In commemoration of the all new Firefox Australis launch that was globally awaited by all on the 29th of April 2014, the Mozilla Sri Lankan Community also hosted the celebration of this aforementioned launch on 10th of May this year. In addition to it, the launch party also marked the re-establishment of the Mozilla Sri Lankan Community.

I was also part of the crowd, apart from different enthusiasts from different Universities across the country, who gathered at the event to see what all the hype about the new Firefox was and was pretty thrilled to see a whole new change in Firefox. I was also here because my friends were speaking too (was thrilled :D).


The event proceedings started off with a history to Mozilla Foundation and all the work carried about to this day. Milestones achieved and the success stories were shared with the audience. Of all the milestones, I remember one very well. Quoting the speaker, "Mozilla named 'Most Trusted Internet Company privacy in 2013'". Apart from one of the safest browsers, Firefox also is very keen on the speediness of the browser.

What is a launch without a cake? ;) Yes, we had a cake, two to be precise, and finally everyone had a sugar overdose (just kidding :P).  I also tottered along with the rest of the audience to sing "Happy Birthday" and sneak out with a cake piece.

So it wasn't totally only the Firefox Australis, on the agenda. There also was a session on FirefoxOS, the mobile operating System and how to create apps that can easily be uploaded to the Marketplace. Local apps created by developers here were showcased and the audience were given Firefox mobiles to experience the feel. And the good news (or not so good news) would be that these apps are simply web apps and you can easily create one using HTML, CSS and Javascript. And what about Frameoworks? Yeah, yeah them too. Porting the apps to different platforms too is really easy. PhoneGap? Yes, you can use it.

Some of the hardcore Twitterholics grabbed some cool gifts at the end of the event, while the rest of us got hold of some merchandise too ;) . The event was a success I should hope so, and the Social Media was streaming with #MozillaLK hashtags and photos and #Panchali (:P), while the online magazine partners, ReadMe and dIGIT.lk did a good job too on covering the event.




And to wrap it all up a good group photograph as well :)