Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird to Support Open Standard Platform for USB Drives

The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced that its Mozilla Firefox web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client will support the new U3 standard for managing applications and data on USB flash drives, allowing people to easily carry, store and launch Mozilla software from any PC. As an industry consortium founded by SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and M-Systems (NASDAQ: FLSH) along with other industry leading software vendors and content providers, U3 looks to expand the USB Flash Drive technology market beyond storage by creating an open standard platform to attract a community of independent developers to build applications for U3 devices. Through Mozilla’s vibrant open source development community, an existing project to provide portable versions of Firefox and Thunderbird for USB flash drives, led by volunteer developers, will be extended to embrace this new standard.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to include support for an open standard USB development platform," commented Chris Hofmann, Director of Engineering of the Mozilla Foundation. "We believe our users will value the portability and flexibility this will provide them in being able to use Firefox and Thunderbird on any PC wherever they are."

“We at U3 are very proud to have the Mozilla Foundation as a supporter of our program,” said Kate Purmal, interim executive director of U3. “U3 is committed to increasing the value and expanding the market for USB flash by attracting a community of independent software vendors to create novel and useful applications for a new USB flash drive platform.”

Getting Firefox and Thunderbird
More information on versions of Firefox and Thunderbird available for USB flash drives can be found at http://portablefirefox.mozdev.org/ and http://portablethunderbird.mozdev.org/. Versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux can be downloaded for free or purchased on a CD-ROM with the Firefox & Thunderbird Guidebook from the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org.About the Mozilla Foundation

Established in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization hosting a collection of leading innovators whose mission is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. The Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open source software project. The Foundation is based in Mountain View, California. Learn more about the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org.

Press Contact:
Colin Crook
Sparkpr
colin@sparkpr.com
+1-415-321-1887

Teena Touch
U3
Teena.Touch@porternovelli.com

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