This Is The Name That Steve Jobs 'Fixated' On While Naming The Safari Browser

Steve Jobs wanted a different name for the famous browser that we know today as the Safari browser.

The graphical web browser developed by Apple which we call Safari may have been called “Freedom” instead. Image: Getty

Good branding makes way for the success of any tech product and Apple is famous for that. However, there was some fight when Apple engineers were naming the Web browser for the Mac in 2002 as Steve Jobs wanted a different name for the famous browser that we know today as the Safari browser.

The graphical web browser developed by Apple which we call Safari may have been called “Freedom” instead as it kind of signified freedom from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, if Jobs had had his way, says a report by Slate.com. According to former Apple engineer Don Melton, Jobs had floated several names and had spent a considerable time trying to sell the name Freedom to the team.

Melton in his blog, donmelton.com wrote that Jobs had once started saying some names (of browsers) out loud in the summer of 2002 when Jobs and the Apple engineering team realised they were going to pull building the web browser off.

"I don’t recall all the names, but one that stands out is “Freedom.” Steve spent some time trying that one out on all of us. He may have liked it because it invoked positive imagery of people being set free. And, just as possible and positive, it spoke to our own freedom from Microsoft and Internet Explorer, the company and browser we depended on at the time," Melton wrote in his blog.

According to the former Apple engineer, Safari was also codenamed Alexander after Alexander the Great, during its development phase.

"For over a year, the internal name for the browser application was “Alexander.” I’ll write about how it got that handle another time. Not only had we gotten very used to calling it that, the string “Alexander” was all over the code and buried in its resources," Melton added.