Before Apple’s browser was released as Safari, it was known as “Freedom” — and it masqueraded as both Internet Explorer and a Mozilla browser. Don Melton, who started the original Safari project, describes the secrecy under which his team operated, both physically on Apple’s campus and virtually as he devised ways to hide Safari’s user agent information out of fear it would be connected to Apple’s block of IP addresses, then to release it a few days before the announcement. “I spent the days before [Safari’s] debut nervous and losing sleep,” he writes, “as I combed the Internet for server logs.”
Creating the code that hid Safari from prying eyes before release
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
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