its powerful research tools. Each of these teams rallied over the past several weeks to finalize the Campus Edition and provided software updates that improve the end-user experience. Big thanks to Alex at FoxyTunes, Garrett at StumbleUpon and Dan at Zotero.
Introducing students to Firefox, and to add-ons. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for students who are already using Firefox to point their friends to a version of Firefox that had a useful set of add-ons pre-installed. Being able to play with an initial set of add-ons will showcase some of the cool ways developers are expanding the functionality of Firefox and will encourage students to seek out new add-ons.
Getting the word out on campus. We’ll be following up on our press launch this week with a set of on-campus events, led by Firefox Campus Rep program volunteers. This is an ongoing program we set up last year to provide community members at colleges a way to help spread Firefox at their schools.
In the meantime, I’ve bookmarked some of the initial reviews and mentions for the Campus Edition on del.icio.us. Check them out, and if you’ve got a friend in school who isn’t using Firefox yet, point them to: http://www.firefox.com/backtoschool!
Atilano Sanchez, 
Asa Dotzler - Firefox and more 5:19 pm on August 28, 2007 Permalink
back to school with a shiny new firefox…
Mozilla has just launched another custom edition Firefox. This one’s for all you students heading back to school. Read all about it over at Paul Kim’s blog…….
Alex Sirota 5:36 pm on August 28, 2007 Permalink
Paul – we all here at FoxyTunes are very excited to be a part of this special Firefox edition, and about the opportunity to help spread the word about Firefox and its add-ons.
Martijn 10:31 pm on August 28, 2007 Permalink
What about creating themes for specific Universities (or their baseball teams or what else one can think of) ? At least I think people (especially students) want to express themselves. Or perhaps some universities want their own branded version of Firefox.
I think it would be best if the browser could be easily rebranded (pick a background image, pick some colors and create a new theme ?) and the package could be easily redistributed. Then someone at the university can create such a package and distribute it. No involvement from Mozilla necessary in there.
Perhaps the Firefox CCK can also be of use somehow in this process.
Firefox Campus Edition Released 11:18 pm on August 28, 2007 Permalink
[...] Paul Kim announced Firefox Campus Edition today, a customized version of the Firefox browser focused on the back-to-school crowd. The Firefox bundle, which has its own landing page, reportedly comes pre-packaged with FoxyTunes, StumbleUpon and Zotero extensions. For more details and some additional insight into the release, be sure to head on over to Paul Kim’s announcement. No Comments, Comment or Ping [...]
Firefox, edición Campus « TIDDER 4:12 am on August 29, 2007 Permalink
[...] versión es el navegador que todos conocemos, con el añadido de tres extensiones: FoxyTunes (para escuchar la música según navegas), StumbleUpon (para compartir enlaces) y Zotero [...]
Paul Kim 6:39 am on August 29, 2007 Permalink
@Martijn: both great suggestions. Getting the license to create a theme based a university’s logo/marks is something we’re looking into now.
Back to School with Firefox | intothefuzz.com 11:08 pm on August 29, 2007 Permalink
[...] On Tuesday we launched Firefox Campus Edition, a new version of Firefox 2 bundled with a few student-friendly add-ons (for the full details and backstory, check out Paul Kim’s blog). [...]
Katie 9:25 am on September 1, 2007 Permalink
Everyone at my high school (it’s a high school/college combination program) was given a district-issued laptop and was told that we were not able to download any additional programs, for one reason or another. Almost immediately, two of us asked about Firefox. Apparently, IE and FF will allow us to accomplish the same things in the same amount of time, so there’s no reason why we’d to download FF.
Perhaps some concentration on getting the program into public schools is a good idea.
Paul Kim 10:19 am on September 1, 2007 Permalink
Hey Katie — I’m going to pass your contact info on to the folks who run our Campus Reps program. We have some great information about the benefits of Firefox you can share with the administrators of your district laptop program.
Atilano Sanchez 9:45 am on September 8, 2007 Permalink
I would have to agree with Katie, as I asked if we could download Firefox to our laptops (I go to the same school. After being told no, I found a portable version of Firefox here:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
It works great.
Paul Kim 5:40 pm on September 9, 2007 Permalink
Atilano – we should be sending Katie some additional information about Firefox to share at your school. But in the meantime, Portable Firefox is a great alternative.