December 26, 2005

Early History of SSL - guess who invented the colour bar?

There's been a bit of chat about how Microsoft picked up Firefox picked up the yellow HTTPS indicator and changed the colour. Some people have pointed out that Firefox invented it, but it turns out to have been present in the earliest versions. This 1996 document found by Frank Hecker reveals:

You can also verify the security of a document by examining the security icon in the bottom-left corner of the Netscape Navigator window and the colorbar across the top of the content area. The icon consists of a doorkey on a blue background to show secure documents and a broken doorkey on a gray background to show insecure documents. The colorbar across the top of the content area is blue for secure and gray for insecure.

(My emphasis.) I've often pointed out that the Netscape browser reputedly started out with the CA's name printed on the chrome. It must have lost the colour bar too! So perhaps we should just stop whining and download and get going the original Netscape beta and see what it does?

Posted by iang at December 26, 2005 08:32 PM | TrackBack
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