With a decade, Firefox!

Rise against the Empire

In 2004, it seemed that Microsoft would take over the browser market for a long time. Then an open and practical browser called Firefox appeared. And the web has forever ceased to be the same.

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Almost exactly ten years ago, Ognelis officially began its existence. He became interested in many, especially from version 1.0 (which, by the way, was not released for a long time, as the developer said: “1.0 will be released only when we are sure”). In the Mozilla style, Firefox developers distributed the code of their product so that everyone can study and improve it. After the release, there were millions of suggestions for improving the program, as it was an integral part of the Internet user.



Just a couple of years before this event, in 2002 and 2003, few people had heard of an organization like Mozilla. And I was no exception.

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Before the launch of Firefox, Mozilla was known only as a crazy non-profit company. This small group of hackers, known as Mozillians, was looking for a project for themselves that no one thought about or suspected that he really needed him. Nobody knew that they will create exactly the browser. Everyone used IE, which Microsoft built into Windows by default. In 2004, Internet Explorer was installed on 95% of the computers in the world.



Yes, I am ready to repeat, since this figure seems impossible at the present time. 95 percent!



WTF? What's happened?!



IE really colonized the entire Internet. Microsoft will later try to get everyone to work with Silverlight, a development tool. (If I were younger, I would probably leave some picky comment, but let it be an exercise for you, Reader.)



The development of web technologies has stalled. Microsoft completed it, and all innovations have sunk into the abyss.



And then Firefox appeared. Waited for him.



Firefox came to us not just as a breakthrough or another Mozilla project. Mozilla has created a set of tools, including an email client. Even Mozillians did not do without creating just a browser that would not enter something extra. But this is not our decision.



In the first month after the release, millions of people found Firefox and started using it only. In 2013, we can say that a million is not such a big number, considering the number of users and the number of their devices, but then it was a very successful start.



Together with the Fox, which was rapidly gaining the number of downloads, and Firebug, an extension for web development, the Internet began to revive.



The fact that everyone considered the Internet a dying out a month ago seemed true to everyone, but that had all changed. Yesterday’s truth has become today's stupidity.



The development team that attempted to attack 95% of the browser market has become great. She was praised for taking the chance to solve the right problems at the right time.



And thank them for that. They revived the Internet.



Mozilla opened for us a new network, and especially the era of mobile devices, so popular in 2014. It is this organization that took away the palm of Microsoft from Microsoft (Firefox has already used more than a billion people on devices). The appearance of such a developer-oriented browser meant that new useful services such as Delicio.us and StumbleUpon, as well as Gmail and Pandora, could come to the web. It is also a story about the success of a small group of programmers who overcame a large corporation, many times larger than them.



The work of the Mozillians group, which has been striving to constantly release new Firefox all these 10 years, has changed so much and for many. This opened the curtain of modern technology.



I recently saw the goals of the Mozilla group. They are impressive. For me, it is a great joy that this once-small organization still seeks to help people, make the web just for them, fight for their privacy. I hope that their noble mission will last for a long time.



Happy birthday, Firefox! Congratulations to all those who have played a role in the Mozilla Foundation over the past 10 years. There are still a lot of tasks ahead of us. Keep it up!



Thanks again ilusha_sergeevich