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Mozilla's Goodger on Firefox's Future
An anonymous reader writes "The New Zealand Herald has an interview with Ben Goodger, lead engineer for Firefox at the Mozilla foundation. In it he describes how he got started, his reasons for Firefox's existence and what the future may hold for the little browser that could."
Slow already, so here goes:
Kiwi helping build browser
17.09.2004
By PAUL BRISLEN
The web browser wars are over and Microsoft won, right?
Well someone's forgotten to tell Ben Goodger and his team at the Mozilla Foundation because this Kiwi software engineer is taking market share from Internet Explorer (IE) with Firefox, the browser that's smaller yet smarter than anything else available.
Goodger, back in New Zealand this week visiting family and friends, works for the Mozilla Foundation and has been the lead engineer on Firefox throughout its development.
He began while still at the University of Auckland waiting for the launch of Netscape 5.0.
"I used Netscape 4.0 and basically was just designing web pages and doing web development work."
The wait for version 5.0 was a long one and when Netscape finally ceased development work on its browser and opened up the source code to the Mozilla Foundation, Goodger found himself taking time off to work in the US on the browser itself.
Today he leads a relatively small team of engineers who are hard at work preparing for the release of Firefox version 1.0 and the Kiwi input is hard to miss.
The code names for the previous versions of Firefox include Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill and Greenlane.
Firefox has generated an enormous amount of interest among hardcore internet users around the world and for the first time has taken market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Goodger said the figures themselves varied depending on the source but US-based web training organisation W3Schools claimed IE 6.0 peaked in May of this year with 72.6 per cent market share among its "early adopter" users and had fallen back to 68.3 per cent in August.
That's the first time IE has declined in market share since its release and could mark the turning point for the browser community.
The mainstream audience is still firmly in the grasp of IE, however, with figures in excess of 90 per cent reported by several different organisations.
Most, however, report that IE is losing ground to Mozilla-based browsers and most of those switching are using Firefox.
In its first day of release the latest version of Firefox was downloaded more than 300,000 times.
So what is it about Firefox that's attracting users? Goodger said it was a combination of things.
"Some like the added features, some like the smaller size of the browser. It really depends."
Goodger is quick to point out that while Firefox is smaller than other browsers, that doesn't mean it's a "lite" version of a browser.
"It's fully featured. In fact if anything it's got more features that people use than many browsers."
Goodger and his team have been working with one goal in mind: to make a browser that makes the internet simple again.
"Do you remember how it was when you first went online? It was easier to search for things, easier to find things, there were fewer annoyances.
"That's what we want to get back to."
Goodger said Firefox gave users the chance to block pop-up windows, the bane of many users' lives, but went beyond that.
Because the browser was not tied in to the operating system, something Microsoft touted as a benefit for IE users, it was not prone to the same security vulnerabilities as IE.
"We also wanted to make the searching experience much easier for users."
Consequently Firefox has a Google search box built in and allows users to search within a web page simply by typing in the word they're looking for without having to launch a separate search box.
Goodger's favourite feature, however, is Firefox's smart keywords utility.
"It's something that's a little bit hidden so people have been slow to find it but when they do it blows them away."
Users might, for example, regularly use the company phone book online so Firefox allows them to add that search to their browser.
"So yo
Ben Goodger is lead engineer on the development of Firefox. Picture/ Martin Sykes
Kiwi helping build browser
17.09.2004
By PAUL BRISLEN
The web browser wars are over and Microsoft won, right?
Well someone's forgotten to tell Ben Goodger and his team at the Mozilla Foundation because this Kiwi software engineer is taking market share from Internet Explorer (IE) with Firefox, the browser that's smaller yet smarter than anything else available.
Goodger, back in New Zealand this week visiting family and friends, works for the Mozilla Foundation and has been the lead engineer on Firefox throughout its development.
He began while still at the University of Auckland waiting for the launch of Netscape 5.0.
"I used Netscape 4.0 and basically was just designing web pages and doing web development work."
The wait for version 5.0 was a long one and when Netscape finally ceased development work on its browser and opened up the source code to the Mozilla Foundation, Goodger found himself taking time off to work in the US on the browser itself.
Today he leads a relatively small team of engineers who are hard at work preparing for the release of Firefox version 1.0 and the Kiwi input is hard to miss.
The code names for the previous versions of Firefox include Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill and Greenlane.
Firefox has generated an enormous amount of interest among hardcore internet users around the world and for the first time has taken market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Goodger said the figures themselves varied depending on the source but US-based web training organisation W3Schools claimed IE 6.0 peaked in May of this year with 72.6 per cent market share among its "early adopter" users and had fallen back to 68.3 per cent in August.
That's the first time IE has declined in market share since its release and could mark the turning point for the browser community.
The mainstream audience is still firmly in the grasp of IE, however, with figures in excess of 90 per cent reported by several different organisations.
Most, however, report that IE is losing ground to Mozilla-based browsers and most of those switching are using Firefox.
In its first day of release the latest version of Firefox was downloaded more than 300,000 times.
So what is it about Firefox that's attracting users? Goodger said it was a combination of things.
"Some like the added features, some like the smaller size of the browser. It really depends."
Goodger is quick to point out that while Firefox is smaller than other browsers, that doesn't mean it's a "lite" version of a browser.
"It's fully featured. In fact if anything it's got more features that people use than many browsers."
Goodger and his team have been working with one goal in mind: to make a browser that makes the internet simple again.
"Do you remember how it was when you first went online? It was easier to search for things, easier to find things, there were fewer annoyances.
"That's what we want to get back to."
Goodger said Firefox gave users the chance to block pop-up windows, the bane of many users' lives, but went beyond that.
Because the browser was not tied in to the operating system, something Microsoft touted as a benefit for IE users, it was not prone to the same security vulnerabilities as IE.
"We also wanted to make the searching experience much easier for users."
Consequently Firefox has a Google search box built in and allows users to search within a web page simply by typing in the word they're looking for without having to launch a separate search box.
Goodger's favourite feature, however, is Firefox's smart keywords utility.
"It's something that's a little bit hidden so people have been slow to find it but when they do it blows them away."
Users might, for example, regularly use the company phone book online so Firefox allows th
Err...my spelling is admittedly terrible. As for my grammar errors, I haven't slept in a week, and O-Chem is eating my brain. Have mercy on me.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.