Blake Ross

Blake on Wired magazine (http://photos2.flickr.com/3668788_0ab6dabc82_o.jpg)

Throughout my life I have always looked up to people who make a name for themselves through hard work and determination. Someone who starts from the ground and works through way up. That is why I choose Blake Ross as my hero, for he is the best example of this that I could find.

At the age of 14 Blake Ross, a Florida 9th grader who’s only programming experience was in the makings of a few basic video games, started hacking the Mozilla browser and then fixing the bugs contained in the browser.

During the late 90’s Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer. Netscape the leading browser at the time took a substantial market share loss to Internet Explorer because IE was free and easier to use than the Netscape navigator. In 2000 Ross (15 years old) was hired by Netscape after they noticed his hacks and fixes on Mozilla. His job was to patch bugs and clean up the defeated browser. Ross along with many other programmers helped Netscape release the Netscape navigator 6.1 and 6.2.

After working with Netscape for a while, Ross teamed up with Dave Hyatt, a former Netscape programmer who now works for Apple, to start recreating the Mozilla browser. “Our aim was a browser that could reach the mainstream and get people away from using IE,” said Hyatt.

Blake Ross with Ben Goodger (http://photos3.flickr.com/3669177_0cc9e5f9b8_o.png )

After working on the code for a while Ross and Hyatt released Mozilla Phoenix. Soon afterward they released the updated browser named Mozilla Firebird, and finally in 2002 they released the current Mozilla Firefox. Though Mozilla was gaining much support through the new browsers, they were also faced with a crisis because the two core developers Blake Ross and Dave Hyatt were leaving. Hyatt left to join Apple and Ross was preparing to leave to attend college at Stanford University in fall of 2003. So Ben Goodger another Netscape Programmer and car enthusiast from New Zealand, was hired to take over the Mozilla operation.

The Mozilla browser is truly unique. Ross came up with the idea of actually hiring people to try and hack into their browser to discover bugs. Ross and Goodger made it so you can create add-ons to the browser quite simply. Many programmers have currently made a 175 extensions that do specific tasks, some of these being the addition of i-tunes to the browser as well as a forecast that is displayed on the browser itself. Anyone can write programs to work with the Mozilla browser, this is really great because you the user now has the ability to modify your browser.

Ross is currently attending Stanford University and is working on Mozilla whenever he can. His goal during this period of hacking and programming was to overtake Internet Explorer by creating the ultimate browser. Why, you ask? Well first of all, Ross was against IE for he believed it was unsafe on account of the amount of security breaches it has had over the years and he quotes “If IE worked, than I wouldn’t be against it.” Secondly he wanted to give the people a safer more capable browser and lastly he wanted to make a name for himself which he has already done being the key creator of Mozilla and all.

Blake Ross is my hero because he has worked hard all his life learning how to program and hack at an early age and applying himself to the max to become one of the greatest programmers of all time as well as becoming a student of a top college in the U.S. At the age of 19 Ross has already accomplished so much.