History of Mozilla Application Suite
Encyclopedia
The history of the Mozilla Application Suite began with the release of the source code
of the Netscape
suite as an open source
project. Going through years of hard working (with the help of the community contributors), Mozilla 1.0 was eventually released on June 5, 2002. Its backend code base, most notably the Gecko
layout engine
, has become the foundation of a number of applications based on Mozilla, including the Mozilla Foundation
's flagship
product Mozilla Firefox
and Mozilla Thunderbird
. While the suite is no longer a formal Mozilla product, its development and maintenance is continued as the SeaMonkey
community project.
suite under an open source license. The name of the application developed from this would be Mozilla, coordinated by the newly created Mozilla Organization, at the mozilla.org website
.
The open source
release, which came at the height of America
's late-1990s economic boom, was greeted by the Internet community with a mixture of acclaim and skepticism. In some circles, Netscape's source release was seen as both a victory for the free software
movement and an opportunity for Netscape to tap the power of open source development. This view was particularly popular among users of Linux
and other free software. Other observers, including many outside of the free software business community, interpreted the move as Netscape's surrender in the face of the ascendancy of Microsoft
's Internet Explorer
browser.
Regardless of the public's opinion, development with the Communicator code base proved harder than initially hoped:
As a result, the initial Communicator open source release did not even build cleanly, much less run. This presented steep challenges to the Mozilla core developers (most of whom were still on Netscape's payroll), and even steeper challenges to independent developers wishing to contribute to Mozilla on their own.
Few observers foresaw the result. On December 7, 1998, Netscape released a special "preview" based on the Gecko
layout engine. Gecko had already been in development for some time at Netscape under the internal name NGLayout (short for "Next Generation Layout"). It was noticeably faster and smaller than its predecessor (known as Mariner
). One widely publicized feature of the first Gecko preview release was that it fit on a single 1.44 MB
floppy disk
, making it about one tenth the size of most contemporary browsers.
The prompt release of Gecko led many to believe that a complete browser could not be far behind. However, the first release of the layout engine was far from bug- and crash-free, and even further from being ready for the prime-time. Producing a fully functional web browser required much more than the nascent rendering engine: the Mozilla developers soon envisioned a project more ambitious than a simple web browser. The new Mozilla (internally codenamed "Seamonkey") would be a platform for Internet applications, with a fully programmable user interface and a modular architecture. This Mozilla would function equally well as a host for email client, instant messaging
client, news client
, or any number of other applications.
Due to the effort required for this massive rewrite
, the project fell far behind its original projected deadlines. In the years that followed, skepticism about Mozilla grew widespread, and some doubted that a finished Mozilla browser would ever see the light of day. However, the project persisted, continuing uninterrupted through both the purchase of Netscape by AOL and the end of the dot-com boom
.
By June 5, 2002, the Mozilla project had produced version 1.0 of the browser that worked on multiple operating systems, including Linux
, Mac OS
, Microsoft Windows
, and Solaris. The browser was praised for introducing new features that Internet Explorer
lacked, including better support for user privacy preferences and some interface improvements. Additionally, the Mozilla browser became a de facto reference implementation for various World Wide Web Consortium
standards, due to its strong support for those standards. Recent versions of Mozilla are highly customizable and include advanced features such as cookie, popup, password and image management, and tabbed browsing.
announced that it would close down its browser division, which was in essence Netscape's Mozilla. AOL laid off most of Netscape's employees and hackers, except for some who were transferred to other divisions. Netscape signs were seen being pulled off its building, confirming what many took as the end of Netscape. AOL will be keeping the Netscape brand for its portal, but the company will no longer pay anyone to develop the Mozilla codebase.
On the same day, the Mozilla Foundation was created. The Foundation is a non-profit organization composed primarily of developers and staff from Mozilla Organization and owns the Mozilla trademark
(but not the copyright
to the source code
, which is retained by the individual and corporate contributors, but license
d under the GPL
, MPL
and LGPL
). It received initial $
2 million donations from AOL, IBM
, Sun Microsystems
, and Red Hat
, and $300,000 from Mitch Kapor
.
Many people had been expecting this after AOL reached a settlement with competitor, Microsoft, with a deal for the AOL software to use Internet Explorer for the next 7 years. Netscape had always been seen as a bargaining chip for AOL against Microsoft.
) and Minotaur (now known as Mozilla Thunderbird
). Since then, many new features and enhancements have been added to the standalone applications only.
On March 10, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that they would not release any further official versions of the suite beyond 1.7.x. However, the foundation emphasized that they would still provide infrastructure for community members who wished to continue development. In effect, this means that the suite will still continue to be developed, but not by the Mozilla Foundation itself. To avoid confusing organizations that still want to use the original Mozilla Suite, the new product needed a new name. On July 2, 2005, it was announced that the suite is going to be named SeaMonkey
, which was originally the code name
of the Mozilla Application Suite. The new project-leading group is known as the "SeaMonkey Council".
Initially, the term "Mozilla" was loosely used to refer to a number of subjects, including the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Suite, the codebase of the Suite and its related technologies. Since the shifting of development focus, to distinguish the suite from the standalone products, the suite was marketed as "Mozilla Suite", or the more lengthy "Mozilla Application Suite".
It is often argued that since free software is typically only designed by programmers rather than graphic designers or usability
gurus, it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI
design, and a lack of a strong visual identity.
During development of Mozilla, a number of logos were used in various areas of the application. The logos are inconsistent with each other; for example, the logo used as the program's icon is different from the one used as the throbber
, which is again different from the one used in the "About" window.
Note (1): 1.2.1 was the last official Mozilla.org public release to support Mac OS
9 "Classic". Technically though, 1.3a was the last version to support OS 9 but only via the use of the CarbonLib extension as explained in the 1.3a release notes. An unofficial port of 1.3a was later created in the form of WaMCom in an attempt to provide a stable build of 1.3 for OS 9 users.
Note (2): There was no Mozilla 1.7.4. The 1.7.5 version number was selected to match the internal Gecko version number of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.
Note (3): Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled. It was intended that Mozilla 1.7.9 would be released shortly after Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5. However, regression
s were found in the 1.0.5 versions of Firefox and Thunderbird after they were released, so Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled. Mozilla 1.7.10 was released shortly after Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.6.
in Mozilla from M3 to 1.0. The interface of Mozilla was almost unchanged since version 1.0. Mozilla M11 is not available because of program crash.
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
of the Netscape
Netscape (web browser)
Netscape 7 was a series of proprietary cross-platform Internet suites created by Netscape Communications Corporation and then in-house by AOL to continue the Netscape series after Netscape 6. There were three main editions released from the Netscape 7 series; being Netscape 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2...
suite as an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
project. Going through years of hard working (with the help of the community contributors), Mozilla 1.0 was eventually released on June 5, 2002. Its backend code base, most notably the Gecko
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects....
layout engine
Layout engine
A web browser engine, , is a software component that takes marked up content and formatting information and displays the formatted content on the screen. It "paints" on the content area of a window, which is displayed on a monitor or a printer...
, has become the foundation of a number of applications based on Mozilla, including the Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property...
's flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
product Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
and Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
. While the suite is no longer a formal Mozilla product, its development and maintenance is continued as the SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a free and open source cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code...
community project.
Open sourcing of Communicator
In March 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation released most of the code base for its popular Netscape CommunicatorNetscape Communicator
Netscape Communicator was an Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation. Initially released in June 1997, Netscape Communicator 4.0 was the successor to Netscape Navigator 3.x and included more groupware features intended to appeal to enterprises.- Editions :Netscape...
suite under an open source license. The name of the application developed from this would be Mozilla, coordinated by the newly created Mozilla Organization, at the mozilla.org website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
.
The open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
release, which came at the height of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
's late-1990s economic boom, was greeted by the Internet community with a mixture of acclaim and skepticism. In some circles, Netscape's source release was seen as both a victory for the free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
movement and an opportunity for Netscape to tap the power of open source development. This view was particularly popular among users of Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and other free software. Other observers, including many outside of the free software business community, interpreted the move as Netscape's surrender in the face of the ascendancy of Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
browser.
Regardless of the public's opinion, development with the Communicator code base proved harder than initially hoped:
- The Communicator code base was huge and complex.
- It had to be developed simultaneously on many operating systemOperating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s, and therefore to cope with their differing APIs, GUIGuiGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
s, libraries and idiosyncrasies. - It bore the scars of many rapid cycles of closed-source development on "Internet timeInternet timeInternet time was a common catchphrase that originated during the late-1990s Internet boom. In this period, people who worked with the Internet had come to believe that "everything moved faster on the 'net", because the Internet made the dissemination of information far easier and cheaper...
". The short development cycles had led programmers to sacrifice modularity and elegance in the scramble to implement more features. - Several parts of Communicator's code were never released as open source, due to licensing arrangements with third parties.
As a result, the initial Communicator open source release did not even build cleanly, much less run. This presented steep challenges to the Mozilla core developers (most of whom were still on Netscape's payroll), and even steeper challenges to independent developers wishing to contribute to Mozilla on their own.
Rewriting from scratch
Ultimately, the Mozilla core developers concluded that the old code could not be salvaged. As stated on the October 26, 1998 development roadmap, it was decided to scrap the whole code base and rewrite it from the ground up. The resulting plan included, among other things, the creation of a whole new cross-platform user interface library and a new layout engine.Few observers foresaw the result. On December 7, 1998, Netscape released a special "preview" based on the Gecko
Gecko (layout engine)
Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects....
layout engine. Gecko had already been in development for some time at Netscape under the internal name NGLayout (short for "Next Generation Layout"). It was noticeably faster and smaller than its predecessor (known as Mariner
Mariner (layout engine)
Mariner was a canceled project to add performance and stability enhancements to the layout engine used in the Netscape Communicator web browser...
). One widely publicized feature of the first Gecko preview release was that it fit on a single 1.44 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
, making it about one tenth the size of most contemporary browsers.
The prompt release of Gecko led many to believe that a complete browser could not be far behind. However, the first release of the layout engine was far from bug- and crash-free, and even further from being ready for the prime-time. Producing a fully functional web browser required much more than the nascent rendering engine: the Mozilla developers soon envisioned a project more ambitious than a simple web browser. The new Mozilla (internally codenamed "Seamonkey") would be a platform for Internet applications, with a fully programmable user interface and a modular architecture. This Mozilla would function equally well as a host for email client, instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
client, news client
News client
A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet . Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol , to download articles and post new articles...
, or any number of other applications.
Due to the effort required for this massive rewrite
Rewrite (programming)
A rewrite in computer programming is the act or result of re-implementing a large portion of existing functionality without re-use of its source code. When the rewrite is not using existing code at all, it is common to speak of a rewrite from scratch...
, the project fell far behind its original projected deadlines. In the years that followed, skepticism about Mozilla grew widespread, and some doubted that a finished Mozilla browser would ever see the light of day. However, the project persisted, continuing uninterrupted through both the purchase of Netscape by AOL and the end of the dot-com boom
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
.
By June 5, 2002, the Mozilla project had produced version 1.0 of the browser that worked on multiple operating systems, including Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
, Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, and Solaris. The browser was praised for introducing new features that Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
lacked, including better support for user privacy preferences and some interface improvements. Additionally, the Mozilla browser became a de facto reference implementation for various World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
standards, due to its strong support for those standards. Recent versions of Mozilla are highly customizable and include advanced features such as cookie, popup, password and image management, and tabbed browsing.
Independence from AOL
On July 15, 2003, AOLAOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
announced that it would close down its browser division, which was in essence Netscape's Mozilla. AOL laid off most of Netscape's employees and hackers, except for some who were transferred to other divisions. Netscape signs were seen being pulled off its building, confirming what many took as the end of Netscape. AOL will be keeping the Netscape brand for its portal, but the company will no longer pay anyone to develop the Mozilla codebase.
On the same day, the Mozilla Foundation was created. The Foundation is a non-profit organization composed primarily of developers and staff from Mozilla Organization and owns the Mozilla trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
(but not the copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
to the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
, which is retained by the individual and corporate contributors, but license
License
The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
d under the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, MPL
Mozilla Public License
The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...
and LGPL
GNU Lesser General Public License
The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...
). It received initial $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
2 million donations from AOL, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, and Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
, and $300,000 from Mitch Kapor
Mitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
.
Many people had been expecting this after AOL reached a settlement with competitor, Microsoft, with a deal for the AOL software to use Internet Explorer for the next 7 years. Netscape had always been seen as a bargaining chip for AOL against Microsoft.
The end of the Suite
According to the Mozilla development roadmap published on April 2, 2003, the Mozilla Organization planned to focus development efforts on the new standalone applications: Phoenix (now known as Mozilla FirefoxMozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
) and Minotaur (now known as Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
). Since then, many new features and enhancements have been added to the standalone applications only.
On March 10, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that they would not release any further official versions of the suite beyond 1.7.x. However, the foundation emphasized that they would still provide infrastructure for community members who wished to continue development. In effect, this means that the suite will still continue to be developed, but not by the Mozilla Foundation itself. To avoid confusing organizations that still want to use the original Mozilla Suite, the new product needed a new name. On July 2, 2005, it was announced that the suite is going to be named SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey
SeaMonkey is a free and open source cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code...
, which was originally the code name
Code name
A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage...
of the Mozilla Application Suite. The new project-leading group is known as the "SeaMonkey Council".
Branding and visual identity
It is often argued that since free software is typically only designed by programmers rather than graphic designers or usability
Usability
Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. The object of use can be a software application, website, book, tool, machine, process, or anything a human interacts with. A usability study may be conducted as a primary job function by a usability analyst or as a secondary job...
gurus, it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
design, and a lack of a strong visual identity.
During development of Mozilla, a number of logos were used in various areas of the application. The logos are inconsistent with each other; for example, the logo used as the program's icon is different from the one used as the throbber
Throbber
A throbber is a graphic found in a graphical user interface of a computer program that animates to show the user that the program is performing an action .-Typical characteristics:...
, which is again different from the one used in the "About" window.
Release history
Parts of this table are based on the release notes of Mozilla.| Old Version | Current Version | Future Version |
| Branch | Version | Release date | Significant changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milestone Releases | M3 | March 19, 1999 | |
| M4 | April 15, 1999 | ||
| M5 | May 5, 1999 | ||
| M6 | May 29, 1999 | ||
| M7 | June 22, 1999 | ||
| M8 | July 16, 1999 | ||
| M9 | August 26, 1999 | ||
| M10 | October 8, 1999 | ||
| M11 | November 16, 1999 | ||
| M12 | December 21, 1999 | ||
| M13 | January 26, 2000 | ||
| M14 | March 1, 2000 | ||
| M15 | April 18, 2000 | ||
| M16 | June 13, 2000 | ChatZilla ChatZilla ChatZilla is an IRC client for Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox, introduced in 2000. It is cross-platform open source software which has been noted for its consistent appearance across platforms, CSS appearance customization and scripting.... , skin switching and auto complete Autocomplete Autocomplete is a feature provided by many web browsers, e-mail programs, search engine interfaces, source code editors, database query tools, word processors, and command line interpreters. Autocomplete involves the program predicting a word or phrase that the user wants to type in without the... were implemented. HTTP 1.1 was fully functional and was enabled by default. |
|
| M17 | August 7, 2000 | Scroll position was saved in session history. Improved auto complete and session history in the address bar. Improved cookie management. Alpha transparency for Windows (was already available on Mac and Linux). Plugin support for Linux (was already available in Windows and Mac). MNG support. | |
| M18 | October 12, 2000 | Improved performance, stability, Java support, downloading / Helper App and mime type handling, tree sorting and column sizing, proxy and proxy auto configuration, auto complete, accelerators and mnemonics, and MailNews threading. about:plugins and toolbar customization were implemented. | |
| 0.6 | 0.6 | December 6, 2000 | Base of Netscape 6 and Beonex Communicator Beonex Communicator Beonex Communicator was an open source internet suite based on the Mozilla Application Suite by Ben Bucksch, a German Mozilla developer, which have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products.... 0.6. |
| 0.7 | 0.7 | January 9, 2001 | First Mac release with SSL support. Mouse wheel support improved and was available for Mac for the first time. Forced reload (not from cache) was implemented. Remember maximized state of windows across sessions. Navigation back and forward in framed sites was improved. |
| 0.8 | 0.8 | February 14, 2001 | Find and Replace was implemented. Improved support for system colors on Linux, Windows NT and Windows 2000. New preferences for display of animated GIF GIF The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability.... s. |
| 0.8.1 | March 26, 2001 | New and improved ChatZilla and JavaScript Console. Basic gopher support. Better FTP performance. SSL connections through proxy. | |
| 0.9 | 0.9 | May 7, 2001 | Automatic proxy configuration was implemented. Late loading of Java for improved startup performance and footprint. Image rendering library was rewritten from scratch for increased performance. |
| 0.9.1 | June 7, 2001 | Stability improvements. Performance improvements in layout and networking. Bi-directional text Bi-directional text Bi-directional text is text containing text in both text directionalities, both right-to-left and left-to-right . It generally involves text containing different types of alphabets, but may also refer to boustrophedon, which is changing text directionality in each row.Some writing systems of the... support enabled for Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... and Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... (Arabic shaping was Windows-only). Partial XSLT XSL Transformations XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,... support turned on. |
|
| 0.9.2 | June 28, 2001 | Stability improvements. | |
| 0.9.2.1 | August 8, 2001 | Source only (from which Netscape 6.1 was built). | |
| 0.9.3 | August 2, 2001 | Stability improvements. Quick Launch with multiple profiles. | |
| 0.9.4 | September 14, 2001 | Windows-only Quick Launch enabled by default. Viewing of Arabic language text on Linux and other systems. Improvements to offline IMAP. | |
| 0.9.5 | October 12, 2001 | Venkman Venkman Venkman is the JavaScript debugger component of the Mozilla Application Suite. It is also available as a Mozilla Firefox extension. Venkman is named after the character Dr. Peter Venkman played by Bill Murray in the movies Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II.-History:In 1998, John Bandhauer was in... available in complete installation. Support of tabbed browsing. |
|
| 0.9.6 | November 20, 2001 | Support of page icon (except favicon), BMP Windows bitmap The BMP File Format, also known as Bitmap Image File or Device Independent Bitmap file format or simply a Bitmap, is a Raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device , especially on Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems.The BMP... and ICO Icon (computing) A computer icon is a pictogram displayed on a computer screen and used to navigate a computer system or mobile device. The icon itself is a small picture or symbol serving as a quick, intuitive representation of a software tool, function or a data file accessible on the system. It functions as an... images. Print Preview was implemented. |
|
| 0.9.7 | December 21, 2001 | DOM Inspector DOM Inspector DOM Inspector is a web developer tool created by Joe Hewitt and was originally included in Mozilla Application Suite as well as versions of Mozilla Firefox prior to Firefox 3. It is now included by default in SeaMonkey and is an installable extension for subsequent versions of Firefox and other... available in complete installation. Support of basic S/MIME functionality, favicon Favicon A favicon , also known as a shortcut icon, Web site icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon, is a file containing one small icons, most commonly 16×16 pixels, associated with a particular Web site or Web page... , longdesc attribute of the img element, and digest access authentication. Only load CSS served as "text/css" when under strict mode. Print preview was implemented on Macintosh. |
|
| 0.9.8 | February 4, 2002 | Support of Hebrew on Solaris. Support of Hebrew and Arabic on Mac OS. | |
| 0.9.9 | March 11, 2002 | MathML enabled by default on Windows and Unix. Support of TrueType fonts on Unix. Support of SOAP SOAP SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks... . |
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| 1.0 | 1.0 RC 1 | April 18, 2002 | |
| 1.0 RC 2 | May 10, 2002 | ||
| 1.0 RC 3 | May 23, 2002 | ||
| 1.0 | June 5, 2002 | Official Version 1.0 release. | |
| 1.0.1 | September 10, 2002 | Fixes in security, stability and dataloss bugs. Base of Netscape 7.0 and Beonex Communicator 0.8.1. | |
| 1.0.2 | January 7, 2003 | Fixes in security and stability bugs. | |
| 1.1 | 1.1 Alpha | June 11, 2002 | |
| 1.1 Beta | July 22, 2002 | ||
| 1.1 | August 26, 2002 | Improvements in application and layout performance; stability; web site compatibility; and CSS, DOM and HTML standards support. Download Manager as the default download view. MathML enabled for Mozilla on Macintosh (it was already available on Windows and Linux). Better bi-di Arabic and Hebrew support. Support of XBM XBM In computer graphics, the X Window System uses X BitMap , a plain text binary image format, for storing cursor and icon bitmaps used in the X GUI.XBM files differ markedly from most image files in that they take the form of C source files... . |
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| 1.2 | 1.2 Alpha | September 11, 2002 | |
| 1.2 Beta | October 16, 2002 | ||
| 1.2 | November 26, 2002 | Support of Type Ahead Find (now known as find as you type Incremental find In computing, incremental search, incremental find or real-time suggestions is a user interface interaction method to progressively search for and filter through text. As the user types text, one or more possible matches for the text are found and immediately presented to the user... ). Improvements to native look and feel in both the browser interface and the browser content area. Improvements in keyboard access and tabbing browsing. Support of link prefetching Link prefetching Link prefetching is a proprietary syntax to give web browsers a hint about documents that it should pre-fetch because the user might visit them in the near future. It is proposed as a draft internet standard by Mozilla... . XML "pretty printing" similar to that in Internet Explorer. |
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| 1.2.1 1 | December 2, 2002 | Fix of a DHTML bug. | |
| 1.3 | 1.3 Alpha | December 13, 2002 | |
| 1.3 Beta | February 10, 2003 | ||
| 1.3 | March 13, 2003 | An initial implementation of rich text editing controls. New splash screen. | |
| 1.3.1 | May 7, 2003 | Restored XPI functionality for Mac OS X users. | |
| 1.4 | 1.4 Alpha | April 1, 2003 | |
| 1.4 Beta | May 7, 2003 | ||
| 1.4 RC 1 | May 29, 2003 | ||
| 1.4 RC 2 | June 17, 2003 | ||
| 1.4 RC 3 | June 24, 2003 | ||
| 1.4 | June 30, 2003 | Support of NTLM NTLM In a Windows network, NTLM is a suite of Microsoft security protocols that provides authentication, integrity, and confidentiality to users.... authentication (Windows-only). Pop-up blocking has been streamlined to improve usability. |
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| 1.4.1 | October 10, 2003 | ||
| 1.5 | 1.5 Alpha | July 22, 2003 | |
| 1.5 Beta | August 27, 2003 | ||
| 1.5 RC 1 | September 17, 2003 | ||
| 1.5 RC 2 | September 26, 2003 | ||
| 1.5 | October 15, 2003 | Spell checker Spell checker In computing, a spell checker is an application program that flags words in a document that may not be spelled correctly. Spell checkers may be stand-alone capable of operating on a block of text, or as part of a larger application, such as a word processor, email client, electronic dictionary,... for MailNews and Composer. Improvements to MailNews, Composer and tabbed browsing. Support of double-colon notation for CSS pseudo-elements. |
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| 1.5.1 | November 26, 2003 | Mac OS X-only release to correct a downloading crash experienced by users of Mac OS X v10.1 Mac OS X v10.1 Mac OS X version 10.1, code named "Puma", is the second major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.0 and preceded Mac OS X v10.2. Version 10.1 was released on 25 September 2001 as a 'free update' to version 10.0... . |
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| 1.6 | 1.6 Alpha | October 31, 2003 | about:about was implemented. |
| 1.6 Beta | December 9, 2003 | Fixes in security-related and crash bugs. Included a new cross-platform NTLM authentication mechanism. | |
| 1.6 | January 15, 2004 | Improvements in standards compliance and faster page load times. CSS inheritance updated to work per CSS2.1 (computed values are inherited). | |
| 1.7 | 1.7 Alpha | February 23, 2004 | |
| 1.7 Beta | March 18, 2004 | ||
| 1.7 RC 1 | April 21, 2004 | ||
| 1.7 RC 2 | May 17, 2004 | ||
| 1.7 RC 3 | June 8, 2004 | ||
| 1.7 | June 17, 2004 | Improvements in size and performance. Support of CSS3 opacity and JavaScript onbeforeunload event. | |
| 1.7.1 | July 8, 2004 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.2 | August 4, 2004 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.3 | September 13, 2004 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.5 2 | December 17, 2004 | Support of NPRuntime (extension to NPAPI). Support of undetectable document.all. | |
| 1.7.6 | March 21, 2005 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.7 | April 15, 2005 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.8 | May 11, 2005 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.10 3 | July 21, 2005 | Vulnerability patch. | |
| 1.7.11 | August 1, 2005 | Fixes for regressions in Mail & Newsgroups. | |
| 1.7.12 | September 21, 2005 | Vulnerability patch and regression fix. | |
| 1.7.13 | April 21, 2006 | Vulnerability patch and stability fix; end-of-life for 1.7.x product line. | |
| 1.7.13.2006071107 | July 11, 2006 | Last nightly update of Mozilla 1.7 | |
| 1.8 | 1.8 Alpha 1 | May 20, 2004 | Support of CSS2 quotes. Significant changes in XUL tree widget. Dramatic increase in the maximum number of cookies. |
| 1.8 Alpha 2 | July 14, 2004 | Initial support of the new NPAPI extensions. | |
| 1.8 Alpha 3 | August 18, 2004 | CSS at-rule for matching on site/document URL. Support of translucent windows on Windows and GTK2. Support of undetectable document.all. | |
| 1.8 Alpha 4 | September 28, 2004 | Support for CSS3 cursors, overflow-x and overflow-y. CSS error reporting via the JavaScript Console. DHTML performance improvements. | |
| 1.8 Alpha 5 | November 22, 2004 | Experimental support for CSS3 columns. | |
| 1.8 Alpha 6 | January 12, 2005 | XML parser upgraded. Lots of stability and security fixes. Some parsing errors are now marked in red in view-source. | |
| 1.8 Beta 1 | February 26, 2005 | Partial support of ECMAScript for XML (E4X). |
Note (1): 1.2.1 was the last official Mozilla.org public release to support Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
9 "Classic". Technically though, 1.3a was the last version to support OS 9 but only via the use of the CarbonLib extension as explained in the 1.3a release notes. An unofficial port of 1.3a was later created in the form of WaMCom in an attempt to provide a stable build of 1.3 for OS 9 users.
Note (2): There was no Mozilla 1.7.4. The 1.7.5 version number was selected to match the internal Gecko version number of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.
Note (3): Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled. It was intended that Mozilla 1.7.9 would be released shortly after Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5. However, regression
Software regression
A software regression is a software bug which makes a feature stop functioning as intended after a certain event...
s were found in the 1.0.5 versions of Firefox and Thunderbird after they were released, so Mozilla 1.7.9 was cancelled. Mozilla 1.7.10 was released shortly after Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.6.
Screenshot gallery
The following screenshots show the evolution of user interfaceUser interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
in Mozilla from M3 to 1.0. The interface of Mozilla was almost unchanged since version 1.0. Mozilla M11 is not available because of program crash.
See also
- Mozilla Application SuiteMozilla Application SuiteThe Mozilla Application Suite is a cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator...
- SeaMonkeySeaMonkeySeaMonkey is a free and open source cross-platform Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code...
- History of Mozilla FirefoxHistory of Mozilla FirefoxThe Mozilla Firefox project was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project. Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005. Version 2.0 was released on October 24, 2006...
- History of Mozilla ThunderbirdHistory of Mozilla ThunderbirdOriginally launched as Minotaur shortly after Phoenix , the project failed to gain momentum. With the success of the Mozilla Firefox, however, demand increased for a mail client to go with it, and the work on Minotaur was revived under the new name of Thunderbird, and migrated to the new toolkit...
- History of free softwareHistory of free softwareThis is a timeline-style look at how free and open-source software has evolved and existed from its inception.The phrase "free software" refers to software that is liberally licensed, allowing the end user more freedoms than conventional-software licences. This is not to be confused with software...
External links
- Netscape Communications Corporation (April 1, 1999). Netscape celebrates first anniversary of open source software release to mozilla.org. Retrieved June 12, 2005.
- Mozilla 1.x Releases
- Branding Mozilla: Towards Mozilla 2.0
- A Visual Browser History