Main article: History of Firefox
The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt andBlake Ross. They believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-drivenfeature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser.[20] 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.[21]
The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Originally titled Phoenix, it was renamed because of trademark problems with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird free database software project.[22][23] In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion with the database software. After further pressure from the database server's development community, on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox,[24] often referred to as simply Firefox. Mozilla prefers that Firefox be abbreviated as Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF.[25] The Firefox project went through many versions before version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.
On October 5, 2012, Mozilla released the Metro interface version of Firefox, included in the Nightly 18 build, to be used in Windows 8.[26] On October 9, Mozilla released Firefox 16 only to have it removed from its website a day later because of a serious security issue. Mozilla recommended users downgrade to Firefox 15.0.1 while they worked to fix the issue.[27] The vulnerability was fixed the following day (October 11) with the release of Firefox 16.0.1.[28]
[edit]Features
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[29] and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers,[30] of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.
Additionally, Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the Error Console or theDOM Inspector, or extensions, such as Firebug.
[edit]Standards
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),[31] CSS (with extensions),[32] ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, XSLT, XPath, and APNG (Animated PNG) images with alpha transparency.[33] Firefox also implements standards proposals created by theWHATWG such as client-side storage,[34][35] and canvas element.[36]
Firefox has passed the Acid2 standards-compliance test since version 3.0.[37]Mozilla had originally stated that they did not intend for Firefox to pass the Acid3test 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.[38] Because the SVG font tests were removed from the Acid3 test in September 2011, Firefox 4 and greater scored 100/100.[39][40]
Firefox also implements[41] a proprietary protocol[42] from Google called "Safe Browsing", used to exchange data related with phishing and malware protection.
[edit]Security
See also: Browser security
The section's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.Please help improve the article by updating it. There may be additional information on the talk page. (April 2012)
Firefox uses a sandbox security model,[43] and limits scripts from accessing data from other web sites based on the same origin policy.[44] It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol.[45]It also provides support for web applications to use smartcards for authentication purposes.[46]
The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" (up to 3000 USD cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt) to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox.[47] Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.[48]
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.[49][50][51][52] The Washington Postreports 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 9 days before Mozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem.[53]
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 – Firefox's vulnerabilities were fixed on average one day after the exploit code was made available, as compared to nine days for Internet Explorer.[54] Symantec later clarified their statement, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security researchers.[55]
In 2010 a study of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on data compiled from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) Firefox was listed as the 5th most vulnerable desktop software, Internet Explorer ranked 8th, and Google Chrome as 1st.[56]
InfoWorld has cited security experts saying that as Firefox becomes more popular, more vulnerabilities will be found,[57] a claim thatMitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation, has denied: "There is this idea that market share alone will make you have more vulnerabilities. It is not relational at all."[58]
In October 2009, Microsoft's security engineers acknowledged that Firefox was vulnerable since February of that year due to a .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Windows update that silently installed a buggy 'Windows Presentation Foundation' plug-in into Firefox.[59] This vulnerability has since been patched by Microsoft.[60]
As of February 11, 2011, Firefox 3.6 had no known unpatched security vulnerabilities according to Secunia.[61] Internet Explorer 8 had five unpatched security vulnerabilities, the worst being rated "Less Critical" by Secunia.[62]
Mozilla claims that all patched vulnerabilities of Mozilla products are publicly listed.[63]
[edit]Telemetry
When Firefox is upgraded to version 7.0, an information bar will appear asking users whether they would like to send performance statistics (also known as “telemetry”) to Mozilla. According to Mozilla's privacy policy,[64] these statistics are stored only in aggregate format, and the only personally identifiable information transmitted is the user's IP address.
[edit]Localizations
Main article: Mozilla localizations
Firefox is a heavily localized web browser. The first official release in November 2004 was available in 24 different languages and for 28locales, including British English/American English, European Spanish/Argentine Spanish and Chinese in Traditional Chinese characters/Simplified Chinese characters.[65] Currently supported versions 10.0.11esr and 17.0.1 are available for 85 locales (76 languages)[66] and 89 locales (79 languages)[8] respectively.
[edit]Licensing
Firefox source code is free software, with most of it being released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL).[9] This license permits anyone to view, modify, and/or redistribute the source code, and several publicly released applications have been built on it; for example, Netscape, Flock, Miro, Iceweasel, and Songbird make use of code from Firefox.
In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL,[67] which the FSF (Free Software Foundation) criticized for being weak copyleft; the license permitted, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Additionally, code only licensed under the MPL could not legally be linked with code under the GPL.[68][69] To address these concerns, Mozilla re-licensed most of Firefox under the tri-license scheme of MPL, GPL, or LGPL. Since the re-licensing, developers were free to choose the license under which they received most of 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 chose the MPL.[67] However, on January 3, 2012, Mozilla released the GPL-compatible MPL 2.0,[70] and with the release of Firefox 13 on June 5, 2012, Mozilla used it to replace the tri-licensing scheme.[71]
[edit]Trademark and logo
See also: Mozilla Corporation software rebranded by the Debian project
The 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.[72] The name "Firefox" derives from a nickname of the red panda.[73]
Mozilla has placed the Firefox logo files under open-source licenses,[74][75] but its trademark guidelines do not allow displaying altered[76] or similar logos[77] in contexts where trademark law applies
