Firefox ignites demand for alternative browser
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
SEATTLE ? Strolling between classes at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., Blake Ross looks like any other bleary-eyed sophomore.
The Firefox browser from Mozilla.
Few would guess that the laptop-carrying 19-year-old is a tech prodigy leading a battle against Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser for control of the Internet.
Ross was up until 5 a.m. Tuesday watching a surge in download requests for the official release of Firefox version 1.0 ? the red-hot alternative Web browser he helped create. Early demand strained the Firefox download site to near breaking.
Before ducking into class Tuesday morning, he mused: "I think we're going to see some huge gains. The more popular Firefox gets, the more people will get to enjoy a modern Web experience, instead of battling problems all of the time."
Sophomoric hype? Consider this: Hundreds of millions of people use Explorer to surf the Internet. Since 1999, it has commanded an unshakeable 95% share of the Web browser market.
It's vital for Microsoft to control Web browsing to stay on track with its strategy to become prominent in even more of the technology we use for work and play.
But last June, the unthinkable happened. In response to security problems plaguing Explorer, two federal agencies recommended switching to an alternative browser. It happened that the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, comprised primarily of volunteer programmers, was fine-tuning Firefox, a lightweight browser designed to swiftly access Web pages while vigorously repelling spyware and pop-up ads.
Explorer's market share began slipping. It has continued to retreat for five consecutive months, from 95.5% to 92.9%, by the end of October, according to WebSideStory, a Web analytics firm.
Those few percentage points translate into millions of Web users abandoning Explorer for an alternative browser. Most switched to a test version of Mozilla Firefox. And Firefox is Blake Ross' baby.
Browser war revisited
Ross was 14 and had just finished ninth grade when he began participating in a long-shot volunteer effort to revive the pioneering Netscape browser that helped launch the Internet age in 1994.
Netscape had fallen on hard times since being acquired by America Online, just as Explorer began to supersede it. Unable to meld Netscape into its Internet connection service, AOL tossed it to a non-profit project called the Mozilla Foundation.
Mozilla's mission: Update the Netscape browser following the same model that drove growth of the open-source code Linux operating system. Linux came out of nowhere to challenge Microsoft in the computer server market, and lately has begun encroaching on its hallowed desktop software business. Mozilla would seek to revive the onetime leading browser by recruiting free help from volunteers worldwide, as Linux did.
Ross logged into his first Mozilla discussion group and offered some suggestions for fixing a few bugs. "He was among a group of volunteers, ranging from Ph.D.s to high school students, who wanted to get involved in a high-visibility project," recalls Chris Hofmann, Mozilla's director of engineering.
Ross' contributions were good enough to land him internships working full time at Mozilla's Mountain View, Calif., base camp three summers in a row.
By late 2002, he and another young programmer, David Hyatt, became frustrated with perennially trying to tweak the Netscape browser's bloated design.
Ross and Hyatt began designing a new browser. Onto their clean slate they added rigorous security protection and useful features such as tab browsing ? the ability to stack several Web pages in a single view ? and sophisticated tools to quickly move in and out of favorite Web sites.
"We basically wanted to create a really small, really light and really fast browser completely focused on the end user, " says Ross.
Ross and Hyatt nurtured their brainchild until it emerged as Mozilla's top volunteer project. Hyatt ultimately took a job at Apple to work on its Safari browser. Mozilla hired 24-year-old Ben Goodger of New Zealand as Firefox lead engineer. Ross enrolled at Stanford, and has remained centrally involved.
"He's very driven, very sharp when it comes to how people view technology and use technology," Goodger says of Ross.
Digerati's darling
Firefox proponents acknowledge it will have to do a lot more than swipe a few percentage points of market share to pose a significant threat to Explorer. But the attention it's been getting shows no signs of abating.
It has become a darling of the digerati, who've downloaded 23 million copies of preview versions. On Tuesday, the official release of the first public version prompted an avalanche of download requests, slowing the Mozilla.org Web site to a crawl.
Testimonials from true believers, such as Bill Nordwall, 24, Web developer for a large Seattle-based financial services company, have helped fuel Firefox's momentum: "Firefox is constantly updated, it's faster, it's more user friendly and it doesn't have security holes so big you can fly a plane through them," says Nordwall.
Two other alternative browsers are gaining momentum as well. Oslo-based browser maker Opera this year will introduce the first voice-activated browser in partnership with IBM. Apple is fine-tuning tools that make it easier for users of its Safari browser to fill out online registration forms on Mac computers.
Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of security product management for Windows, attributes the attention the upstart Firefox is getting to the "natural ebb and flow of a competitive marketplace when a new product comes out."
But the software giant is clearly vulnerable.
Critics say Microsoft has taken Explorer for granted since vanquishing Netscape and weathering antitrust sanctions by the Justice Department for using illegal monopolistic practices to win the browser wars.
Explorer has gone bereft of innovation since then, as Microsoft has concentrated on extending its dominant Windows desktop PC operating system deeper into corporate and home use. "Microsoft allowed Internet Explorer to become a sub-optimal product," says RedMonk analyst James Governor.
Fanning the fire
Ross has moved on multiple fronts to seize the opportunity. In recent months, he has focused on directing a grass-roots marketing campaign pointed toward Tuesday's official public release of Firefox.
Using the Weblog www.spreadfirefox.com, he has recruited 30,000 Firefox "champions" and rallied them round a crusade to see who can do the most to saturate the Web with praise for Firefox and links to Web sites where it can be downloaded free.
In contrast to Microsoft's well-paid product evangelists, Firefox champions are true-believer volunteers encouraged to be as creative as possible.
Last month, when Ross put out a call for donations to run a celebratory full-page ad in The New York Times, he raised $250,000 from 10,000 donors in 10 days. The ad will run sometime between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4.
Rob Davis, a 29-year-old account executive from Minneapolis marketing firm Haberman & Associates, who organized the ad campaign, likens the grass-roots promotion of Firefox to the online buzz Howard Dean drummed up in his run for president.
In each case, dissatisfaction with those in power stirred passion about a fresh alternative among acolytes who used the Internet to plot strategy and tap volunteer expertise.
"The unique confluence of various components has allowed this to happen," says Davis.
Firefox's biggest litmus test starts this week. Ross has set a target of 10 million downloads of the finished public version in the next 100 days. It would represent a big step toward mainstream use. "It's all about moving the Web forward again," says Ross, with the aplomb of youth. "I just think there needs to be more innovation in the Web again."
Should Firefox gain wide adoption, it would reintroduce the competitive threat that so shook Microsoft in the mid-1990s. Microsoft at the time worried that developers would rush to develop a new class of applications designed to run on the Netscape browser, de-emphasizing the importance of the Windows operating system. It began bundling a free Internet Explorer browser in every new Windows PC, choking off Netscape.
Even with minuscule market share, Firefox has begun attracting the kind of attention Microsoft fears. Amazon.com's new Web search subsidiary, A9, has begun work on adding toolbars and other features linking Firefox users directly to its online shopping service. Google, similarly, has begun tying its free Web-based e-mailing service, Gmail, to Firefox.
Google, Amazon and others also supply links to Internet Explorer. But in a surprise move on Tuesday, Google cut a deal to let its home page be co-branded with Firefox as the default home page for the publicly released version of Firefox.
Microsoft counters that similar cool features, and more, can be easily piggy-backed onto Internet Explorer. "Customers can experience lots of innovation and stay with IE by taking advantage of the work done by hundreds of software companies around the world that build on IE," says Schare.
No one in the tech industry expects Microsoft to stand pat for long. "They're not asleep. They can see their market share has begun to take a dip, and I fully expect them to respond," Goodger says.
So far, Microsoft is playing its cards close. Schare says only that the Explorer team, 100 strong, is focused on customer support and designing new features for the version that will be bundled in Windows Longhorn, the new operating system expected by 2007.
Microsoft was similarly slow to react to the growing popularity of Linux, but now aggressively paints Linux systems as more expensive to own than Microsoft products. It might have to come up with a different strategy to keep Blake Ross' baby in check.
"Linux is still a pretty arcane subject for most folks, while Firefox is a simple, free download users can judge for themselves," says Charles King, analyst at Pund-IT Research.
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
SEATTLE ? Strolling between classes at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., Blake Ross looks like any other bleary-eyed sophomore.
The Firefox browser from Mozilla.
Few would guess that the laptop-carrying 19-year-old is a tech prodigy leading a battle against Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser for control of the Internet.
Ross was up until 5 a.m. Tuesday watching a surge in download requests for the official release of Firefox version 1.0 ? the red-hot alternative Web browser he helped create. Early demand strained the Firefox download site to near breaking.
Before ducking into class Tuesday morning, he mused: "I think we're going to see some huge gains. The more popular Firefox gets, the more people will get to enjoy a modern Web experience, instead of battling problems all of the time."
Sophomoric hype? Consider this: Hundreds of millions of people use Explorer to surf the Internet. Since 1999, it has commanded an unshakeable 95% share of the Web browser market.
It's vital for Microsoft to control Web browsing to stay on track with its strategy to become prominent in even more of the technology we use for work and play.
But last June, the unthinkable happened. In response to security problems plaguing Explorer, two federal agencies recommended switching to an alternative browser. It happened that the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, comprised primarily of volunteer programmers, was fine-tuning Firefox, a lightweight browser designed to swiftly access Web pages while vigorously repelling spyware and pop-up ads.
Explorer's market share began slipping. It has continued to retreat for five consecutive months, from 95.5% to 92.9%, by the end of October, according to WebSideStory, a Web analytics firm.
Those few percentage points translate into millions of Web users abandoning Explorer for an alternative browser. Most switched to a test version of Mozilla Firefox. And Firefox is Blake Ross' baby.
Browser war revisited
Ross was 14 and had just finished ninth grade when he began participating in a long-shot volunteer effort to revive the pioneering Netscape browser that helped launch the Internet age in 1994.
Netscape had fallen on hard times since being acquired by America Online, just as Explorer began to supersede it. Unable to meld Netscape into its Internet connection service, AOL tossed it to a non-profit project called the Mozilla Foundation.
Mozilla's mission: Update the Netscape browser following the same model that drove growth of the open-source code Linux operating system. Linux came out of nowhere to challenge Microsoft in the computer server market, and lately has begun encroaching on its hallowed desktop software business. Mozilla would seek to revive the onetime leading browser by recruiting free help from volunteers worldwide, as Linux did.
Ross logged into his first Mozilla discussion group and offered some suggestions for fixing a few bugs. "He was among a group of volunteers, ranging from Ph.D.s to high school students, who wanted to get involved in a high-visibility project," recalls Chris Hofmann, Mozilla's director of engineering.
Ross' contributions were good enough to land him internships working full time at Mozilla's Mountain View, Calif., base camp three summers in a row.
By late 2002, he and another young programmer, David Hyatt, became frustrated with perennially trying to tweak the Netscape browser's bloated design.
Ross and Hyatt began designing a new browser. Onto their clean slate they added rigorous security protection and useful features such as tab browsing ? the ability to stack several Web pages in a single view ? and sophisticated tools to quickly move in and out of favorite Web sites.
"We basically wanted to create a really small, really light and really fast browser completely focused on the end user, " says Ross.
Ross and Hyatt nurtured their brainchild until it emerged as Mozilla's top volunteer project. Hyatt ultimately took a job at Apple to work on its Safari browser. Mozilla hired 24-year-old Ben Goodger of New Zealand as Firefox lead engineer. Ross enrolled at Stanford, and has remained centrally involved.
"He's very driven, very sharp when it comes to how people view technology and use technology," Goodger says of Ross.
Digerati's darling
Firefox proponents acknowledge it will have to do a lot more than swipe a few percentage points of market share to pose a significant threat to Explorer. But the attention it's been getting shows no signs of abating.
It has become a darling of the digerati, who've downloaded 23 million copies of preview versions. On Tuesday, the official release of the first public version prompted an avalanche of download requests, slowing the Mozilla.org Web site to a crawl.
Testimonials from true believers, such as Bill Nordwall, 24, Web developer for a large Seattle-based financial services company, have helped fuel Firefox's momentum: "Firefox is constantly updated, it's faster, it's more user friendly and it doesn't have security holes so big you can fly a plane through them," says Nordwall.
Two other alternative browsers are gaining momentum as well. Oslo-based browser maker Opera this year will introduce the first voice-activated browser in partnership with IBM. Apple is fine-tuning tools that make it easier for users of its Safari browser to fill out online registration forms on Mac computers.
Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of security product management for Windows, attributes the attention the upstart Firefox is getting to the "natural ebb and flow of a competitive marketplace when a new product comes out."
But the software giant is clearly vulnerable.
Critics say Microsoft has taken Explorer for granted since vanquishing Netscape and weathering antitrust sanctions by the Justice Department for using illegal monopolistic practices to win the browser wars.
Explorer has gone bereft of innovation since then, as Microsoft has concentrated on extending its dominant Windows desktop PC operating system deeper into corporate and home use. "Microsoft allowed Internet Explorer to become a sub-optimal product," says RedMonk analyst James Governor.
Fanning the fire
Ross has moved on multiple fronts to seize the opportunity. In recent months, he has focused on directing a grass-roots marketing campaign pointed toward Tuesday's official public release of Firefox.
Using the Weblog www.spreadfirefox.com, he has recruited 30,000 Firefox "champions" and rallied them round a crusade to see who can do the most to saturate the Web with praise for Firefox and links to Web sites where it can be downloaded free.
In contrast to Microsoft's well-paid product evangelists, Firefox champions are true-believer volunteers encouraged to be as creative as possible.
Last month, when Ross put out a call for donations to run a celebratory full-page ad in The New York Times, he raised $250,000 from 10,000 donors in 10 days. The ad will run sometime between Nov. 15 and Dec. 4.
Rob Davis, a 29-year-old account executive from Minneapolis marketing firm Haberman & Associates, who organized the ad campaign, likens the grass-roots promotion of Firefox to the online buzz Howard Dean drummed up in his run for president.
In each case, dissatisfaction with those in power stirred passion about a fresh alternative among acolytes who used the Internet to plot strategy and tap volunteer expertise.
"The unique confluence of various components has allowed this to happen," says Davis.
Firefox's biggest litmus test starts this week. Ross has set a target of 10 million downloads of the finished public version in the next 100 days. It would represent a big step toward mainstream use. "It's all about moving the Web forward again," says Ross, with the aplomb of youth. "I just think there needs to be more innovation in the Web again."
Should Firefox gain wide adoption, it would reintroduce the competitive threat that so shook Microsoft in the mid-1990s. Microsoft at the time worried that developers would rush to develop a new class of applications designed to run on the Netscape browser, de-emphasizing the importance of the Windows operating system. It began bundling a free Internet Explorer browser in every new Windows PC, choking off Netscape.
Even with minuscule market share, Firefox has begun attracting the kind of attention Microsoft fears. Amazon.com's new Web search subsidiary, A9, has begun work on adding toolbars and other features linking Firefox users directly to its online shopping service. Google, similarly, has begun tying its free Web-based e-mailing service, Gmail, to Firefox.
Google, Amazon and others also supply links to Internet Explorer. But in a surprise move on Tuesday, Google cut a deal to let its home page be co-branded with Firefox as the default home page for the publicly released version of Firefox.
Microsoft counters that similar cool features, and more, can be easily piggy-backed onto Internet Explorer. "Customers can experience lots of innovation and stay with IE by taking advantage of the work done by hundreds of software companies around the world that build on IE," says Schare.
No one in the tech industry expects Microsoft to stand pat for long. "They're not asleep. They can see their market share has begun to take a dip, and I fully expect them to respond," Goodger says.
So far, Microsoft is playing its cards close. Schare says only that the Explorer team, 100 strong, is focused on customer support and designing new features for the version that will be bundled in Windows Longhorn, the new operating system expected by 2007.
Microsoft was similarly slow to react to the growing popularity of Linux, but now aggressively paints Linux systems as more expensive to own than Microsoft products. It might have to come up with a different strategy to keep Blake Ross' baby in check.
"Linux is still a pretty arcane subject for most folks, while Firefox is a simple, free download users can judge for themselves," says Charles King, analyst at Pund-IT Research.