From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)
Firefox is a free open-source web browser developed by Mozilla.
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Firefox is a free, open-source web browser for Windows, Linux and Mac. It is small and fast and offers many new features like popup blocking and tabbed browsing. |
Firefox is based on the Mozilla code, and is one of the most standards-compliant browsers available.
Firefox is available for Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Mozilla's latest version of their browser, Firefox 3, was released on June 17th. 2008.
Firefox 3 has dozens of new features, such as Password Manager, One-Click Bookmarking, Smart Location and more.
One feature that was important for Mozilla, was the Improved Performance. Firefox 3 lets you view web pages faster, using less of your computer's memory.
Mozilla is an open-source web development project.
The Mozilla Application Suite (also known as SeaMonkey) is a complete set of web applications; a browser, a mail client, a news client, a chat client and more.
Firefox is just a browser. With Firefox you cannot chat or read emails or news. This makes it smaller, faster and easier to use (but makes chat, email and news harder to use?).
You can read about Mozilla in the previous chapter.
Firefox was previously called Mozilla Firebird (which was previously called Phoenix, which was previously called Mozilla).
The confusing name changes have something to do with legal issues (I think). You can read more about the Mozilla name changes in the previous chapter.
It is expected that Firefox will be used as the default browser in a future version of the Mozilla Suite.
Firefox has automatic Popup Blocking. This if fine for stopping annoying popup ads, but not so good for sites using popup windows in a good way.
Tabbed Browsing is a modern and time saving feature. It makes it possible to view many web pages in one browser window.
Google Search with auto complete is built into Firefox's tool bar.
Keywords for bookmarks with quick searches (e.g., type "goo xml tutorial" into the location bar and get a Google search page on "xml tutorial" in one step).
Dictionary Tooltip - double-click any word to see its definition.
Firefox has Improved Security. It is not integrated with the operating system and does not support ActiveX controls and VBScripts (features known to have security holes).
A built-in modern Download Manager downloads files in the background to the desktop.
Firefox has Customizable Toolbars, allowing users to add and remove items as well as create new toolbars.
With the Theme Manager, the users can change the look and feel of Firefox.
Firefox keeps itself up-to-date. Smart Update searches for updates in the background and informs the user about available updates.
The following table is a breakdown of the Firefox (and Mozilla) numbers from our Browsers Statistics:
| 2009 | Total | FF 2.0 | FF 3.0 | Other versions | |
| January | 45.5 % | 4.6 % | 39.5 % | 1.4 % | |
| 2008 | Total | FF 1.5 | FF 2.0 | FF 3.0 | Mozilla |
| December | 44.7 % | 0.1 % | 6.2 % | 38.1 % | 0.3 % |
| November | 44.6 % | 0.3 % | 8.0 % | 35.9 % | 0.4 % |
| October | 44.5 % | 0.4 % | 8.7 % | 34.9 % | 0.5 % |
| September | 43.1 % | 0.6 % | 10.1 % | 31.9 % | 0.5 % |
| August | 44.2 % | 0.7 % | 17.5 % | 25.5 % | 0.5 % |
| July | 43.1 % | 0.8 % | 21.1 % | 20.7 % | 0.5 % |
| June | 41.5 % | 0.9 % | 31.2 % | 8.9 % | 0.5 % |
| May | 40.5 % | 1.0 % | 35.9 % | 2.9 % | 0.7 % |
These statistics are based on W3Schools users.
From http://www.w3schools.com (Copyright Refsnes Data)