From Event to Action: Accelerate Your Decision Making with Real-Time Automation
Firefox
1. Contents
Articles
Firefox 1
History of Firefox 28
Mozilla 42
Mozilla Foundation 45
Mozilla Corporation 49
Mozilla Application Suite 53
Mozilla Thunderbird 58
Add-on (Mozilla) 64
References
Article Sources and Contributors 66
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 69
Article Licenses
License 70
2. Firefox 1
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox 14 running on Windows 7
Developer(s) Mozilla Corporation
Mozilla Foundation
Initial release November 9, 2004
Stable release [1] [2]
(July 17, 2012) [ +/− ]
Preview release [3] [4]
(August 10, 2012) [ +/− ]
Written in [5] [6][7]
C/C++, JavaScript, CSS, XUL, XBL
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Mac OS X
Linux
Android
Engine Gecko
Size [8]
16 MB – Windows
[8]
31 MB – Mac OS X
[8]
17 MB – Linux
[8]
75 MB – source code
Available in [9]
88 locales (78 languages)
Development status Active
Type Web browser
License [10]
MPL
Website [11]
www.mozilla.org/firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source[12] web browser developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
coordinated by Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web
pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.[13] As of July 2012, Firefox has approximately 24%
of worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the third most widely used web browser.[14][15][16] The
browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Germany and Poland, where it is the most popular browser with
66%,[17] 48%[18] and 47%[19] of the market share respectively.
3. Firefox 2
History
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.[20] 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.[21]
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.[22][23] 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,[24] often referred to as simply Firefox. Mozilla prefers that Firefox be abbreviated as Fx or fx, though it is
often abbreviated as FF.[25] The Firefox project went through many versions before version 1.0 was released on
November 9, 2004.
Features
Features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, smart bookmarks, a download
manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based on a Google service[26]
and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through
extensions, created by third-party developers,[27] of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many
of Firefox's users.
Additionally, Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the
Error Console or the DOM Inspector, or extensions, such as Firebug.
Standards
Firefox implements many web standards,
including HTML4 (partial HTML5), XML,
XHTML, MathML, SVG 1.1 (partial),[28]
CSS (with extensions),[29] ECMAScript
(JavaScript), DOM, XSLT, XPath, and
APNG (Animated PNG) images with alpha
transparency.[30] Firefox also implements
standards proposals created by the
WHATWG such as client-side
storage,[31][32] and canvas element.[33]
Firefox has passed the Acid2
standards-compliance test since version
3.0.[34] Mozilla had originally stated that The results of the Acid3 test (as of September 2011) on Firefox 7.0
they did not intend for Firefox to pass the
Acid3 test fully because they believed that the SVG fonts part of the test had become outdated and irrelevant, due to
WOFF being agreed upon as a standard by all major browser makers.[35] Because the SVG font tests were removed
from the Acid3 test in September 2011, Firefox 4 and greater scored 100/100.[36][37]
Firefox also implements[38] a proprietary protocol[39] from Google called "safebrowsing" (used to exchange data
related with "phishing and malware protection").
4. Firefox 3
Security
Firefox uses a sandbox security model,[40] and limits scripts from accessing data from other web sites based on the
same origin policy.[41] It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when
using the HTTPS protocol.[42] It also provides support for web applications to use smartcards for authentication
purposes.[43]
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.[44] Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage
early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.[45]
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.[46][47][48][49] 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.[50]
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.[51] Symantec later clarified their statement,
saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security
researchers.[52]
In 2010 a study of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on data compiled from the
National Vulnerability Database (NVD) Firefox was listed as the 5th most vulnerable desktop software. Internet
Explorer ranked only 8th on the list, and Google Chrome as 1st.[53]
InfoWorld has cited security experts saying that as Firefox becomes more popular, more vulnerabilities will be
found,[54] a claim that Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation, has denied: "There is this idea that
market share alone will make you have more vulnerabilities. It is not relational at all."[55]
In October 2009, Microsoft's security engineers acknowledged that Firefox was vulnerable since February of that
year due to a .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Windows update that silently installed a buggy 'Windows Presentation
Foundation' plug-in into Firefox.[56] This vulnerability has since been patched by Microsoft.[57]
As of February 11, 2011, Firefox 3.6 had no (known) unpatched security vulnerabilities according to Secunia.[58]
Internet Explorer 8 had five unpatched security vulnerabilities, the worst being rated "Less Critical" by Secunia.[59]
Mozilla claims, that all patched vulnerabilities of Mozilla products are publicly listed.[60] However, the corporation
has been caught multiple times fixing vulnerabilities silently or with delayed notice.[61][62][63]
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,[64] these
statistics are stored only in aggregate format, and the only personally-identifiable information transmitted is the
user's IP address.
Localizations
Firefox is a heavily localized web browser. The first official release in November 2004 was available in 24 different
languages and for 28 locales, including British English/American English, European Spanish/Argentine Spanish and
Chinese in Traditional Chinese characters/Simplified Chinese characters.[65] Currently supported versions 10.0.6 and
14.0.1 are available for 85 locales (76 languages)[66] and 88 locales (78 languages)[9] respectively.
5. Firefox 4
Licensing
Firefox source code is free software, with most of it being released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL).[10] This
license permits anyone to view, modify, and/or redistribute the source code, and several publicly released
applications have been built on it; for example, Netscape, Flock, Miro, Iceweasel, and Songbird make use of code
from Firefox.
In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL,[67] which the FSF (Free Software Foundation) criticized for
being weak copyleft; the license permitted, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Additionally, code only
licensed under the MPL could not legally be linked with code under the GPL.[68][69] To address these concerns,
Mozilla re-licensed most of Firefox under the tri-license scheme of MPL, GPL, or LGPL. Since the re-licensing,
developers were free to choose the license under which they received most of the code, to suit their intended use:
GPL or LGPL linking and derivative works when one of those licenses is chosen, or MPL use (including the
possibility of proprietary derivative works) if they chose the MPL.[67] However, on January 3, 2012, Mozilla
released the GPL-compatible MPL 2.0,[70] and with the release of Firefox 13 on June 5, 2012, Mozilla used it to
replace the tri-licensing scheme.[71]
Trademark and logo
The name "Mozilla Firefox" is a registered trademark; along with the official Firefox logo, it may only be used under
certain terms and conditions. Anyone may redistribute the official binaries in unmodified form and use the Firefox
name and branding for such distribution, but restrictions are placed on distributions which modify the underlying
source code.[72] The name "Firefox" derives from a nickname of the red panda.[73]
Mozilla has placed the Firefox logo files under open-source licenses,[74][75] but its trademark guidelines do not allow
displaying altered[76] or similar logos[77] in contexts where trademark law applies.
There has been some controversy over the Mozilla Foundation's intentions in
stopping certain open source distributions from using the "Firefox" trademark.[12]
Mozilla Foundation Chairperson Mitchell Baker explained in an interview in 2007
that distributions could freely use the Firefox trademark if they did not modify
source-code, and that the Mozilla Foundation's only concern was with users
getting a consistent experience when they used "Firefox".[78]
To allow distributions of the code without using the official branding, the Firefox
source code contains a "branding switch". This switch allows the code to be
compiled without the official logo and name, for example to produce a derivative Logo used for Iceweasel
work unencumbered by restrictions on the Firefox trademark (this is also often
used for alphas of future Firefox versions). In the unbranded compilation the trademarked logo and name are
replaced with a freely distributable generic globe logo and the name of the release series from which the modified
version was derived.
Distributing modified versions of Firefox under the "Firefox" name requires explicit approval from Mozilla for the
changes made to the underlying code, and requires the use of all of the official branding. For example, it is not
permissible to use the name "Firefox" without also using the official logo. When the Debian project decided to stop
using the official Firefox logo in 2006 (because Mozilla's copyright restrictions at the time were incompatible with
Debian's guidelines), they were told by a representative of the Mozilla Foundation that this was not acceptable, and
were asked either to comply with the published trademark guidelines or cease using the "Firefox" name in their
distribution.[79] Ultimately, Debian switched to branding their modified version of Firefox "Iceweasel", along with
other Mozilla software.
6. Firefox 5
Branding and visual identity
Early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not
up to the same standards as many professionally released software packages. In October 2003, professional interface
designer Steven Garrity wrote an article covering everything he considered to be wrong with Mozilla's visual
identity.[80] The page received a great deal of attention; the majority of criticism leveled at the article fell along the
lines of "where's the patch?"
Shortly afterwards, Garrity was invited by the Mozilla Foundation to head up the
new visual identity team. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the
introduction of the new branding efforts, including new icon designs by
silverorange, a group of web developers with a long-standing relationship with
Mozilla, with final renderings by Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on
Camino.[82][83] The logo was later revised and updated, fixing several flaws found
when it was enlarged.[84]
The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is considered to
be a common name for the red panda. The panda, according to Hicks, "didn't really Blue globe artwork is distributed
with Firefox source code, and is
conjure up the right imagery" and wasn't widely known.[83] The logo was chosen
explicitly not protected as a
to make an impression while not shouting out with overdone artwork. It had to trademark
[81]
stand out in the user's mind, be easy for others to remember, and stand out without
causing too much distraction when seen among other icons.
The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software and builds of
official distribution partners.[85] For this reason, Debian and other software distributors who distribute patched or
modified versions of Firefox do not use the icon. The crash reporting service was initially closed source, but
switched with version 3 from a program called Talkback to the open source BreakPad & Socorro [86]. Other logos
are also used for specific versions of the software or its derivatives:
The current Aurora logo The current "nightly" logo Minefield logo (former name for
(alpha/pre-beta) (experimental/pre-alpha) "nightly" Firefox)
Promotion
The rapid adoption of Firefox, 100 million downloads in its first year of availability,[87] followed a series of
aggressive marketing campaigns starting in 2004 with a series of events Blake Ross and Asa Dotzler called
"marketing weeks".[88]
On September 12, 2004,[89] a marketing portal dubbed "Spread Firefox" (SFX) debuted along with the Firefox
Preview Release, creating a centralized space for the discussion of various marketing techniques. A two-page ad in
the December 16 edition of the New York Times, placed by Mozilla Foundation in coordination with Spread Firefox,
featured the names of the thousands of people worldwide who contributed to the Mozilla Foundation's fundraising
campaign to support the launch of the Firefox 1.0 web browser.[90] SFX portal enhanced the "Get Firefox" button
7. Firefox 6
program, giving users "referrer points" as an incentive. The site lists the top 250 referrers. From time to time, the
SFX team or SFX members launch marketing events organized at the Spread Firefox website. As a part of the
Spread Firefox campaign, there was an attempt to break the world download record with the release of Firefox 3.[91]
The "World Firefox Day" campaign started on July 15, 2006,[92] the third anniversary of the founding of the Mozilla
Foundation,[93] and ran until September 15, 2006.[94] Participants registered themselves and a friend on the website
for nomination to have their names displayed on the Firefox Friends Wall, a digital wall that will be displayed at the
headquarters of the Mozilla Foundation.
In December 2007, Mozilla launched Live Chat [95], a service allowing users to seek technical support from
volunteers. Because Live chat is kept running by volunteers, it is only available when they are online.[96]
On February 21, 2008 in honor of reaching 500 million downloads, the Firefox community celebrated by visiting
FreeRice to earn 500 million grains of rice.[97]
Some of Firefox's contributors made a crop circle of the Firefox logo in an oat field near Amity, Oregon, near the
intersection of Lafayette Highway and Walnut Hill Road.[98]
In February 2011, Mozilla announced that it would be retiring Spread Firefox (SFX). Three months later, in May
2011, Mozilla officially closed Spread Firefox. Mozilla wrote that "there are currently plans to create a new
iteration of this website [Spread Firefox] at a later date."[99]
Reception
Most used web browser by country according to
StatCounter. Internet Explorer Google
Chrome Firefox Opera (web browser)Opera
Market Share Overview
[101]
According to StatCounter data June 2012
Browser % of Fx % of Total
Firefox 1 0.08% 0.02%
Firefox 1.5 0.04% 0.01%
Firefox 2 0.25% 0.06%
Firefox 3 0.93% 0.22%
Firefox 3.5 1.10% 0.26%
Firefox 3.6 5.18% 1.23%
Firefox 4 1.56% 0.37%
Firefox 5 1.05% 0.25%
Firefox 6 1.10% 0.26%
Firefox 7 1.05% 0.25%
Firefox 8 1.69% 0.40%
8. Firefox 7
Firefox 9 2.11% 0.50%
Firefox 10 2.91% 0.69%
Firefox 11 2.95% 0.70%
Firefox 12 8.30% 1.97%
Firefox 13 44.94% 11.14%
Firefox 14 22.08% 5.24%
Firefox 15 0.67% 0.16%
Firefox 16 0.08% 0.02%
Firefox 17 0.04% 0.01%
[102] 100% 23.73%
All variants
Forbes.com called Firefox the best browser in a 2004 commentary
piece,[1] and PC World named Firefox "Product of the Year" in 2005
on their "100 Best Products of 2005" list.[2] After the release of Firefox
2 and Internet Explorer 7 in 2006, PC World reviewed both and
declared that Firefox was the better browser.[3] Which? Magazine
named Firefox its "Best Buy" web browser.[4] In 2008, CNET
compared Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer in their
"Battle of the Browsers" in terms of performance, security, and
features, where Firefox was selected as a favorite.[5] In February 2012,
Tom's Hardware compared Safari 5.1.2, Google Chrome 17, Mozilla
Firefox 10, Opera 11.61 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 on both
Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7 OS (Internet Explorer & Safari excluded
from Ubuntu because of OS availability) in a "Web Browser Grand
Usage share of web browsers (March 2012 –
StatCounter)
Prix". They concluded, that based on performance, Chrome 17 was
selected as their favorite on the Ubuntu OS – but they also concluded
that on Windows OS, Firefox 10 was their favorite.[6]
Performance
In December 2005, Internet Week ran an article in which many readers
reported high memory usage in Firefox 1.5.[7] Mozilla developers said
that the higher memory use of Firefox 1.5 was at least partially due to
the new fast backwards-and-forwards (FastBack) feature.[8] Other
known causes of memory problems were malfunctioning extensions
such as Google Toolbar and some older versions of Adblock,[9] or
plug-ins, such as older versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader.[10] When
PC Magazine compared memory usage of Firefox 2, Opera 9, and
Usage share of web browsers according to Internet Explorer 7, they found that Firefox used approximately as
StatCounter. much memory as the other two browsers.[11]
Softpedia noted that Firefox 1.5 took longer to start up than other
[12]
browsers, which was confirmed by further speed tests.[13] IE 6 launched more swiftly than Firefox 1.5 on
Windows XP since many of its components were built into the OS and loaded during system startup. As a
9. Firefox 8
workaround for the issue, a preloader application was created that loaded components of Firefox on startup, similar
to Internet Explorer.[14] A Windows Vista feature called SuperFetch performs a similar task of preloading Firefox if
it is used often enough.
Tests performed by PC World and Zimbra in 2006 indicated that Firefox 2 used less memory than Internet Explorer
7.[3][15] Firefox 3 used less memory than Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.50 Beta, Safari 3.1 Beta, and Firefox 2 in tests
performed by Mozilla, CyberNet, and The Browser World.[16][17][18] In mid 2009, Betanews benchmarked Firefox
3.5 and declared that it performed "nearly ten times better on XP than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7".[19]
In January 2010, Lifehacker compared the performance of Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 4 (stable and
Dev versions), Safari 4, and Opera (10.1 stable and 10.5 pre-alpha versions). Lifehacker timed how long browsers
took to start and reach a page (both right after boot-up and after running at least once already), timed how long
browsers took to load nine tabs at once, tested JavaScript speeds using Mozilla's Dromaeo online suite (which
implements Apple's SunSpider and Google's V8 tests) and measured memory usage using Windows 7's process
manager. They concluded that Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 were the fifth and sixth fastest browsers respectively on startup,
3.5 was third and 3.6 was sixth fastest to load nine tabs at once, 3.5 was sixth and 3.6 was fifth fastest on the
JavaScript tests. They also concluded that Firefox 3.6 was the most efficient with memory usage followed by Firefox
3.5.[20]
In February 2012, Tom's Hardware performance tested Chrome 17, Firefox 10, Internet Explorer 9, Opera 11.61, and
Safari 5.1.2 on Windows 7. Tom's Hardware summarized their tests into four categories: Performance, Efficiency,
Reliability, and Conformance. In the performance category they tested HTML 5, Java, Javascript, DOM, CSS 3,
Flash, Silverlight, and WebGL – they also tested start up time and page load time. The performance tests showed
that Firefox was either "acceptable" or "strong" in most categories, winning three categories (HTML5, HTML5
Hardware acceleration, and Java) only finishing "weak" in CSS performance. In the efficiency tests, Tom's Hardware
tested memory usage and management. In this category, it determined that Firefox was only "acceptable" at
performing light memory usage, while it was "strong" at performing heavy memory usage. In the reliability category,
Firefox performed a "strong" amount of proper page loads. In the final category, conformance, it was determined that
Firefox had "strong" conformance for Javascript and HTML5. In conclusion, Tom's Hardware determined that
Firefox was the best browser for Windows 7 OS, but that it only narrowly beat out Google Chrome.[21]
Market adoption
Downloads have continued at an increasing rate since Firefox 1.0 was released in November 2004, and as of July 31,
2009 Firefox has been downloaded over one billion times.[22] This number does not include downloads using
software updates or those from third-party websites.[23] They do not represent a user count, as one download may be
installed on many machines, one person may download the software multiple times, or the software may be obtained
from a third party. According to Mozilla, Firefox had more than 400 million users as of November 2010.[24]
In July 2010, all IBM employees (about 400,000) were asked to use Firefox as their default browser.[25]
Firefox was the second-most used web browser until December 2011, when Google Chrome surpassed it.[26]
As of May 2012, Firefox was the third most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage
share of web browsers.[14][15][16] According to StatCounter, Firefox usage peaked in November 2009 and usage
share would remain stagnant until October 2010 when it lost market share, a trend that would continue for over a
year. Its first consistent gains in usage share since September 2010 occurred in February and March 2012 before
making minor losses in April 2012.[15]
10. Firefox 9
Release history
Color Meaning
Red Former release; no longer supported
Yellow Former release; still supported
Green Current supported release
Blue Future release
Release history
Version 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.0.8 1.5 1.5.0.12 2.0 2.0.0.20 3.0 3.0.19 3.5 3.5.19 3.6 3.6.28 4.0 4.0.1
5.0 5.0.1 6.0 6.0.2 7.0 7.0.1 8.0 8.0.1 9.0 9.0.1 10.0 10.0.6esr 11.012.013.0 13.0.1 14.0 14.0.1 Version
15.0b116.0a217.0a1 Release date 2002-09-23 2002-10-01 2002-10-14 2002-10-19 2002-12-07 2003-05-17
2003-10-15 2004-02-09 2004-05-15 2004-11-09 2006-04-13 2005-11-29 2007-05-30 2006-10-24 2008-12-18
2008-05-17 2010-03-30 2009-05-30 2011-04-28 2010-01-21 2012-03-13 2011-03-22 2011-04-28 2011-06-21
2011-07-11 2011-08-16 2011-09-06 2011-09-27 2011-09-29 2011-11-08 2011-11-21 2011-12-20 2011-12-21
2012-01-31 2012-07-17 2012-03-13 2012-04-24 2012-06-05 2012-06-15 2012-06-26 2012-07-17 Release date
2012-07-19 Updated daily Updated daily Gecko
version 1.2
• Web form auto-complete
• Sidebar is back
• Downloads Sidebar
• Bookmarks Sidebar
• History Sidebar
• Extension management
• Toolbar customization
• Search bar
• Improved preference defaults
• Speed improvements
• Ctrl+Mousewheel to resize fonts
• Bug fixes[27]
• Image Blocking
• Pop-up Blocking Whitelist
• Bookmarks Changes
• Global Go Menu and Other Menu Changes
• Tabbed Browsing Improvements
• Size and Speed Improvements
• Bug fixes[28]
1.3
• Multiple homepages
• Intellimouse 5-button support
• Sidebar remembers its state across sessions
• Download fixes
• History improvements
• Accessibility improvements
• Size and memory reduction
11. Firefox 10
• Performance improvements
• Stability improvements
• Better Windows appearance
• Many more new themes
• Many bug fixes[29]
1.5
• Advanced preferences panel
• Download/helper apps preferences panel
• Cookie whitelisting
• New password manager
• Web panels (like Mozilla's sidebar panels)
• Alternate stylesheet support (through a status bar button)
• Send Page, Send Link, and Send Image menu items
• Autoscroll
• Lots of bug fixes and other small improvements[30]
1.6 1.7
• Better Tabbed Browsing Controls
• Horde of bug fixes[31]
• Security fixes
• Bug fixes
• Stability fixes[32]
1.8
• Bug fixes
• Stability fixes
• Security fixes[33]
1.8.1
• Bug fixes
• Security fixes
• Stability fixes[34]
1.9
• Fixed several security problems.
• Fixed several stability issues.[35]
1.9.1
• Fixed several security issues
• Fixed several stability issues[36]
1.9.2
• Added Out-of-process plugins
• Fixed several security issues
• Fixed several stability issues[37][38]
2.0
• Fixed several security issues
• Fixed several stability issues[39]
5.0
12. Firefox 11
• Fixed an issue in Mac OS X 10.7 that could cause Firefox to crash[40]
• Fixed an issue caused by Apple's "Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 5" where the Java plugin would not be
loaded[41]
6.0
• Revoked the root certificate for DigiNotar due to fraudulent SSL certificate issuance[42]
• Removed trust exceptions for certificates issued by Staat der Nederlanden
• Resolved an issue with gov.uk websites[43]
7.0
• Fixed a rare issue where some users could find one or more of their add-ons hidden after a Firefox update[44]
8.0
• Fixed Mac OS X crash that occurred in certain instances when a Java Applet is loaded with Java SE 6 version
1.6.0_29 installed.
• Fixed Windows startup crash caused by RoboForm versions older than 7.6.2.[45]
9.0
• Fixed crash on Windows, Mac and Linux[46]
10.0
• Lots of security fixes[47]
• Fixed web workers running out of memory, affecting some add-ons used by organizations[48]
• Fixed Java applets sometimes caused text input to become unresponsive[49]
• Fixed an issue causing in Firefox ESR 10.0.3 that caused the "Whats New" page to open after an update
• Fixed extensions.checkCompatibility.* prefs not working in ESR releases[50]
• Fixed the 10.5 Firefox top crash with signature [@ GLEngine@0x620cf ][51]
11.0 12.0 13.0
• Fixed an issue when Windows Messenger did not load in Hotmail, and the Hotmail inbox did not auto-update
• Fixed the Hebrew text that was sometimes rendered incorrectly
• Fixed an issue in Adobe Flash 11.3 that sometimes caused a crash on quit
• Various security fixes[52]
14.0
• Various security fixes
• Fixed the GIF animation that can get stuck when src and image size are changed
• Mac OSX: Fixed the nsCocoaWindow::ConstrainPosition that uses wrong screen in multi-display setup
• Fixed the CSS :hover regression when an element's class name is set by Javascript[53]
Gecko
version 15.0 16.0 17.0 Release notes
• First release[54]
• Improvements to pop-up blocking
• Improvements to toolbar customization
• Improvements to tabbed browsing and shortcut keys
• Type ahead find returns
• Address bar gets smarter
• Themes
• Bug fixes[55]
• New default theme
• Redesigned Preferences window
13. Firefox 12
• Improved Privacy Options
• Improved Bookmarks
• Talkback enabled to tell Mozilla why the browser crashed
• Automatic Image Resizing
• Smooth Scrolling
• Access to more preferences through about:config
• Custom profile save location
• Mac OS X compatibility
• Lots of bug fixes[56]
• Windows Installer
• Download Manager
• New Add Bookmark Dialog
• Work Offline
• Better Handling of File Types
• New XPInstall Frontend
• New default theme for Mac OS X
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements [57]
• New Default Theme
• Comprehensive Data Migration from Internet Explorer
• Extension/Theme Manager
• Smaller Download
• Online help system
• Lots of bug fixes and improvements[58]
• Dropped support for Mac OS X v10.1, minimum is now Mac OS X v10.2
• Private data clear data
• Back and forward now fast
• Improved web standards
• Improved HTML
• Improved CSS
• Improved HTTP
• Improved Javascript/DOM
• SVG compatibility
• Huge amount of bug fixes[59]
• Visual Refresh of main theme
• Built-in phishing protection
• Enhanced search capabilities
• Improved tabbed browsing
• Resuming your browsing session (session restore)
• Previewing and subscribing to Web feeds
• Inline spell checking
• Live Web Titles
• Improved Add-ons manager
• JavaScript 1.7
• Extended search plugin format (predictive search)
• Improved security with extension system
• Client-side session and persistent storage
14. Firefox 13
• SVG text support
• New Windows installer[60]
• One-click site info
• Malware Protection
• New Web Forgery Protection page
• New SSL error pages
• Add-ons and Plugin version check
• Secure add-on updates
• Anti-virus integration with download manager
• Vista Parental Controls
• Effective top-level domain (eTLD) service better restricts cookies and other restricted content to a single domain.
• Better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks.
• Easier password management – save passwords after successful login
• Simplified add-on installation from 3rd party’s
• New Download Manager
• Resumable downloading after closing the browser
• Full page zoom
• Podcasts and Videocasts can be associated with your media playback tools
• Tab scrolling and quickmenu
• Save what you were doing - Firefox 3 will prompt users to save tabs on exit.
• Optimized Open in Tabs behavior
• Location and Search bar size can now be customized with a simple resizer item.
• Text selection improvements (select multiple selections of text)
• Find toolbar: the Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.
• Plugin management with the add-on manager
• Improved integration with Windows
• Improved integration with the Mac
• Integration with Linux GTK theme
• Bookmark star button
• Bookmark tags
• Smart Location Bar
• Library of bookmarks, history, etc.
• Smart Bookmark Folders
• Web-based protocol handlers for mail:to
• Download & Install Add-ons from the Add-on manager
• Easy to use Download Actions
• New graphics and font handling in Gecko 1.9 provide rendering improvements in:
• CSS
• SVG
• Display of fonts with ligatures and complex scripts
• Color management of images with capabilities
• Offline support for web applications
• Improved speed
• Reduced memory usage
• Increased reliability
• 25000 total code changes
• Security fixes
15. Firefox 14
• Stability fixes[61]
• Support for the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements including native support for Ogg Theora video and
Vorbis audio
• Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode
• Better web application performance using the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine
• The ability to share your location with websites using Location Aware Browsing
• Support for native JSON, and web worker threads
• Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering
• Support for new web technologies such as:
• Downloadable fonts
• CSS media queries
• New transformations and properties
• JavaScript query selectors
• HTML5 local storage and offline application storage
• <canvas> text
• ICC profiles
• SVG transforms.[62]
• Support for Persona themes
• Protection from out-of-date plugins to keep users safer as they browse.
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen and supports poster frames.
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time.
• The ability for web developers to indicate that scripts should run asynchronously to speed up page load times.
• Continued support for downloadable web fonts using the new WOFF font format.
• Support for new CSS attributes such as gradients, background sizing, and pointer events.
• Support for new DOM and HTML5 specifications including the Drag & Drop API and the File API, which allow
for more interactive web pages.
• Changes to how third-party software can integrate with Firefox in order to prevent crashes.[63]
• Firefox 4 is available in over 80 languages
• Uses JägerMonkey, a faster JavaScript engine
• Support for Do Not Track ("DNT") header that allows users to opt-out of behavioral advertising
• Firefox Sync is included by default
• Graphic rendering is now hardware-accelerated using Direct3D 9 (Windows XP), Direct3D 10 (Windows Vista &
7), and OpenGL on Mac OS
• Direct2D Hardware Acceleration is now on by default for Windows 7 users
• WebGL is enabled on all platforms that have a capable graphics card with updated drivers
• Native support for the HD HTML5 WebM video format, hardware accelerated where available
• Firefox button has a new look for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users
• Tabs are now on top by default on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• You can search for and switch to already open tabs in the Smart Location Bar
• The stop and reload buttons have been merged into a single button on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
• The Bookmarks Toolbar has been replaced with a Bookmarks Button by default (you can switch it back if you'd
like)
• Crash protection when there is a crash in Adobe Flash Player, Apple QuickTime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins
• You can turn any tab into an "App Tab"
• The default homepage design has been refreshed
• Overhaul of the bookmarks and history code, enabling faster bookmarking and startup performance
16. Firefox 15
• Per-compartment garbage collection is now enabled, reducing work done during complex animations
• Additional polish for the Firefox add-on Manager
• Improved web typography using OpenType with support for ligatures, kerning and font variants
• Web developers can animate content using CSS Transitions
• Responsiveness and scrolling improvements from the new retained layers layout system
• HTML5 Forms API makes web based forms easier to implement and validate
• Support for the new proposed Audio Data API
• Support for HSTS security protocol allowing sites to insist that they only be loaded over SSL
• A new feature called Panorama gives users a visual overview of all open tabs, allowing them to be sorted and
grouped
• An experimental API is included to provide more efficient Javascript animations
• Firefox now supports the HTML5 video "buffered" property
• Changes to how XPCOM components are registered in order to help startup time and process separation
• New Addons Manager and extension management API
• Significant API improvements are available for JS-ctypes, a foreign function interface for extensions
• CSS Transitions are partially supported
• Core Animation rendering model for plugins on Mac OS X
• Web developers can update the URL field without reloading the page using HTML History APIs
• More responsive page rendering using lazy frame construction
• Link history lookup is done asynchronously to provide better responsiveness during pageload
• CSS :visited selectors have been changed to block websites from being able to check a user's browsing history
• New HTML5 parser
• Support for more HTML5 form controls
• Web authors can now get touch events from Firefox users on Windows 7 machines
• A new way of representing values in JavaScript that allows Firefox to execute heavy, numeric code more
efficiently[64]
• Better standards support for HTML5, CSS3, MathML, XHR and SMIL
• Better visibility for the Do not track header preference[65]
• Stability and security improvements[66][67][68]
• Better tuned HTTP idle connection logic[65]
• Improved canvas, JavaScript, memory, and networking performance
• Improved spell checking for some locales
• Improved desktop environment integration for Linux users
• Better WebGL security (WebGL content can no longer load cross-domain textures).[69]
• Background tabs have setTimeout and setInterval clamped to 1000 ms to improve performance[70]
• about:permissions, a permissions manager. The user can choose what information can be shared with sites, e.g.
location.
• The address bar now highlights the domain of the website you are visiting.
• Streamlined the look of the site identity block
• Added support for the latest draft version of WebSockets with a prefixed API
• Added support for EventSource / server-sent events
• Added support for window.matchMedia
• Added Scratchpad, an interactive JavaScript prototyping environment
• Added a new Web Developer menu item and moved development-related items into it
• Improved usability of the Web Console
• Improved the discoverability of Firefox Sync
• Reduced browser startup time when using Panorama
17. Firefox 16
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues[71]
• Drastically improved memory handling for certain use cases
• Added a new rendering backend to speed up Canvas operations on Windows systems
• Bookmark and password changes now sync almost instantly when using Firefox Sync
• The 'http://' URL prefix is now hidden by default.
• Added support for text-overflow: ellipsis
• Added support for the Web Timing specification
• Enhanced support for MathML
• The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to version 8.
• Added an opt-in system for users to send performance data back to Mozilla to improve future versions of Firefox
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues[72]
• Add-ons installed by third-party programs are now disabled by default
• Added a one-time add-on selection dialog to manage previously installed add-ons
• Added Twitter to the search bar
• Added a preference to load tabs on demand, improving start-up time when windows are restored
• Improved performance and memory handling when using <audio> and <video> elements
• Added Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) support for cross-domain textures in WebGL
• Added support for HTML5 context menus
• Added support for insertAdjacentHTML()
• Improved CSS hyphen support for many languages
• Improved WebSocket support
• Fixed several stability issues[73]
• Added type inference, significantly improving JavaScript performance.
• Improved theme integration for Mac OS X Lion.
• Added two finger swipe navigation for Mac OS X Lion.
• Added support for querying Do Not Track status via JavaScript.
• Added support for the font-stretch CSS property.
• Improved support for the text-overflow CSS property.
• Improved standards support for HTML5, MathML, and CSS.
• Fixed several stability issues.[74]
• Most add-ons are now compatible with new versions of Firefox by default.
• Anti-Aliasing for WebGL is now implemented.
• CSS3 3D-Transforms are now supported.
• New <bdi> element for bi-directional text isolation, along with supporting CSS properties.
• Full Screen APIs allow you to build a web application that runs full screen.[75]
• Migration of settings from Google Chrome
• SPDY protocol support (disabled by default)
• Page Inspector Tilt (3D View)
• Sync Add-ons
• Redesigned HTML5 video controls
• Style Editor (CSS)[76]
• Windows: Firefox is now easier to update with one less prompt (User Account Control)
• Reintroduced on-demand loading of pinned tabs after restoring a session
• Page Source now has line numbers
18. Firefox 17
• Line breaks are now supported in the title attribute
• Improvements to "Find in Page" to center search result
• URLs pasted into the download manager window are now automatically downloaded
• Support for the text-align-last CSS property has been added
• Experimental support for ECMAScript 6 Map and Set objects has been implemented
• Various security fixes
• Many bug fixes
• Some TinyMCE-based editors failed to load (739141)
• OS X: WebGL performance may be degraded on some hardware (713305)[77]
• When opening a new tab, users are now presented with their most visited pages
• The default home page now has quicker access to bookmarks, history, settings, and more
• SPDY protocol now enabled by default for faster browsing on supported sites
• Restored background tabs are not loaded by default for faster startup
• Smooth scrolling is now enabled by default
• 72 total improvements to Page Inspector, HTML panel, Style Inspector, Scratchpad and Style Editor
• The column-fill CSS property has been implemented
• Experimental support for ECMAScript 6 Map and Set objects has been implemented
• Support for the CSS3 background-position property extended syntax has been added
• The :invalid pseudo-class can now be applied to the element
• The CSS turn angle unit is now supported[78]
• Google searches now utilize HTTPS
• Full screen support for Mac OS X Lion implemented
• Plugins can now be configured to only load on click (about:config)
• The Awesome Bar now auto-completes typed URLs
• Improved site identity manager, to prevent spoofing of an SSL connection with favicons
• Pointer Lock API implemented
• New API to prevent your display from sleeping
• New text-transform and font-variant CSS improvements for Turkic languages and Greek[79][80]
• Long URLs now extend the status bar almost to the whole width of the viewport.
• Gstreamer backend for HTML5 video to allow H.264 playback (needs to be enabled at compile time).
Release notes
• In-content preferences
• Speedy session restore
• Debugger
• Windows start-up performance improvements
• Silent update: Background updates
• Accessibility improvements for Mac
• Firefox social integration
• Incremental garbage collection
• Responsive view[81]
• OS X 10.7 support
• Panel-based download manager
• Opt-in activation for plugins (part 2)
• Command Line[82]
• Developer Toolbar[83]
• Show PDF inline[84]
19. Firefox 18
• Improve display of location bar results
• Silent Update: Updated workflow for users with incompatible add-ons
Platform support
Mozilla provides development builds of Firefox in the following channels: "Beta", "Aurora", and "Nightly". As
of July 2012, Firefox 15 beta is in the "Beta" channel, Firefox 16 alpha is in the "Aurora" channel, and Firefox 17
pre-alpha is in the "Nightly" channel.
Features planned for future versions include silent updating so that version increments will not bother the user,
although the user will be able to disable that function.[85] A different looking user-interface called "Australis" is also
planned.[86]
Firefox for mobile
Firefox for mobile, codenamed Fennec, is a web browser for smaller non-PC
devices, mobile phones and PDAs. It was first released for the Nokia Maemo
operating system (specifically the Nokia N900) on January 28, 2010.[87]
Version 4 for Android and Maemo was released on March 29, 2011.[88] The
browser's version number was bumped from version 2 to version 4 to
synchronize with all future desktop releases of Firefox since the rendering
engines used in both browsers are the same.[89] Version 7 was the last release
for Maemo on the N900.[90] The user interface is completely redesigned and
optimized for small screens, the controls are hidden away so that only the web
content is shown on screen, and it uses touchscreen interaction methods. It
includes the Awesomebar, tabbed browsing, Add-on support, password
manager, location-aware browsing, and the ability to synchronize with the
user's computer Firefox browser using Firefox Sync.[91]
Firefox ESR
Firefox for mobile 14.0 on Android
Firefox ESR is a version of Firefox for organizations and other adopters who
need extended support for mass deployments.[92] Unlike the regular ("rapid")
releases, the ESR will be updated with new features and performance enhancements annually, receiving regular
security updates during the year.[93]
64-bit support
Operating System 64-bit support
Windows No
Mac OS X Yes
Linux Yes
64-bit support for Firefox is inconsistent across operating systems. 64-bit is supported by Mozilla in Mac OS X and
Linux, but there are no official 64-bit releases for Windows OS. Mozilla does provide a 64-bit version for their
Firefox nightly builds, but they are considered unstable by Mozilla.[94][95]
The official releases of Firefox for Mac OS X are universal builds that include both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the
browser in one package, and have been this way since Firefox 4. A typical browsing session uses a combination of
the 64-bit browser process and a 32-bit plugin process, because some popular plugins still are 32-bit.[96]
20. Firefox 19
Mozilla made Firefox for Linux 64-bit a priority with the release of Firefox 4, labeling it as tier 1 priority.[97][98]
Since being labeled tier 1, Mozilla has been providing official 64-bit releases for its browser for the Linux
OS.[99][100] Vendor-backed 64-bit support has existed for Linux based OS's such as Novell-Suse Linux, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, and Ubuntu prior to Mozilla's support of 64-bit, even though vendors were faced with the
challenge of having to turn off the 64-bit JIT compiler due to its instability prior to Firefox 4.[101][102][103]
System requirements
Browsers compiled from Firefox source code may run on various operating systems; however, officially distributed
binaries are meant for the following: Microsoft Windows (XP SP2/SP3, Server 2003, Vista or 7), Mac OS X 10.5,
Mac OS X 10.6 and Linux (with the following libraries installed: GTK+ 2.10 or higher, GLib 2.12 or higher, Pango
1.14 or higher, X.Org 1.0 or higher (1.7 or higher is recommended), libstdc++ 4.3 or higher).[104]
[104] Windows Mac
Minimum Requirements
Processor Pentium 4 or newer with SSE2 Any Intel processor
Memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard Drive (free space) 200 MB
Operating system Windows XP SP2 or higher Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) or higher
Operating system Latest stable version Support
status
Microsoft XP / 2003 / Vista 2004–present
Windows / [105]
14.0.1 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ latest/ win32/ en-US/ )
2008 / 7 /
2008R2
2000 2004–2012
10.0.6esr (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ latest-10. 0esr/ win32/ en-US/
[106]
)
NT 4 / 98 / ME 2004–2008
2.0.0.20 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ 2. 0. 0. 20/ win32/ en-US)
95 2004–2007
1.5.0.12 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ 1. 5. 0. 12/ win32/ en-US)
Mac OS X 10.5 (Intel) - [105] 2007–present
14.0.1 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ latest/ mac/ en-US/ )
10.8
10.4 - 10.5 (PPC) [107][108] 2005–2012
3.6.28 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ 3. 6. 28/ mac/ en-US/ )
10.2 - 10.3 2004–2008
2.0.0.20 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ 2. 0. 0. 20/ mac/ en-US)
10.0 - 10.1 2004–2006
1.0.8 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ 1. 0. 8/ mac/ en-US)
2004–present
Linux kernel 2.2.14 and newer [105]
[105] 14.0.1 (ftp:/ / ftp. mozilla. org/ pub/ firefox/ releases/ latest/ linux-i686/ en-US/ )
(with some libraries )
Note:
• Firefox 3.5.9 is the last version to work on HP-UX 11i, as packaged by Hewlett-Packard.[109]
• Firefox 2.0 has been ported to RISC OS (i.e. not supported Mozilla).[110][111][112][113]
21. Firefox 20
Affiliations
Google
The Mozilla Corporation's relationship with Google has been noted in the popular press,[114][115] especially with
regard to their paid referral agreement. The release of the anti-phishing protection in Firefox 2 in particular raised
considerable controversy:[116] anti-phishing protection enabled by default is based on a list updated by twice-hourly
downloads to the user's computer from Google's server.[117] The user cannot change the data provider within the
GUI,[118] and is not informed who the default data provider is. The browser also sends Google's cookie with each
update request.[119] Some internet privacy advocacy groups have expressed concerns surrounding Google's possible
uses of this data, especially that Firefox's privacy policy states that Google may share information (that is not
personally identifying) gathered with "safebrowsing" service with third parties, including business partners.[120]
Following Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments in December 2009 regarding privacy during a CNBC show,[121]
Asa Dotzler, Mozilla's director of community development suggested that users use the Bing search engine instead
of Google search.[122] Google also promoted Firefox through YouTube until the release of Google Chrome. In
August 2009, Mozilla Security assisted Google by pointing out a security flaw in Google's Chrome browser.[123]
In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$52.9 million, with
approximately 95% derived from search engine royalties.[124][125] In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla
Corporation had a combined revenue of US$66.9 million, with approximately 90% derived from search engine
royalties.[124][126] In 2007, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$81
million, with 88% of this sum (US$66 million) from Google.[127][128] In 2008, both Mozilla organizations had a
combined revenue of US$78.6 million, with 91% coming from Google.[129] The Mozilla Foundation and
Corporation are being audited by the IRS with the possibility of having its non-profit status called into
question.[127][129][130]
Microsoft
Microsoft's head of Australian operations, Steve Vamos, stated in late 2004 that he did not see Firefox as a threat and
that there was not significant demand for the feature-set of Firefox among Microsoft's users.[131] Microsoft Chairman
Bill Gates has used Firefox, but has commented that "it's just another browser, and IE [Microsoft's Internet Explorer]
is better".[132]
A Microsoft SEC filing on June 30, 2005 acknowledged that "competitors such as Mozilla offer software that
competes with the Internet Explorer Web browsing capabilities of our Windows operating system products."[133] The
release of Internet Explorer 7 was fast tracked, and included functionality that was previously available in Firefox
and other browsers, such as tabbed browsing and RSS feeds.[134]
Despite the cold reception from Microsoft's top management, the Internet Explorer development team maintains a
relationship with Mozilla. They meet regularly to discuss web standards such as extended validation certificates.[135]
In 2005, Mozilla agreed to allow Microsoft to use its Web feed logo in the interest of common graphical
representation of the Web feeds feature.[136]
In August 2006, Microsoft offered to help Mozilla integrate Firefox with the then-forthcoming Windows Vista,[137]
an offer Mozilla accepted.[138]
In October 2006, as congratulations for a successful ship of Firefox 2, the Internet Explorer 7 development team sent
a cake to Mozilla.[139][140] As a nod to the browser wars, some jokingly suggested that Mozilla send a cake back
along with the recipe, in reference to the open-source software movement.[141] The IE development team sent
another cake on June 17, 2008, upon the successful release of Firefox 3,[142] again on March 22, 2011, for Firefox
4,[143] and yet again for the Firefox 5 release.[144]
22. Firefox 21
In November 2007, Jeff Jones (a "security strategy director" in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group) criticized
Firefox, claiming that Internet Explorer experienced fewer vulnerabilities and fewer higher severity vulnerabilities
than Firefox in typical enterprise scenarios.[145] Mozilla developer Mike Shaver discounted the study, citing
Microsoft's bundling of security fixes and the study's focus on fixes, rather than vulnerabilities, as crucial flaws.[146]
In February 2009, Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for version 3.5 of the .NET Framework. This update also
installed Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant add-on (enabling ClickOnce support).[147] The update received media
attention after users discovered that the add-on could not be uninstalled through the add-ons interface.[148][149]
Several hours after the website Annoyances.org posted an article regarding this update, Microsoft employee Brad
Abrams posted in his blog Microsoft's explanation for why the add-on was installed, and also included detailed
instructions on how to remove it.[150] However, the only way to get rid of this extension was to modify manually the
Windows Registry, which could cause Windows systems to fail to boot up if not done correctly.[148]
On October 16, 2009, Mozilla blocked all versions of Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant from being used with
Firefox and from the Mozilla Add-ons service.[151] Two days later, the add-on was removed from the blocklist after
confirmation from Microsoft that it is not a vector for vulnerabilities.[152][153] Version 1.1 (released on June 10, 2009
to the Mozilla Add-ons service) and later of the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant allows the user to disable and
uninstall in the normal fashion.[154]
Firefox was one of the twelve browsers offered to European Economic Area users of Microsoft Windows in 2010 –
see BrowserChoice.eu.[155]
Awards
• Tom's Hardware WBGP 9, February 2012[156]
• Tom's Hardware WBGP 8, January 2012[157]
• Tom's Hardware WBGP 7, September 2011[158]
• CNET Editors' Choice, March 2011[159]
• CNET Top 10 Mac Downloads, December 2010[160]
• Webware 100 winner, May 2009[161]
• LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards, February 2009[162]
• PC Magazine Editors' Choice, June 2008[163]
• CNET Editors' Choice, June 2008[164]
• PC World 100 Best Products of 2008, May 2008[165]
• Webware 100 winner, April 2008[166]
• Webware 100 winner, June 2007[167]
• PC World 100 Best Products of 2007, May 2007[168]
• PC Magazine Editors' Choice, October 2006[169]
• CNET Editors' Choice, October 2006[170]
• PC World's 100 Best Products of 2006, July 2006[171]
• PC Magazine Software and Development Tools Award, January 2006[172]
• PC Magazine Best of the Year Award, December, 2005[173]
• PC Pro Real World Award (Mozilla Foundation), December, 2005[174]
• CNET Editors' Choice, November 2005[175]
• UK Usability Professionals' Association Best Software Award, November 2005[176]
• Macworld Editor's Choice with a 4.5 Mice Rating, November 2005[177]
• Softpedia User’s Choice Award, September 2005[178]
• TUX 2005 Readers' Choice Award, September 2005[179]
• PC World Product of the Year, June 2005[180]
• Forbes Best of the Web, May 2005[181]
23. Firefox 22
• PC Magazine Editor’s Choice Award, May 2005[182]
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