this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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What Ever Happened to Netscape? (www.techspot.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/technology
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[–] [email protected] 100 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before its acquisition by AOL. Firefox was created in 2002 under the codename "Phoenix" by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle.

The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. The nascent browser was originally named Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor (in this case, from the "ashes" of Netscape Navigator, after it was sidelined by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the "First Browser War").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox

On January 23, 1998, Netscape announced that its Netscape Communicator browser software would be free, and that its source code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape registered mozilla.org. The project took its name, "Mozilla", from the original code name of the Netscape Navigator browser—a portmanteau of "Mosaic and Godzilla", and used to coordinate the development of the Mozilla Application Suite, the free software version of Netscape's internet software, Netscape Communicator. Zawinski said he arrived at the name "Mozilla" at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordinating the new community.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla

Everything that was useful in Netscape became the basis for Firefox.

See also the documentary.

[–] Thaurin 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I could’ve sworn that the browser was also called just Mozilla at one point, or was that just always the suite it was part of?

[–] dogslayeggs 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My memory is hazy, but I'm pretty sure Mozilla was a package and most people just didn't install the rest of the package. Everyone called the browser Mozilla because they didn't use the other parts. I could definitely be wrong, though.

[–] chrisgestapo 2 points 3 weeks ago

Mozilla (Suite) was similar to Netscape Commumicator and included browser, mail, webpage editor and maybe other functions as well. I don't recall you could install the components separately. Later they decided to release a standalone browser (Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox) and then mail client (Thunderbird). IIRC they had standalone calendar (Sunbird) and webpage editor as well. Eventually they discontinued Mozilla and the closet thing would be the community-maintained Seamonkey.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

could’ve sworn that the browser was also called just Mozilla at one point

If I remember correctly, at one point Mozilla referred to itself as "the godzilla of Mosaic" or something like that.

Mosaic being the first widely available web browser.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I believe the joke was something like it was spelled "Netscape" but pronounced "Mozilla". Web searches (at time of writing) for "pronounced Mozilla" seem to confirm this. I also seem to remember that its user-agent string identifier was "Mozilla" from the earliest version and never contained "Netscape", which goes some way to explaining why I initially forgot the real history and assumed a rebranding to Firefox.