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In 2024, please switch to Firefox
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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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I didn't know this was a phase of it's existence
It wasn't, this guy hasn't a clue... Its original name was Firebird and they changed it to Firefox at version 3's release. You could argue that it is somehow related to the Mozilla browser since it came from a related team but the Mozilla Foundation was also responsible for SeaMonkey as well.
Mosaic was completely unrelated, same with netscape.
I had heard Netscape being mentioned as it's predecessor a number of times but never actually bothered to verify it. Looking them up on wikipedia would lead me to believe that they aren't entirely unrelated with some absolute shit show of derivatives of licenced code from whichever browser I couldn't tell for sure, which it also mentioned internet explorer being a result of. Looking as the articles for each browser and company is confusing as fuck and my pea brain can't keep track of who each organization is and which is their browser. It sounds like a bunch of stuff that would never happen in current times.
I mean I'm all for old guys flexing old guy knowledge. But I honestly feel sort of stupid for even trying to correct this one because it seems so fruitless.
Software lineage does have some interesting things in it and one of my favorite infographics is the Linux variations family tree they have over on Wikipedia. But I don't see any inherent value in tracking where browsers came from and who begot who from the biblical sense.
Back in the day this produced some really large controversies and led to heavy litigation... https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/5/18/17362452/microsoft-antitrust-lawsuit-netscape-internet-explorer-20-years
But now a days you really just need to decide what is important to you and find the right browser. Performance, compatibility, privacy, customization, integration... Etc... there is a browser for pretty much any application you can think of and generally speaking you are going to have some massive give and takes between them. No such thing as a perfect browser, though Links probably got the closest. ๐