 |
SPYWARE'S ENEMY: While still
in high school, Ross helped create a back-to-basics
browser that thwarts pop-ups and other online
nasties.
Glenn Matsumura |
practically since he could
hold a mouse, Blake Ross has been the go-to guy for
computer questions. Recently the Stanford sophomore
got a call from a friend, begging him to come fix her
computer. When she powered up, no fewer than 10 pop-ups
appeared on the screen. Ross watched as she nonchalantly
clicked them closed, one after another—as if it
took everyone more than a dozen steps just to start
a computer.
Then she launched Internet Explorer. For almost a decade,
the Microsoft browser has been the web gateway for most
Internet users. But its popularity makes the browser
a target for malicious programs that can steal personal
information from a computer, or even hijack the system
to send spam. An estimated one out of six computers
is infected with spyware.
Ross had to reformat his friend’s entire hard
drive because spyware had colonized it so thoroughly.
He then suggested she use a new browser called Firefox.
It’s safer than Internet Explorer, thanks to built-in
pop-up blocking, spyware protection and simple-to-use
security tools that help users cover their tracks online.
It’s faster than the competition and smaller—less
than 5 MB compared to 250 MB for just the latest security
patch for Internet Explorer. Firefox also can be customized
for each user. As one fan wrote at the SpreadFirefox.com
website, “The Fox is nimble, the Fox is quick.
This Internet browser does the trick.”
Blake Ross would know: the teenager from Key Biscayne,
Fla., was one of Firefox’s creators. Since its
launch November 9, Firefox has been downloaded more
than 27 million times and its success has taken the
first bite in years out of Internet Explorer’s
share of the browser market. Whether the upstart browser
can unseat Microsoft remains to be seen, but the Redmond,
Wash., giant recently announced plans, after a four-year
hiatus, to upgrade Internet Explorer and incorporate
new security features. Before reaching the age when
he can rent a car, Ross has changed the way millions
of people get around on the web.
Ross, who turns 20 on June 12, credits his parents for
fostering his interest in computers. He recalls nights
spent playing adventure games with his dad, David. At
age 10, he created his first website, eschewing the
tools available to make the task easier. “I was
more interested in how I could get to the raw code and
just do it by hand.” Then he went on to create
simple, text-based games to play in America Online chat
rooms. “I was never really content to just use
the computer,” Ross says, “I was always
tinkering with it in some way.”
In 1998 Netscape released the source code for its Navigator
browser and invited developers to pick through it, find
bugs and suggest remedies. Ross dove in and started
submitting fixes. His ideas earned him a summer internship
at Netscape’s Mountain View headquarters in 2001.
Mom, Abby, traveled across the country, rented an apartment
and drove him to work every day. Ross was attending
Gulliver Preparatory School in Coral Gables. He continued
work on the browser, with Netscape paying him on contract—possibly
the coolest after-school job ever.
Still, the work was serious business. Netscape, once
the only game in town, was engaged in a “browser
war” with Microsoft, which had gained market dominance
by bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating
system. In an effort to regain ground, new parent company
AOL split the Netscape browser division into a number
of groups to attack different aspects of the problem.
This resulted in a “too many cooks” situation,
Ross says. The interface became far too complicated
for the average user. Features that were good ideas
in theory, like the automatic form filler, turned out
to be horrible distractions in practice. “Just
getting started using the web in Netscape was an exercise
in frustration,” Ross says.
He remembers staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning
poring over Netscape’s customer feedback. “People
were saying that Internet Explorer was so bad and Netscape
was so bad,” Ross says. “I knew that there
was something out there that people wanted and nobody
was giving it to them.”
Ross and David Hyatt, a senior engineer at Netscape
who now works for Apple developing its Safari browser,
started working nights on a back-to-basics browser.
They began by “forking” the code, separating
the meat—the engine that loads websites—from
the fat—the icons, advertising and extraneous
features. Then they built a new user interface from
the ground up. Ross drew some of his inspiration to
simplify from Google’s founders, Sergey Brin,
MS ’95, PhD ’98, and Larry Page, MS ’98.
“They practically invented the ‘Oh, duh’
school of usability,” he says.
Ross and Hyatt tried to sell Netscape on the new browser,
but the higher-ups just didn’t grok it. “They
said, ‘This is just the browser we have, but with
fewer features,’ ” Ross says. Which was
exactly the point. A browser, he reasoned, should have
no other purpose but to allow people to surf the web.
Netscape eventually spun off the project to the Mozilla
Foundation, a not-for-profit, open-source software project.
The goal was to create the best browser for the most
people—simple enough for inexperienced web users,
yet flexible enough to please advanced users. Firefox
has a search box built into the toolbar, and tabbed
browsing that lets a user toggle between multiple web
pages in the same browser window. For net-savvy users
who subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds
or read blogs daily, a feature constantly updates headlines
in the bookmarks menu.
Because the Firefox source code is available for anyone
to download, people all over the world have created
extensions that work with the browser. The extensions
range from useful (Forecast Fox gives the current weather
for any city in the toolbar), to entertaining (Foxy
Tunes lets you control any MP3 jukebox from your browser
window), to absurd (Abe Vigoda Status tells you whether
actor Vigoda is still alive).
When Ross started at Stanford in the fall of 2003, he
turned over the reins on the Firefox project to lead
engineer Ben Goodger, a New Zealand native who shepherded
the browser to its release. (Goodger since has left
Firefox to work at Google.) When Ross is not helping
run the SpreadFirefox.com website or posting to his
blog at BlakeRoss.com, he does his best to lead a normal
college life. He says he’s given up the usual
coders’ fare of Cheez-Its and popcorn in favor
of carrots and tofu—chalk it up to living in
carb-conscious California. “I’m a disappointment
to programmers everywhere,” he jokes.
A computer science major, he is a TA for CS 107: Programming
Paradigms. Professor Jerry Cain calls him a “natural
programmer” and a “miraculous student.”
Cain says he wasn’t surprised to learn that Ross
was one of the lead architects on Firefox. “What’s
remarkable is that Blake has been able to balance working
on Firefox and still do so well in school.”
Firefox has been written about in major newspapers,
and Ross recently was featured on the cover of Wired
magazine. (“It was a surreal experience handing
it to the cashier,” he says.) But not many fellow
students know about his role in the project. “The
first e-mail I got when I moved into my dorm was from
our RCC urging all residents to download Firefox,”
he says. Senior Graham Anderson-Dana, the resident computer
consultant who sent the e-mail, says he had no idea
when he met Ross that the skinny kid with the spiky
black hair was one of the main people responsible for
the browser. “When I found out, I just shrugged
and thought it was kind of cool.”
On campus, Ross says, he has to fight the temptation
to peek over people’s shoulders to see which browser
they’re using on their laptops. “It’s
a great way to do market research,” he says, “but
people tend to think I’m trying to see which website
they’re looking at and get annoyed.” He’s
been impressed by the groundswell of support for Firefox.
“It’s incredibly gratifying to see firsthand
how Firefox has made its way into people’s lives.
You read so often about excellent ideas and products
that failed that it almost seems impossible to align
the planets in your favor.”
What’s next? Ross is working on a software venture
with a fellow Firefox team member. He’s circumspect
with the details, saying only that, “Firefox made
it easy to view the web; now we need to make it easy
to create it”—and that a beta version may
be out this summer. |
