Firefox turned 6 years old yesterday – it was officially launched on November 9th, 2004 as an alternative to Internet Explorer, after a long period of development where the app changed names from Phoenix to Firebird and finally to the browser we know today as Firefox.
Six years later, Firefox is the dominant alternative browser and the second most-often used one behind Internet Explorer. Firefox was at the time the only option people had aside from Internet Explorer 6 if they wanted a fully-featured Web browser, and I can attest that I was using Firefox at the time, and I haven’t looked back since.
Here’s to you, Firefox – for bringing us out of the browser dark ages, inspiring great competition like Google Chrome, and for inspiring Microsoft to actually start caring about their browser and for forcing them to catch up and get with the times with the releases of Internet Explorer 7, 8, and now the IE 9 Beta.