WEBVTT - The Firefox Story 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.199 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry. 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:08.879 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:16.959 stuff What dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:18.759 tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and I am 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.080 an editor at how Stuff works dot com. Sitting across 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:26.480 from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan's Strickland. Hey there, yes, 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:30.360 and our story starts long long ago when a single 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.520 celled organism developed into the first web browser. No. Um, yeah, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.120 so you know there's this guy, Tim burns Lee works 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.360 over at CERN. Like I feel like I've heard his name. 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.560 Dude came up with this neat way of displaying information 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:50.360 using a network connections, which would eventually blossom into the 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.400 beautiful flower we know as the World Wide Web. We 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:56.920 probably don't call it that so frequently anymore, if you 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.920 if you read like the stuff from the the early 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.000 nineties Worldwide Web and Information super Highway with that, they 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.160 seem to be required in every single news story. Yeah. Well, 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.840 we've started a little loopy here, but yeah, it's it's clear, 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.360 and we haven't we we haven't mentioned it in quite 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.120 some time, but we have mentioned it on multiple occasions 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.560 that the Internet is basically a medium of UH communication 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.560 between computers. It's it's a network of networks. UH. Your 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.559 computer hooks up to the Internet and you can send 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.440 information in a number of different ways. A lot of 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:34.119 them are our pass a now or or less used 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.399 than others. I mean people like Gopher or using UH 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.080 transmission protocols like Gopher and and waste. Um. You know, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.640 people just don't do that very much. Using that is 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.640 less used than it used to be. Um. Email has 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:49.800 certainly used quite a bit, and still quite a few 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.400 people are using fault transfer protocol sure sure, um. The 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.680 different instant messenger protocols, they they're none of these are 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.520 the Worldwide Web. The world Wide Web basically puts a 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.960 very public pretty face on it, in some cases less 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.520 than pretty, especially if you don't like crawling graphics and 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.720 and midi files. This is the old you know, this 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.600 is the the user friendly version of what the Internet 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.840 has to offer. For a lot of people, they thought 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.400 the world wide webin Internet were synonymous. Not really the case. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:25.120 But we wanted to talk about a particular browser and 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:30.400 a company an organization that that helped bring this browser 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.200 about and how it kind of became a power player 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.120 actually it was the power Player for a while, or 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.160 an ancestor of it was, and then it faded to obscurity, 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.240 rose from the ashes. But we'll get into that. So 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.480 we're talking about Firefox in general. But to to understand 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.639 Firefox and the story behind Firefox, you actually have to 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:52.520 go back quite a ways, well before there was ever 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.600 any sort of Firefox web browser. So all the way 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.079 back to nine two and then in ninety two. We're 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.480 talking the early days of the web at this point, 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:03.720 and it seems kind of crazy. I mean, we're recording 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:08.360 this in so that's you know, just twenty years. But um, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.959 a fellow by the name of Mark andresen Uh. Basically 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.079 this was this was a college project. He and Eric 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.639 Bina or or Bina, I'm not sure how to say 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.560 his last name. They began to work on a browser 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.960 for x Windows on Unix computers and this was something 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.720 they decided to start working on this after being shown 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.280 the work that Tim burners Lee had been doing over 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:35.240 at CERN, and they said, wow, you know, we should 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.400 start creating a browser that could access this sort of stuff. 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:44.120 And so they worked together and they created something they 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:49.440 called Mosaic, which was one of the earliest web browsers. Yeah, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.520 and it really it. It sort of helped popularize the 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.480 world Wide Web for a lot of people. Um, for 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.120 a couple of reasons. One it was it was not 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.760 it was reasonably nice to look at. It was easy 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.200 to use, UM. But it was also free because it 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.760 was well again in college project, So it was one 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.040 of those things that was just offered. Now you kind 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.480 of had to know where to find it. UM. You 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.480 kind of had to know. I have an idea what 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.480 the world Wide Web was, and at that point, it was, uh, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:19.960 sort of a hobbyist thing. UM. You know I I 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.400 used when I used bit neet back in in the day's. 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:29.800 Immediately proceeding that, I was using basically email, um, using chat. 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.520 But I really had no idea what the web was. 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.520 And I started doing some reading around around that time 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.320 and said, no, this this looks kind of interesting. UM. 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.799 And uh, you know, I didn't have a web client 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.200 for Miamiga at the time. UM, but I started using 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.880 max around that time and found out that there was 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.719 a version of Mosaic available for which I I actually 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.800 purchased with a book that told you how to use 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.000 the darned thing. And it came on a floppy disk, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.720 and so I loaded Mosaic from from from that and 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.360 started on the web. Yeah, some interesting connections we should 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.120 we should talk about. I mean, you're going to find 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:06.960 out that there are a lot of connections to various 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.000 web browsers out there just coming from Mosaic. One of 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.040 the earliest and to me, really interesting ones is that 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:19.560 in nine company called Spyglass Incorporated licensed the Mosaic browser 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:25.040 and they began to develop its own code base based 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.960 on Mosaic, and then they licensed that code base to 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.200 Microsoft and that would become part of what would eventually 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.640 be Internet Explorer. So Mosaic and Internet Explorers share some 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.920 some code when you go way way, way, way way back, um, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.039 and it's uh, you know, that's to me, that's a 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:48.680 very interesting thing, especially when you look later on down 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.400 the timeline of the evolution of browsers out there on 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.240 the market. Yeah. Yeah, Now, of course that that's less 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:02.240 of a direct lineage than what and Reason and company 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.800 would do when they decided to go ahead and make 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.679 some money off of this thing, which is the founding 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.520 of the company Netscape. Yeah. First it was called Mosaic Communications, 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:17.080 but they renamed it before too long to Netscape Communications. Uh. 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.000 They being Mark and Reason and Jim Clark. Uh. This 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:25.960 was same year that Spyglass incorporated as licensing Mosaic itself. Uh, 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.320 and they come up with the the browser Netscape and 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.360 this was a a pay for browser. You would buy 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.800 the browser. I bought a copy off the shelf, shrink 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.520 wrapped copy of Netscape too, and it became the communicator. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.600 It actually became quite popular and the adator I'm sorry, navigator. 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:45.160 There are a lot of a lot of do you 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.120 want to go back? No? No, well, okay, we'll just 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.880 keep going then. All right, Hey, guess what, guys, sometimes 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.480 we go back anyway, And that escape was that is 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.080 very rare though. I remember I remember the uh, the 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.760 little window and the and the right upper right part 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.080 of the screen, which you know, if you've used the 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.400 web for a while, you remember that the little thing 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.080 that would tell you that it's actually working, um, which 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.760 it wasn't. The you know thing from left to right 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:14.320 in the navigation bar, the address bar, I guess. But yeah, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.120 back in Netscape navigator days, they had an old ship's 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.840 wheel that was so nice. We call that the helm. Anyway, 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.960 the the the browser became popular it kind of well. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:31.040 It introduced and a concept called extensions, which most people 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.800 are familiar with these days. Extensions extend the features of 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.960 a browser by I'll let you install some new code 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:44.680 that gives it some added functionality. This gave websites, uh, 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.680 or people who are developing websites the ability to include 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:55.200 stuff that wasn't natively supported by HTML, because the browsers 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.800 were able to interpret the new code and and render 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.920 it properly on the screen so that you're getting the 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.800 experience that the people wanted you to have, the people 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.360 being the web developers and uh. Around that time, in 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.880 the early nineties, Netscape was doing really well. In fact, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.120 it might have had a market share as high as 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.200 eight percent of the browser market at that time, and 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:20.480 that's pretty remarkable considering that it was a pay for browser. Yeah. Yeah, 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.880 at that point, Netscape was was riding very high in 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.160 the market. Um. You know, of course, they were competing 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.560 with online service providers like A O L and compy 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:40.480 serve um, but the web basically was was Netscapes to lose. Yeah, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.040 at the beginning of the end. We now see when 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:48.080 you're talking about the possibility of paying you for your 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.840 web browser, versus a competitor that comes along and offers 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.800 one for free, UM that's freely downloadable and has the 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:01.760 muscle of somebody really big behind it, like on a know, Microsoft, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.920 like Steve Bomber, it's a big guy. Huh. Yeah. Microsoft 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.280 launches Windows ninety five and has the web browser that's 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:15.600 included with Windows is Internet Explorer. Now, remember, Internet Explorer 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.560 was built partially upon that code base from Mosaic, and 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:21.920 it was, as Chris was saying, free of charge. You 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.000 could download it freely and use it yourself, so you 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.040 didn't have to buy a copy of a browser. And 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.240 it even came with Windows, so you didn't even have 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.360 to bother with it, right if you if you bought 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.120 a new computer, then you had Internet Explorer built right 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.199 in there. In fact, that ended up causing some problems. 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.600 There were some issues about Internet Explorer being tied so 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:48.040 tightly into the UM the operating system experience on Windows 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.839 that it brought up some antitrust issues for Microsoft down 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.880 the line. But that's really more of a Internet Explorer story, 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.200 not so much a Firefox story. So let's go back 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.080 over to what's going on. It took some time, but 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.880 Internet Explorer even though it was free. I mean, it 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.320 did not immediately take over like it wasn't. It wasn't 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:13.480 an overnight now turnaround. It took about four generations of 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.600 Internet Explorer for it to catch up to Netscape. Meanwhile, 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:23.080 Netscape branched out. They did more than just use Netscape Navigator. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.880 They also wanted to create an entire suite of tools 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.560 that you would use, uh for email and for UM 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:32.840 using that and some of the other stuff. And they 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.080 built a larger suite so you you had an option. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.080 You could go with Netscape Navigator if you just wanted 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.120 to use the web, or a suite that they called 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:46.320 Netscape Communicator, which had the greater functionality. Unfortunately, in doing this, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.880 they gradually, and this is common, uh you know, it's 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:55.040 happened into Microsoft and many many others. Uh, the code 0:10:55.240 --> 0:11:01.160 gradually became more bloated, more resource intensive if you will, um, 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.800 and made load time slower, made things more difficult. So 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.360 now you have a you know, a heavyweight Internet heavyweight 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:14.760 and Netscape going against uh, the the net newbie Microsoft. 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.960 But Microsoft has the leaner, more integrated browser in this 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:23.000 case and again free. So yeah, by that fourth generation 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.800 of Internet Explorer, we started to see things switch around 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.160 to the point where it was it was clear that 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.160 Internet Explorer was going to run away with it. So 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:40.280 in n uh Netscape Communications made a big decision. They 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:45.640 decided that they would offer Netscape the Netscape browser for free, yes, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:50.760 and that they would freely offer up the the the 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.199 source code, so that it would become an open source project. 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.320 So this, in other words, you could be a developer 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:59.520 and go in and you could tweak Netscape and have 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.199 your own version of that escape and under the right 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.200 you know, you had to follow certain rules, but you 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:10.679 could do that. The community very quickly became huge and 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.920 there was a new name for this project. It was 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:19.360 called the Mozilla project. Yes, now I understand that the 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:25.319 the name for Mozilla came from it's sort of a 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:30.119 fudged portmanteau, which is a combination of words for mosaic 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.760 killer or mosaic killer. Um. Of course that took on 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.800 the form of dinosaur because it makes people the name 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.720 Mozilla makes people think of Godzilla um, so they of 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:45.240 course didn't want to I'm sure copyright infringement. So Mozilla's 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:50.840 dinosaur monster blizzard giant thing is that red instead of 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.360 green and really bears no resemblance to UH to Godzilla, 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.839 although the more like a Toyrnosaurus or maybe of a 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.959 lossa raptor. Yes, now there there have also been multiple 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:05.400 incarnations of the design for the critical But yeah, so 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.520 it looks nothing like a Firefox, right the most little 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:13.240 project launches, but it would not be until two thousand 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.640 two before they released Mozilla one point oh. And this 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.880 was a browser that included email client functionality among other features. 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.400 But at that point Internet Explorer was dominant in the market. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.880 It had a market share. So we're talking about a 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:34.040 time where you know, we went from ninety four or 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:38.800 so where UH Netscape had about market share to two 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:41.880 thousand and two where I E now has nine of 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.120 the market share. So this is a good thing to 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:49.520 point out. Things change, really, Yeah, market share can change 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.280 dramatically from one from one decade to the next, or 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.920 even in just the span of a few years. The 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.600 reason why that's important to remember is that we always 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.400 talk about market share as if it is the most 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:02.760 important thing in the world in some cases, like you know, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:08.640 talk about and smartphone adoption or whatever. Um. But it's 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.120 true that these things can change dramatically, and someone who's 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.839 on top, and you would think, oh, this guy is 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.959 going to dominate the market forever, could very easily become 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.600 and also ran in just a few years. And everything 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.280 is relative to um if I if I may step 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.120 on a very small soapbox and only hast room for 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.720 one bars open it. Um. But yeah, I mean, people 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.640 talk about the filling the blank here killer and you know, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.760 those long term listeners will remember that I brought this 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.160 up before. It drives me crazy when people talk about 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.800 the filling the blank killer, because in just a few 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.360 years they'll be talking about whatever that was killer. And 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.480 and in some cases they don't kill so much as 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.720 carve out a niche market and uh and go for it. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:55.280 I mean, um, you know in this case, uh, Internet 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.360 Explorer would have been the Netscape killer, and in some 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:03.760 cases they did. Um, but Mozilla would come back and 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:07.000 carve out its own space, and then Chrome came along 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.760 years later, and it is you know, that's it's sort 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.040 of what's going on right now at the time, same 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.160 as it ever was, you saved as it ever was, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.640 so well, go ahead. I was just gonna say, some 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.720 community members of Mozilla, what's interesting is you've got the 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.080 Mozilla project you've got the Mozilla browser, you still have 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.320 people in the community who don't necessarily think that the 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.880 way that the Mozilla browsers developing is the right way 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.640 to go. And that's the beauty of having an open 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.520 source community is that you don't you know, there's not 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.840 necessarily just one path that you can take. You can 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.960 have multiple paths to try and create the best browser 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.400 experience possible. Yes, some of those community members decided that 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.800 there was there were some issues they had with Mozilla. 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.480 One of them was that they felt that it was 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.600 suffering from feature creep, which is the same thing we 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:58.880 were talking about with nature creep. Yeah, it turns into 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.280 like Dracula and Mummy and then the creature for the 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.200 Black Lagoon and I've been watching too much Supernatural relately 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.640 watched in an episode last night it was about that. Anyway, No, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.680 the idea that that they were again Mozilla was starting 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.920 to become, in their mind bloated the way Netscape pad, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.120 and they did not really think that that was something 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.040 they should pursue. They thought that perhaps they should take 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.640 the code and make something else out of it. So 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:30.920 this group created a browser that they called Phoenix, as 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.440 in Rising from the ashes. Now they were a legendary 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.760 bird that Yeah, yes, the one that was featured heavily 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.840 in the documentary series Harry Potter. Um the uh the 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.200 But it is a fitting it is a fitting image 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:50.640 for this browser, which at one time had been Netscape. 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.320 So Phoenix rises from the ashes, but also tends to 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.640 fall again because it turns out someone else has the 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.360 name Phoenix, so they can't really use it, so they 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.399 renamed it Firebird. That caused a problem because there was 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:09.960 another organization that used the word firebird about distributed software. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.720 So that was an issue. They ended up thinking, okay, okay, okay, 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:18.120 we'll name it something else. We'll call it, uh firefox. Yeah. 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.879 Now firefox has the benefit here of going with the 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.359 fire part at the beginning. Um, but adds another very 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.000 cool animal image in there. Now, a firefox isn't actually 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.320 a fox. It is in fact a red panda, which 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.240 in my opinion are really neat animals. But you know, um, 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.600 and actually recently, um, the Mozilla Foundation has sponsored uh 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.359 the well being of a couple of red pandas in 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.400 the Knoxville, Tennessee zoo. Uh. They even had a webcam 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.439 up which had the little critters running around and playing 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.000 and sleeping and sleeping, which they always seemed to be 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.679 doing right as it tuned in. Oh look, there's and 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.399 down for a up. Um In two thousand three was 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.640 when Mozilla created the Mozilla Foundation, which is an independent, 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.400 nonprofit organization. It's mainly meant to manage the daily operations 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.480 of the Mozilla project. Yeah. Well, and we didn't really 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.879 touch on this, but the remnants of Netscape were purchased 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.080 by America Online, so A O L bought Netscape. But 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:27.120 the Mozilla Foundation has the ability to to go off 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:30.040 and do their own thing here, so they have. Yeah. Yeah. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.399 So two thousand four was when Firefox one point oh 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:38.280 was released, and uh, it became a very popular browser 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.320 very quickly. In less than a year, they had over 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:47.240 one hundred million downloads. So Firefox was quickly kind of 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.520 viewed as the the alternative to Internet Explorer. I can 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.159 hear all the Opera fans out there screaming at me, 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.399 but you know, that's the popular The popular view was 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.200 that Firefox if you didn't want to use Internet ex or, 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.080 you should use Firefox. Yeah. Now, I had actually been 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.359 using Opera up until that point. Um, as I specifically, 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.280 remember a friend of mine going, hey, you know, I 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.000 know you like Opera, but you really should try this 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.000 Firefox out. And I was kind of skeptical because I 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:15.920 was one of the people who was cranky at Netscape 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:20.320 for getting so darn bloated. I tried Netscape Communicator for 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.119 a long time and it just drove me crazy. And 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.680 I didn't like Internet Explorer for the Mac very much. 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.520 So yeah, once, once I tried it, I got hooked. 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:32.720 Give you guys some reference two thousand four. That's around 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.080 the same time that companies like MySpace and Facebook are 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.440 starting to to make a name for themselves. Of course, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.400 at that point, Facebook is strictly a college only experience. 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.240 But yeah, that's that gives you an idea of what's 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.879 going on around that time. It would be two years 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.800 before version two point oh of Firefox came out that 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.720 they would update. They made lots of frequent updates to 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.680 the Firefox browser, but they were all very incremental without 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.919 made your changes to the code point releases. You don't say, 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.200 so it wasn't until you know, it's two years after 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.600 the debut before two point I came out, and it 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.440 was another two years when version three point oh came out, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.760 So it was two thousand eight. Uh. The reason why 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:14.840 I'm bringing this up is it'll be interesting when we 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.840 get to talk about what version is currently help in 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.080 the wild right now as of the recording of this podcast. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:23.720 But um, but yeah, two thousand eight was when version 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.600 three point I was released and Firefox hit twenty of 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.119 the market share. Now, UM, I'd like to bring this 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.640 up because the Mozilla Foundation does a lot more than 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.879 just uh than justin Firefox and pandas and pandas red 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:43.439 pandas they're so cute. Um uh. They also had split 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.320 off some of the other code that was part of Communicator. 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.239 For example, Thunderbird, which is your email client UM is 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.320 UH is sort of the the version that that used 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.879 to be the mail client. And there there was a 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:02.280 unified UM basically the derivative of Communicator itself, the suite, 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:07.679 which was called Sea Monkey UM and they released um 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.199 early versions of that. Thunderbird one point came out on 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.840 December seven, two thousand four, and um uh Sea Monkey 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.960 one point oh came out on January two thousand and six. Now, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:23.760 both of these are probably not as in as much 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.879 in the public eye. Thunderbird more so but Sea Monkey 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.400 certainly not as much as as either one of those two. UM, 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:34.040 but they still do work on those projects and over time, 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:36.080 I just wanted to make sure that we mentioned them. 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:39.520 But overtime, Mozilla has brought Thunderbird up to the same 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:45.280 basically the same version system that firefoxes on. Well, two 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.159 thousand eleven, we have Firefox version four point oh released. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:49.840 I remember that was a big deal. It was the 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.520 one that that came out. And then UM so between 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.679 two thousand eleven and today, this being the end of 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.600 November two thousand twelve when we record this, um they 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:06.000 got busy. So, and this is Google's fault. We're seeing 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:09.360 every couple of years we're seeing a new version of Firefox, 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.080 a new a new version number like one to two, 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.760 two to three, three to four. So you would expect 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.120 that maybe the next you know, version five point oh 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.880 of Firefox probably come out in two thousand thirteen or so. 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:26.080 Not the case. The Firefox operating are of non operating 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:28.119 system a browser. We'll get to the operating system in 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:33.399 a second, is currently at version seventeen as of the 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:35.639 recording of this podcast, So between two thousand and eleven 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.720 and November two thousand twelve. We went from version four 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:41.320 all the way up to seventeen and actually versions eighteen 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.840 and nineteen are both in alpha testing right now. That 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:47.800 is correct, and if you're interested, you can download those versions, 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.160 even a nightly built if you want. Your mileage may vary, yeah, 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.879 day by day, these browsers are changing, and some of 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.480 them may not be what we like to call stable, 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.400 but it just shows shows the massive amounts of change 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.600 that have come out over the last year. Now, now 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.080 what influenced that. It was Google with the Chrome browser 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:16.040 which came out and again, um, Google has a lot 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.680 of resources that it can uh that it can give 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.080 to the Google Chrome project, which itself is a derivative 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:28.760 of Chromium. Um. But Google Chrome came out and started 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:33.560 updating very very quickly, and the folks at the Mozilla 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.440 Foundation realized that in terms of new features being added, 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:41.879 Chrome was out doing Mozilla quite rapidly, so they decided 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.119 to put themselves on a on a rapid release cycle, 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:48.120 to which frustrated a lot of people because Firefox, more 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.639 so than Chrome, has been the standard by which companies operate. 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:56.520 Uh Internet Explorer or or Firefox, um, you know, not Safari, 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.399 not not Opera, not not Chrome and um, so they've 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.919 they've been on not as on a scale that's not 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.760