Netscape Navigator was my first Web browser, back when browsing was called “surfing,” back when Netscape was the only browser worth its salt. Modern, fast, clean. I bought it on floppy disks at CompUSA for $40. It was exciting. I remember learning to write HTML with that browser.

When Bill Gates decided the Internet was important, in 1995, Internet Explorer was born and the Browser Wars begun. Microsoft put its money and might behind that browser; Netscape’s innovation withered. By 2002, IE had eclipsed Navigator in market share. Microsoft was losing a gigantic anti-trust battle, but it already won the Browser Wars.

After Netscape released Communicator 4.8 and AOL acquired the company, in 1998, future development was spun off into a foundation called Mozilla. The next version was buggy and late. In a desperate marketing move, Netscape 6 was released, skipping a version and landing one ahead of IE. Netscape had jumped the shark.

The Mozilla Foundation, a $104 million nonprofit in California, makes Firefox now. As of February, the browser enjoys as much as 30 percent market share, depending who you believe. That is staggering, considering Firefox sprang up out of nowhere five years ago, when IE enjoyed something like 90 percent market share and came pre-installed on all Mac and Windows PCs. Mozilla successfully managed to market Microsoft as old-fashioned and convert even casual users to Firefox. IE’s piece of the pie is still the biggest, but there are three other serious browsers fighting for their slices today.

Firefox 4 was finally released today. Beta 1 was released July 6, 2010, almost nine months ago. On that date, Google Chrome — talk about a browser that sprang up out of nowhere! — was at version 5. Now Chrome is at version 10, with 11 and 12 in development.

Yes, you can make fun of Chrome’s insane version numbers. (I remember when “NOW! That’s What I Call Music” came out. Now it’s at, like, 37.) But Google is innovating rapidly. Split processes, Flash sandboxing, robust HTML5 support, native WebM support, hardware acceleration, Chrome Sync, Chrome Apps, Cloud Print — all released and stable before Firefox 4. Chrome is approaching 15 percent market share after just two-and-a-half years.

And Chrome is still faster. I don’t care about benchmarks, it feels faster. Firefox 4 seems “fast” for July 6, 2010. The design looks “fresh” for July 6, 2010. The features feel “new” for July 6, 2010.

I am not trying to crap on Firefox. It was my primary browser for years. It’s an incredibly polished release from an organization that really cares about building a better Web. But Mozilla finds itself where exactly its predecessor did 10 years ago. With this much competition, with innovation happening this fast, Firefox is evolving too slowly. It has lost my allegiance, anyway. Yeah, Mozilla hears the criticism and promises a more rapid release cycle. But I fear it’s too late.

By the way, you know who else beat Firefox 4 to market? Microsoft. Internet Explorer 9 is suddenly the popular kid — fast, stable, and standards-forward.

While not exactly endorsing his employer’s new paywall, David Carr makes a case for funding the journalism:

When I was in Austin, I would fall asleep each night to bad dreams, prompted by cable television ranting that the world was melting down, principally in Japan. And each morning I would wake up to reporting that described in very careful detail what was actually known, not feared, about the nuclear crisis in Japan.

[...]

People, real actual people, went and reported that information, some of it at personal peril and certainly at gigantic institutional expense. So The Times is turning toward its customers to bear some of the cost. The Times is hardly alone: AFP, Reuters, The Associated Press, Dow Jones, the BBC and NPR are all part of a muscular journalistic ecosystem. But it seems an odd time to argue against a business initiative that aims at keeping boots on the ground during a time of global upheaval.

Speaking of real people, four missing Times journalists were released in Libya today. But, you know, bloggers and opinionators are doing just as good a job covering the conflict from Starbucks.

Meanwhile, on Twitter’s fifth birthday, Dave Winer:

Neither company has a way to sustain itself financially.

Not only that, they don’t have any ideas.

The difference between the Times and Twitter is that we’ve known that about the Times for a long time, and only suspected it about Twitter.

Got a better idea?