The Inside Track on Firefox Development.
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November 30, 2004
Netscape 8.0 4 EVA
Posted by ben at 3:38 PM
November 27, 2004
Another Inbox Bites the Dust
I've lost another inbox (2nd in as many years) to a worm that plays on the foolishness of those that choose to use Microsoft Outlook and the irresponsible design of that software. I'm trying to recover my data now but I'm not confident I'll get any of my mail back.
I do not use Microsoft Outlook. My email address appears to be in enough people's addressbooks that do that have contracted the worm that I get over 10,000 pieces of 77KB worm email every day. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I have not been checking my email as frequently as I usually do. As a result mail builds up and now despite the best and ultimately futile efforts of the junk mail filtering in Thunderbird, my Inbox is gone.
I have to ask, are there other non-Outlook users out there affected like this? And, more importantly, has anyone considered suing Microsoft for this irresponsible software design that basically amounts to data vandalism and theft?
Posted by ben at 5:28 PM
November 24, 2004
A New Roadmap
Yeah it doesn't say much right now. I'm working on a PRD and a whole bucket o' UI specs.
Posted by ben at 2:18 AM
November 23, 2004
Illusions of Choice
Director of Windows Product Development Gary Schare has been on the offensive lately in a number of interviews with various media outlets... much of it reeks of "on the run" fud-packing, but today's reel is especially amusing:
I'm no rabid Netscape hippie fanboy. Regardless of how Microsoft used or misused (depending on your point of view) its power in the 1990s, bundling a browser with the OS is a good idea. But please, don't pretend like the installed base of Windows users all actively chose IE over its competitors. That's a load of crap.
But why all the rhetoric, Gary? I thought we weren't a threat?
Posted by ben at 11:02 PM
November 11, 2004
Denial?
LOL.
OK, so we've had a pretty glowing response from US media... but I have to say the response from the Australasian media sometimes seems to give off the "who cares, we have Microsoft" kind of vibe... I'm no Microsoft hater, but you'd think people would be more excited at the prospect of some alternatives in a largely stagnant industry...
Posted by ben at 3:36 AM
November 10, 2004
Win32 Shell Tricks
I have a question for Win32 Shell Programmers... is it possible to write a Shell extension that presents a folder as if it were a leaf file, in both the icon/details main view in Explorer but also all the tree views... ? If so, please send mail to ben at mozilla dot org... darin and I were brainstorming today for XULRunner features and I suggested it'd be cool to have a App bundle like implementation like MacOS X has.
Posted by ben at 10:02 PM
November 9, 2004
The Download Desk
Greetings from the Firefox Downloads Desk, I'm Ben Goodger working with my Download Analyst Brian Ryner to get you Download stats and projections throughout the day.
Posted by ben at 1:54 PM
Firefox 1.0 - Signed, Sealed, Delivered
By the time you read this, Firefox 1.0 will be gold, and sitting on our web site waiting for you to download it. This is the culmination of over two years worth of herculean work by a great team of people, all dedicated to making the best browser around.
Some thanks are in order. I was going to write a big flowery piece thanking people individually but I know I would forget someone so my thanks instead go out to everyone involved - you all know who you are - from the shoestring team of engineers at the beginning for getting the show on the road, the folk who've come in later and contributed thousands of hours of testing, bug reporting, feature and extension development. Without you Firefox would be a lesser product. For a list of people who I and people around me could think of at the time of shipping, visit Help > About...; Credits.
Usability
Our goal for Firefox has always been to create a stylish, usable browser, making as few compromises has necessary - which was largely possible by being free from commercial constraint. When I design new features, I try to think about what people are trying to accomplish, and design the feature so that it helps them as best possible. This has not always been easy. I've been very demanding of myself and on others that I work with, trying to exact every last ounce of usability of a given scenario. Some tasks that we have worked on have taken a considerable amount of time, much of that time spent fussing over the tiniest of details, details that in the past (when working on the Netscape product line, for example), we would never have been allowed to fret so profusely over. The result is software that works for the most part exactly as you expect it. All your settings, favorites, passwords and other data are brought in from IE, downloading files is easy and free of superfluous prompting, your passwords are entered automatically and slickly managed, just to name a few. These things are not easy, but the quality bar has to be set high to be noticed, and in that department I think our focus on detail has paid dividends.
Identity
Part of the crawl out of the sludge of random-open-source-project-dom is crafting a strong self-image. After a period of uncertainty and shaky product names, we were finally able to secure and trademark Firefox, which upon reflection I think is really the best name we could have given the product. We have been blessed with the talents of a crew of highly skilled graphic designers, producing our official logo, creating a strong look and feel on all platforms, and a fantastic new website which makes it easier than ever before for people to get our software.
Not everyone has agreed with every decision that has been made with the design of the software - that is to be expected with any project, especially an open source one where things are a lot more transparent. I tend to take a big picture view of things, applying the ideaology that the project was created with in the first place to any given situation, trusting the team, and that usually results in something that pleases a lot of people.
Community
While direction, quality standards and overall architecture are generally set down by central leadership, a series of diverse communities have sprung up around Firefox, doing all manner of things including bug fixing, feature development, community marketing, documentation writing, localization and website management. The communities surrounding Mozilla and Firefox are one of the factors that give this software the energy that cause more and more people to want to use it and become involved. With help from community volunteers we have been able to meet deadlines, build in features and core functionality we may not otherwise have had, extend the reach of our software to new markets we would not have seen, and so on.
Wrap Up
This day has come a lot later than any of us originally planned, but that's the way software goes. I've learned a lot about a huge number of things in the process, have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different people about their experiences with the software, etc. It's been a long road but we're finally here. No software is perfect, we did not fix every bug, implement every feature, but what we did do was create what we believe to be the best browser around. I want to thank you all again for the support over the past few years. In the not-too-distant future, I will be posting a technical postmortem of the 1.0 release process beginning February 2004, which may be of interest to the technical types. Now, for some beer, some sleep, and then onward to Firefox2!
— Ben Goodger, Lead Engineer.
Posted by ben at 1:00 AM
November 8, 2004
5 Hours Out...
Targeting an early morning release... we've settled in here at the Foundation for a long night ... hopefully in the alcohol-induced fury at the end we don't accidentally push ie6setup.exe to the website.
Music: "Land of Hope and Dreams", — Bruce Springsteen
Posted by ben at 8:06 PM
Copies of LA Times?
I am looking for two copies of the LA Times for Monday 8 November 2004 - the one that has the article and photos of myself and Chase Phillips at the Mozilla Foundation. Two copies, one for me, one for Chase. If you can send me two, please send email to ben at mozilla dot org and I'll send you a Firefox shirt.
Update: I've been hooked up. Thanks Jane!
Posted by ben at 4:23 PM
November 6, 2004
It's Coming...
We're still on track for a November 9 launch. It's going to be a long weekend...
Posted by ben at 12:59 AM
November 3, 2004
RC2 Builds Available
Firefox 1.0 RC2 builds are now starting to trickle in at:
Windows, English
MacOS X, English
Linux i686, English
Other languages will eventually be found by browsing the directory hierarchy on the website. We'll distribute these localized builds as best we can from the mozilla.org website using a) smart language autodetection and b) a page listing all language/platform offerings.
As Asa mentioned for the 1.0 RC1 builds, there are some areas of testing focus:
Please test heavily:
- site authentication (especially over SSL)
- extension installation via update.mozilla.org and other sites.
- the MacOS X builds, a number of theme changes have been made.
- software update - we're making another attempt at this. We think we've got the bugs from RC1, so please test by following these instructions.
Please continue to test:
- the find toolbar
- gecko and website rendering
- migration from other browsers on first run
- opening links in Firefox from external applications
- focus interaction between tabs
Posted by ben at 10:52 PM
RC2 Builds Soon
Either late tonight or early tomorrow we will be posting Firefox 1.0 RC2 builds. More details when they're up.
Posted by ben at 3:55 PM
November 1, 2004
Slow and Steady, Wins the Race?
Study: FireFox still gaining on Internet Explorer | CNET News.com
Posted by ben at 4:30 PM
©1997-2006 Ben Goodger. All Rights Reserved.
Opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of any organization that I may be affiliated with.
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