Firefox available in Afrikaans

2007-05-31 13:02

Cape Town - The popular Mozilla Firefox web browser has been officially released in Afrikaans.

The Afrikaans translation is the work of award-winning non-profit organisation Translate.org.za and its volunteer community.

Between 15-20%, or almost one million South African internet users reportedly make use of the Firefox web browser.

This is the first official release of Afrikaans translations in the Firefox 2.0 series.

Translate.org.za has been creating interim builds for testing for a number of months.

"This is the most extensively tested translation release of ours to date, we think our Afrikaans users will appreciate the time and effort that we have taken to ensure quality," said Dwayne Bailey, director of Translate.org.za.

Translate.org.za is a non-profit organisation focusing on delivering free software in local languages. They won the African ICT Achiever award in 2006 for bridging the digital divide.

"Firefox is one piece in the puzzle of creating a fully Afrikaans computer," said Bailey. He added that with growing Afrikaans internet content it has become more important to have a web browser in Afrikaans.

Translated into more than 41 languages, Firefox 2 is available in a native language version for more people around the world than any other web browser. Firefox is developed by an international community of contributors working together under the umbrella of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit, public-benefit organisation dedicated to improving the internet experience for people everywhere.

"Firefox 2 delivers the best possible online experience for people today," said Mitchell Baker, CEO, Mozilla.

"The improvements Mozilla has made to the ease of use, performance, and security in Firefox 2 reflect our ongoing, singular focus on meeting the needs of web users all over the world."

The latest version can be downloaded free from: www.mozilla.com.

- SAPA