Google and Firefox -- A Class act

A very interesting read -- Google and Firefox.
For those of us who lived through the H-e-double L relationship between Netscape /AOL, a marriage of Google and Firefox is right up there in browser Heaven.

 

My relationship with AOL had been very good for six years. And, I can understand what has been going on, including an attempt to include the gecko engine in the AOL suite. As far as I know Mac AOL and Compuserve, one of AOL's divisions, uses the gecko engine.
The problem is that AOL was interested in the gecko engine, and not to make Netscape or any successor the new AOL. There was no time to waste, and AOL got a better deal from Microsoft to continue the use of its engine, than keep a Netscape division which would have not produced anything useful.
I tested AOL7.0 gecko, and it looked exactly the same as the other AOL, except that the gecko version did not do too well because of the large number of web site which were not displaying properly because they were not w3c compatible. And, I tested the AOL Communicator, which was a gecko version of Mail. At least 90% of the testers were against the gecko version, or, at most, they would accept only an AOL which would allow you to go back and forth from the geck and IE engine. Surprise, surprise, that is what is done by the new Netscape Browser Prototype.
It would have been nice if AOL had kept to the Netscape development, and their people, and they recognize the importance of the Netscape name, I think, but it is a business. With or without the H-e-double L.
But, it is interesting to read the article, but any purchase of Firefox by Google seems to me in the mind of the writer.