Mozilla - Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free, open source, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and hundreds of volunteers. The browser began as a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite; Firefox has since become the foundation's main development focus (along with its Thunderbird mail and news client), and has replaced the Mozilla Suite as their official main software release.
Before its 1.0 release, Firefox had already gained acclaim from numerous media outlets, including Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. With over 25 million downloads in the 99 days after the initial 1.0 release, Firefox became one of the most downloaded free and open source applications, especially among home users. On October 19, 2005, Firefox had its 100 millionth download, just 344 days after the release of version 1.0. Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005, with more than 2 million downloads within the first 36 hours.
Firefox includes an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, support for open standards, and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Although other browsers have introduced these features, Firefox became the first such browser to achieve wide adoption.
Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to other browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. As of January 2006, estimates suggest that Firefox's usage share is around 10% of overall browser usage (see market adoption below), with its highest usage in Finland (nearly 40% as of January 2006).
On March 21, 2006, Mozilla released the first alpha version of Firefox 2.0 under the name of Bon Echo Alpha 1, with all Firefox branding, including icons, removed to discourage end-users from downloading it.
Features
The developers of Firefox aim to produce a browser that "just works" for most casual users. Those interested can add (as extensions and plugins) many features not packaged with Firefox.
Usability and accessibility
Developers put in a large amount of work towards simplifying Firefox's user interface. As a result, the interface appears less cluttered than that of many other internet suites. The design of Firefox's option panels leaves many of the infrequently used options found in the Mozilla Suite not visible in Firefox.
Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple web pages in the same browser window. This feature originated in the Mozilla Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla. Firefox also belongs in the group of browsers which were first to adopt customizable pop-up blocking. It also supports various forms of keyboard navigation such as tabbing navigation and caret navigation (and in some builds, spatial navigation).
Firefox 1.5 (Windows version) is also the first browser to meet US federal government requirements that software be easily accessible to users with physical impairments.
The browser has a number of features which help users find information. First, Firefox has an incremental find feature known as "find as you type". With this feature enabled, a user can simply begin typing a word while viewing a web page, and Firefox automatically searches for it and highlights the first instance found. As the user types more of the word, Firefox refines its search. Also, if the user's exact query does not appear anywhere on the page, the "Find" box turns red.
Firefox also sports a built-in search toolbar with an extensible search engine listing. By default, Firefox allows users to search Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Creative Commons, Dictionary.com, and eBay. Users may download more search plugins (including one for Wikipedia) from the Mycroft project or remove any unwanted ones.
Additionally, Firefox supports the "custom keyword" feature introduced by the Mozilla Suite. This feature allows users to access their bookmarks from the location bar using keywords (and an optional query parameter). For example, using a custom keyword, a user can type "google apple" into the address bar and be redirected to the results of a Google search for "apple". Custom keywords are provided "out of the box" for Google Search, Google Stock Search, Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia. When a user enters a keyword into the address bar that is not recognized by Firefox (for example, simply typing "apple"), it automatically redirects the user to the first result yielded by a Google search for the word (or words).
Customizability
The design of Firefox aims at high extensibility. Through extensions (installed via XPInstall modules), users may activate new features, such as mouse gestures, advertisement blocking, proxy server switching, and debugging tools. Many features formerly part of the Mozilla Suite, such as the ChatZilla IRC client and a calendar, have become Firefox extensions.
One can view the extension system as a ground for experimentation, where one can test new functionalities. Occasionally, an extension becomes part of the official product (for example tabbed browsing, a feature which proved popular through the MultiZilla extension, eventually became part of standard Mozilla).
Firefox also supports a variety of themes/skins, which change its appearance. Themes consist of packages of CSS and image files. The Mozilla Update web site offers many themes for downloading. Beyond adding a new theme, users can customize Firefox's interface by moving and manipulating its various buttons, fields, and menus, and likewise by adding and deleting entire toolbars.
A Firefox installation can keep all extensions and themes available on the Mozilla Update site up-to-date through Firefox's interface, which periodically checks for updates to installed themes and extensions.
Additionally, Firefox stores many hidden preferences that users can access by typing about:config in the address bar. This mechanism enables features such as single-window mode and error pages, or speeding up page rendering by various tweaks. Experimental features like HTTP pipelining often lurk hidden in the about:config menu.
Support for software standards
The Mozilla Foundation takes pride in Firefox's compliance with existing standards, especially W3C web standards. Firefox has extensive support for most basic standards including HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, MathML, DTD, XSL and XPath. As of March 2006, however, no Firefox release has succeeded in passing the rigorous Acid2 standards-compliance test, which has been passed so far only by the browsers Safari, Konqueror, Opera (9.0), and iCab, as well as the program Prince.
Firefox also supports PNG images and variable transparency.
Mozilla contributors constantly improve Firefox's support for existing standards. Firefox has already implemented most of CSS Level 2 and some of the not-yet-completed CSS Level 3 standard. Also, work continues on implementing standards currently missing such as APNG and XForms and improving support for SVG. Some of the Mozilla standards like XBL are also making their way to open standards (via WHATWG).