Good article from the MIT Technology Review about the launch of the Mozilla Foundation’s browser – Firefox v1.0 – on November 9, 2004.

Of course, the open-source community is masterful at the art of hyperbole. But it’s also pretty masterful at building products that users—not companies—demand. That’s due in large part to the fact that it’s the users—not companies—that build the products.

Firefox brings innovations to browser software that haven’t been since, well, since Microsoft and Netscape were trying to out-feature each other back in 1997. From little things like a local weather-related icon sitting in the page status space to the concept of tabbed pages, which make it possible to open multiple Web pages in the same window. This feature feels like a natural evolution in browsing—the ability to jump between pages within the same browser window (as opposed to opening multiple windows or continually hitting the back button).