Mozilla Firefox (known simply as Firefox) is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.
As of February 2014, Firefox has between 12% and 22% of worldwide usage, making it, per different sources, the third most popular web browser.According to Mozilla, Firefox counts over 450 million users around the world.The browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Iran, Germany, and Poland, where it is the most popular browser with 55%, 46%, 43% and 41% of the market share, respectively.
History
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. 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. On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.
The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Originally titled Phoenix, it was renamed due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird database software project. 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. Mozilla prefers the Firefox abbreviation Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF. The Firefox project went through many versions before version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.
Detailed Geeky Info
Gecko
Gecko is a web browser engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation (notably the Firefox web browser including its mobile version and their e-mail client Thunderbird), as well as in many other open source software projects. Gecko is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License version 2.
It is designed to support open Internet standards, and is used by different applications to display web pages and, in some cases, an application's user interface itself (by rendering XUL). Gecko offers a rich programming API that makes it suitable for a wide variety of roles in Internet-enabled applications, such as web browsers, content presentation, and client/server.
Gecko is written in C++ and is cross-platform, and runs on various operating systems including BSDs, Linux, OS X, Solaris, OS/2, AIX, OpenVMS, and Microsoft Windows. Its development is now overseen by the Mozilla Foundation.
Extensions
Firefox users can add features and change functionality in Firefox by installing extensions. Extension functionality is varied; such as those enabling mouse gestures, those that block advertisements, and those that enhance tabbed browsing.
Features that the Firefox developers believe will be used by only a small number of its users are not included in Firefox, but instead left to be implemented as extensions. Many Mozilla Suite features, such as IRC chat (ChatZilla) and calendar have been recreated as Firefox extensions. Extensions are also sometimes a testing ground for features that are eventually integrated to the main codebase. For example, MultiZilla was an extension that provided tabbed browsing when Mozilla lacked that feature.
While extensions provide a high level of customizability, PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions as compared to their features being available by default.
Most extensions are not created or supported by Mozilla. Extensions have the same rights to the user's system as Firefox itself, and malicious extensions have been created. Mozilla provides a repository of extensions that have been reviewed by volunteers and are believed to not contain malware. Since extensions are mostly created by third parties, they do not necessarily go through the same level of testing as official Mozilla products, and they may have bugs or vulnerabilities.
Security
Firefox includes many features designed to improve security. Key features include a sandbox security model, same origin policy, external protocol whitelisting, a phishing detector, and an option to clear all private data, such as browser history and cookies.
Firefox is open source software, and thus, its source code is visible to everyone. This allows anyone to review the code for security vulnerabilities, whether their intentions are good or malicious. It also allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give funding for the automated tool Coverity to be run against Firefox code.
Additionally, Mozilla has a security bug bounty system - anyone who reports a valid critical security bug receives a $3000 (US) cash reward for each report and a Mozilla T-shirt. With effect from December 15, 2010 Mozilla added Web Applications to its Security Bug Bounty Program.
Customizability
Beyond the use of Add-ons, Firefox additional customization features.
The position of the toolbars and interface are customizable
User stylesheets to change the style of webpages and Firefox's user interface.
A number of internal configuration options are not accessible in a conventional manner through Firefox's preference dialogs, although they are exposed through its about:config interface.
