Mozilla Firefox
a free, open source, cross-platform graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and hundreds of volunteers. Started as a fork of the browser component (Navigator) of the Mozilla Application Suite, Firefox has replaced the Mozilla Suite as the Mozilla Foundation's flagship product. Firefox is often abbreviated as FF; officially it is Fx or fx.
Firefox had gained acclaim from numerous media outlets, including Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, even before its 1.0 release on November 9, 2004. With over 25 million downloads in the 99 days after the initial 1.0 release, Firefox became one of the most downloaded free and open source applications, especially among home users. Firefox 2 was released on October 24, 2006 and downloaded over 2 million times within 24 hours.
As of September 2006, Firefox's usage share is around 12% of overall browser usage (see market adoption below), with its highest usage in Germany (about 39% as of July 2006).
The developers of Firefox aim to produce a browser that "just works" for most casual users. User-created extensions and plugins can be installed to integrate with Firefox giving a wide range of choice for the end-user. The main features included with Firefox are tabbed browsing, incremental find, live bookmarking, a customizable download manager and a built-in Search toolbar. The user can customize their version of Firefox with downloadable extensions, a variety of different themes and skins, and many hidden preferences that are easily accessible to the advanced user.
Mozilla Firefox claims support for many software standards, including but not restricted to: HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, MathML, DTD, XSL, SVG, XPath and PNG images with variable transparency. Firefox release builds do not yet pass the Acid2 standards-compliance test. However, there are developmental versions of Firefox that currently pass the Acid2 test, and Firefox 3 is expected to pass Acid2.
