Firefox: Where it came from, and where it's heading
Published: 14 Oct 2004 10:55 BST
Tell me how Microsoft's decision not to release any more standalone IE versions affects Mozilla.
It makes it clear to people that if they want to see their online experience improved in significant ways, they're not going to get them from Microsoft. We're one of the alternatives -- and it helps that we're free.
Here's a question coming from your blog. "Sept. 17, 2004, Market Dominance: Netscape had it by being first. Microsoft has it by being everywhere. Firefox will have it by being best. We're coming." Do you really expect market dominance? Even if Firefox lives up to its buzz, isn't dominance a pipe dream? Most people just won't download a browser. Or will they?
We don't know -- but you have to aim big. Otherwise, why even try? It's time for open-source software -- good open-source software -- to be proud of itself, set its sights on the big leagues and get out there and try and get as much out of it as possible. You don't get there by aiming for 5 percent or 10 percent.
OK, going back to our ancient history for a minute, when [Netscape principal engineer Ramanathan] Guha first spoke to CNET News.com about Mozilla.org way back in 1998, he talked about the idea of making a browser with small footprints that you could modularise so that it could be used with a variety of non-PC devices. Only now are we seeing work being taken seriously -- specifically by Nokia -- in the case of the Minimo project. What took so long?
Footprint and performance have long been priorities for the Mozilla project. You, no doubt, remember Netscape 6. It wasn't a particularly small, fast browser.
Right -- and neither was Mozilla 1.0. Why did that goal elude Mozilla for so long, and why has the project seemed to finally grasp it with Firefox? What changed?
Footprint and performance work has been ongoing over the past few years, in fact -- it just doesn't manifest itself readily to the user, especially not when they're using the "same old suite."
With Firefox, we went back and re-evaluated some of the ways we have been developing XUL applications, and took steps to make the application UI itself load faster to better leverage improvements that had been made to Gecko. Minimo, having very little UI at all, benefits further.
So those were the most consequential changes?
I would say that the footprint and performance work done by AOL and others in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and a lot of the work done optimising the Firefox front end, were the major reasons why Firefox is faster and smaller today than previous releases of Mozilla and Netscape.
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