Datasheet

The Gecko Browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Camino
Gecko was created in January 1998. At that time, Netscape announced that it was making its browser
free to its users and that its browser would be open source, meaning that its source code would be freely
available for modification and distribution. This led to the creation of Mozilla; at the time Mozilla was
the organization charged with developing and managing the Netscape code base. America Online later
purchased Netscape, and until July 2003 Mozilla remained a part of Netscape. In July 2003, the Mozilla
Foundation was created, making Mozilla an independent, not-for-profit corporation. When the Netscape
browser became open source, its rendering engine, the part of the browser software responsible for mak-
ing the source code of a web page into something you can see and interact with, was given the name
Gecko.
Gecko is the foundation that a whole suite of browsers relies on to do the behind-the-scenes work of ren-
dering web pages. Gecko is included in AOL for Mac OS X, Camino, Netscape 6, Netscape 7, Netscape 8,
Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Sea Monkey, and Mozilla Firefox.
Netscape’s browser market share has greatly diminished, whereas Mozilla Firefox continues to gain in
popularity, occupying the number-two spot at between 5 and 30% market share (again, depending on
the website’s audience). Netscape’s (and other Gecko browsers, for that matter) market share is charted
by most statistics at less than one percent.
The following table shows the relationship between other Gecko browsers and Mozilla Firefox. This
table illustrates the version of the underlying Gecko engine that each browser has in common with
Firefox. Each of these browsers can be expected to render a web page identically and have the same
capabilities in the area of CSS and document layout as the version of Firefox cited.
Other Gecko Browser Firefox
Netscape 8.1 Firefox 1.5
Netscape 8.0 Firefox 1.0
Netscape 7.2 Firefox 0.9
Camino 1.0 Firefox 1.5
SeaMonkey 1.0 (formerly Mozilla Suite) Firefox 1.5
Mozilla Suite 1.8 Firefox 1.0
Mozilla Suite 1.7 Firefox 0.9
Mozilla Suite 1.6 Firefox 0.8
Netscape 8.0 and 8.1 both feature the ability to switch between IE and Gecko for rendering a web page
from within the Netscape browser, so essentially it is both Internet Explorer and Gecko in the same
browser. The version of Internet Explorer in Netscape 8.0 and 8.1 is the same as the version of IE
installed on the system. Netscape uses Gecko by default, but may try to “automatically” select the best
rendering engine to use for a given website.
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Part I: The Basics
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