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1.9. Where to Learn MoreIf you're looking for more information about any of the topics covered in this chapter, the following sections will point you to some online resources that you may find helpful and interesting. 1.9.1. History of the World Wide WebIf you're interested in the history of the Web, you can still find the original document behind what became the World Wide Web online: Tim Berners-Lee's blueprint, titled "Information Management: A Proposal" and dated "March 1989, May 1990." You can also find another brief and interesting piece by Berners-Lee, titled "The World Wide Web: A very short personal history," as well as some interesting information about the original WorldWideWeb browser (it's absolutely astounding how ahead of its time the graphical version of that piece of software was). Another good source of information is the text of a speech delivered in November 1995 by Robert Cailliau (a close collaborator of Berners-Lee and one of the other fathers of the Web), which covers in quick detail the prehistory (from 1945 to 1989) and early days of the Web (from 1989 to 1995). It's pretty engrossing for the insights it provides by someone who was there from the beginning.
1.9.2. Vintage BrowsersYou can still run the original line-mode browser today, but the vast majority of web pages look horrible in it. The World Wide Web Consortium has pages up with information about this browser, although a lot of the details are quite technical. Another web site, Funet.fi, provides some history and even a movie of the line-mode browser in action. Information about the Viola and Midas browsers is also available online. The NCSA's web site contains a full history of all the features that the Mosaic browser introduced, and Gary Wolfe's October 1994 article in Wired gives some fascinating numbers about the growth of the Web as tracked against Mosaic's growing popularity. Finally, if you're looking for ecstatic comments from contemporary Mosaic users, they aren't hard to find using Google Groups.
1.9.3. NetscapeDavid Brody's early review of Mosaic Netscape, titled "Mosaic Netscape: One Small Step for the Web...," is a hoot, and "Origin of a Browser" is an excellent overview of the early Netscape years, including lots of screenshots and fascinating information. The Netscape Handbook, dating from 1995, can also still be found online; it's a charming historical document. Another site that deserves a look is The Mozilla Museum. Mozilla was not just a codename for Netscape's early browsers; it was also a mascot, and you can see a huge number of humorous illustrations of Mozilla the lizard in action at the museum's web site.
1.9.4. Internet Explorer and the Browser WarsMicrosoft, of course, has an official IE web site. For a more balanced overview, though, look at the article on Internet Explorer at Wikipedia. For more on Microsoft's actions in the 1990s as they developed Internet Explorer and competed (illegally) against Netscape, read all of District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's 1999 "Finding of Fact in U.S. v. Microsoft." Judge Jackson's Finding of Fact quotes Brad Chase's promise to make "running any other browser...a jolting experience." The infamous "cut off Netscape's air supply" quote is taken from the "Statement By Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein: Filing Of Antitrust Suit Against Microsoft: May 18, 1998." For an unbiased account of the so-called "browser wars," see Wikipedia's article; for (slightly) biased accounts, there are several discussions by web developers online (understand that many web developers do not like IE, as it makes their lives difficult!). If you feel like spending money, you can buy an article on "A Brief History of the Browser Wars" for just $6.50 from Harvard Business Online.
1.9.5. IE: Stagnation and ControlInformation about the size of Microsoft's IE team and its changes over time was taken from the U.S. Department of Justice and News.com. Tony Chor's blog post admitting that Microsoft essentially disbanded the IE team when the company felt that it had "won" the browser wars can be found at Microsoft's Developer Network web site. Brian Countryman's statement that IE would no longer be available as a separate download is found at a Microsoft TechNet discussion called "Changes in Internet Explorer for Windows Server 2003." Many excellent pieces were written about IE for Mac OS when Microsoft announced that it was ending development of the program. CNET quotes a Microsoft spokesperson on the decision in the aptly titled "Microsoft: No new versions of IE for Mac." Eric Meyer's "Hail and Farewell" provides a comprehensive overview of the features that made the browser ahead of its time, while Jon Rentzsch's "Losing Mac IE 6" lists who was really hurt by the decision and why. John Gruber's blog entry on "Internet Explorer" provides a thorough analysis of Microsoft's reasoning and also links to several good postings by others. The best source I know of for web browser statistics and news is Chuck Upsdell's "Browser News." Statistics about operating system market share are, surprisingly, more difficult to find; however, WebSideStory released a press release on May 13, 2003 (titled "Windows XP Captures One-Third Of O/S Market On The Web") that provides some numbers.
1.9.6. ActiveX and Microsoft SecurityMicrosoft provides information about ActiveX on its own web site, and Google collects many different definitions of ActiveX in one place. For a few older but still relevant discussions of ActiveX, check out Paul Festa's 1998 article on CNET about the security issues associated with ActiveX and David Hopwood's "A Comparison between Java and ActiveX Security." Internet Explorer's security zones can be confusing to understand and configure. Vic Laurie's web site is the best resource I've seen on IE's zones; in particular, his advice on the hidden fifth Local zone deserves your scrutiny. (Laurie's site also contains a good article on ActiveX.) US-CERT's "Vulnerability Note VU#713878" covers the Download.Ject worm and containing its recommendation to use a browser other than Internet Explorer. Also, the British IT news site The Register ran an excellent series of articles on Download.Ject over the summer of 2004. For a good analysis of the Download.Ject worm and Microsoft's tepid response, written by someone I normally consider a Microsoft apologist, see Paul Thurrott's article. If you're interested in checking out the numbers in the Apache/Microsoft web server race (although Apache always, and I mean always, wins), check out the latest Netcraft web server survey. A detailed, excellent overview of open source versus Microsoft security was written by Nicholas Petreley in October 2004. Even though it's not explicitly about Firefox or IE, the methodology and explanations Petreley provides are outstanding and definitely relate to those web browsers.
1.9.7. MozillaIf you want to learn more about Mozilla, the best place to start is the official Mozilla site (or you can check out Wikipedia's superlative overview of the browser). For some crucial details, I recommend looking at Neil Deakin's classic piece titled "101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot." Lots of sites offer help for Mozilla users on the Web; don't forget to check them out if you need aid. As I mentioned earlier, reviews for Netscape 6.0 and 6.1 were not kind. Both InfoWorld's review of 6.0, titled "Netscape strikes out with Navigator 6.0," and eWeek's review of 6.1, titled "Netscape 6.1 DeliversKind Of," are still available online. Mozilla 1.0 received much better reviews. Jim Rapoza wrote a positive assessment in the June 10, 2002 issue of eWeek, entitled "Mozilla Lacks Nothing Except Extra Baggage." And finally, Firefox's success has been easy to measure. According to the "Spread Firefox" blog, when the browser was first released, ten million copies were downloaded in a little over a month. At the same time, IE's market share went down 5% and Firefox's went up the same amount. Nice job, Firefox!
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