There is a subset of hardcore users of every community-based software project who take it a little too far.

Firefox has always had a fairly large group of outspoken users. Probably because web browsing is a core task for computer users and, frankly, Firefox kicks ass at it.

So I’ve never been an evangelist. I’ve never encouraged people to switch to Firefox more than saying that it’s a damn fine program. But this might change my mind:

Holy shit! Look at that adorable motherfucker. The Mozilla folk are planning to establish a baseline world record for software downloads for the first 24 hours of Firefox 3’s availability. I could give a damn about that world record, I’m going to do my best to help bump that number just because of that adorable, burning vulpine mascot.

And, just to be a dick, I’d like to say that Firefox 3 is totally worth it. I’ve been using it for five years and the beta for 3 have shown the most improvement since the gap between 0.9 and 1.0 … four years ago. Sure, there have been myriad small improvements since then, but this one feels like the best since then. Ok, sorry, keep watching, if you’re curious and want to give it a shot.