Comments on: Fire foxes, fire eagles, fire dogs: myth in a new media world

By: Auvo Karhumaa

Auvo Karhumaa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:05:31 +0000

"Firefox" is believed to be the cause of northern lights (aurea borealis) in northern-Finnish tradition.Firefox (tulikettu,tulikko in finnish) is a mythical creature that causes the northern lights (foxfires,wolffires) when its taih whips the snow while in roams the north. Firefox is believed to be the ultimate game for a hunter, for it bring fortune and happiness unimagined for the one who captures it.

By: Foomandoonian

Foomandoonian — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:07:02 +0000

It's JOSS Whedon, FYI

By: Reed

Reed — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:27:54 +0000

Mozilla was originally an internal code-name used at Netscape, since they wanted to create a bigger, better browser than the old Mosaic web browser. -zilla comes from Godzilla. Godzilla breaths a stream of fire, thence Firebird, perchaps? Or, Firebird was going to be like the Phoenix, rising from the ashes of Netscape Navigator. But some other product was already named Firebird, so they changed it to Firefox. I have no idea where the fox came from. (There is a general bird theme among the Mozilla products — Thunderbird (mail), Sunbird (calendar)).

By: german dziebel

german dziebel — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:44:14 +0000

Fire Bird is a popular character in Russian fairy tales. The protagonist has to catch it in order to obtain celestial power. The students of folklore consider it a version of the Phoenix bird that restores itself from the ashes.

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:12:17 +0000

Being of a certain age, I initially had to be sure to distinguish Firefox from Foxfire, those old hippie-books about living on the land. Being from the Bronx (even when you go to college in Dayton, Ohio and Pittsburgh, you're still "from the Bronx"), I never read them, but always heard others talking about them.

By: John

John — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:31:56 +0000

Perhaps it's an homage to that classic Clint Eastwood cold war flick Firefox?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/
(Scrabulous works on Safari for me, btw)

By: ceedee

ceedee — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 19:10:09 +0000

It came from the stars, I tell ya!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v167/ceedee69/FirefoxCropMark.jpg

By: Dwight Silverman

Dwight Silverman — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:07:13 +0000

The Firefox name actually evolved from the Mozilla team trying to avoid a series of trademark disputes with previous names for the browser.

First it was Phoenix, which didn't set too well with BIOS developer Phoenix Technologies. (Phoenix was a reference to the product rising from the ashes of Netscape.)

Then it was changed to Firebird, but there was already an open-source project with that name.

According to details at http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=89, the Mozilla team settled on Firefox because it was similar to Firebird.

By: Damon Haidary

Damon Haidary — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 02:00:44 +0000

"Firefox and Fire Eagle sound a little like mythical creatures, the sort of thing we might hear about from the mythic worlds of North American aboriginals, classical Greece, or ancient Scandinavia."

Close. Before the name got changed to Firefox (which is a real animal by the way) it was named Firebird. If you type "about:mozilla" in the address bar you can see an old page from "The Book of Mozilla" that references birds of fire and thunder.

By: Candy Minx

Candy Minx — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:59:54 +0000

I love the name and logo of Firefox. Besides...it has "stumbleupon" and Facebooks Scrabble game doesn't play on Safari...only on Firefox. I was also going to say a firefox was a red panda too.

I love the infinite layers of animals and spirit worlds summoned in daily life. Fun post Grant.

cheers,
Candy