5 ms·

I remember making the jump from Netscape 4.72 to Mozilla 1.2, modulo a little dalliance with IE when it was still ahead of the curve. I've been on Mozilla/Firef

I remember making the jump from Netscape 4.72 to Mozilla 1.2, modulo a little dalliance with IE when it was still ahead of the curve. I've been on Mozilla/Firefox ever since, and never made the jump to Chrome as my main browser (though I have it installed). Firefox just keeps getting better and better, and I'm delighted at how the friendly competition between Firefox and Chrome is driving faster improvement to both, rather than the divisive extend/embrace/extinguish competition between Netscape and IE.

kibwen 14y ago
Ah, Netscape! I still have its throbber animation[1] indelibly burnt into my memory. I also still remember being a bit baffled as to all the excitement people were expressing over something as mundane as a web browser. Remember the full-spread two-page launch ad in the New York Times?[2] Firefox was probably the first time I'd ever heard of something "open source" in my entire life. And of course, tabbed browsing was love at first sight. [1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/about-nscp-anim.gif http://www.jwz.org/doc/about-nscp-anim.gif [2] http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/press/mozilla-2004-12-15.html http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/press/mozilla-2004-12-15.html
- T-hawk 14y ago
  Opera had tabbed browsing way before anyone else, in 2000. And actually even before that by handling pages as MDI document windows in its early versions. I used Opera all through the long night of IE6 hegemony, although always ready to switch back to IE whenever a site didn't work in Opera. There was a good, actively developed, standards-compliant browser available that whole time. It just never caught on in terms of popularity and mindshare. I hardly even noticed Firefox until around version 3.
  - kibwen 14y ago
    I didn't intend to downplay the importance of Opera, I just hadn't heard of it until I was well into college (during which I used it as my primary browser for about half a year; to this day I still have Opera's back/forward mouse-button rocker gestures mapped in Firefox). There's no question (afaik) that Opera was the first to get on the tab train.
    - brokenparser 14y ago
      They weren't even tabs when Opera invented them. It just had a toolbar at the bottom, see here: http://i.imgur.com/bURNJ.gif http://i.imgur.com/bURNJ.gif This is the ad-supported version 5, you had to enter a key to remove them. Prior versions were shareware. StarOffice had a similar idea but they made an effort to show where they were drawing inspiration from: http://i.imgur.com/fiQ5c.jpg http://i.imgur.com/fiQ5c.jpg (For those who are wondering, yes LibreOffice is its legacy.)

kibwen 14y ago

Ah, Netscape! I still have its throbber animation[1] indelibly burnt into my memory. I also still remember being a bit baffled as to all the excitement people were expressing over something as mundane as a web browser. Remember the full-spread two-page launch ad in the New York Times?[2] Firefox was probably the first time I'd ever heard of something "open source" in my entire life. And of course, tabbed browsing was love at first sight. [1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/about-nscp-anim.gif http://www.jwz.org/doc/about-nscp-anim.gif [2] http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/press/mozilla-2004-12-15.html http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/press/mozilla-2004-12-15.html

T-hawk 14y ago
Opera had tabbed browsing way before anyone else, in 2000. And actually even before that by handling pages as MDI document windows in its early versions. I used Opera all through the long night of IE6 hegemony, although always ready to switch back to IE whenever a site didn't work in Opera. There was a good, actively developed, standards-compliant browser available that whole time. It just never caught on in terms of popularity and mindshare. I hardly even noticed Firefox until around version 3.
- kibwen 14y ago
  I didn't intend to downplay the importance of Opera, I just hadn't heard of it until I was well into college (during which I used it as my primary browser for about half a year; to this day I still have Opera's back/forward mouse-button rocker gestures mapped in Firefox). There's no question (afaik) that Opera was the first to get on the tab train.
  - brokenparser 14y ago
    They weren't even tabs when Opera invented them. It just had a toolbar at the bottom, see here: http://i.imgur.com/bURNJ.gif http://i.imgur.com/bURNJ.gif This is the ad-supported version 5, you had to enter a key to remove them. Prior versions were shareware. StarOffice had a similar idea but they made an effort to show where they were drawing inspiration from: http://i.imgur.com/fiQ5c.jpg http://i.imgur.com/fiQ5c.jpg (For those who are wondering, yes LibreOffice is its legacy.)