Slashdot Mirror


The History of Mozilla Firefox

Gsurface writes "Flexbeta has an article based on the history of Mozilla Firefox. The article goes build-by-build of every Firefox release since the early Phoenix days noting some of the most significant changes in every release."

4 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. Smart thinking... by CyanDisaster · · Score: 0, Redundant

    When I tried viewing page two of the article, I got the following message:

    There is a problem with the database that is preventing the site from working.

    An email has been sent to the administrator notifying them of the problem. Please try again later.


    Now, not only is their site slashdotted, but their mail server as well.

    Hope be with ye, Cyan

  2. Slashdotted? WHO KNEW. by pinchhazard · · Score: -1, Redundant

    There is a problem with the database that is preventing the site from working.

    An email has been sent to the administrator notifying them of the problem. Please try again later.

    Sending the admin an e-mail every time someone's unable to access the site? That should help the bandwidth issues.

    --
    Do you love freedom??? Do you love freedom!!! DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM!!!!!!!!
  3. Lots of emails by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Dude, you guys stop it, we're spamming the administrator!

  4. 2nd Page. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    The History of Mozilla Firefox: From Phoenix, to Firebird, to Firefox
    Posted by Team Flexbeta on 30 March 2005 (3488 views) Rating: 5

    Page 2 - Phoenix 0.1 - 0.3
    Phoenix 0.1
    Firefox begins not as Firefox, but as Phoenix, which was initially made public on September 23, 2002. The Phoenix browser, which uses a large amount of the Mozilla code, was designed to be a lean and fast browser that loads in about half the time of Mozilla. The initial release was codenamed "Pescadero", which means fisherman in Spanish, with a build of 0.1. Phoenix did not feature an installer, rather the user had to download the file and run the executable. Though the menus were customizable, there wasn't much to add to the toolbar. The only items that were available were the home icon, print icon, a go button and a button to go to the Mozilla home page. Though still a baby, Phoenix had a lot to offer such as a download manager which IE did not contain. Looking into the preferences, Phoenix 0.1 had little options for the user (compared to newer builds). This initial build did not contain a Google search engine on the toolbar, but it did contain a popup blocker and tabbed browsing. Certain shortcut features such as writing the URL then pressing Ctrl + Enter to automatically enter the .COM part of the URL was not available in 0.1. Phoenix 0.1 did not include a sidebar, which in the second release the Mozilla team would implement it.

    Phoenix 0.2
    The second release of Mozilla Phoenix, build 0.2, codenamed Santa Cruz, was released a few days after 0.1 on October 10th, 2002. Plenty of features were added to this new build including the sidebar, which allowed the user to view either their bookmarks, history, or recent downloads as a side window of the browser. Other enhancements were implemented including new options to the preferences section. Now users were able to disable Java and edit some tab browsing options. Phoenix 0.2 also introduced the ability to add extensions and themes to the browser.

    The toolbar customization went through a huge overhaul. The user was able to add much more icons to their toolbar including a history icon, downloads, bookmarks, new window and a search bar. The search bar was for searching on the current page, dmoz.org, and Google, of course. Phoenix 0.2 was also marginally faster than 0.1, though it was very hard to notice the difference. Though some bugs were fixed in this build, the Mozilla team concentrated more on enhancing the browser and dedicated most their time in doing so.

    Phoenix 0.3
    Phoenix 0.3 was the first time the Mozilla team integrated the search engine by default on the toolbar. Also, the stop button and the refresh button were moved from the right hand side of the toolbar to the opposite side. The icons on the toolbar also decrease in size from the previous build. The preferences found its way into the Tools drop down list. Phoenix 0.3 also integrated the ability for the user to block images from a certain website. This build also was the first to see the popup blocker "whitelisting" feature, which let users choose which websites are allowed to show popup windows. Adding a website to the "whitelisting" feature however was only possible if that website generated a popup, there were no options from within preferences to enter the URL manually. Phoenix 0.3 also saw a drop in file size, shrinking approximately 1MB when compared to its previous build, 0.2.

    There are Pictures too but I don't have a place to host them.