Mozilla Firefox (originally known as Phoenix and briefly as Mozilla Firebird) is a free, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and hundreds of volunteers. Before its 1.0 release on November 9, 2004, Firefox had already garnered a great deal of acclaim from numerous media outlets, including Forbes [1] and the Wall Street Journal [2]. With over 25 million downloads in the 14 weeks after its release, Firefox 1.0 is one of the most-used free and open source applications, especially among home users. [3] [4]
With Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation aims to develop a lightweight, fast, intuitive, and highly extensible standalone browser based on the Navigator component of the Mozilla Suite. Firefox has become the foundation's main development focus along with their Thunderbird email client, and has replaced the Mozilla Suite as their official main software release.
Among Firefox's popular features are the integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, web standards support, and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Although these features have already been available for some time in other browsers, Firefox is the first of these browsers to have achieved large-scale adoption. Mozilla officials hope that 10 percent of browser users will use Firefox by the end of 2005, a goal that analysts at WebSideStory and elsewhere believe is attainable. [5] [6] [7] This would reduce Microsoft Internet Explorer's dominant usage share, and many believe it will reignite the browser wars.
Firefox has attracted attention as an alternative to Internet Explorer, which has come under fire for its alleged poor program design and insecurity—detractors cite Internet Explorer's incomplete support for web standards, use of the potentially dangerous ActiveX component, vulnerability to spyware and malware installation, and a lacking feature set. [8] [9]
History and development
- Main article: History and development of Mozilla Firefox
Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross began developing the Firefox project as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project, perceiving the Mozilla browser project as being overly compromised by the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship, as well as developer-driven feature creep. The pared-down Phoenix browser (as it was then called) was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed and internally referred to as Seamonkey), which integrated several features in one suite of software. The current lead developer of Firefox is Ben Goodger.
Mozilla Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface language. The use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of themes and extensions. However, the development and installation processes of these add-ons raised security concerns, and with the release of Firefox 0.9, the Mozilla Foundation opened a Mozilla Update website containing "approved" themes and extensions. Use of XUL also sets Firefox apart from other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms.
The first sign of a Firefox-like project was Raptor, a small application sample (presumably to demonstrate how to embed Gecko in another application) shipped with early milestone builds of Mozilla. Featuring only "back", "forward", and "stop" buttons and an URL field (no cache, no stored history, etc.), it was minimalistic and thus a lot lighter than Mozilla itself. Eventually, Raptor stopped shipping with Mozilla's binary builds.
Firefox was intended to replace the Mozilla Suite for end users. Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continues to maintain the suite because it is used by many corporate users, and is bundled with other software.
The official discussion forum for Mozilla Firefox is hosted by MozillaZine, a website with news, forums and weblogs for Mozilla-related topics. MozillaZine is run by a group of individuals unaffiliated with the Mozilla Foundation.
Naming
The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix.
The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003, when it was changed due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as some free database software carried the same name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always be referred to as Mozilla Firebird in order to avoid confusion with the Firebird database server. However, continuing pressure from the FLOSS community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short).
The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. [10] As the trademark had already been registered in the United Kingdom, the Mozilla Foundation licensed it from the trademark's owner.
Branding and visual identity
One of the most visible enhancements is the new visual identity of Firefox and Thunderbird. It is often argued that free software frequently suffers from poor icon and user interface design, and a lack of a strong visual identity. The early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not up to the same standard as many professionally released software packages. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of the new branding efforts, including new icons. The icon for Firefox 0.8 and up is designed by Jon Hicks.
The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is considered to be a common name for the red panda, which was avoided since a panda didn't convey the appropriate image, according to one of the developers. Also, the logo was chosen for the purpose of making an impression, while still not "shouting" with overdone artwork.
The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software. Although the core software is open source, the artwork is not freely licensed. For this reason, software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox are disallowed from using the icon.
Release history
From the first release of Phoenix on September 23, 2002, Firefox has come a long way. As new releases came along, more features were added, some replacing others. Occasionally conflicts would arise, when, for example, the traditional Qute theme introduced in version 0.6 was replaced in 0.9. Pre-1.0 releases were also prone to issues with extensions, as the code handling them was altered from version to version. Eventually, Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004, and followed up by a 1.0.1 release on February 24, 2005, containing some minor security and stability fixes. Version 1.0.2 was released shortly after on March 23, 2005 with more security updates. Version 1.0.3 was also released shortly on April 15, 2005 with security updates.
Throughout its development, Firefox versions have had internal codenames. These are based after real locations, with codenames such as Three Kings, Royal Oak , One Tree Hill, Mission Bay , and Greenlane , which are all suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand and Whangamata which is a small seaside town in the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand. The codenames were chosen from these suburb names by Ben Goodger, who grew up in Auckland. The other codenames included in the Firefox roadmap are derived from an actual roadmap of a journey through California to Phoenix, Arizona. [11]
According to Ben Goodger, "Deer Park is not Deer Park, Victoria, but just a symbolic name. I was riding LIRR a few weeks ago and saw the name go by and I thought it sounded nice". Therefore, this is likely a reference to Deer Park, New York, a CDP on Long Island.
Future development
According to the roadmap, future Firefox development will be split over three milestones: version 1.1, version 1.5 and version 2.0. Development for these releases will take place on the Mozilla trunk, with a release coming off a branch [12].
Likely goals for Firefox include [13]:
- New "Places" interface for Bookmark and History
- Tabbed Browsing improvements
- Specific options per-site
- Extension system enhancements
- Find Toolbar, Software Update, Search enhancements
- Accessibility compliance
- Download resuming, detection of signed executables
The next planned release is Firefox 1.1, which is targeted for June 2005, which will resync the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contains additional features not available in 1.0, as it "branched" from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there has been a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which will be made available in 1.1. Version 1.1 will also implement a new Mac-like option interface, which has been the subject of much critisism from Windows and Linux users, with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. A user can clear all privacy related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. [14] [15]
Features
- Main article: Features of Mozilla Firefox
Like Opera and the Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox has some features that distinguish it from other browsers like Internet Explorer. However, it lacks many of the features found in other browsers, in an effort to combat interface bloat and to allow the browser to be shipped as a small, pared-down core that can easily be customized to meet individual users' needs. Instead of providing all features in the standard distribution, Firefox relies on the extension system to allow users to modify the browser according to their requirements.
Although most of Firefox's features are unavailable in Internet Explorer, Opera and several Internet Explorer shells supported several of them for a while before the development of Firefox; a comparison of web browsers is available.
Tabbed browsing
Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple pages in the same window. This feature was carried over from the Mozilla Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from a popular extension. Until version 1.0, Firefox did not support automatic single-window mode , in which all links that would normally open in a new window were instead opened in a new tab. [16] This feature was introduced in 1.0 as a hidden preference. Before 1.0, most users who preferred single window mode used extensions to solve their quandary.
Firefox also permits the "homepage" to be a list of URLs, which are automatically opened in separate tabs, rather than a single page. This can be a mixed blessing, since clicking the home page opens another set of tabs, instead of resetting the current set.
Pop-up blocking
Firefox also includes integrated customizable pop-up blocking. This blocks pop-ups from all web sites by default, but can be configured to allow individual sites to show pop-ups. It can also be turned off entirely to allow pop-ups from all sites. Firefox's pop-up blocking can be inconvenient at times, however — it prevents JavaScript-based links opening a new window while a page is loading unless a site is added to a "safe list" found in the options menu.
In many cases it is possible to view the pop-up's URL by clicking the dialogue that appears when one is blocked. This makes it easier to decide if the pop-up should be displayed.
Download manager
An integrated customizable download manager is also included. Downloads can be opened automatically depending on the file type, or saved directly to disk. By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user's desktop on Windows or to the user's home directory on Linux, but it can be configured to prompt for a specific download location. The download manager currently does not support cross-session resuming (stopping a download and resuming it after closing the browser). [17] Another issue with the download manager is that it fails to close if small files or files already in the cache are downloaded. [18]
Live Bookmarks
Powered by RSS or Atom feeds, "Live Bookmarks", another feature of Firefox, allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, there were a few worries that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features, but these have largely abated.
Live Bookmarks have surprised many users with their simplicity. [19] Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most news readers do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source.
Add-ons
Firefox also supports a variety of themes/skins for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of CSS and image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.
The change of default theme from Qute to Winstripe in Firefox 0.9 was subject to mass debate. The Winstripe theme was created by heavily modifying Pinstripe, a theme designed with Mac OS X in mind. Prior to that, Firefox and its predecessors had used the Qute theme, designed by Arvid Axelsson. Due to licensing issues, the theme was prevented from being released under the Mozilla Public License. Although many people criticized the new theme when it was rolled out, eventually the tension subsided.
In addition to theming, an often-touted feature of Firefox is its extensibility. Extensions allow the addition of new features through the installation of XPInstall modules. Many former Mozilla features have become extensions. Although several private sites have sprung up offering extensions for download, the Mozilla Foundation offers a variety of extensions for download on the Mozilla Update site. Most extensions are no more than a few kilobytes in size, making them easily accessible to anyone regardless of connection speed. The extension system can be viewed as a ground for experiment where new functionalities are being tested; occasionally, an extension becomes a built-in part of Firefox.
There has been some concern about the security of extensions, as it is possible for a user to download a malicious extension. The developers responded by adding a configurable whitelist of sites that extensions could be downloaded from and also added other features to avoid accidental installation of malicious extensions.
Firefox must be restarted before extensions are fully installed, uninstalled or disabled.
All themes and extensions downloaded from the Mozilla Update site [20] may be upgraded through the browser interface itself. This same feature also allows users to download updates to Firefox directly without having to browse to the Mozilla Foundation's website.
Firefox also supports plugins based on Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface (NPAPI), i.e. Netscape-style plugins. On June 30, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation, in partnership with several leading plugin makers as well as the producers of Opera, announced a series of changes to web browser plugins [21]. The new API will allow Web developers to offer richer web browsing experiences, helping to maintain innovation and standards on the Net [22] and are expected to be implemented in the future versions of the Mozilla applications.
Preferences and privacy
Firefox's toolbars and interface are customizable; users can move and manipulate the various buttons, fields, and menus on the toolbars, and also add new toolbars or delete existing ones.
Firefox can also save users' usernames and passwords, making it convenient for them to login to the sites they frequent. In addition, Firefox also may save information a user enters on forms: this making the filling in of forms more convenient. Both the password manager and the saving of form data may be disabled.
Firefox offers a one-click system for deleting trails of activity on the Web. Cookies, history, saved passwords, cache, saved form information, and download manager history can all be cleared with one button or individually.
Additionally, Firefox stores many hidden preferences that can be used to enable features such as single-window mode and error-pages, or to speed up page rendering by various tweaks. Experimental features are often hidden in the about:config menu.
Security
Some of Firefox's security features include the use of the sandbox security model, same origin policy [23] and external protocol whitelisting [24].
One key characteristic of Firefox security is based on the fact that it is open source software, and thus, its source code is visible to everyone. Proposed software changes are reviewed by at least one other person, and typically "super-reviewed" by yet another, and once placed in the software is visible for anyone else to consider or protest. [25] In addition, Mozilla (including Firefox) has a security "bug bounty" system: people who report a valid critical security bug receive a $500 (US) cash reward (for each report) and a Mozilla T-shirt. [26]
As of March 16 2005, the security firm Secunia reports 4 security flaws not yet fixed for Mozilla Firefox [27]. On January 11, 2005, a security spoofing flaw involving pop-up windows, which was hidden on Bugzilla for three months, was publicly disclosed. The severity of it is disputed, however, as not all users have been able to reproduce it [28].
A line of reasoning used by some to explain Firefox's low number of security vulnerabilities is that since Firefox's market share is quite low, attackers may have less incentive to develop and release exploit code, and so vulnerabilities of the same kind may be less likely to be exploited.
On the whole, Firefox security vulnerabilities have been patched relatively quickly. Most occurred during the beta phase of the project. One notable exception is the XUL spoofing vulnerability that was found in 1999, marked confidential in the Mozilla bugtracker until July 21, 2004, and fixed finally before the first official release of the product for end-users (the 1.0 release) [29]. In late February 2005 a security update, Firefox 1.0.1, was released, addressing more security issues found since the release of 1.0. Most notably, it applied a temporary fix for the IDN homograph spoofing problem that affected all IDN-enabled browsers. This was followed by another security update, Firefox 1.0.2, in March 2005 that added fixes for three more security vulnerabilities, one critical.
The count of pro-Firefox security reports and press articles took a notable upswing after the Download.ject attack on Internet Explorer on June 23, 2004. This was bolstered by numerous media reports on the subject around the same time that representative Art Manion of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) suggested that using a web browser other than Internet Explorer would mitigate security risks. On June 6, 2004, before the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2, CERT Vulnerability Note (VU#713878) stated as one of seven solutions that switching to an alternate browser would avoid this vulnerability, and possibly others.
Some security experts and technology columnists have recommended that users stop using Internet Explorer for normal browsing, and switch to a different browser instead; a few have specifically mentioned Firefox. [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]
Firefox's security is usually contrasted with that of Internet Explorer, since Internet Explorer is Firefox's primary competitor.
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has stated that Internet Explorer's design makes it very difficult to secure [40]. Firefox and Internet Explorer both employ graphical user interfaces, and in both cases there is the risk that a user may be fooled by misunderstanding the interface or the displayed information in a way that puts them at risk (this is a general risk of GUI-based web browsers). However, in many ways Firefox is different from Internet Explorer:
- Firefox does not use a domain/zone security model or local machine zone trust for accessing web pages (these are common ways to fool Internet Explorer into granting excess privileges).
- Firefox does not support many of Microsoft's proprietary DHTML features, which create those risks for vulnerabilities
- Firefox is not part of Microsoft's HTML Help system
- Firefox does not ignore the MIME type of a file unless it's a binary file sent with a text/plain MIME type
- Firefox does not support ActiveX (though plugins for ActiveX exist in some form; once an ActiveX component is run, it runs with the full privileges of the user, instead of having limited privileges like a Java or JavaScript applet). Signed remote script that uses XPCOM (short for cross platform COM) is in some ways similar to ActiveX. However, XPCOM cannot be used silently in this way because every use of XPCOM components need to be confirmed by the user (with a timeout dialog) [41][42]. Therefore, usually XPCOM is only used within the browser chrome.
- Firefox is not deeply integrated into the operating system. Thus, any defects in Firefox are less likely to have catastrophic effects, major new versions of Firefox can be installed without installing a new operating system, and Firefox can be uninstalled later without difficulty. However, since Firefox is cross-platform, any defects in the browser may affect all platforms. In addition, defects in the browser may potentially allow a hacker access to all the system resources made accessible by vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer.
Standards
The Mozilla Foundation takes pride in Firefox's compliance with W3C standards. Firefox has extensive support for most basic Web standards including HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, MathML, XSL and XPath. It also supports PNG images and variable transparency (features which are not fully implemented by Internet Explorer).
Developers are constantly improving Firefox's support for existing standards. Most of CSS Level 2 and some of the not-yet-completed CSS Level 3 standard have already been implemented in Firefox.
Work is being done on implementing newer standards like SVG, APNG and XForms natively into Firefox.
Firefox and other Mozilla applications are built with XPToolkit, which reuses some of the existing standards (e.g., CSS, DTD, RDF, JavaScript) and introduces a collection of proprietary standards (e.g., XUL, XBL, XTF).
Cross-platform support
Mozilla Firefox runs on a wide variety of platforms. Releases available on the primary distribution site support the following operating systems: [43]
- Various versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003
- Mac OS X
- Linux-based operating systems using XOrg Server or XFree86
Mozilla Firefox can be installed on Windows 95, though this requires a few additional steps [44].
Since the source code is available, it can also be compiled and run on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Thus, Firefox is also available for many other systems. This includes Solaris (x86 and SPARC), OS/2, RISC OS, AIX [45] and FreeBSD [46].
Firefox uses the same profile format on the different platforms, so a profile may be used on multiple platforms, if all of the platforms can access the same profile (e.g., profile stored on a FAT32 partition accessible from both Windows and Linux). This is useful for users who dual-boot their machines. However, it may cause a few problems, especially with extensions.
Other features
Firefox also has a incremental find feature known as "find as you type". When a user types a word while on a web page, Firefox will automatically search for it in the page and highlight the first instance found.
There is also a built-in Mycroft Web search function with extensible search engine listing.
Criticisms
- Main article: Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox
Firefox is commonly criticised for lacking features found in other browsers; most of these issues are frequently addressed by installing Firefox extensions, but not all users are willing to download the extensions required, preferring to have all the features they expected available natively.
Many argue that frequently requested, yet minor, features have not been implemented. Some of these requests have only been solved when someone creates an extension for it. However, it is commonly argued that the marginal performance degradation when installing an extension is not worth the marginal benefits of having that feature available, and that the feature should be built in to avoid this.
Another complaint is that Firefox is sometimes slow to load pages when using the back and forward buttons. This is a result of issues with the coding in the Mozilla Suite, which was transferred over to Firefox when it was branched [47].
Firefox is also not the fastest browser for many tasks [48]. Windows' Internet Explorer appears to start up more quickly, because its libraries are loaded by the operating system at login time, rather than when the user launches it. On the Macintosh platform, the native browser Safari is faster for many tasks, except scripting. However, perceived speed is often more important than actual speed [49].
Criticisms from Internet Explorer users
When Firefox has problems loading a page, for example, when it cannot connect to the server, by default it displays an error dialog box instead of an error page as used in Internet Explorer. Note that this Firefox behavior can be configured to be the same as Internet Explorer's, if desired, in about:config. [50]
The decision not to implement non-standard web technologies developed by Microsoft, such as ActiveX (which, despite its many security holes, is common in corporate intranets) and many JScript features has led to some users returning to Internet Explorer. This is largely due to the fact that some sites are only designed and tested in Internet Explorer. That said, it is possible to add support for ActiveX by the use of a plugin for Windows users, and extensions are available to let users opening any page they desire in Internet Explorer directly from Firefox, namely IE View [51] and Launchy [52].
Criticisms from Opera users
Opera's interface is more customizable, allowing toolbars, buttons, fields, etc. to be placed anywhere on the screen (or removed completely). Menus, keyboard shortcuts, mouse gestures, etc may also be user-defined. Some Opera users view Firefox's extensions as adding untested and buggy add-ons to the browser.
Some advanced Opera users have complained about the lack of customizable search engines in Firefox. While Firefox users can install their own search engines (the difficulty level of this on Opera is comparable to enabling hidden preferences on Firefox), they cannot customize the order, search URL, short keyword (such as being able to type "g {query}" to get to Google) or engine title. However, similar functionality can be achieved by using bookmarks, where their query URLs, keywords and titles are all customizable [53].
Opera users may be perturbed at the fact that Firefox does not have cross-session browsing — where the tabs that were open when the browser was closed remain when it is reopened by default. Most users who prefer cross-session browsing with Firefox resort to extensions to produce equivalent results [54].
Some may also miss the possibility to undo the closing of a tab. Opera also offers a list of all closed tabs in a session, for quick restoration. Again, similar functionality is available as extensions. [55] [56]
Firefox's Gecko rendering engine is also in some ways inferior to Opera's Presto rendering engine, especially in the areas of page forwarding/backwarding [57], smooth image resizing [58] and page zooming [59].
Opera is often seen as most attractive for some features, all available without the installation of extensions. Firefox's philosophy is different, offering only core features by default to avoid possible bloat. Despite the Firefox team's efforts in shrinking the browser, the executable size is still larger than that of Opera. However, the size of an executable does not necessarily relate to the program's complexity as the program may dynamically link with external object files (e.g. DLLs) and the executable may be compressed.
Criticisms from Mozilla Suite users
Some users of the Mozilla Suite point to Firefox's appeal to novice users as being a weakness rather than a strength of the browser. Many advanced configuration options available in the suite are hidden in Firefox, and can only be accessed by hand-editing configuration files or through the about:config interface.
In addition, many argue that it is superfluous to use Firefox combined with the stand-alone Thunderbird email client, as the suite offers the same features in a unified package with less memory consumption.
Many people have no problem using both the Suite and Firefox, using the former to keep track of new features and changes to the Gecko engine, and the latter as their default web browser.
Criticisms from Safari users
Many criticisms from Safari users deal with user interface issues. The keybindings for the Mac OS X version of Firefox differ from the usual Mac keybindings. Some users prefer Safari's handling of history and bookmarks.
One frequent complaint is the lack of a close button on each individual tab. There is but one button, that can only close the active tab, and this button is on the far right of the screen: directly opposite the tabs in the window, which are left justified. However, it is a feature by design, so that user will less likely close a tab accidently when switching tabs, especially when there are many tabs created. Also, tabs can be closed in Firefox by using the context menu, a keyboard shortcut, or middle-clicking on the tab.
Another notable criticism is the lack of use of native input controls. This means that Firefox does not offer Mac OS X features such as built-in "spell check as you type" and speech services.
Safari also appears to be faster at most tasks than Firefox. Firefox also has a bug that adds a delay of several seconds when hitting the back or forward buttons.
Another set of criticisms deal with the look and feel of the browser. Many Mac users prefer the look of Safari over Firefox. Firefox does not use the native Aqua widgets as does Safari. Firefox also renders fonts differently than standard Mac OS X applications.
Market adoption
The adoption of Firefox has been rapid, given the previous dominance of Internet Explorer in the browser market. According to Mozilla's marketing site, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, launched on November 9, 2004, and available for free from the Firefox homepage, was downloaded over a million times within 24 hours after its 1.0 release. Within 99 days, the download count reached 25 million. [60]
The cumulative downloads increased in an almost linear fashion, over a sustained period of time. In other words, the download rate remained fairly stable. That kind of growth was not found in any prior Mozilla product releases.
Firefox is now targeting a 10% usage share by the end of 2005 [61]. By mid-February 2005, Firefox had 5.7% of the market share for web browsers. [62]
During the FOSDEM 2005 conference, Tristan Nitot, the president of Mozilla Europe, said that he knew "a few companies" that had deployed the Firefox browser or Thunderbird mail client across a million seats. Those companies were reluctant to publicize the migration, as they were concerned that this may damage their relationship with Microsoft [63].
Because Firefox is one of the most popular open source applications, it has been referred to as a gateway drug for the adoption of open source software. [64]
Much of Firefox's rapid adoption results from the recent spate of reports of security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, as users look for a safer alternative. Although Firefox has had security vulnerabilities of its own, most of them were found and fixed during the beta phase of the project. On the whole they have been patched relatively quickly. As the distribution of the final version increases, it remains to be seen how robust the browser is in the security field; several security bugs have been discovered since the 1.0 release.
Despite Firefox's apparent gains on Internet Explorer, Microsoft head of Australian operations, Steve Vamos , stated that Microsoft feels Firefox is not a threat and that Microsoft's users do not really want the added features of Firefox. Vamos stated that he himself never used it personally. [65]
Spread Firefox campaign
The rapid adoption was apparently accelerated by a series of aggressive community-marketing campaigns since 2004, such as a series of events dubbed "marketing week" that were organized by Blake Ross and Asa Dotzler.
On September 14 2004, a community marketing portal dubbed "Spread Firefox" was created along with the Firefox Preview Release, creating a centralized space for the discussion of various marketing techniques. The "Get Firefox" button program was enhanced, that users were given "referrer points" as an incentive. The top 250 referrers are listed on the site [66].
On September 26 2004, a climateprediction.net (distributed computing for climate modeling ) team was created [67]. The aim was to spread the words of Firefox while making the Earth a better place. This was later followed and similar teams were created for other projects.
New York Times advertisement
On October 19, 2004, a small announcement went up on the Spread Firefox homepage. It said the group was going to attempt to raise money to publish a full-page advertisement in the New York Times to announce the release of Firefox 1.0. The ad was to be a declaration of independence from Internet Explorer, and would include as signatures the names of all the contributors to the campaign. A goal was set to reach 2500 names. When the ten day fundraising period was over, it was announced that over 10,000 people had contributed, and raised a total of $250,000 USD, about five times as much as had been expected. The advertisement was published on December 16 2004, and was two full pages [68] — the original plan was for just one page [69]. At the same time, the Mozilla Foundation begun selling a print [70] and released a PDF version of the advertisement [71]. Downloads spiked 40% after the advertisement was published [72] and the advertisement itself became a news story in the same and other publications
Portable Firefox
One major offspring of the Firefox project is Portable Firefox created by John Haller. It is designed to be run off of a pendrive or CDRW drive (in packet mode), ZIP drives, external hard drives and some MP3 players. It has nearly all of the features of its bigger brother. Extensions that work for Firefox also work with Portable Firefox. Its size is kept down with high levels of compression. Another benefit of this high compression is very fast loading times, even on slower systems and USB 1.1.
Commercialization
There is a number of commercialized versions of the Firefox browser developed outside the not-for-profit Mozilla Foundation.
The next version of Netscape, known as Netscape Browser or Netscape 8, is based on Firefox. And a start-up, Round Two (formerly Mozsource and more formerly E-Flo), is also going to build an "improved" version of Firefox [73].
See also
References
External links
Last updated: 05-07-2005 09:56:23
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04
