Re: Firefox creator - good read. Young kid.

Blake Ross is 19, the same age that Bill Gates was when he helped found
Microsoft. But the surprising success of the free internet browser that
Ross helped create doesn't yet have him dreaming about a Gates-sized
fortune.

"That's not really my concern right now," says Ross from his parents'
Florida townhouse as he contemplates the Mozilla Firefox browser quietly
chipping away at Microsoft's stranglehold on web browsing. "I just want
to make a good product."

Since its release late last year, Firefox has had rave reviews for its
speed and ease of use, and has been downloaded more than 19 million
times. But in the midst of the groundswell, the Stanford University
student seems more concerned with his next computer science final and
working on the latest version of the program.

"There's a certain rush to programming that's difficult to explain, a
daunting challenge that keeps you hooked," he says. "It's that search
for the grail that drives me."

Ross began learning about computer programming at 10, designing webpages
on AOL. That hooked him and he bought programming books to learn complex
languages, such as C++, on his own.

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When he was 14, the precocious teen began fixing bugs in Netscape's web
browser from his home computer. A few months later, Ross told his
parents he had a job offer at Netscape.

He and his mother rented an apartment in Silicon Valley near Netscape's
offices and she drove him to work during a summer internship.

He did contract work on the browser when he was back in Florida.
Meanwhile, he breezed through computer classes, finishing projects in a
day that took others two weeks, says one of his former teachers.

Ross was about to get a bigger challenge. AOL had bought Netscape
Communications in 1999. But the once mighty Netscape browser was
relegated to the desktop recycle bin by millions of users who turned to
Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

AOL tried to resurrect Netscape's browser by adding all sorts of bells
and whistles, Ross says, but the additions were bogging down Netscape's
source code, making it perform slowly and use up more processing power.

"As time went on and me and my co-workers started to feel the AOL
influence, it really lost its lustre," Ross says.

So at 17, he and another Netscape programmer, David Hyatt, began working
on a side project that became Firefox. They wanted to strip down
Netscape to its basics and make it faster, more efficient and use less
computing power.

In July 2003, AOL and Netscape decided to break off the division that
took on Firefox - Mozilla - which became a not-for-profit foundation.

Ross and Hyatt embraced the open-source theory of designing software
that allows anyone to examine the programming code, suggesting ways to
do things more efficiently or how to fix bugs. Microsoft keeps its code
secret. Hyatt eventually left to design Apple's Safari web browser. Ross
stayed on from college but others at Mozilla took over the project. They
received help from thousands of people, mostly volunteers like Ross, who
examined Firefox's code and prepared version 1.0 for its release.

It features a versatile search box, a pop-up blocker, feeds of
frequently visited webpages and the ability to open windows within
windows.

Some security experts recommend Firefox because they say it is not as
vulnerable as Internet Explorer to viruses, spyware and other malicious
programs. Searchers looking for a faster browser choose Firefox. Ross
led a grassroots marketing campaign, including an ad in The New York
Times paid for by thousands of Firefox users.

According to WebSideStory, which tracks browser use, Firefox was used by
4.6 per cent of web surfers in early January, and that number could
reach 10 per cent by the middle of the year. Internet Explorer has
dropped to 90.6 per cent this month from 95.5 per cent last June.

"This definitely came out of nowhere," Ross says. "I guess, looking back
at it now, we should have known it would take off."

But as Firefox becomes more popular, hackers may target it and expose
weak spots. Ross also expects Microsoft to strike back. He and others
are working on version 2.0 to keep Firefox up to date.

Ross says he hasn't made money off Firefox, which gets some revenue from
the search box sponsored by Google, Amazon.com and others. But he gets
calls from venture capitalists and has a start-up with Joe Hewitt,
another veteran of Netscape and Firefox.

A downside of success: "All my computer science professors are expecting
straight As," he says.

And have his media appearances helped with those California girls at
school? "They're the ones that aren't impressed at all," he says with a
laugh.

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