20 Years Ago Today: 'Firefox Browser Takes on Microsoft'

20 years is a long time, but except for a few years when I used Chrome, I'm still using Firefox today.

And 20 years ago, who would have suspected that the obscure Konqueror browser from KDE and its KHTML engine would then be used to create WebKit and other engines such as the one that power Google Chrome...

Not to dent Slashdot for linking to Web Archive for the BBC link, but credit to the BBC for still keeping the article up.[0]<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;2&#x2F;hi&#x2F;technology&#x2F;3993959.stm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;2&#x2F;hi&#x2F;technology&#x2F;3993959.stm</a>

This was the greatest success ever. All the grassroots campaigning was quite successful. Changed everything to needing to be standards compliant and that let KHTML then WebKit then Blink take over the world.<p>People were installing it on office computers, kids on their parents’ and changing the icon to look like IE. What a fun time!

20 years ago I loved Firefox. tabs and extensions were amazing. today, it feels slow and uncomfortable to use. I tried too many times to like it again. for me Vivaldi today is what Firefox was 20 years ago.

I&#x27;ve been on board when it was called Firebird (before someone noticed that name was already claimed by a RDBMS project, so it was renamed to Firefox), and I still am.<p>It&#x27;s been a while. 20 years ago, what Firefox offered to me was a) tabbed browsing, and b) an ad blocker that was a total game changer; some sites back then were so overloaded with annoying ads, popups, blinking, etc, Futurama made fun of it.<p>Let us hope that 20 years from now, the Firefox is still fierce.

I started with Mosaic, which I think became Internet Explorer, but paid for a copy of Netscape when that came out. Drifted back to IE for reasons I don&#x27;t remember (probably just what was on work machines), then Firefox, then Chrome.<p>To be honest I don&#x27;t really care so much any more.

I remember being on 0.7 and thinking things were getting worse with 1.0. Not sure what it was other than the simplicity. But now that computers have zero issues keeping up it’s plenty performative and I love using it even more.

Today: Firefox gives up on itself.<p>We need new Firefox leadership right away so it goes back to being a credible alternative rather than a fanboy browser.

And if we don’t start using browsers other than Chrome we are back in the same boat.

Been a user since the Mosaic days on XWindows, through Netscape, Mozilla, Phoenix, and Firefox. There was definitely a time when it was falling behind and getting slow, but then it was reinvigorated and is still my daily driver.<p>I get real tired of seeing the whinging about Pocket, the CEO’s pay, etc. in every. single. thread. about Firefox, from people who completely ignore that all other options are just Chrome.

Firefox beat microsoft totally and absolutely.

Wow I didn&#x27;t realize slashdot had become such a cesspool. Yikes.