Posted on 01/04/2005 4:26:26 PM PST by Coleus
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Is this internet prodigy about to knock Microsoft off its pedestal? A Miami teenager has created a free web browser that has been called Bill Gates's worst nightmare |
A MIAMI teenager is basking in the glory of helping to create a new internet browser at 17 that is now challenging the grip of Microsoft, which once held a virtual monopoly on web surfing.
Computer analysts say that Blake Ross’s browser, Firefox, is a faster, more versatile program that also offers better protection from viruses and unwanted advertising.
Industry experts have dubbed the new software “Microsoft’s worst nightmare”, according to the technology magazine Business 2.0. It hailed Mr Ross, now 19, as a software prodigy. He is also a talented pianist and “an unbelievable creative writer”, according to his mother, Ross. “Anything he does, he does well,” she said.
As a seven-year-old Mr Ross became hooked on the popular computer game SimCity, designing and budgeting his own virtual city. By 10, he had created his own website. He later created his own computer applications and online text games.Soon he was reporting computer software flaws to manufacturers online.
At 14 he was offered an internship at Netscape in Silicon Valley. His mother drove him out to California for three summers in succession.
At Netscape, Mr Ross was introduced to the Mozilla Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes “choice and innovation on the web”.
Mozilla was already trying to develop an open-source alternative browser to Microsoft’s Explorer, which many analysts felt had grown clumsy and outdated. Mr Ross and his friend David Hyatt began working on a small, user-focused browser. What began as an experimental side-project turned into Firefox.
Mr Ross is quick to point out that he was one of a large team at Mozilla who worked on the project for five years. “It’s a big volunteer effort,” he said. In fact, the pair left before the work was completed, but Mozilla credits them with making the breakthrough. After he left to go to university, Mr Ross continued to be a “significant contributor”, according to Mozilla.
The task involved throwing out all the old codes and rewriting the entire system so it would support all websites on the internet. While Firefox still has a long way to go to rival Microsoft, it seems to be catching on. Firefox has received dazzling reviews from industry analysts. Recently some 10,000 Firefox fans raised $250,000 (£131,000) to take out a two-page advertisement in The New York Times. It is not just in dividual users who are taking interest. In December, the information technology department at Pennsylvania State University sent a note to college deans recommending that the entire 100,000-strong staff, faculty and student body switch to Firefox.
Mr Ross, now a student at Stanford University studying computer science, is taking it all in his stride. As a volunteer on an open-source product, there was no financial reward.
Microsoft professes to be unfazed. Windows executive Gary Schare said: “We’re seeing the natural ebb and flow of a competitive marketplace with new products being introduced. It’s not surprising to see curious early adopters checking them out.”
Not content with making a huge dent in Microsoft’s browser share, Mozilla, the foundation behind Firefox, is also going after Microsoft’s Outlook and other e-mail packages.
Called Thunderbird 1.0, the package works on Windows, Macintosh and Linux and has been praised by the industry and press for finally offering a challenge to Microsoft’s dominance in the e-mail arena.
The software provides a number of features which other packages are struggling to offer. Key features include e-mail junk filters that analyse and sort incoming mail and greater security elements.
Tabs have nothing to do with content.
RSS feeds (live bookmarks, great for FR),
Again, this has nothing directly to do with content. It is a user gadget.
quality popup blocking (SP2's isn't that good)
I like this about FireFox but again this has nothing to do with content. Windows XP SP2 makes IE block popups as well as FireFox.
Everything you mentioned are user gadgets - nothing to do with content. Browser war is won or lost on the content.
All of the above has sped up my web browsing a lot.
BTW: FireFox loads graphics 30% slower than IE
I have no interest in bashing FireFox. I like and use it.
Wrong. IE is used to view files but IE is not the same thing as Windows. There is more to an operating system than viewing files. At one time Windows did not use IE to view files so clearly Explorer and Windows are very much separable. MS chose to use the same tool to browse the Internet as is used to browse files but that sure as heck does not make IE synonymous with an operating system
How so? Please explain exactly how Microsoft "dumbed-down" the Internet.
If you said DU is responsible in part for dumbing-down the Internet, I might agree with you.
That is why I use FireFox for my casual browsing.
IE is dead, long live Firefox!!
That statement is right up there with DUmmies saying John Kerry was going to inaugurated on January 20th
He didn't say content, he said features. Those are all features of FireFox that IE doesn't have. Content is on the web, that's going to be the same for all browsers.
Bill Gates never made the statement you claimed he did.
Content is what sells, not user features. Remember, the browser is free. If you think the content is the same in all browsers you really don't understand what you are talking about. That simple is not true. Content looks different in different browsers. JavaScript works differently in different browser (FireFox has some JavaScript problems).
It was not an assumption - you demonstrated it in your actions.
IE is currently the standard. If you don't understand that, I am certain you are not really a web developer.
Content doesn't sell browsers because content isn't actually provided by the browsers, at most it's rendered by the browser. Yeah some content looks different from browser to browser, but most non-geeks would hardly notice. I've got three websites I use for IE, one's MS and the other two are poorly designed and get all whacky not in IE (well I guess the MS website is poorly designed too when you get right down to it). For everything else I use Netscape or Firefox depending on which button I hit first (haven't really decided which one I like better, it's a browser mostly I don't care).
Features are what sell products (or in this case encourage free downloading of products). The biggest two things pushing a decline in IE right now are security and tabbed browsing. Daily security alerts are free advertising for anything but IE, and a lot of people get really hooked on tabbed browsing once they first see it (I don't like it, I prefer multiple windows, alt-tab comes more naturally to me than ctrl-tab). The fact is MS stopped adding features to IE a while ago and now they're being left behind, not sure why they did it but they did and that's given the competition an opportunity. I doubt IE will drop below 2/3 of the market, the auto-installs from AOL and Windows itself will keep most non-curious people using it, but their share is dropping and part of why it's dropping is lack of features.
Ok, you win. IE is not integral to Windows.
Please give me some detailed instructions on how I may remove it completely. Thanks.
First, I never say IE was not integral - I said IE is not synounymous with Windows
While IE is not synonymous with Windows, you can't remove it. IE is integral. My heart is integral with me living but a heart is not synonymous with a human being.
Why do you want to remove it? Just don't use it. If you don't want to browse the Internet with IE, don't.
If you hate Microsoft - by all means use Linux or buy a Mac.
That's crazy. Try it again.
Ok. I ran my virus program and it cleaned up 3 problems. Maybe the shutdown was linked to that.
Yup. That's possible.
You're kidding, right?
Nope. Try and see.
Nope. It happened again. Very frustrating. It's a Bill Gates plot I tell ya. 8^)
No, IE is the majority browser. It is not the standard.
When I develop for public business I use a subset of CSS that IE can understand, kind of like tying my wings. When I develop intranet I develop to the target browser, currently IE for this job.
When I develop personally, I use the full features of CSS, screw anyone stupid enough to use such an outdated, incompatible browser. Maybe seeing my site will encourage them to get a decent browser (which I recommend).
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