Firefox Not to be confused with Foxfire. This article is about the web browser. For the operating system, see Firefox OS. For other uses, see Firefox (disambiguation). Mozilla Firefox (or simply Firefox) is a free and open-source [23] web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is available for Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems, with its Firefox for Android available for Android (formerly Firefox for mobile, it also ran on the discontinued Firefox OS); where all of these versions use the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. [24] An additional version, Firefox for iOS, was released in late 2015, but this version doesn't use Gecko due to Apple's restrictions limiting third-party web browsers to the WebKit-based layout engine built into iOS. Firefox was created in 2002, under the name “Phoenix” by the Mozilla community members who wanted a stan- dalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. Even during its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, secu- rity, and add-ons compared to Microsoft’s then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. Firefox was released in Novem- ber 2004, [25] and was highly successful with 60 million downloads within nine months, which was the first time that Internet Explorer's dominance was challenged. [26] Firefox is considered the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, [27] as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL. Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32% at the end of 2009, [28] temporarily making version 3.5 the world’s most popular browser. [29][30] Usage then declined in competi- tion with Google Chrome: [28] As of January 2016, Fire- fox has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage as a “desktop” browser, making it the second most popular web browser. [31][32][33][34] Firefox is still the most popu- lar desktop browser in Cuba, Eritrea, and Germany, with 85.93%, [35] 79.39%, [36][37] and 37.01%, [38] of the market share, respectively. It is also the most popular desktop browser in many other African countries. [39] According to Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a bil- lion Firefox users around the world. [40] With Internet Ex- plorer declining, Firefox reached second place in Febru- ary 2016 as a desktop browser. [41] 1 History Main article: History of Firefox The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt, and Blake Ross. They believed the commercial require- ments of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. [42] To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. [43] On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird. [44] The community- driven SeaMonkey was formed and eventually replaced the Mozilla Application Suite in 2005. Phoenix 0.1 screenshot on Windows XP The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. It was originally titled Phoenix, which carried the im- plication of the mythical firebird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor, in this case from the “ashes” of Netscape Navigator after it had been killed off by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the "First browser war". Phoenix was renamed due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies; the replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird database software project. [45][46] In response, the Mozilla Foun- dation stated that the browser would always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion. After further pressure, on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox. [47] The name Firefox was said to be de- rived from a nickname of the red panda, [48][49] which be- came the mascot for the newly named project. For the abbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, though 1
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Firefox
Not to be confused with Foxfire.This article is about the web browser. For the operatingsystem, see Firefox OS. For other uses, see Firefox(disambiguation).
Mozilla Firefox (or simply Firefox) is a free andopen-source[23] web browser developed by the MozillaFoundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.Firefox is available for Windows, macOS and Linuxoperating systems, with its Firefox for Android availablefor Android (formerly Firefox for mobile, it also ran onthe discontinued Firefox OS); where all of these versionsuse the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, whichimplements current and anticipated web standards.[24]An additional version, Firefox for iOS, was released inlate 2015, but this version doesn't use Gecko due toApple's restrictions limiting third-party web browsers tothe WebKit-based layout engine built into iOS.Firefox was created in 2002, under the name “Phoenix”by the Mozilla community members who wanted a stan-dalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suitebundle. Even during its beta phase, Firefox proved to bepopular with its testers andwas praised for its speed, secu-rity, and add-ons compared to Microsoft’s then-dominantInternet Explorer 6. Firefox was released in Novem-ber 2004,[25] and was highly successful with 60 milliondownloads within nine months, which was the first timethat Internet Explorer's dominance was challenged.[26]Firefox is considered the spiritual successor of NetscapeNavigator,[27] as the Mozilla community was created byNetscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32% at the end of2009,[28] temporarilymaking version 3.5 the world’s mostpopular browser.[29][30] Usage then declined in competi-tion with Google Chrome:[28] As of January 2016, Fire-fox has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage as a“desktop” browser, making it the second most popularweb browser.[31][32][33][34] Firefox is still the most popu-lar desktop browser in Cuba, Eritrea, and Germany, with85.93%,[35] 79.39%,[36][37] and 37.01%,[38] of themarketshare, respectively. It is also the most popular desktopbrowser in many other African countries.[39] Accordingto Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a bil-lion Firefox users around the world.[40] With Internet Ex-plorer declining, Firefox reached second place in Febru-ary 2016 as a desktop browser.[41]
1 History
Main article: History of Firefox
The Firefox project began as an experimental branchof the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt, andBlake Ross. They believed the commercial require-ments of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-drivenfeature creep compromised the utility of the Mozillabrowser.[42] To combat what they saw as the MozillaSuite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser,with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite.[43]On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announcedthat they planned to change their focus from the MozillaSuite to Firefox and Thunderbird.[44] The community-driven SeaMonkey was formed and eventually replacedthe Mozilla Application Suite in 2005.
Phoenix 0.1 screenshot on Windows XP
The Firefox project has undergone several name changes.It was originally titled Phoenix, which carried the im-plication of the mythical firebird that rose triumphantlyfrom the ashes of its dead predecessor, in this case fromthe “ashes” of Netscape Navigator after it had been killedoff by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the "First browserwar". Phoenix was renamed due to trademark issues withPhoenix Technologies; the replacement name, Firebird,provoked an intense response from the Firebird databasesoftware project.[45][46] In response, the Mozilla Foun-dation stated that the browser would always bear thename Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion. After furtherpressure, on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird becameMozilla Firefox.[47] The name Firefox was said to be de-rived from a nickname of the red panda,[48][49] which be-came the mascot for the newly named project. For theabbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, though
The Firefox project went through many versions beforethe version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.
2 Features
Main article: Features of Firefox
Features include tabbed browsing, spell checking,incremental find, live bookmarking, Smart Bookmarks,a download manager, private browsing, location-awarebrowsing (also known as "geolocation") based on aGoogle service,[51] and an integrated search system thatuses Yahoo! Search, which is a front end of Microsoftsearch engine Bing, by default in most localizations.[52]Additionally, Firefox provides an environment for webdevelopers in which they can use built-in tools, such asthe Error Console or the DOM Inspector, or extensions,such as Firebug and more recently there has been an inte-gration feature with Pocket. Firefox Hello was an imple-mentation of WebRTC, added in October 2014, whichallows users of Firefox and other compatible systems tohave a video call, with the extra feature of screen and filesharing by sending a link to each other. Firefox Hello isscheduled to be removed in September 2016.[53]
Functions can be added through add-ons created by third-party developers. Add-ons are primarily implemented bymeans of the XUL and XPCOMAPIs, which allow themto directly access and manipulate much of the browser’sinternal functionality. On August 21, 2015, Firefoxdevelopers announced that due to planned changes toFirefox’s internal operations, including the planned im-plementation of a new multi-process architecture code-named “Electrolysis” (“E10s”, introduced to some usersin version 48), Firefox adopted a new extension architec-ture known as WebExtensions, available to desktop ver-sion and Firefox for Android (considered stable in version48). WebExtensions uses HTML and JavaScript APIsand is designed to be similar to the Google Chrome[54]and Microsoft Edge extension systems, and run within amulti-process environment, but does not enable the samelevel of access to the browser. Solutions will be availableto allow older add-ons to operate within the new archi-tecture, but by 2017, XPCOM and XUL add-ons will nolonger be supported.[55]
Firefox can have themes added to it, so users can expe-rience Firefox in a more personal way. There are web-sites where users can create and download personalizedthemes, with their choice of colors and images. Thiscan make the experience of using Firefox more fun com-pared to other web browsers that do not offer custom-built themes. However, Mozilla has announced its inten-tion to discontinue Firefox themes.[56] The Firefox add-on website also gives users the ability to add other appli-cations such as games, ad-blockers, screenshot apps, and
many other useful apps.[55][57]
2.1 Standards
The result of the Acid3 test on Firefox 17
Firefox implements many web standards, includingHTML4 (almost full HTML5), XML, XHTML,MathML, SVG 2 (partial),[58][59] CSS (withextensions),[60] ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM,XSLT, XPath, and APNG (Animated PNG) imageswith alpha transparency.[61] Firefox also implementsstandards proposals created by the WHATWG such asclient-side storage,[62][63] and canvas element.[64] Thesestandards are implemented through the Gecko layoutengine, and Spidermonkey JavaScript engine.Firefox has passed the Acid2 standards-compliance testsince version 3.0.[65] Mozilla had originally stated thatthey did not intend for Firefox to pass the Acid3 testfully because they believed that the SVG fonts part of thetest had become outdated and irrelevant, due to WOFFbeing agreed upon as a standard by all major browsermakers.[66] Because the SVG font tests were removedfrom the Acid3 test in September 2011, Firefox 4 andgreater scored 100/100.[67][68]
Firefox also implements[69] a proprietary protocol[70]from Google called “Safe Browsing”, used to exchangedata related with phishing and malware protection.Since version 38 on Windows Vista and newer, Fire-fox supports the playback of video content protected byHTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). For secu-rity and privacy reasons, EME is implemented within awrapper of open source code that allows execution of aproprietary DRM module by Adobe Systems – AdobePrimetime Content Decryption Module (CDM). CDMruns within a "sandbox" environment to limit its accessto the system, and provide it a randomized device IDto prevent services from uniquely identifying the devicefor tracking purposes. The DRM module, once it hasbeen downloaded, is enabled and disabled in the samemanner as other plug-ins. Since version 47,[71] “Google’sWidevine CDMonWindows andMacOSX so streamingservices like Amazon Video can switch from Silverlight
Firefox downloads and enables the AdobePrimetime and Google Widevine CDMs bydefault to give users a smooth experience onsites that require DRM. Each CDM runs in aseparate container called a sandbox and youwill be notified when a CDM is in use. Youcan also disable each CDM and opt out offuture updates— Watch DRM content on Firefox[72]
and that it is “an important step on Mozilla’s roadmap toremove NPAPI plugin support. "[73] Upon the introduc-tion of EME support, builds of Firefox onWindows werealso introduced that exclude support for EME.[74][75]
2.2 Security
See also: Browser security
Firefox allowed for a sandbox security model to man-age privileges accorded to JavaScript code, but thatfeature has since been deprecated.[76] It limits scriptsfrom accessing data from other websites based on thesame-origin policy.[77] It also provides support for smartcards to web applications, for authentication purposes.[78]It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with webservers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPSprotocol.[79] The freely available HTTPS Everywhereadd-on enforces HTTPS, even if a regular HTTP URLis entered. Firefox now supports HTTP/2.[80]
The Mozilla Foundation offers a “bug bounty” (US$3000to US$7500 cash reward) to researchers who discoversevere security holes in Firefox.[81] Official guidelinesfor handling security vulnerabilities discourage earlydisclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential at-tackers an advantage in creating exploits.[82]
Because Firefox generally has fewer publicly knownsecurity vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer (seeComparison of web browsers), improved security is of-ten cited as a reason to switch from Internet Explorer toFirefox.[83][84][85][86] The Washington Post reported thatexploit code for known critical security vulnerabilities inInternet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. Incomparison, exploit code for known, critical security vul-nerabilities in Firefox was available for nine days beforeMozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem.[87]
A 2006 Symantec study showed that, although Firefoxhad surpassed other browsers in the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities that year through September,these vulnerabilities were patched far more quickly thanthose found in other browsers – Firefox’s vulnerabili-ties were fixed on average one day after the exploit code
was made available, as compared to nine days for In-ternet Explorer.[88] Symantec later clarified their state-ment, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulner-abilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by securityresearchers.[89]
In 2010 a study of the National Institute of Standardsand Technology (NIST), based on data compiled fromthe National Vulnerability Database (NVD), Firefox waslisted as the fifth most vulnerable desktop software, withInternet Explorer as the eighth, and Google Chrome asthe first.[90]
InfoWorld has cited security experts saying that, as Fire-fox becomes more popular, more vulnerabilities will befound,[91] a claim that Mitchell Baker, president of theMozilla Foundation, has denied. “There is this idea thatmarket share alone will make you have more vulnerabili-ties. It is not relational at all,” she said.[92]
In October 2009, Microsoft’s security engineers ac-knowledged that Firefox was vulnerable to a securityissue found in the 'Windows Presentation Foundation'browser plug-in since February of that year. A .NETFramework 3.5 SP1 Windows Update had silently in-stalled the vulnerable plug-in into Firefox.[93] This vul-nerability has since been patched by Microsoft.[94]
As of February 11, 2011, Firefox 3.6 had no known un-patched security vulnerabilities according to Secunia.[95]Internet Explorer 8 had five unpatched security vul-nerabilities, the worst being rated “Less Critical” bySecunia.[96] Mozilla claims that all patched vulnerabili-ties of Mozilla products are publicly listed.[97]
On January 28, 2013, Mozilla was recognized as the mosttrusted internet company for privacy in 2012.[98] Thisstudy was performed by the Ponemon Institute and wasa result of a survey from more than 100,000 consumersin the United States.In February 2013, plans were announced for Firefox 22to disable third-party cookies by default. However, theintroduction of the feature was then delayed so Mozilladevelopers could “collect and analyze data on the effectof blocking some third-party cookies.” Mozilla also col-laborated with Stanford University's “Cookie Clearing-house” project to develop a blacklist and whitelist of sitesthat will be used in the filter.[99][100]
Version 23, released in August 2013, followed the leadof its competitors by blocking iframe, stylesheet, andscript resources served from non-HTTPS servers embed-ded on HTTPS pages by default. Additionally, JavaScriptcould also no longer be disabled through Firefox’s pref-erences, and JavaScript was automatically re-enabled forusers who upgraded to 23 or higher with it disabled. Thechange was made due to its use across the majority ofwebsites, the potential repercussions on non-experiencedusers who are unaware of its impact, along with the avail-ability of extensions such as NoScript, which can disableJavaScript in amore controlled fashion. The following re-
lease added the ability to disable JavaScript through thedeveloper tools for testing purposes.[101][102][103]
In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported that using Fire-fox when connected to the internet using a VPN can bea serious security issue due to the browser’s support forWebRTC.[104]
Beginning with Firefox 44 (2016), all extensions must besigned by Mozilla to be used in release and beta versionsof Firefox. Firefox 43 blocked unsigned extensions, butallowed enforcement of extension signing to be disabled.All extensions must be submitted to Mozilla Add-ons andbe subject to code analysis in order to be signed, althoughextensions do not have to be listed on the service in orderto be signed.[105][106]
As of 2016, Firefox is the last widely used browser notto use a browser sandbox to isolate Web content in eachtab from each other and from the rest of the system.[107]Version 50 includes a limited sandbox that isolates thecontent rendering process (separated thanks to the Elec-trolysis project), which will be progressively enhanced toimprove security.[107]
In Firefox versions prior to 7.0, an information bar ap-pears on the browser’s first start asking users whetherthey would like to send performance statistics, or “teleme-try”, to Mozilla. It is enabled by default in developmentversions of Firefox, but not in release versions.[108] Ac-cording toMozilla’s privacy policy,[109] these statistics arestored only in aggregate format, and the only personallyidentifiable information transmitted is the user’s IP ad-dress.
2.3 Localizations
Main article: Mozilla localizations
Firefox is a widely localized web browser. The first offi-cial release in November 2004 was available in 24 differ-ent languages and for 28 locales, including British En-glish, American English, European Spanish, ArgentineSpanish, and Chinese in Traditional Chinese charactersand Simplified Chinese characters.[110] As of December2016, currently supported 50.1.0 and 45.6.0esr are avail-able in 89 locales (79 languages).[20]
2.4 Platform availability
The desktop version of Firefox is available and sup-ported for Windows, macOS and Linux, while Firefoxfor Android is available for Android (formerly Firefoxfor mobile, it also ran on Firefox OS). In September2013, the Windows 8 Touch interface, optimized fortouchscreen use, was introduced on the “Aurora” releasechannel; however, the project has since been cancelled asof March 2014, citing a lack of user adoption of the betaversions.[111][112][113]
2.4.1 OS support history
• view
• talk
• edit
Notes
• Firefox for iOS is not listed in this table as its versionnumbers would be misleading (it uses version num-bers that do not correspond to any of the other Fire-fox versions, as those share a core component, theGecko rendering engine and track its version num-bers while the version for the iOS operating systemuses the operating system’s rendering engine (We-bKit), rather than Mozilla’s Gecko).
• Green color denotes current Firefox versions, whilethe red colour is for older versions.
• In March 2014, the Windows Store app versionof Firefox was cancelled, although there is a betarelease.[124]
2.4.2 Unofficial ports
Firefox has also been ported to FreeBSD,[125]NetBSD,[126] OpenBSD,[127] OpenIndiana,[128] OS/2[129]and SkyOS, and an unofficial rebranded version calledTimberwolf has been available for AmigaOS 4. Anunofficial continuation of the macOS PowerPC releasecontinues as TenFourFox.
2.4.3 Firefox on Unix
Firefox is also ported to Solaris and OpenSolaris by Ora-cle Solaris Desktop Beijing Team,[130][131] unofficial portof Firefox 3.6.x to IBM AIX[132][133] and unofficial portof v1.7.x to UnixWare.[134]
Firefox 3.5.9 is the last version to work on HP-UX 11i,as packaged by Hewlett-Packard.[135]
2.4.4 CPU architectures
2.4.5 x86 family
Native 64-bit builds are officially supported on Linux,macOS, and Windows (since version 42).[136][137]
Mozilla made Firefox for 64-bit Linux a priority with therelease of Firefox 4, labeling it as tier 1 priority.[137][138]Since being labeled tier 1, Mozilla has been providingofficial 64-bit releases for its browser for Linux.[139][140]Vendor-backed 64-bit support has existed for Linux dis-tributions such as Novell-Suse Linux, Red Hat EnterpriseLinux, and Ubuntu prior to Mozilla’s support of 64-bit,
even though vendors were faced with the challenge ofhaving to turn off the 64-bit JIT compiler due to its in-stability prior to Firefox 4.[141][142][143]
The official releases of Firefox for macOS are univer-sal builds that include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions ofthe browser in one package, and have been this way sinceFirefox 4. A typical browsing session uses a combinationof the 64-bit browser process and a 32-bit plugin process,because some popular plugins still are 32-bit.[144]
The 32-bit and 64-bit versions ofWindows can be used torun 32-bit Firefox.[114] In late 2012, Mozilla announced64-bit Windows builds would be stopped[145] but later re-versed the decision.[146] As of April 2015, 64-bit Win-dows builds are available as 38.0 Beta[147] and newer.64-bit builds for Windows are officially supported as ofNovember 2015 with the release of Firefox 42. AllNPAPI plugins except Adobe Flash Player and Silverlightare blacklisted and unsupported on 64-bit versions forWindows.[148]
2.4.6 Other CPU architectures
Besides x86, Firefox also supports other CPU architec-tures including ARMv7, SPARC, PowerPC, and 68k ondifferent tiers.[149]
2.4.7 System requirements
Firefox source code may be compiled for various oper-ating systems; however, officially distributed binaries areprovided for the following:
2.4.8 Firefox for Android
Main article: Firefox for Android
Firefox for Android, code-named Fennec, is a webbrowser for smaller non-PC devices, mobile phones, andPDAs. It was originally first released for the NokiaMaemo operating system, specifically the Nokia N900,on January 28, 2010.[153] On March 29, 2011, besidesMaemo, Version 4 was added for Android.[154] With therelease of mobile version, the browser’s version numberwas bumped from 2 to 4, synchronizing it with all futuredesktop releases of Firefox because the rendering enginesused in both browsers are the same.[155] Version 7 was thelast release for Maemo on the N900.[156]
The user interface is completely redesigned and opti-mized for small screens, the controls are hidden away sothat only the web content is shown on screen, and it usestouchscreen interaction methods. It includes the Awe-somebar, tabbed browsing, Add-on support, passwordmanager, location-aware browsing, and the ability to syn-chronize with the user’s computer Firefox browser usingFirefox Sync.[157]
2.4.9 Firefox for iOS
Main article: Firefox for iOS
In April 2013, then-Mozilla-CEO Gary Kovacs said thatFirefox would not come to iOS as long as Apple requiredthe use of the WebKit layout engine to do so. One rea-son given by Mozilla was that prior to iOS 8, Apple hadsupplied third-party browsers with an inferior version oftheir JavaScript engine which hobbled their performance,making it impossible to match Safari’s JavaScript perfor-mance on the iOS platform.[158] Apple later opened their“Nitro” JavaScript engine to third-party browsers.[159] In2015, Mozilla announced it was moving forward withFirefox for iOS, with a preview release made availablein New Zealand in September of that year.[160][161][162]
Besides official releases, Mozilla provides developmentbuilds of Firefox in distribution channels named, in orderof most to least stable, “Beta”, “Developer Edition” (for-mer “Aurora”, renamed on November 10, 2014[163][164]),and “Nightly”. As of November 25, 2016, Firefox 51is in the “Beta” channel, Firefox 52 is in the “Devel-oper Edition” channel, and Firefox 53 is in the “Nightly”channel.[165]
3.1 Extended Support Release
See also: History of Firefox § Extended Support Release,and Long-term support
Firefox Extended Support Release, abbreviated to ESR, isa version of Firefox for organizations and other groupsthat need extended support for mass deployments. EachESR release, based on the regular version released at thesame time, is supported for approximately one year.[166]Unlike the regular (“rapid”) releases, ESRs are not up-dated with new features and performance enhancementsevery six weeks, but rather are updated with only high-risk-reduction or high-impact security fixes or major sta-
bility fixes with point releases, until the end of the ESRcycle.[167]
4 Licensing
Firefox source code is free software, with most of it beingreleased under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) ver-sion 2.0.[22] This license permits anyone to view, mod-ify, or redistribute the source code. As a result, sev-eral publicly released applications have been built from it,such as Netscape, Flock, Miro, GNU IceCat, Iceweasel,Songbird, Pale Moon, and Comodo IceDragon.In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL,then version 1.1,[168] which the Free Software Foundationcriticized for being weak copyleft, as the license permit-ted, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Ad-ditionally, code only licensed under MPL 1.1 could notlegally be linked with code under the GPL.[169][170] Toaddress these concerns, Mozilla re-licensed most of Fire-fox under the tri-license scheme ofMPL 1.1, GPL 2.0, orLGPL 2.1. Since the re-licensing, developers were freeto choose the license under which they received most ofthe code, to suit their intended use: GPL or LGPL link-ing and derivative works when one of those licenses ischosen, or MPL use (including the possibility of pro-prietary derivative works) if they chose the MPL.[168]However, on January 3, 2012, Mozilla released the GPL-compatible MPL 2.0,[171] and with the release of Firefox13 on June 5, 2012, Mozilla used it to replace the tri-licensing scheme.[172]
The crash reporting service was initially closed-source,but switched with version 3 from a program calledTalkback to the open-source Breakpad (and Socorroserver).
5 Trademark and logo
See also: Mozilla Corporation software rebranded by theDebian project
The name “Mozilla Firefox” is a registered trademark;along with the official Firefox logo, it may only be usedunder certain terms and conditions. Anyone may redis-tribute the official binaries in unmodified form and usethe Firefox name and branding for such distribution, butrestrictions are placed on distributions which modify theunderlying source code.[173] The name “Firefox” derivesfrom a nickname of the red panda.[48]
Mozilla has placed the Firefox logo files under open-source licenses,[174][175] but its trademark guidelines donot allow displaying altered[176] or similar logos[177] incontexts where trademark law applies.There has been some controversy over the Mozilla
Foundation’s intentions in stopping certain open sourcedistributions from using the “Firefox” trademark.[23]Open source browsers “enable greater choice and in-novation in the market rather than aiming for mass-market domination.”[178] Mozilla Foundation Chairper-son Mitchell Baker explained in an interview in 2007 thatdistributions could freely use the Firefox trademark ifthey did not modify source-code, and that the MozillaFoundation’s only concern was with users getting a con-sistent experience when they used “Firefox”.[179]
To allow distributions of the code without using the offi-cial branding, the Firefox build system contains a “brand-ing switch”. This switch, often used for alphas (“Auro-ras”) of future Firefox versions, allows the code to becompiled without the official logo and name, and can al-low a derivative work unencumbered by restrictions onthe Firefox trademark to be produced. In the unbrandedbuild the trademarked logo and name are replaced witha freely distributable generic globe logo and the name ofthe release series from which the modified version wasderived.Distributingmodified versions of Firefox under the “Fire-fox” name required explicit approval fromMozilla for thechanges made to the underlying code, and required theuse of all of the official branding. For example, it was notpermissible to use the name “Firefox” without also usingthe official logo. When the Debian project decided to stopusing the official Firefox logo in 2006 (because Mozilla’scopyright restrictions at the time were incompatible withDebian’s guidelines), they were told by a representativeof the Mozilla Foundation that this was not acceptable,and were asked either to comply with the published trade-mark guidelines or cease using the “Firefox” name in theirdistribution.[180] Ultimately, Debian switched to brandingtheir modified version of Firefox "Iceweasel" (but in 2016switched back to Firefox), along with other Mozilla soft-
ware. GNU IceCat is another derived version of Firefoxdistributed by the GNU Project, which maintains its ownseparate branding.[181]
5.1 Branding and visual identity
Early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox wereconsidered to have reasonable visual designs, but fellshort when compared to many other professional soft-ware packages. In October 2003, professional interfacedesigner Steven Garrity wrote an article covering every-thing he considered to be wrong with Mozilla’s visualidentity.[182]
Shortly afterwards, the Mozilla Foundation invited Gar-rity to head up the new visual identity team. The releaseof Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction ofthe new branding efforts. Included were new icon designsby silverorange, a group of web developers with a long-standing relationship with Mozilla. The final renderingsare by Jon Hicks, who had worked on Camino.[183][184]The logo was later revised and updated, fixing severalflaws found when it was enlarged.[185] The animal shownin the logo is a stylized fox, although “firefox” is usually acommon name for the red panda. The panda, accordingto Hicks, “didn't really conjure up the right imagery” andwasn't widely known.[184]
The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the of-ficial Mozilla build of the Firefox software and builds ofofficial distribution partners.[186] For this reason softwaredistributors who distribute modified versions of Firefoxdo not use the icon.
• Logo history
• Logo used for Firefox 1.0 –3.0 from November 9, 2004 to June 29, 2009
• Logo used for Firefox 3.5 –22.0 from June 30, 2009 to August 5, 2013
• Logo used for Firefox 23 andafter since August 6, 2013[187]
• Other logos, used for specific versions
• Logo of “Phoenix” and“Firebird” before being renamed as Firefox
• The 2011 Aurora logo, used torepresent an alpha release
• The 2011 Nightly logo, used torepresent nightly builds of pre-alpha versions
• The 2013 Aurora logo
• The 2013 Nightly logo
• Firefox Developer Edition logo
• Minefield logo (former name for
“nightly” Firefox)
• Blue globe artwork, distributed withthe source code, and is explicitly not protected as atrademark[188]
6 Promotion
Firefox mascot at the FISL 16 (2015)
Firefox was adopted rapidly, with 100 million downloadsin its first year of availability.[189] This was followed by aseries of aggressive marketing campaigns starting in 2004with a series of events Blake Ross and Asa Dotzler called“marketing weeks”.[190]
Firefox continued to heavily market itself by releasinga marketing portal dubbed “Spread Firefox” (SFX) onSeptember 12, 2004,[191] It debuted along with the Fire-fox Preview Release, creating a centralized space forthe discussion of various marketing techniques. The re-lease of their manifesto stated that “the Mozilla projectis a global community of people who believe that open-ness, innovation and opportunity are key to the contin-ued health of the Internet.”[178] A two-page ad in the De-cember 16th edition of the New York Times, placed byMozilla Foundation in coordination with Spread Firefox,featured the names of the thousands of people worldwidewho contributed to the Mozilla Foundation’s fundraisingcampaign to support the launch of the Firefox 1.0 webbrowser.[192] SFX portal enhanced the “Get Firefox” but-ton program, giving users “referrer points” as an incen-tive. The site lists the top 250 referrers. From time totime, the SFX team or SFX members launch marketingevents organized at the Spread Firefox website. As a partof the Spread Firefox campaign, there was an attempt tobreak the world download record with the release of Fire-fox 3.[193] This resulted in an official certified Guinnessworld record, with over eight million downloads.[194] In
February 2011, Mozilla announced that it would be re-tiring Spread Firefox (SFX). Three months later, in May2011, Mozilla officially closed Spread Firefox. Mozillawrote that “there are currently plans to create a new itera-tion of this website [Spread Firefox] at a later date.” [195]
In celebration of the third anniversary of the foundingof the Mozilla Foundation, the “World Firefox Day”campaign was established on July 15, 2006,[196][197] andran until September 15, 2006.[198] Participants registeredthemselves and a friend on the website for nomination tohave their names displayed on the Firefox Friends Wall,a digital wall that will be displayed at the headquarters ofthe Mozilla Foundation.The Firefox community has also engaged in the promo-tion of their web browser. In 2006, some of Firefox’s con-tributors fromOregon State University made a crop circleof the Firefox logo in an oat field near Amity, Oregon,near the intersection of Lafayette Highway and WalnutHill Road.[199] After Firefox reached 500 million down-loads on February 21, 2008, the Firefox community cel-ebrated by visiting Freerice to earn 500 million grains ofrice.[200]
Other initiatives include Live Chat, a service Mozillalaunched in 2007 that allowed users to seek techni-cal support from volunteers.[201] The service was laterretired.[202]
7 Performance
In December 2005, Internet Week ran an article in whichmany readers reported high memory usage in Firefox1.5.[203] Mozilla developers said that the higher mem-ory use of Firefox 1.5 was at least partially due to thenew fast backwards-and-forwards (FastBack) feature.[204]Other known causes of memory problems were malfunc-tioning extensions such as Google Toolbar and some olderversions of AdBlock,[205] or plug-ins, such as older ver-sions of Adobe Acrobat Reader.[206] When PC Maga-zine compared memory usage of Firefox 2, Opera 9, andInternet Explorer 7, they found that Firefox used ap-proximately as much memory as each of the other twobrowsers.[207]
Softpedia noted that Firefox 1.5 took longer to start upthan other browsers,[208] which was confirmed by furtherspeed tests.[209]
IE 6 launched more swiftly than Firefox 1.5 on Win-dows XP since many of its components were built into theOS and loaded during system startup. As a workaroundfor the issue, a preloader application was created thatloaded components of Firefox on startup, similar toInternet Explorer.[210] A Windows Vista feature calledSuperFetch performs a similar task of preloading Firefoxif it is used often enough.Tests performed by PC World and Zimbra in 2006 in-
dicated that Firefox 2 used less memory than InternetExplorer 7.[211][212] Firefox 3 used less memory than In-ternet Explorer 7, Opera 9.50 Beta, Safari 3.1 Beta, andFirefox 2 in tests performed by Mozilla, CyberNet, andThe Browser World.[213][214][215] In mid-2009, Betanewsbenchmarked Firefox 3.5 and declared that it performed“nearly ten times better on XP than Microsoft InternetExplorer 7”.[216]
In January 2010, Lifehacker compared the performanceof Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 4 (stableand Dev versions), Safari 4, and Opera (10.1 stable and10.5 pre-alpha versions). Lifehacker timed how longbrowsers took to start and reach a page (both right afterboot-up and after running at least once already), timedhow long browsers took to load nine tabs at once, testedJavaScript speeds using Mozilla’s Dromaeo online suite(which implements Apple’s SunSpider and Google’s V8tests) and measured memory usage using Windows 7’sprocess manager. They concluded that Firefox 3.5 and3.6 were the fifth and sixth fastest browsers respectivelyon startup, 3.5 was third and 3.6 was sixth fastest to loadnine tabs at once, 3.5 was sixth and 3.6 was fifth fasteston the JavaScript tests. They also concluded that Firefox3.6 was the most efficient with memory usage followedby Firefox 3.5.[217]
In February 2012, Tom’s Hardware performance testedChrome 17, Firefox 10, Internet Explorer 9, Opera11.61, and Safari 5.1.2 on Windows 7. Tom’s Hardwaresummarized their tests into four categories: Performance,Efficiency, Reliability, and Conformance. In the per-formance category they tested HTML5, Java, JavaScript,DOM, CSS 3, Flash, Silverlight, and WebGL – they alsotested start up time and page load time. The perfor-mance tests showed that Firefox was either “acceptable”or “strong” in most categories, winning three categories(HTML5, HTML5 hardware acceleration, and Java) onlyfinishing “weak” in CSS performance. In the efficiencytests, Tom’s Hardware tested memory usage and man-agement. In this category, it determined that Firefoxwas only “acceptable” at performing light memory us-age, while it was “strong” at performing heavy memoryusage. In the reliability category, Firefox performed a“strong” amount of proper page loads. In the final cate-gory, conformance, it was determined that Firefox had“strong” conformance for JavaScript and HTML5. Inconclusion, Tom’s Hardware determined that Firefox wasthe best browser for Windows 7 OS, but that it only nar-rowly beat Google Chrome.[218]
In June 2013, Tom’s Hardware again performance testedFirefox 22, Chrome 27, Opera 12, and Internet Explorer10. They found that Firefox slightly edged out the otherbrowsers in their “performance” index, which examinedwait times, JavaScript execution speed, HTML5/CSS3rendering, and hardware acceleration performance. Fire-fox also scored the highest on the “non-performance” in-dex, which measured memory efficiency, reliability, se-curity, and standards conformance, finishing substantially
ahead of Chrome, the runner-up. Tom’s Hardware con-cluded by declaring Firefox the “sound” winner of theperformance benchmarks.[219]
In January 2014, a benchmark testing the memory usageof Firefox 29, Google Chrome 34, and Internet Explorer11 indicated that Firefox used the least memory when asubstantial number of tabs were open.[220]
In benchmark testing in early 2015 on a “high-end” Win-dows machine, comparing Microsoft Edge, Internet Ex-plorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, Firefox achieved thehighest score on three of the seven tests. Four differ-ent Javascript performance tests gave conflicting results.Firefox bested the others on the Peacekeeper benchmark,but was behind the Microsoft products when tested withSunSpider. MeasuredwithMozilla’s Kraken, it came sec-ond place to Chrome, while on Google’s Octane chal-lenge it took third behind Chrome and Opera. Firefoxtook the lead with WebXPRT, which runs several typi-cal HTML5 and Javascript tasks. Firefox, Chrome, andOpera all achieved the highest possible score on the OortOnline test, measuringWebGL rendering speed. In termsof HTML5 compatibility testing, Firefox was ranked inthe middle of the group.[221]
A similar set of benchmark tests in 2016 showed Fire-fox’s Javascript performance on Kraken and the newerJetstream tests trailing slightly behind all other testedbrowsers except Internet Explorer, which performed rel-atively poorly. On Octane, Firefox came ahead of IE andSafari, but again slightly behind the rest, including Vivaldiand Microsoft Edge. Edge took overall first place on theJetstream and Octane benchmarks.[222]
8 Market adoption
See also: Usage share of web browsersDownloads have continued at an increasing rate sinceFirefox 1.0 was released in November 2004, and asof July 31, 2009 Firefox had already been downloadedover one billion times.[223] This number does not includedownloads using software updates or those from third-party websites.[224] They do not represent a user count, asone download may be installed on many machines, oneperson may download the software multiple times, or thesoftware may be obtained from a third party. Accordingto Mozilla, Firefox has more than 450 million users as ofOctober 2012.[40][225]
In July 2010, IBM asked all employees (about 400,000)to use Firefox as their default browser.[226]
Firefox was the second-most used web browser until De-cember 2011, when Google Chrome surpassed it.[227]
As of February 2016, Firefox was the secondmost widelyused “desktop browser” (and that position makes it thethird most popular with approximately 10% of worldwideusage share of web browsers across all platforms[228]).
Usage share of web browsers according to StatCounter, showingthe rise and fall of Firefox
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11 Further reading• Cheah, Chu Yeow (2005). Firefox Secrets: A Need-
To-Know Guide. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-9752402-4-2.
• Feldt, Kenneth C. (2007). Programming Firefox.O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-10243-7.
• Granneman, Scott (2005). Don't Click on the Blue e!:Switching to Firefox. O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-00939-9.
• Hofmann, Chris; Marcia Knous; John Hedtke(2005). Firefox and Thunderbird Garage. PrenticeHall PTR. ISBN 0-13-187004-1.
png License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Moisés P. Parra O.• File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: PD Contributors: ? Origi-
License: LGPL Contributors: All Crystal icons were posted by the author as LGPL on kde-look Original artist: Everaldo Coelho andYellowIcon
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• File:Mozilla_Firefox_3.5_logo_256.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Mozilla_Firefox_3.5_logo_256.png License: MPL 1.1 Contributors: http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/other-licenses/branding/firefox/default256.png(Now moved to https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/branding/official/default256.png) (Check-in info, the relevantcheck in is of 2009-06-08: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/log/fe3dc8da8e9f/other-licenses/branding/firefox/default256.png) Orig-inal artist: Mozilla Foundation
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• File:Mozilla_Firefox_wordmark.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Mozilla_Firefox_wordmark.svgLicense: Public domain Contributors: Firefox from PDF file at Mozilla ;Original artist: Yarnalgo (<a href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yarnalgo' title='User talk:Yarnalgo'>talk</a>), User:Nicosmos, Erik Spiekermann (FF Meta)
• File:Mozilla_Nightly_icon_2011.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Mozilla_Nightly_icon_2011.pngLicense: MPL 1.1 Contributors: OSX application bundle Original artist: Mozilla
• File:Mozilla_Phoenix_logo_vector.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Mozilla_Phoenix_logo_vector.svg License: MPL 1.1 Contributors: Browser’s home/credit page Original artist: Mozilla
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• File:Wikinews-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Wikinews-logo.svg License: CC BY-SA 3.0Contributors: This is a cropped version of Image:Wikinews-logo-en.png. Original artist: Vectorized by Simon 01:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)Updated by Time3000 17 April 2007 to use official Wikinews colours and appear correctly on dark backgrounds. Originally uploaded bySimon.
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