Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox (formerly known as Phoenix and later Mozilla Firebird) is a web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and hundreds of other volunteers.
With Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation aims to develop a small, fast, simple, and highly-extensible web browser (separate from the larger Mozilla suite). Firefox has become the main focus of Mozilla development and will become the official browser release of the Mozilla Foundation - and part of the Mozilla suite (along with the Mozilla Thunderbird email client) - when deemed ready.
The Firefox project started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla browser project. A group of developers perceived the Mozilla browser project as overly compromised by the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship, and also developer-driven feature creep.
Development
Mozilla Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface language. Use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of themes (skins) 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 sets Firefox apart from other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine, such as Galeon, Epiphany, K-Meleon, and Camino, and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms. The Mozilla Foundation takes pride in Gecko's support for standards.
Future releases of Mozilla are envisaged as consisting of Mozilla Firefox coupled with Mozilla Thunderbird, a standalone e-mail client built on similar principles to Firefox: to replace the current all-in-one application suite known simply as "Mozilla" (previously codenamed SeaMonkey). Eventually all official Mozilla Foundation work will center on the standalone browser and mail client, but the Foundation anticipates that volunteers and corporate users will continue to maintain the SeaMonkey application suite. Mozilla Firefox stripped out several features and much of the interface from the SeaMonkey suite, labeling them as "software bloat."
On February 5, 2004 the business and IT consulting company AMS categorized Mozilla Firefox (then Firebird) as a "Tier 1" (meaning "Best of Breed") open source product (Keating, 2004). This means that AMS considered Firebird virtually risk-free and technically strong.
The project is currently developed by Ben Goodger, Blake Ross and others at the Mozilla Foundation.
History
The name
The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of Mozilla called "mozilla/browser." Its founders, Blake Ross and Dave Hyatt, originally intended to create the best possible browser for Microsoft Windows, leaving the Apple Macintosh to Camino. When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in 2002 under the name "Phoenix."
The new browser retained the name "Phoenix" until April 14, 2003, when a name change took place because of trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies, a BIOS manufacturer. The new name — initially just "Firebird" without "Mozilla" prepended — met with mixed reaction. Users and developers of the Firebird database server claimed that a Firebird web browser caused confusion. In late April 2003, the Mozilla Organization published a document stating that the browser should be referred to as "Mozilla Firebird" and not just "Firebird".
On February 9, 2004, the Mozilla Organization renamed Mozilla Firebird as "Mozilla Firefox" due to strong pressure from the Open Source community to resolve the name conflict with the Firebird database server. They chose the name "Firefox" for its similarity to "Firebird" but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. (The name "Firefox" can refer to the Red Panda, a raccoon-like animal.) On the same day, the Mozilla Foundation released Mozilla Firefox 0.8, including a new download manager and an installer program for Microsoft Windows. In December 2003, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Due to some users' dissatisfaction with the new name and also to parody the process of multiple renamings, an extension appeared called . This generates a random name for the browser each time it runs, picking one element from each of three customisable lists: a vendor, a type and an animal name — creating results such as Mozilla Moonhorse or Mozilla Webbadger.
Release history
| Key:
|
| Old Version
| Current Version
| Future Version
|
| Browser Name
| Version
| Codename
| Release date
| Most important changes
|
| Phoenix
| 0.1
| September 23, 2002
| First release. Customizable toolbar; quicksearch.
|
| 0.2
| Santa Cruz
| October 1, 2002
| Sidebar; Extension management.
|
| 0.3
| Lucia
| October 14, 2002
| Image blocking; Pop-up blocking whitelist; Tabbed browsing
|
| 0.4
| Oceano
| October 19, 2002
| Themes; Pop-up blocking improvements; Toolbar customization
|
| 0.5
| Naples
| December 7, 2002
| Multiple homepages; Sidebar and accesibility improvements; History
|
| Firebird
| 0.6
| Glendale
| May 17, 2003
| New Default Theme (Qute); Bookmark and privacy improvements; Smooth scrolling; Automatic image resizing
|
| 0.6.1
| July 28, 2003
| Bugfix release
|
| 0.7
| Indio
| October 15, 2003
| Automatic scrolling; Password manager; Preferences panel improvements
|
| 0.7.1
| Three Kings
| October 26, 2003
| Bugfix release (Mac OS X only)
|
| Firefox
| 0.8
| Royal Oak
| February 9, 2004
| Windows installer; Offline working; Bookmarks and download manager improvements
|
| 0.9
| One Tree Hill
| June 15, 2004
| New Default Theme (Winstripe); Comprehensive data migration; New extension/theme manager; Reduced download size; New help system; Linux installer; Mail Icon (Windows only)
|
| 0.9.1
| June 28, 2004
| Bugfix release; updated default theme
|
| 0.9.2
| July 8, 2004
| Vulnerability patch (Windows only)
|
| 0.9.3
| August 4, 2004
| Vulnerability patch (All platforms)
|
| 1.0 PR
| Greenlane
| September 14, 2004
| ("Preview Release") Bugs with higher complexity/risk, localization impact. Added RSS/Atom feed support, find toolbar, plugin finder.
|
| Next expected releases / dates
|
| 1.0 RC-1
| Mission Bay
| September 20, 2004
| First release candidate
|
| 1.0 RC-2
| Whangamata
| October 4, 2004
| Second release candidate
|
| 1.0
| Phoenix
| October 11, 2004
| Beta Feedback (Mac 1.0 Alpha 2)
|
Codenames
Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill, Mission Bay and Greenlane are suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand, and Whangamata is a small seaside town in the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand. They were named by Ben Goodger, who grew up in Auckland. The other codenames included in the are derived from an actual roadmap of a journey to Phoenix, Arizona.
Market adoption
The adoption of Firefox has been rapid, given the previously accepted dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in the browser market. According to a September 2004 report in Tom's Hardware Guide , analysts Websidestory reported that 5.2 percent of web users were using the Firefox or Netscape browsers as of late September 2004, a rise of 1.7 percent since June, and that Internet Explorer had lost 1.8 percent of market share in the same period, down to 93.7 percent. According to Mozilla's marketing site spreadfirefox.com, over two million people downloaded Firefox 1.0PR in the first ten days of its release.
Much of the Firefox's rapid adoption results from the recent spate of reports of security vulnerabilities in Explorer, as users look for a safer alternative. The count of pro-Firefox security reports and press articles took a notable upswing after the Download.ject attack of June 23, 2004.
See also
References
- Goodger, B. (2004). . Retrieved September 22, 2004.
- Keating, W. (2004). . In Consultants' Briefing. Retrieved January 8, 2004.
