Mozilla Firefox (known simply as Firefox) is a free and open-source[17] web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is available for Windows, OS X and Linux operating systems, with its mobile versions available for Android and Firefox OS. It uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.[18]
Firefox was created in 2002, under the name "Phoenix" by the Mozilla community members who wanted a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. Even during its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular by its testers and was praised for its speed, security and add-ons compared with Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. Firefox was released in November 2004,[19] and was highly successful with 60 million downloads within nine months, which was the first time that Internet Explorer's dominance was challenged.[20] Firefox is considered the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator,[21] as the Mozilla Foundation was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.[22]
As of July 2015, Firefox has between 12% and 19% of worldwide usage as a "desktop" browser, making it, per different sources, the third most popular web browser.[23][24][25][26] Still, the browser is most popular in some countries, as a desktop browser,[27][28] such as Indonesia and Germany at 48%,[29] 43%[30] of the market share, respectively. According to Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a billion Firefox users around the world.[31]
History[edit]
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 requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser.[32] 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.[33] On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.[34] 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 implication 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's 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.[35][36] In response, the Mozilla Foundation 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.[37] The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda,[38][39] which became the mascot for the newly named project. For the abbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF.[40]
The Firefox project went through many versions before the version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.
Features[edit]
Main article: Features of Firefox
Features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, Smart Bookmarks, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based on a Google service[41] and an integrated search system that uses Yahoo! Search, which is a front end of Microsoft search engine Bing, by default in most localizations.[42] Additionally, Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the Error Console or the DOM Inspector, or extensions, such as Firebug.
Functions can be added through add-ons created by third-party developers. Add-ons are primarily implemented by means of the XUL and XPCOM APIs, which allow them to directly access and manipulate much of the browser's internal functionality. On August 21, 2015, Firefox developers announced that due to planned changes to Firefox's internal operations, including the planned implementation of a new multi-process architecture codenamed "Electrolysis", Firefox will adopt a new extension architecture known as WebExtensions—which uses HTML and JavaScript APIs and is designed to be similar to the Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extension systems, and run within a multi-process environment, but does not enable the same level of access to the browser. Solutions will be available to allow older add-ons to operate within the new architecture, but by 2017, XPCOM and XUL add-ons will no longer be supported.[43]
Standards[edit]
The result of the Acid3 test on Firefox 17
Firefox implements many web standards, including HTML4 (partial HTML5), XML, XHTML, MathML, SVG 1.1 (partial),[44] CSS (with extensions),[45] ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, XSLT, XPath, and APNG (Animated PNG) images with alpha transparency.[46] Firefox also implements standards proposals created by the WHATWG such as client-side storage,[47][48] and canvas element.[49]
Firefox has passed the Acid2 standards-compliance test since version 3.0.[50] Mozilla had originally stated that they did not intend for Firefox to pass the Acid3 test fully because they believed that the SVG fonts part of the test had become outdated and irrelevant, due to WOFF being agreed upon as a standard by all major browser makers.[51] Because the SVG font tests were removed from the Acid3 test in September 2011, Firefox 4 and greater scored 100/100.[52][53]
Firefox also implements[54] a proprietary protocol[55] from Google called "Safe Browsing", used to exchange data related with phishing and malware protection.
Since version 38 on Windows Vista and newer, Firefox supports the playback of video content protected by HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). For security and privacy reasons, EME is implemented within a wrapper of open source code that allows execution of a proprietary digital rights management module by Adobe Systems – Adobe Primetime Content Decryption Module (CDM). The DRM module runs within a "sandbox" environment to limit its access to the system, and provide it a randomized device ID to prevent uniquely identifying the device for tracking purposes. The DRM module, once it has been downloaded, is enabled and disabled in the same manner as other plug-ins. Upon the introduction of EME support, builds of Firefox on Windows were also introduced that exclude support for EME.[56][57][58]
Security[edit]
See also: Browser security
Firefox uses a sandbox security model,[59] and limits scripts from accessing data from other websites based on the same-origin policy.[60] It also provides support for smart cards to web applications, for authentication purposes.[61] It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol.[62] The freely available HTTPS Everywhere add-on enforces HTTPS, even if a regular HTTP URL is entered. Firefox now supports HTTP/2.[63]
The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" (up to US$3000 cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt) to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox.[64] Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.[65]
Because Firefox generally has fewer publicly known unpatched security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer (see Comparison of web browsers), improved security is often cited as a reason to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox.[66][67][68][69] The Washington Post reported that exploit code for known critical unpatched security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. In comparison, exploit code for known, critical security vulnerabilities in Firefox was available for nine days before Mozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem.[70]