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Firefox is 6 years old today
On this day, November 9, way back in 2004, Firefox 1.0 launched. On that day, the Internet changed for ever, its makeup indelibly altered. Firefox made the Web more secure, faster, standards-compliant -- and, most importantly, it made the Web open.Before Firefox there was only Internet Explorer and Netscape -- a war that had no winners and many scrolling marquee losers. Firefox changed everything with its radically different, 'build a better browser and they will come' approach. And today, with some 30% of the market and the richest feature set of any browser, that approach has paid off.
If you have a little time, take a look at the Firefox 1.0 release notes -- it's a fun trip down memory lane. How fast the Internet moves -- it seems like only yesterday that I was holding a Firefox 1.0 launch party in my university bar. We had a banner and everything!
[via OMG! Ubuntu!]
Comments
12
Subscribe to commentsOldandintheWayNov 9th 2010 10:19AM
Firefox? You whippersnappers don't even remember when it was Firebird or Phoenix?
Sebastian AnthonyNov 9th 2010 10:19AM
You'll note that I tagged this post 'Firebird' :P
jogdenNov 9th 2010 2:31PM
I do! At first I didn't like the name change to Firefox. :)
Danny BoyNov 9th 2010 6:37PM
I think one of our old PCs still has the Phoenix 0.5 that I installed on it. It was slow and sluggish Celeron CPU with Win98 and about 64MB of memory. So I installed Opera 5 on it and never looked backed since.
Now I use Chrome, BTW.
Sebastian AnthonyNov 10th 2010 5:31AM
One of my biggest gripes with Firefox (and Chrome and Opera) is that it doesn't sound like a BROWSER!
I'm sure Internet Explorer gets most of its new users from the mere fact that it sounds like a way to surf the Internet.
'Phoenix Browser' or something would've been better... at least in terms of market share, I think :)
WonderCsaboNov 11th 2010 10:35AM
The 1.0 version's name was already Firefox
Jon MackNov 9th 2010 10:31AM
Safari was launched in June 2003, so writing "Before Firefox there was only Internet Explorer and Netscape" isn't strictly true.
Sebastian AnthonyNov 9th 2010 10:33AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#WebSideStory_.28USA.2C_February_1999_to_June_2006.29
Note the market share percentages.
jeff.siegelNov 9th 2010 10:44AM
Oh wow. Browse the FTP site... Those were the days.
JayNov 9th 2010 11:00PM
"Before Firefox there was only Internet Explorer and Netscape"
Umm, Safari was released in 2003.
Sebastian AnthonyNov 10th 2010 5:28AM
See comment above.
There have always been lots of smaller browsers... just not very many big ones :)
JayNov 10th 2010 7:29PM
I would hardly call Safari a smaller browser. It is made by Apple. And Opera has been around since the mid 90s and has plenty of followers, especially around the turn of the century, when Mac people were sick of IE 5.