Phoenix Rising

How to unlock Phoenix Rising in Cheevos by browsing on September 23rd, the anniversary of Phoenix 0.1. Worth 50 XP.

The story

Partner. September 23rd. Cache keeps this date for a browser most people have never heard of.

Before Firefox was Firefox, it was Firebird. Before it was Firebird, it was Phoenix, an early, experimental, stripped-down browser project built inside Mozilla by developers who wanted something leaner than the full Mozilla Application Suite. Phoenix 0.1 quietly went out into the world on September 23, 2002. No headlines. No launch event. Just a small build, released on a forgotten Monday, that would eventually become one of the most consequential browsers ever shipped.

Cache was there, in the sense that Cache is always there for things like this. He saved a copy of the original release notes, and he checks them on this date every single year, the way some people replay an old home video. He is not sentimental about much. He is sentimental about this.

The turn here is quiet: nothing about that first Phoenix build looked historic at the time. It looked like a side project. Cache thinks that is exactly why it belongs in the Archive. The most important things rarely announce themselves on arrival.

The catalog entry

PHOENIX ANNIVERSARY (SEPTEMBER 23) Acquired: Browsed on September 23rd, the anniversary of Phoenix 0.1. Condition: Historical. Significant. Rarity: Annual. Cache's Notes: September 23, 2002. Phoenix 0.1. Before it was Firefox, before it was a household name, it was a small experimental build on a forgotten day. Cache was there. He saved a copy of the release notes. He checks them every year on this date. Wayback-eligible. Into the Archive.

Spoiler: how to unlock it

Timing is the only requirement here.

  1. Wait for September 23rd to arrive on your local calendar.
  2. Open Firefox and visit any page.
  3. That's the whole mission. The date handles the rest.

Phoenix 0.1 was released on September 23, 2002, as an early standalone browser built by a small team within the Mozilla project, aiming for a lighter, faster alternative to the bundled Mozilla Suite. The project was renamed Firebird in 2003 and then Firefox in 2004, when it launched as version 1.0 on November 9 of that year. This achievement compares your device's local date against the Phoenix 0.1 anniversary, so like other calendar-based achievements it only unlocks once a year, and only for whoever happens to be browsing that day.

Where it fits in the Stash

Cache keeps a small shelf for the browsers that existed before the browsers everyone remembers, proof that most important things start out looking like nothing in particular. To hear more from the raccoon who saved the release notes, read the story.