The nascent browser was originally named Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor (in this case, from the 'ashes' of Netscape Navigator, after it was sidelined by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the ' First Browser War'). The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. As of December 2021, according to StatCounter, Firefox has 8.34% usage share as a desktop web browser, making it the fourth-most popular desktop web browser after Google Chrome (66.35%), Safari (9.82%), and Microsoft Edge (9.53%), while its usage share across all platforms is lower at 3.91% in fourth place, after Google Chrome (64.06%), Safari (19.22%), and Edge (4.19%).

įirefox usage share grew to a peak of 32.21% in November 2009, with Firefox 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole its usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.

Firefox was released on November 9, 2004, and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months. During its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security, and add-ons compared to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. įirefox was created in 2002 under the code name 'Phoenix' by the Mozilla community members who desired a standalone browser, rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. An optimized version of Firefox is also available on the Amazon Fire TV, as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser. However, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements, as with all other iOS web browsers. Firefox is also available for Android and iOS. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. Firefox is available for Windows 7 and later versions, macOS, and Linux. In 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name Quantum to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface.

Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.

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