November 9 marks the 60th anniversary of the sudden and in some ways mysterious death of Mario Tchou which marked the rapid decline of Olivetti. But since we are dealing with it elsewhere, here it should be remembered that November 9, 2004 is a fundamental date in the history of the Internet: the birth of Firefox. Not just a browser but rather an attempt at a revolution, or a resistance, to save the true values of freedom and security of the network: at the time to counter the domination of Microsoft with Explorer, today that of Google with Chrome. Behind there was and still is the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization, established just over a year earlier to “preserve the possibility of choice and innovation on the Internet” by financing the open source software project that had taken moved by the failure of what at one point had been the most used browser on the web: Netscape. Before failing Netscape had published its source code and from there it had started the movement of hundreds of developers that led to the birth of the Mozilla Foundation (which in fact was originally called Phoenix, phoenix, because it was rising from the ashes of a failure; while for a while, before launch, the browser had to be called Firebird and instead became Firefox which is the nickname of the very rare red panda).
The release of November 9, 2004 announced the worldwide availability of Mozilla Firefox 1.0, a browser born from the desire for a more robust, usable and reliable user experience. In the previous months eight million people had downloaded the very first version helping to improve it and the wait was very high.
Since then, the web has changed a lot: Apple has brought the web to smartphones, Microsoft has in some ways changed the playing field, and has imposed itself on Google. But Mozilla is still there. And so is Firefox. It has a small market share when compared to its two rivals, but it is still a bulwark of those values and an army of volunteers continues to improve it year after year. And the awards are not lacking. Last week, Fast Company magazine listed Firefox in the 2021 ranking of brands that matter “to continue doing everything it can to be recognized as the browser that seeks to protect us against disinformation and to take responsibility in the digital world as a flag. “. It is an unequal challenge, Fast Company always notes, a David against Goliath in digital format, but “it is important that someone puts people ahead of profit and humanity ahead of technology“.
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