Mozilla Firefox is a free web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had 22.48% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of April 2009, making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide, after Internet Explorer.[4]
To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements some current web standards in addition to a few features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards.[5]
Firefox features include tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, and an integrated search system that uses the user's desired search engine (Google by default in most localizations). Functions can be added through add-ons, created by third-party developers,[6] of which there is a wide selection, a fact that has attracted many of Firefox's users.
Firefox runs on various versions of Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and many other Unix-like operating systems. Its current stable release is version 3.0.10, released on April 27, 2009.[7] Firefox's source code is free software, released under a tri-license GNU GPL/GNU LGPL/MPL.[8] Official versions are distributed under the terms of a proprietary EULA.[9][10]
Version 2.0
Main article: Mozilla Firefox 2
On October 24, 2006, Mozilla released Firefox 2. This version includes updates to the tabbed browsing environment; the extensions manager; the GUI; and the find, search and software update engines; a new session restore feature; inline spell checking; and an anti-phishing feature which was implemented by Google as an extension,[18][19] and later merged into the program itself.[20] In December 2007, Firefox Live Chat was launched. It allows users to ask volunteers questions through a system powered by Jive Software, with guaranteed hours of operation and the possibility of help after hours.[21]
[edit] Version 3.0
Main article: Mozilla Firefox 3
Mozilla Firefox 3 was released on June 17, 2008[22] by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox 3 uses version 1.9 of the Mozilla Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. The new version fixes many bugs, improves standard compliance, and implements new web APIs.[23] Other new features include a redesigned download manager, a new "Places" system for storing bookmarks and history, and separate themes for different operating systems. The current version is Firefox 3.0.10. Development stretches back to the first Firefox 3 beta (under the codename 'Gran Paradiso'[24]) which had been released several months earlier on 19 November 2007,[25] and was followed by several more beta releases in spring 2008 culminating in the June release.[26] Firefox 3 had over 8 million unique downloads the day it was released, setting a Guinness World Record.[27]
[edit] Version 3.5
After three initial beta releases under the Firefox 3.1 moniker, Mozilla developers decided to change the numbering of the upcoming release to 3.5, in order to reflect a significantly greater scope of changes than originally had been planned.[28]
Version 3.5, codenamed Shiretoko,[29] is planned to include support for the <video> and <audio> tags as defined in the HTML 5 specification. The goal of Firefox's open-source in-browser video is to offer video playback without being encumbered by patent issues associated with so many video technologies.[30]
Cross-site XMLHttpRequests (XHR), which would allow for more powerful web applications and an easier way to implement mashups, is also in planning. Native JSON DOM binding, a powerful feature for web developers, may also be included, together with full CSS 3 selector support.[31][32] Firefox 3.5 will use the Gecko 1.9.1 engine, which includes a few features that were not included in the 3.0 release. Multi-touch support will also be added to the release, including gesture support like pinching for zooming, swiping for back and forward and twisting for changing the tab. [33]
The Alpha 1 was released in late July 2008.[34] Alpha 2 was launched on September 6, 2008, adding new video support. TraceMonkey was added to enhance the speed of some JavaScript computations, similar to the V8 JavaScript engine in Google Chrome. Beta 1 was released on October 14, 2008[35] and Beta 2 on December 8, 2008.[36] Beta 2 includes a Private Browsing feature which, when active, does not store any data revealing a user's visited sites on the hard drive.[37] Beta 3 was released on March 12, 2009. [38][39] Beta 4, the first to be labeled as version 3.5 was released on April 27, 2009. [40]
Version 3.5 will also change the default search engine in Russian language builds, using the popular Russian search engine Yandex rather than Google after a survey of Russian Firefox users indicated they preferred Yandex.[41]
