For all of the talk about Microsoft and antitrust, the browser wars have mostly been about product quality. I was an early adopter of Netscape, and I loved it because compared to ... what? gopher? ... anyway, compared to the options at the time, it was great. But Netscape decided to become all things to all people and became clunky. I still remember when I finally decided that I couldn't handle it anymore and coverted to Internet Explorer. My decision had nothing to do with IE being preloaded on my machine. It was just a better piece of software.

The latest issue of Wired arrived today, and the cover story looks at the Firefox browser, the open source descendant of Netscape. Firefox has captured only 4% of the total browser market -- still mostly among the most technically proficient internet users -- but people are already talking about the coming browser war. (Looking at the browser share report for this site, 25% is claimed by Firefox and only 65% by IE. The browser war is here!)

Like the first browser war, this one will be won or lost on product quality. Microsoft is busy incorporating browser software into the Longhorn operating system. In the meantime, Firefox keeps gaining adherents and has the open source community watching its back. This will be a fun contest.

P.S. Most interesting tidbit from the Wired article: "Inspired by Google's simple interface, [Firefox programmers Blake Ross and Dave Hyatt] set out to build a stripped-down, stand-alone browser, a refutation of the feature creep that had grounded Netscape." Pair that fact with this: "The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn't know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. In fact ... the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life." Brilliant!

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