I went to the web and this is what I found. I have it downloaded but not active as I am still using Internet explorer, but I do not like the new explorer so I am about ready to use fire fox
Mozilla Firefox is a web browser project managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox's source code is available under the terms of the Mozilla tri-license as free and open source software.[1] By one measure Firefox has 14.85% of the world's market share in Web browsers as of October 2007,[2][3] making it the world's second most popular browser.
Features included with Firefox are tabbed browsing, spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, an integrated download manager, and a search system that includes Google. A third party developer network has created add-ons which provide specialist functionality. There are more than 2,000 add-ons,[4] with the most popular including FoxyTunes (controls music players), Adblock Plus (ad blocker), StumbleUpon (website discovery), DownThemAll! (download functions) and Web Developer (web tools).[5]
Firefox is cross-platform, providing support for various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. The current stable release of Firefox is version 2.0.0.10, released on 26 November 2007.[6]
Mozilla Firefox supports many web standards, including HTML, XML, XHTML, SVG 1.1 (partial)[20], CSS, ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, MathML, DTD, XSLT, XPath, and PNG images with alpha transparency.[21] Firefox also supports standards proposals created by the WHATWG such as client-side storage,[22][23] and canvas element.[24]
Although Firefox 2 does not pass the Acid2 standards-compliance test, development builds of Firefox 3 do.[25]
Security
Firefox uses a sandbox security model,[26] and limits scripts from accessing data from other web sites based on the same origin policy.[27] It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the https protocol.[28] It also provides support for web applications to use smartcards for authentication purposes.[29]
The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox.[30] Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.[31]
Because Firefox has fewer and less severe 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.[32][33][34][35] The Washington Post reports that exploit code for critical unpatched security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. In comparison, exploit code for critical security vulnerabilities in Firefox was available for 9 days before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem.[36]
A 2006 Symantec study showed that although Firefox had surpassed other browsers in the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities that year through September, these vulnerabilities were patched far more quickly than those found in other browsers.[37] Symantec later clarified their statement, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security researchers.[38] As of October 25, 2007, Firefox 2 has four security vulnerabilities unpatched, the most severe of which was rated "less critical" by Secunia.[39] Internet Explorer has eight security vulnerabilities unpatched, the most severe of which was rated "highly critical" by Secunia.[40]
Licensing
Firefox is free and open source software, and is tri-licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), GNU General Public License (GPL), and the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).[1] These licenses permit anyone to view, modify and/or redistribute the source code, and several publicly released applications have been built on it; for example, Netscape, Flock and Songbird make use of code from Firefox.
The official end-user builds of Firefox distributed from mozilla.com are licensed under the Mozilla EULA.[41] Several elements do not fall under the scope of the tri-license and have their use restricted by the EULA, including the trademarked Firefox name and artwork, and the proprietary Talkback crash reporter. Because of this and the clickwrap agreement included in the Windows version, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) consider these builds proprietary software.[42]
In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL,[43] which the FSF criticizes for being weak copyleft; the license permits, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Additionally, code under the MPL cannot legally be linked with code under the GPL or the LGPL.[44][45] To address these concerns, Mozilla re-licensed Firefox under the tri-license scheme of MPL, GPL, and LGPL. Since the re-licensing, developers have been free to choose the license under which they will receive the code, to suit their intended use: GPL or LGPL linking and derivative works when one of those licenses is chosen, or MPL use (including the possibility of proprietary derivative works) if they choose the MPL.[43]
Trademark and logo issues
The generic globe logo used when Firefox is compiled without the official brandingThe name "Mozilla Firefox" is a registered trademark; along with the official Firefox logo, it may only be used under certain terms and conditions. Anyone may redistribute the official binaries in unmodified form and use the Firefox name and branding for such distribution, but restrictions are placed on distributions which modify the underlying source code.[46]
To allow distributions of the code without using the official branding, the Firefox source code contains a "branding switch". This switch allows the code to be compiled without the official logo and name, for example to produce a derivative work unencumbered by restrictions on the Firefox trademark (this is also often used for betas and alphas of future Firefox versions). In the unbranded compilation the trademarked logo and name are replaced with a freely distributable generic globe logo and the name of the release series from which the modified version was derived. The name "Deer Park" is used for derivatives of Firefox 1.5, "Bon Echo" for derivatives of Firefox 2.0, and "Gran Paradiso" is used for derivatives of Firefox 3.0.
Outside of certain exceptions made for "community editions", distributing modified versions of Firefox under the "Firefox" name requires explicit approval from Mozilla for the changes made to the underlying code, and requires the use of all of the official branding. For example, it is not permissible to use the name "Firefox" without also using the official logo. When the Debian project decided to stop using the official Firefox logo in 2006 (because of restrictions on its use incompatible with the project's guidelines), they were told by a representative of the Mozilla Foundation that this was not acceptable, and were asked to either comply with the published trademark guidelines or cease using the "Firefox" name in their distribution.[47] Ultimately, Debian switched to branding their modified version of Firefox "Iceweasel".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox