Web Worker Daily

Today marks the start of the fifth birthday celebration of my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox. I don’t know about you, but I’m having trouble getting my head around the fact that it’s 5 years old — that makes me feel a little old myself!

In 2004, when Firefox 1.0 was launched, the first browser wars were all but over. Microsoft (msft) had beaten Netscape, Internet Explorer was — by far — the dominant browser, and those of us who actually cared about things like web standards were looking on in despair.

That changed when Firefox came along, showing the world that it was possible to produce a lightweight, fast, extensible and secure standards-compliant standalone browser. In those five years, it has grown from being a scrappy open-source upstart the geeks use to the second-most popular browser in use, taking about a quarter of the market, according to Net Applications (and on more technical sites like this one, Firefox is by far the most popular browser). Firefox’s rapid growth was helped in part by grassroots promotional efforts like the Spread Firefox campaign, but primarily thanks to Microsoft’s glacial rate of development of IE and its glaring security holes. Without the competitive pressure of Firefox, Microsoft might not have seriously developed IE beyond IE 7, and without browser development and innovation, some of the great web apps that we rely on today might not have been possible. Firefox’s own development continues apace, as the second browser wars — between Google and Mozilla this time — really start to heat up. Version 3.6 of the browser, which is currently available in beta (and works very well, I might add), should be released in December.

So, join me in raising a glass (or latte/tea cup) to Mozilla, the Firefox team, and everyone who has contributed to Firefox and its extension ecosystem over the years — it is a great product that many of us are truly thankful for.

Add your Firefox birthday wishes below.