With the recent passing of Firefox’s fifth birthday, it got me thinking of the magnitude of good this innovative browser has done to promote the open source software movement. I clearly recall back in 2005 when I first stumbled on this browser in my search to rid myself of the virus prone Internet Explorer 6.

I found Firefox almost by accident, it was mentioned in a brief tech column in a gossip magazine that I was reading in a waiting room to pass time by. In those days I had no clue of the existence of open source and its ethos. The minute I tried Firefox I realized just how innovative this browser was with it’s ‘tabbed’ interface, which was pretty new, and really slick back in 2005. The discovery of Firefox enticed me to explore this new world called open source, my curious instincts told me to learn more about the open source concept. I can probably attribute Firefox to being the catalyst of my conversion to Linux.

Firefox along with it’s innovation and security essentially introduced me to the world of open source and it’s innovation. I quickly discovered that the freedom and flexibility that Firefox offered existed mostly everywhere in the open source world of software. I found myself slowly replacing my propriety applications with open source alternatives, not only because it was free, but because I found the open source alternatives much easier and for better to use.

I now use open source exclusively from my operating system through to my word processor, there is no application that’s missing for me in the open source world. It’s an evolution that has enhanced my computing greatly, I have never looked back or missed the world of proprietary software, trail versions, CD keys, online activations, security flaws etc etc….

A time line of the Firefox development through the versions and years

Tags: Add new tag, Browser, Communication, Concept, Design, Desktop, firefox, GPL, Interface, Internet, Mozilla, Open Source, Software, Web

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 08:24 and is filed under Software, Web. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.