Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.[18] As of July 2013, Firefox has between 16% and 21% of worldwide usage, making it the third most popular web browser, according to different sources. According to Mozilla, Firefox counts over 450 million users around the world. The browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Germany, Poland, and Iran, where it is the most popular browser with 57%,45%, 44%, and 43% of the market share, respectively.
The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. They believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.[28]
Phoenix 0.1 screenshot The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. Originally titled Phoenix, it was renamed because of trademark problems with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird free database software project. In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion with the database software. After further pressure from the database server's development community, on February 9, 2004, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox, often referred to as simply Firefox. Mozilla prefers that Firefox be abbreviated as Fx or fx, though it is often abbreviated as FF.[32] The Firefox project went through many versions before version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.

Security:

Firefox uses a sandbox security model,[47] and limits scripts from accessing data from other web sites based on the same-origin policy.[48] It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol.[49] It also provides support for web applications to use smartcards for authentication purposes.[50] The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" (up to 3000 USD cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt) to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox.[51] Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.[52] Because Firefox generally has fewer publicly known unpatched security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer (see Comparison of web browsers), improved security is often cited as a reason to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox.[53][54][55][56] The Washington Post reports that exploit code for known critical unpatched security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. In comparison, exploit code for known, critical security vulnerabilities in Firefox was available for 9 days before Mozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem. A 2006 Symantec study showed that, although Firefox had surpassed other browsers in the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities that year through September, these vulnerabilities were patched far more quickly than those found in other browsers – Firefox's vulnerabilities were fixed on average one day after the exploit code was made available, as compared to nine days for Internet Explorer.[58] Symantec later clarified their statement, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security researchers.

Telemetry:

When Firefox is upgraded to version 7.0, an information bar will appear asking users whether they would like to send performance statistics (also known as “telemetry”) to Mozilla. According to Mozilla's privacy policy,[74] these statistics are stored only in aggregate format, and the only personally identifiable information transmitted is the user's IP address.