Results tagged “firefox”

Before it was called Firefox, or Firebird, Mozilla’s lightweight browser was known as Phoenix. An appropriate name, given than it rose from the ashes of Netscape. Read/WriteWeb has a nice retrospective pegged to the fourth anniversary of the creation of the Mozilla Foundation. It quotes me writing upon the demise of Netscape, and I thought it was useful to also mention the circle of web life that the Mozilla/Netscape browsers have been part of.

If you weren’t reading blogs back then, or missed the posts, some interesting related reading is John Rhodes’ seminal essay about a Google client from 2001, as well as Jason Kottke’s two posts from 2004.

As Richard says in his R/WW post, “Life is all about cycles though, so whether the Google/Mozilla romance turns out to be comedy or tragedy in 4 more years time — that is the question.”

Pidgin, formerly GAIM, is the best instant messaging client available; It works with all common IM networks, supports extensions and customizations through plugins, has smart and simple default settings, runs on all common desktop platforms, and is a free open source application. Being so similar to Firefox in so many ways, this leaves the application poised to become the "Firefox of IM".

Pidgin has a somewhat complex history. Originally named "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger" after the network it was designed to connect to and the window UI toolkit (!) that it used to display itself, the name of the application has been in flux for years due to legal posturing from AOL. In the intermediate years, the name became somewhat anachronistic anyway, as the application added support for MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, and other chat services in addition to AOL's AIM service.

Now, the last time an essential open source internet client shed its geeky name in favor of one that was more approachable, Phoenix became Firebird and later Firefox. The evolution of the naming of these clients doesn't just reflect the incessant legal sniping over IP and branding that a lot of small projects face, but is also a measure of a focus on the image of the projects. This is somewhat atypical for a lot of open source projects, as some contributors can see a focus on branding as irrelevant to, or even contradictory to, making a good product. But while the Pidgin site lacks some of the slickness and polish of the Firefox site, it's still miles better than the standard "choose a SourceForge mirror for your tarball"-style experience that a lot of comparable projects present to the world.

The renaming to Pidgin also reflects the 2.0 release of the program, a significant milestone that reflects a modularization of the application's underlying architecture, as well as support for additional communications networks. But of course, there are other applications which support each of Pidgin's features, including the clients created by the IM services themselves. Even other third-party clients, like Trillian, support a range of networks as well as many more features than Pidgin includes out of the box.

But where Pidgin's UI is spare, even underdesigned, Trillian commits errors such as the worst default preference setting in the history of modern computer software, a misfeature which automatically links some terms in your conversation to Wikipedia articles. With competition that's trying to pass regular expression stunts off as user benefits, it's no wonder that Pidgin's simplicity seems like a breath of fresh air.

And if you want that sort of complexity, there's a very healthy ecosystem of third-party plugins and extensions to customize Pidgin. Many of them are oriented around practical needs like deeper integration with Windows than is possible with a generic cross-platform client.

In short, the parallels between Firefox and the new Pidgin are undeniable. In a field crowded with proprietary, confusing clients that are tied to individual networks, Pidgin reflects the reality that all of us are connected to more than one network. And despite the rush to try to convert all desktop applications into Ajax-powered web equivalents, there is still ample proof from Firefox's example that powerful, smart, extensible desktop applications are an essential part of the Internet's evolution as well.

All that remains to be seen is if Pidgin will succeed in capturing attention and inspiring innovation in the same manner as its open source sibling.

Picture Terry Semel holding a little lion cub up in the air with both arms extended. What's that? It's the Circle of Life! Well, maybe Circle of Life 2.0? Okay, enough Lion King -- maybe it's just Justin Timberlake again: "What Goes Around... Comes Around".

The story I'm referring to is how each half-decade's web love story begets its successor for the attention and adoration of the press, the stock market, and the public at large.

In the beginning, there was Netscape, and it was good. But the old-timers among you will recall that Netscape began as Mosaic Communications Corporation, based on the old Mosaic browser. When that name became unusable, the codename for the browser being built was naturally named after the terrible lizard that would cause Mosaic's demise: Mozilla.

Among the many kind things the Netscape kids did (giving us a free email client, open-sourcing the code once they sold out to AOL, indirectly funding a nightclub in San Francisco), they decided to feature amongst their default links an up-and-coming web directory called Yahoo! The prominence of the nascent Yahoo site on the young Netscape browser's toolbar in an era when there were so few comprehensive guides to the web helped cement the company's position in the vanguard of web companies.

Fast forward a few years, and among the many kind things the Yahoo kids did (giving us free email, hooking Flickr up to Target once they bought the photo-sharing site, enticing Scientologists to visit), they decided to feature as their default search technology an up-and-coming web search technology company called Google. The prominence of the nascent Google engine atop the maturing Yahoo site's directory in an era when search had been largely abandoned helped cement the company's position in the vanguard of web companies.

Fast forward a few years, and among the many kind things the Google kids did (giving us free email, trying to give us free WiFi in San Francisco, building the memex), they decided to feature as their preferred browser technology an up-and-coming web browser technology called Mozilla Firefox. The prominence of the nascent Firefox download amongst Google's software offerings in an era when browser development had been largely abandoned helped cement the browser's position in the vanguard of web technologies.

This concludes today's history lesson. We have provided, above, an educational infographic offering a detailed look at the flow of linky-love between these Internet behemoths.

Related reading:

• Upon the Demise of Netscape: The Google Browser
• Wired's article on how Yahoo screwed the pooch on Google
• Some love for Mitchell Baker for being so open about Mozilla's business
• The Lion King on DVD

In describing Google Apps for Your Domain as "Google Office", I was somewhat deliberately making reference to all the conversations that have happened in the past around Google doing an office suite or even an entire operating systems. Here, then, are some selected posts on the subject in the past.

• Upon the Demise of Netscape. I wrote this back in 2003, when it wasn't yet clear that Firefox (then Firebird) would emerge as a serious player in the browser space. I'm proud of the post, but mostly because it inspired a terrific comment by Simon Willison:

What a fantastic idea. If Google created a branded version of Firebird (with a few usability and stability tweaks) and made it available through google.com, promoting it in the same way they have been promoting their toolbar, I am sure it would be a sure-fire hit. It's simply a better browser than IE, and while most internet users have probably never even considered trying a different browser Google have the kind of brand recognition and trustworthy image that could convince people to try something new - it worked with the Google toolbar after all.

Imagine the effect this kind of development would have on the browser industry. IE would suddenly have a viable competitor! Web sites would be encouraged to support standards, Microsoft would practically be forced to start developing IE again, and the internet would start moving forward again.

• John Rhodes' seminal article on Google 2.0 from September of 2001, which envisions a Google Client and predated common usage of the "Web 2.0" moniker by years. For perspective, when this piece was written, there was no AdSense, no AdWords, no Gmail, Google hadn't bought Blogger, and Mozilla hadn't yet birthed Phoenix Firebird Firefox.

• Jason Kottke's GooOS, the Google Operating System from April 2004, written in the wake of the launch of Gmail.

Google Office (Goffice?) will be built in, with all your data stored locally, backed up remotely, and available to whomever it needs to be (SubEthaEdit-style collaboration on Word/Excel/PowerPoint-esque documents is only the beginning). Email, shopping, games, music, news, personal publishing, etc.; all the stuff that people use their computers for, it's all there.

There's lots of good thinking here, and of course it makes sense to finish by pointing out So Much Fanfare, So Few Hits, BusinessWeek's look at how Google doesn't dominate many areas it enters.

Now that Netscape's more or less officially dead, it occurs to me that it might be worthwhile for Google to bankroll the Mozilla Foundation, either by donating a substantial sum or by hiring several of the browser engineers. Google's shown a penchant not just for being "not evil" but for supporting products and companies (ahem) that contribute to the web even if it's not directly in the area of search.

Since Google's all but announced that they're no longer "just search", I'd probably amend my qualms about lack of focus and say that if Google wants to own the entire area of information innovation, they need to be significant contributors to the evolution of Mozilla.

Firebird is, finally, a usable browser, and damn close to the being the best in the world, if it isn't already. Google's shown the ability to get an installable client onto millions of desktops around the world. And they have a user experience focus that would nicely shore up the critical weakness that's dogged Mozilla from day one. If the goal is now organizing and presenting information instead of just being the best search engine, then a browser client focused on information retrieval, search, and management is a great first step. And I'd give them better than even odds at being able to grow that application into a full microcontent client if they were so inclined.

What would be the business model? My mind tells me that a free, open-source browser with built-in hooks to Google services and APIs would be good enough to push increased usage of Google's revenue-generating services and advertising. Microsoft has publicly conceded that they're going for Google's market, and Yahoo threw more than a billion and a half dollars at the Google problem earlier this week. Against those challenges, I'd say the onus is on Google to embrace and extend with a free product that's better than anything the competition can offer: That's what works.

So, a Google browser, based on Mozilla. An easily-justified commitment to cross-platform support and outstanding user experience, based on Google's history of honoring those tenets and the Mozilla organization's inherent preference for them. Culturally, hiring the core members of the Mozilla dev team would be an extraordinarily easy fit. And, frankly, it'd probably require little more development resources, bandwidth, or staffing than the Pyra acquisition did.

I'd pay $500 for a Google-branded microcontent management platform based on the Mozilla core if it were scriptable, stable, and integrated API-neutral blogging and aggregation tools. Or I'd pay $150 annually. So, Google, are you guys game for taking your position as a platform vendor seriously?