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Happy 5th Birthday To Firefox

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they-get-bloated-so-fast dept.

halfEvilTech writes "Five years ago today, Mozilla released Firefox 1.0. Ars celebrates the occasion by taking a trip back in time to revisit our classic coverage of the original release." For fun, we dug up the oldest Slashdot Firefox story, which was a Firebird story proclaiming yet another name change from Feb '04. At least this name change stuck.

61 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. A cake is in order by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think Microsoft should send them a cake to celebrate.

    --
    Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    1. Re:A cake is in order by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      A "Thanks for trying but we are still #1" cake?

    2. Re:A cake is in order by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Don't fall for it, Mozilla! The cake is a lie!

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:A cake is in order by garcia · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I was going to say something like, "thanks for beginning as a faster and better alternative but ending up just as bloated and crappy as we are" cake.

    4. Re:A cake is in order by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      lol! elrous0 strikes again with his knowledge of yesteryear's pop culture references

    5. Re:A cake is in order by WED+Fan · · Score: 4, Funny

      A big, ever bloating cake that is all flavors to everyone, that allows you to extend it with pie and ice cream and allows you to skin it so it looks like a steak.

      --
      Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
    6. Re:A cake is in order by H0p313ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A "Thanks for trying but we are still #1" cake?

      More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve". I have long argued that the role of OSS isn't necessarily to take over the world but to make it a better place by doing things better for free than most companies do for profit. (Sort of like the NDP party in Canada, they'll never run the country because every time they have a good idea the Liberals take it, implement it and claim it as their own.)

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    7. Re:A cake is in order by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Informative

      These comments remind me of this video (where Mac and PC get poisoned with a cake):

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mg6wrYCT9Q

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    8. Re:A cake is in order by slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More like "thanks for raising the bar and forcing us to improve".

      This!

      I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting. Once a few thousand geeks realised there was nothing inherent about the PC platform that prevented things like this, and memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking etc., there was a strong market incentive for Windows to improve.

      I don't think Windows would be as good as it is today if it weren't for competition from Linux. I'm sure MSIE would be far, far worse if it weren't for Firefox. (Yes, yes, OK, Opera. But for years Opera cost money.)

    9. Re:A cake is in order by inhuman_4 · · Score: 2, Funny

      (Sort of like the NDP party in Canada, they'll never run the country because every time they have a good idea the Liberals take it, implement it and claim it as their own.)

      The NDP had a good idea?

    10. Re:A cake is in order by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Meh, I can tell you why Internet Explorer has any market share at all - because there's millions and millions of corporate PCs where it is too much trouble to get anything else installed. I end up using it on a regular basis for no particular other reason than it's there. Just like my #1 most used graphics application at work is MS Paint to crop screenshots, doesn't mean it competes with Photoshop or really anything at all, just that it works good enough you don't get anything else installed. Even corporate intranets are starting to figure out it's not 2001 anymore, but there's still not a big return on switching or offering multiple alternatives...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    11. Re:A cake is in order by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's a trap! ;)

      Honestly, I remember that one and thought it was nice of them.
      They also did it again for Firefox 3. :)

      http://www.openbuddha.com/2008/06/17/ie-sends-mozilla-a-new-cake-for-firefox-3/

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    12. Re:A cake is in order by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember in the days of Windows 3.1, it seemed like a big deal that you could change IP address on Linux without rebooting.

      I remember being in a meeting with a bunch of windows people... guys were talking about changing IP addresses on WfW.. not being familiar with Windows (but familiar with TCP/IP on Unix and Unix-like systems) I asked "why on earth do you need to reboot just to change an IP address?"... everybody in the room turned to look at me like I had grown an extra arm out of the top of my head.

      I couldn't believe it when they told me that Windows needed a reboot for that. It *still* boggles my mind.

    13. Re:A cake is in order by Nerdposeur · · Score: 3, Interesting

      FYI - If you're using Paint to crop photos, Paint.net is a free program that does much better resizing, cropping, saving in different formats, and a lot else (although the rest may not matter to you).

      I don't do much with images besides crop and resize, but I still strongly prefer Paint.net to Paint.

    14. Re:A cake is in order by Nerdposeur · · Score: 4, Informative

      News for nerds. Stuff that matters (to nerds).

    15. Re:A cake is in order by ebh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then there are mandates: Our internal corporate web site FORCES you to use IE for much of its content, for two reasons. Internally developed web apps are only tested on IE, because the beancounters won't give IT the budget to test and certify on anything else, nor will they give tech support even the meager extra money to handle the calls where they say to Firefox users, "What part of 'Only supported on IE' didn't you understand?". External apps (benefits, etc.) may or may not be supported on browsers other than IE, but nothing's *not* supported on IE.

  2. Original Firefox goals forgotten... by jkrise · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Instead of being a small, simple browser that just did one thing well; Firefox has become way too bloated and indeed the plans for the future seem to impart it with a ribbon-like interface and more nonsensical things. Doesn't sound too good for a nice well-loved product.

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    1. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      uh. what?
      First off, there isn't going to be any ribbon interface.
      Secondly, Firefox is still focused on only being a browser, nothing else.
      What is this bloat?
      addons.mozilla.org is where all the bloat is.

    2. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by slim · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which piece of bloat would you remove first?

    3. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Neil+Hodges · · Score: 4, Informative

      GP is confused due to this sort of news. Parent is correct in that there will be no such interface.

    4. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thanks non-AC.
      And of course, if you get right down to it...
      http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

      Now of course, Firefox has a process-per-tab build too, I just hope it never becomes default. (although forcing plugins into a separate process might be nice, esp since I whitelist Flash anyway)

      In terms of rendering speed, Firefox tends to be slightly ahead on rendering, and TM/SFX/V8 are basically all tied up way beyond IE8's JScript. TM does have a couple of issues. I'd say the work on implementing merge traces should help the most w/ things like jsMSX, and expanding the size of strings with its problems in string tests.
      TM, last I checked, still has more efficient arrays than V8.

    5. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Secondly, Firefox is still focused on only being a browser, nothing else.

      Exactly. Firefox has certainly got bigger over the years (though of course not bigger than its ancestor Mozilla), but it has also grown in the features it provides. If it had stayed at the minimal functional level it had at the earliest levels of its development, everybody would be whining that it doesn't offer enough features.

      We can't have it both ways. If we want more features, then we have to accept that they will take more codespace. Simple as that.

    6. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by characterZer0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Awesomebar.

      --
      Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    7. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by y5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can't believe I'm making this point, but here goes...

      As a web developer I actually appreciate the bloat. The average user does not have patience to look for extensions that fill in the core features that other browsers offer. Without the "bloat", those users would have likely stayed with IE, Microsoft would have no motivation to improve, and we'd likely be stuck developing for something much closer to IE6... ugh...

      So for me, bloat is forgivable -- I'm just happy we're finally at a spot where web standards are taking hold. It's hard for Microsoft to embrace and extend they're losing so much ground.

      Happy Birthday, Firefox =)

    8. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Chunky+Kibbles · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The [not] "awesome bar".

      Somehow it always makes it harder to find what I want, not easier [eg, for some reason, it appears to have decided that penny-arcade.com is the correct url when I type in "facebook"]

      And no; "just turn it off" studiously avoids the OP's complaint - which was that things like this shouldn't have needed to be added in the first place. How soon we forget - the name "phoenix" didn't even appeared in the news post [although it is in TFA].

    9. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Pascal+Sartoretti · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which piece of bloat would you remove first?

      I am sure that many will say "the awesome bar". I don't. In fact, I use it so much that I think that I could now live without bookmarks.

      YMMV, of course.

    10. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can disable it entirely (the functionality not just the look) in FF3.5, so what exactly is your problem with me using it?

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    11. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by BZ · · Score: 4, Informative

      Gecko's memory usage now is less than it was in the early 2000s in many cases. So this particular program is actually using less memory than it was in the early 2000s. Since just the shared libraries for it are bigger than 32MB (uncompressed, on some OSes, etc), it's hard to see how it could fit in 32MB of RAM...

      If your question is why there are these big shared libraries, the answer is that it's trying to do too much. The SVG1.1 spec is about 800 pages last I checked. And this is not because it goes into excruciating detail or anything. The CSS2.1 spec is about 300 pages (and while it's better on the detail, it's not perfect). You just end up with a huge gob of code to handle all those behaviors the huge specs require.

      How much memory do you think a web browser handling modern web standards should take up? How does that number stack up against existing web browsers?

      There's also the data set. People think nothing of sending hundreds of kilobytes of JS per page to the browser (last I checked, cnn.com has upwards of 500KB of JS just linked directly from the page; who knows whether they load more?). People think nothing of sending large amounts of graphics, etc.

      Which brings us to the last point: programs are bigger because they _can_ be. If you have to fit into 32MB of RAM, then you can't just decode a 3000px by 3000px image into memory (it's be 4 * 3000 * 3000 bytes, or 36MB). You do it piece by piece and forget the pieces after painting them, or something. You don't even cache decoded smaller images, since it's so easy for that to fill up memory. If you feel like you have more ram to work with, you might make the space/performance tradeoff of keeping the decoded image in memory instead of decoding on every paint...

    12. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Instead of being a small, simple browser that just did one thing well; Firefox has become way too bloated and indeed the plans for the future seem to impart it with a ribbon-like interface and more nonsensical things. Doesn't sound too good for a nice well-loved product.

      The original goal was to make a browser that was just a browser, not a suite of browsing, mail, newsgroups...

      Firefox is still that. This is why the Thunderbird project was started, and is still going, for that matter.

      It was intented to be a project that did a browser, and did a browser well. It wasn't about making minimalist barebones features everywhere. There are other browsers for even leaner feature sets.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    13. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by slim · · Score: 3, Informative

      1. Most of the Web needs JS now. Without it, you get a niche browser most people won't use.

      2. An awful lot of FF is written in JS.

    14. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by bcrowell · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You can disable it entirely (the functionality not just the look) in FF3.5, so what exactly is your problem with me using it?

      I spent a lot of time learning how to disable it as much as possible in firefox 3.0. It was a huge time-sink, and I still didn't succeed in disabling it entirely. So that in itself is a problem: there is functionality that a lot of people wanted to disable, and hated so much that they were willing to work hard to disable it, but they couldn't disable it. This reminds me of the situation with IE on Windows. A lot of people put a lot of effort into figuring out how to remove IE from Windows. Basically it's impossible to completely remove it. I think any unbiased observer would agree that this is a bad thing.

      Are you saying that as of firefox 3.5 it is now possible (which it wasn't in 3.0) to easily and completely disable the awesome bar? If so then (a) please tell me how to do it, and (b) the fact that it's such a well-kept secret how to remove it shows that there is a problem with loading this much bloat into the browser.

      --
      Find free books.
    15. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 2, Informative

      a) preferences, privacy>suggest results from:>Nothing

      b) It's not a well-kept secret it's just some people prefer to bitch about stuff rather than bother looking

      A lot of people put a lot of effort into figuring out how to remove IE from Windows. Basically it's impossible to completely remove it. I think any unbiased observer would agree that this is a bad thing.

      No i think people that remove IE from windows are idiots, if you don't like some functionality don't use it, removing it from the OS to save 100MB on a 7GB install is a waste of time.

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    16. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by mrdoogee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Count me among the folks who was initially resistant to the Awesomebar. I even went as far as downloading addons to turn it off (well the look of it at least). But strangely enough when 3.5 came out, I left it on, and now I find it quite useful.

      Of course, in 3.5 I did have to re-edit my userChrome.css so that closing all tabs leaves the application window open.

      oh well. I'll keep using FF until somebody builds a better ad blocker than adblock+ for Firefox. That's MY killer app.

    17. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by bcrowell · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes. It's about:config, then set "browser.urlbar.maxRichResults" to ZERO. Simple enough?

      Nope, I already knew about that setting, and it actually doesn't turn off the awesombar's behavior. Here are the two configuration settings that I know of that I've already applied:

      user_pref("browser.urlbar.maxRichResults",4); // only show 4 matches when typing in url bar
      user_pref("browser.urlbar.matchBehavior",2); // only match at word boundaries when typing in url bar

      With these settings, I still don't get back the pre-awesomebar behavior. When I type in a partial URL, it still shows me matches based on the text of the web page, not just the URL.

      --
      Find free books.
    18. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by BenoitRen · · Score: 2, Informative

      a small, simple browser that just did one thing well

      That that was the goal is a myth. These were the real goals of Firefox:

      Beginning with the core Mozilla code, unnecessary UI was removed, existing UI were refined and new UI added with the goal of providing efficient (speedy, easy to use, useful) web access. The goal was, and is not to have more or less features than any other client (Mozilla included) but to have the right set of features to let people get their jobs done.

      From the Mozilla Firefox Development Charter.

    19. Re:Original Firefox goals forgotten... by BenoitRen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Removing an application that you don't use is not something idiots do. It's only logical. Do you install Windows with every application it comes with? No? Why not? Right, because you don't use all of them!

      Who the fuck cares if it's only 100MB (which is a lot for a single application, I might add, even Firefox isn't that big)? That's 100MB they could have used for something else that they do use!

  3. Obligitory memory joke by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 3, Funny

    5 years old? It's getting on a bit and I imagine its memory is starting to suffer a bit. You could almost go as far as to say that it's memory might start leaking soon.

    --
    Summation 2
  4. cookies are delicious delicacies by syrinx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Been using it since one of the early Phoenix versions (0.4 probably) in late 2002. It has come a long way, certainly, though not everything is good, as everyone's posts about "bloat" show. Still, I much prefer it over any other browser.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
    1. Re:cookies are delicious delicacies by donaggie03 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You may have jumped the gun a bit there. While I'm sure there's bound to be a few posts complaining about bloat, as of right now, there is only one serious one in this disucssion.

      --
      Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
  5. The addons deserve the real praise by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Firefox is great. But it's all the amazing addons that make it really shine. So kudos to Mozilla, but even more kudos to all the hard-working code monkeys who gave us addons like NoScript, Adblock, and (appropriate for this forum) Slashdotter.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. Open source cake! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Recipes here. You can pick your own and then compile it yourself:-)

    http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/Cake

  7. So bloated... by Ardeaem · · Score: 4, Funny

    Come on, Firefox has such bad feature bloat. I just use Emacs-w3m to surf. It's just as nice, but instead of feature bloat, you get the web via Emacs!

    1. Re:So bloated... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      bad feature bloat

      Emacs

      You broke my sarcasm meter. Thanks.

  8. ...All together now! by charleste · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes
    Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes
    Hippo Birdie, dear Firefox
    Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes

    No one else sang.

    1. Re:...All together now! by RealGrouchy · · Score: 3, Funny

      No one else sang.

      Yet it still managed to be out of tune.

      - RG>

      --
      Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
    2. Re:...All together now! by Ant+P. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He didn't want to get fined $150k.

  9. Comments about bloat by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While it is fun to say that Firefox is all bloated now in comparison to when it started (and many comments above seem to say that) this misses four points: 1) Software naturally becomes larger with more features over time. 2) Many of the features added are very good and very helpful 3) We live in an era where memory is not a precious commodity. It isn't like you are going to have a problem if you can't fit your web browsing program on your floppy disk or can't run it on 64K of memory. The real issue with Firefox is much more limited: There are memory leaking and stability issues that should have been better handled by now. Instead of adding all the features that have been added (some of which are very nice) many people would likely simply prefer to have just the really commonly used features and have it not crash so frequently.

    1. Re:Comments about bloat by Marcika · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of all things, why should a *web browser* be a memory pig?

      Because people want it to be. People want the browser to not only remember the browser history of 10 tabs 20-deep, but to cache it in RAM as well, so that the Forward and Back buttons feel responsive and the hard drive is not thrashing all the time. Since each of these pages has all the bloat of JavaScript, CSS or even Flash, it adds up. (And of course you can reconfigure Firefox to a small footprint if you want...)

    2. Re:Comments about bloat by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you seriously believe firefox will test the 4GB limit?

      Of course... Here is from my home system — the two instances belong to my (very) significant other and myself:
      PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE C TIME WCPU COMMAND
      4954 i 10 47 0 1798M 637M ucond 2 0:00 9.47% firefox-bi
      48498 mi 11 45 0 1150M 810M ucond 3 0:00 13.09% firefox-bi
      ...

      Three times more windows/tabs — or simply more visits to something "heavy" (like Google Maps), and she is done... And that's without Flash, which is not available for our platform...

      Now, the actual memory consumption is smaller, than the total size, but on a 32-bit system, that does not matter — you are limited by 4Gb per process, because 2^32 is 4Gb... My system is, actually, a 64-bit one (FreeBSD/amd64), so I am "prepared" for Firefox to exceed 4Gb. My Firefox at work (RHEL-5.4, 32-bit) is currently under 1Gb, but that's because it crashes about daily (probably, due to Flash — or because some of the bugs that the FreeBSD ports fix, that are present in the "official" builds, don't know), and thus has less time to leak...

      Another note, of course, is that simply by building in 64-bit mode, you significantly increase the sizes of many internal data structures (which hold pointers to other structs — each pointer is now twice bigger). Still, I don't think, that overhead is more than 10-15% of the total memory consumption...

      So, yes, the 4Gb ceiling is within reach, even if most people don't yet hit it often...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  10. 5 Years by pgn674 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's the Slashdot story from 5 years ago: Slashdot | Firefox 1.0 Released

  11. When ever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot by viralMeme · · Score: 2, Funny

    When ever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot, always mention the memory leak problem .. :)

    1. Re:When ever Firefox is mentioned on slashdot by comm2k · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Funny looking at the original slashdot story from 5 years ago there is at least one comment saying that FF/TB eat a lot of memory. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=129027&cid=10765186

  12. MOD Parent UP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This isn't a troll. It's a hilarious comment that pokes fun at the fact the original poster's comment really wasn't that funny. There needs to be more comments like this to discourage people from trotting out the same tired jokes that weren't really that funny back when they were popular.

    elrous0 needs to learn to be more original or just not say anything at all.

  13. NY Times Ad by bucklesl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't believe it will have been 5 years in December since supporters chipped in to place an ad in the NY Times. I'd definitely help place another one if only to get my name in the paper again! I hear the NY Times needs the revenue (*cough* adblock *cough*).

    --
    help fill in hidden movie endings @ End of the Credits
  14. Anyone using Lynx? by rmcd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just curious to know if I'm alone. As the web has gotten more bloated (not just firefox), I find I use lynx more for quick, routine checking of websites. And you can script it.

    I like firefox a lot, but sometimes Lynx is better.

    1. Re:Anyone using Lynx? by Hatta · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why use lynx? Why not use something that renders a little more nicely, like elinks or w3m? There's even image support if you want it. There's also dillo, which is graphical, but still really fast as it doesn't support things like javascript. I can't think of any reason to use lynx anymore.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:Anyone using Lynx? by JeffSchwab · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not sure why this got modded "funny." A lot of my Linux interaction is command-line only, and elinks is a life-saver. On occasion, e.g. when the only documentation for a package is in HTML, the console-mode browser is almost indispensable.

  15. 5 years now? Seems longer... by cygnusx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've been using Firefox since Phoenix 0.5 (December 2002 iirc, almost seven years now) and I have to say, the community process and the extensions make Firefox what it is.

    Yes, these days there's another open source browser on the block (Chrome) and it too is very good. But it's great to have Mozilla and Firefox around because you can be sure that Mozilla will look after users' interests far more than Google or Microsoft will. If nothing else, it keeps the others honest.

    So congratulations Firefox, and here's to five more years!

  16. Re:I've been using it since by wiredog · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was running Linux from 1995 on. No IE on Linux.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  17. Microsoft's open source cake recipe just for Moz.. by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Funny

    One marthlow of flour
    Two wigguns salt
    Four bloggerts of sugar
    1/10th bloggert salt
    1/2 poind MS strychnine (add more for extra flavor)

    Beat, stir, bake at 20 degrees (Microsoft degrees) for one MS minute
    Dump honey on it for frosting.

    Enjoy!

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  18. Oldest Firefox (then Phoenix) story on Slashdot by loren · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hmm... This is the initial announcement I found from Sept 24, 2002... Back before the project was renamed Firebird, then FireFox

      Enjoy: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/24/1215252

    --

    Loren Osborn

    Software isn't software without source code. -- NASA