Ekushey and Ankur unleash the first package of FireFox 1.0.2 in Bangla
Nafid Imran Ahmed
BANGLA computing has taken another step forward as Ekushey (ekushey.org) and Ankur Group (ankurbangla.org) jointly introduced FireFox's Bangla interface and released a Bangla language (bn-BD) extension for Mozilla FireFox 1.0.2. last month.
It was FireFox's increasing popularity and, above all, easing Bangla computing for Bangla speaking community that made Ekushey and Ankur take up the project. The 'Bangla bn-BD Mozilla localization project' is their initiative to translate the Mozilla browser and other Mozilla applications in Bangla.
Without any financial support from government or non government organisations these two groups, who have been working together for a long time, made them already came out with some of their successful outputs, such as Unicode Based cross platform Bangla computing solutions, Acquiring Bangla letter Khanda-Ta's position in Unicode page and Live Bangla Linux.
Anyone who has Unicode enabled Bangla in their operating system can use this extension and enjoy FireFox's Bangla Interface, which is downloadable from
http://firefox.ekushey.org
To enable Bangla in Fox, one shall need Windows 2000/XP/2003 (Windows XP SP2 Recommended) or any Linux distribution with Unicode Bangla Support (Fedora Core 3 Recommended).
The Bangla interface Extension is still in its testing phase and need user feedback to make it 100 percent perfect.
The platform independent browser Mozilla FireFox is becoming everyone's favourite with its enhanced features, such as Tabbed Browsing, Popup blocker, Special Download Manager, Extension Support, Huge Security support, Latest Scripting, Customisable Skin and above all it's Open Source is taking FireFox it the peak of it's popularity. Anyone who has knowledge on Bangla can contribute to Ekushey and Ankur by joining them in the project.
To get Bangla interface in your FireFox, one needs to download and install FireFox 1.0.2 first, then by clicking a link install the Language Switcher Extension, restart FireFox and go back to the installation link and install Bengali Bangladesh language by clicking another link and update FireFox. Then under the menu, Tools -> Languages and select bn-BD (Bengali (BD)). This will make Bangla as Fox's GUI language. Now after restarting FireFox your browsing experience in Bangla will start.
The test build has some spelling mistakes and English Messages. The developers seek user feedbacks to correct these. So it doesn't stop here. This is just the beginning and it's up to the Bangla computing community and all its users to make it better by sending feedbacks and contributing to the developers with their suggestions and inputs.
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