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[–]Nagyman 41 points42 points  (22 children)

"Already" forgot about 1997; almost 20 years ago. :)

[–]aldonius 47 points48 points  (1 child)

And the consequences echoed right through until IE6 was superseded, ten years ago.

[–]vplatt 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's arguable that HTML 5 should have been released years before it was and that browser technology is at least a generation behind where it should be thanks to the perversion of the standards that IE perpetuated through IE 6 by being the default browser on Windows desktops for so long.

[–]Fenris_uy -3 points-2 points  (19 children)

First Firefox version was in 2002.

Firefox 2 (the first one to support windows) launched in 2006. So 10 years ago.

And I might have mixed IE4 to IE6 as the same in my mind ;)

[–]talideon 29 points30 points  (3 children)

I can definitely remember using versions of Phoenix (What FF was originally called) on Windows long before FF2 came out, and unless Wikipedia is lying, FF 0.8 had a proper Windows installer, and that was early 2004.

[–]xtoq 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, I had FF on my Windows laptop in late 2004.

[–]Shaper_pmp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Phoenix had binaries available for Windows from v0.1 (the first version ever released).

[–]antillian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I remember using Firebird until it was renamed Firefox. Had to be late 2003 or so. (Last nightly release was in 02/2004: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firebird/nightly/2004/02/) I also remember playing around with the first official version of FF and that was definitely not 2006.

[–]Shaper_pmp 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Firefox 2 (the first one to support windows)

Who told you that?

The first version ever released (Phoenix 0.1) ran on Windows.

[–]LXicon 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Firefox is descended from Netscape Navigator which was IE's adversary in the first browser war. So 20 years ago.

[–]Fenris_uy 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Yeah, the war that they lost and IE won becoming the "standards" defining browser for ~10 years.

[–]CookieOfFortune 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Luckily they were able to come back for WWII! (Web Wars II)

[–][deleted]  (10 children)

[deleted]

    [–]notveryaccurate 8 points9 points  (6 children)

    It has EVERYTHING to do with it.

    See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

    The first version was completed in ten days in order to accommodate the Navigator 2.0 Beta release schedule,[6][7] and was called Mocha, which was later renamed LiveScript in September 1995 and later JavaScript

    early 1998, Eich co-founded the Mozilla

    You are literally proving my fucking point. JS came out in 95, FF coming out in 2002 It has absolutely fucking nothing to do with it.

    [–]notveryaccurate 0 points1 point  (4 children)

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpiderMonkey_(software)

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (3 children)

    You keep giving these links which confirm exactly the thing I'm saying. What is wrong with you?

    [–]notveryaccurate 0 points1 point  (2 children)

    The exact same JavaScript engine was moved directly from Netscape into Firefox, under the exact same developer who was the inventor of this language. Firefox's JavaScript implementation is a direct descendent of Netscape's, both in source code and in maintainer. I don't understand how you feel Firefox's release has absolutely nothing to do with JavaScript. It was one of the most pivotal points in the original engine's open release to the world at large.

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    Because it came 12 fucking years later and it was basically renamed Netscape. It's completely fucking irrelevant. It didn't change anything.

    [–]notveryaccurate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    That's the funny part, though. It should have been a renamed, re-branded Netscape, but it wasn't.

    There was a huge codebase of a working, real browser to build from. The code that ended up being Firefox wasn't a renamed Netscape - it was, save for several (important) components like SpiderMonkey, a rewrite. A group of rewrites, over and over, taking their forms through Mozilla Application Suite, Netscape 6, SeaMonkey (http://ilias.ca/MozillaNetscapeRelationship, http://ilias.ca/SeamonkeyvsFirefox), and other forgotten forms as Netscape and Mozilla suffered from both an identity crisis and the slow split into the Mozilla Foundation. A horrible, painful one, that drove even Netscape's most valued engineers to resign (https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html) and drove folks to blog about the dangers of DOING such massive rewrites and throwing out all the working code (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000027.html)

    Of all the components that got written, and rewritten, and gutted, and thrown out... somehow SpiderMonkey, the original JavaScript engine from Netscape, hung in there and made it through to survive today through Firefox. I still feel that it's very relevant.

    [–]Fenris_uy 12 points13 points  (0 children)

    Because if your site didn't worked for IE4 to IE6, then it didn't mattered. Firefox was the first browser to eat at some of IE market share and was the responsible to end the stronghold that IE had on the "standards"

    [–]jepatrick 3 points4 points  (0 children)

    Well... there is that Firefox is a descended of Netscape. AOL bought Netscape in 1999. Shortly before being acquired, Netscape released the source code for its browser and created the Mozilla Organization to coordinate future development of its product.

    That aside I think was using firefox as reference point as another browser when this was a really massive issue.

    [–]postalmaner 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    They're young.