Firefox 3 Beta 1 includes a handful of new security features designed to help end users recognize problematic sites. With a single click, users can now see who owns a Web site, and future versions will display Extended Validation SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate details. Built-in malware protection will warn users when they navigate to blacklisted sites known for installing viruses, spyware and trojans, and the content of pages suspected of being Web forgeries -- used to capture account and identity details -- no longer display to end users.
Additional improvements include more rigorous SSL certificate error notices, add-ons and plugin checks that that disable insecure updates, anti-virus integration, and Windows Vista parental control cooperation.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
New Features
"The most important, I think, by far will be the improvements in memory handling and performance and the support for offline browser applications," Stephen O'Grady, an industry analyst for RedMonk, told LinuxInsider.
Mozilla plugged more than 300 individual memory leaks and added a new XPCOM (cross platform component object model) cycle collector that completely eliminates many more, it said. Firefox developers are continuing to work on optimizing memory use, Mozilla added, by releasing cached objects more quickly and reducing fragmentation. As for performance, major architectural changes are building the foundation for speed increases in future betas.
Support for offline browser applications is built into Firefox 3, but Web sites will need to offer offline support on their sites in order for it to work. The same goes for organizations building Web apps that will be utilized by employees using Firefox 3 offline.
Mozilla plugged more than 300 individual memory leaks and added a new XPCOM (cross platform component object model) cycle collector that completely eliminates many more, it said. Firefox developers are continuing to work on optimizing memory use, Mozilla added, by releasing cached objects more quickly and reducing fragmentation. As for performance, major architectural changes are building the foundation for speed increases in future betas.
Support for offline browser applications is built into Firefox 3, but Web sites will need to offer offline support on their sites in order for it to work. The same goes for organizations building Web apps that will be utilized by employees using Firefox 3 offline.
Firefox 3
Mozilla Latest News about Mozilla Foundation has posted the first public beta of Firefox 3. At the same time, however, Mozilla is warning that the beta is for testing purposes only and not for casual users. Because this beta is targeted at testing core functionality added to the browser, Mozilla notes that some of Firefox 3 Beta 1 is still a bit "rough around the edges." For example, many Firefox 2 add-ons don't work properly with this first beta.
Still, early testers seem pleased with the promise of Firefox 3, which is packed with new features and tweaks alike. The latest version is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 27 months, Mozilla said, and includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes that fix more than 11,000 issues.
"Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness and code simplification and sustainability," Mozilla noted. "Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer Web site and Firefox add-on developers."
Still, early testers seem pleased with the promise of Firefox 3, which is packed with new features and tweaks alike. The latest version is based on the new Gecko 1.9 Web rendering platform, which has been under development for the past 27 months, Mozilla said, and includes nearly 2 million lines of code changes that fix more than 11,000 issues.
"Gecko 1.9 includes some major re-architecting for performance, stability, correctness and code simplification and sustainability," Mozilla noted. "Firefox 3 has been built on top of this new platform resulting in a more secure, easier to use, more personal product with a lot under the hood to offer Web site and Firefox add-on developers."
Download count
Downloads have continued at an increasing rate since Firefox 1.0 was released in November 2004. No other Mozilla Foundation product has experienced such growth.[3]
| Date | Number of days | Downloads (millions) |
|---|---|---|
| November 10, 2004 | 1 | 1 |
| February 16, 2005 | 99 | 25 |
| April 29, 2005 | 171 | 50 |
| July 26, 2005 | 259 | 75 |
| October 19, 2005 | 344 | 100 |
| March 3, 2006 | 479 | 150 |
| July 31, 2006 | 629 | 200 |
| November 11, 2006 | 732 | 250 |
| February 12, 2007 | 825 | 300 |
| September 7, 2007 | 1032 | 400 |
These numbers do not include downloads using software updates or from third-party websites. They do not represent a user count, as one download may be installed on many machines, or one person may download the software multiple times. According to Mozilla COO John Lilly, Firefox had at least 125 million users as of November 2007.
Release compatibility
| Operating Systems | Latest version |
|---|---|
| Linux kernel 2.2.14 and newer, with some libraries | 2.0.0.11 |
| Mac OS X v10.1 | 1.0.8 |
| Mac OS X v10.2-10.5 | 2.0.0.11 |
| OS/2 and eComstation | 2.0.0.11 |
| Windows 95 | 1.5.0.12 |
| Windows NT 4/98/2000/ME/XP/Vista | 2.0.0.11 |
Early beginnings: a pared-down browser
Phoenix 0.1, the first official release
Phoenix 0.1, the first official release
Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public
Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public
Hyatt and Ross' mozilla/browser (later Phoenix, Firebird and finally Firefox) browser was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed, internally referred to, and continued by the community as SeaMonkey), which integrated features such as IRC, mail and news, and WYSIWYG HTML editing into one software suite.
Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface markup language. The use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of extensions and themes. 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. The use of XUL sets Firefox apart from other browsers, including other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms (Galeon and Epiphany use GTK+; K-Meleon uses MFC; and Camino uses Cocoa). Many of these projects were started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.
The first sign of a Firefox-like project was a small application sample (presumably to demonstrate how to embed Gecko in another application) shipped with early milestone builds of Mozilla. Featuring only "back", "forward", and "stop" buttons and a URL field (no cache, no stored history, etc.), it was minimalistic and thus a lot lighter than Mozilla itself. Eventually, it was no longer shipped with Mozilla's binary builds.
Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continued to maintain the suite until April 12, 2006[1] because it had many corporate users, as well as being bundled with other software. The Mozilla community (as opposed to the Foundation) continues to release new versions of the suite using the product name SeaMonkey to avoid any possible confusion with the original Mozilla Suite.
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 meant that AMS considered Firebird (as it was called at the time) to be virtually risk-free and technically strong.
Phoenix 0.1, the first official release
Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public
Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public
Hyatt and Ross' mozilla/browser (later Phoenix, Firebird and finally Firefox) browser was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed, internally referred to, and continued by the community as SeaMonkey), which integrated features such as IRC, mail and news, and WYSIWYG HTML editing into one software suite.
Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface markup language. The use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of extensions and themes. 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. The use of XUL sets Firefox apart from other browsers, including other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms (Galeon and Epiphany use GTK+; K-Meleon uses MFC; and Camino uses Cocoa). Many of these projects were started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.
The first sign of a Firefox-like project was a small application sample (presumably to demonstrate how to embed Gecko in another application) shipped with early milestone builds of Mozilla. Featuring only "back", "forward", and "stop" buttons and a URL field (no cache, no stored history, etc.), it was minimalistic and thus a lot lighter than Mozilla itself. Eventually, it was no longer shipped with Mozilla's binary builds.
Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continued to maintain the suite until April 12, 2006[1] because it had many corporate users, as well as being bundled with other software. The Mozilla community (as opposed to the Foundation) continues to release new versions of the suite using the product name SeaMonkey to avoid any possible confusion with the original Mozilla Suite.
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 meant that AMS considered Firebird (as it was called at the time) to be virtually risk-free and technically strong.
Naming
The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix.
The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003 when it was changed (after a short stint as Phoenix Browser) due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as the Firebird database server already carried the name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation issued an official statement which stated that the browser should be referred to as Mozilla Firebird (as opposed to just Firebird). Continuing pressure from the Firebird community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004 the project was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short).
The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. This trademark process led to a delay of several months in the release of Firefox 0.8 when the foundation discovered that in the UK Firefox had already been registered as a trademark for browsers by The Charlton Company. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.
The repeated renaming of the program prompted the development of the tongue-in-cheek extension "Firesomething", which allowed users to randomize the name on startup, giving it such satirical soubriquets as "Firegiraffe" or "Moonbadger"
The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003 when it was changed (after a short stint as Phoenix Browser) due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as the Firebird database server already carried the name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation issued an official statement which stated that the browser should be referred to as Mozilla Firebird (as opposed to just Firebird). Continuing pressure from the Firebird community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004 the project was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short).
The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. This trademark process led to a delay of several months in the release of Firefox 0.8 when the foundation discovered that in the UK Firefox had already been registered as a trademark for browsers by The Charlton Company. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.
The repeated renaming of the program prompted the development of the tongue-in-cheek extension "Firesomething", which allowed users to randomize the name on startup, giving it such satirical soubriquets as "Firegiraffe" or "Moonbadger"
Branding and visual identity
The design of the Firefox logo
Various logos used during the development of Firefox
One of the most visible enhancements is the new visual identity of Firefox and Thunderbird. It has often been argued that free software is typically designed only by programmers — rather than graphic designers or usability gurus — and that it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI design and lacks a strong visual identity. The early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not up to the same standard 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. The page received a great deal of attention
(it was slashdotted). The majority of the criticisms levelled at the article were along the lines of "where's the patch?", an open source way of saying "if you don't like it, you can fix it yourself."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 icons designed by Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on Camino. The logo was revised and updated later, fixing some flaws found when the logo was enlarged.
Blue globe artwork is distributed with Firefox source code, and is explicitly not protected as a trademark
Blue globe artwork is distributed with Firefox source code, and is explicitly not protected as a trademark[2]
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 conjure up the right imagery", besides not being widely known. The logo was chosen for the purpose of making an impression, while not shouting out with overdone artwork. The logo had to stand out in the user's mind, be easy for others to remember and stand out while not causing too much distraction when among other icons. It was expected to be the final logo for the product.
The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software, and builds of official distribution partners.[3] Although the core software is open source, the artwork (along with the quality feedback agent and parts of the installer) is not freely licensed without official permission from the developers. For this reason, Debian and other software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox do not use the icon.
Delicious delicacies
Delicious delicacies
A screenshot showing the "cookies are delicious delicacies" line.
A screenshot showing the "cookies are delicious delicacies" line.
Early Firefox releases featured a preferences panel that described cookies by stating "Cookies are delicious delicacies".
The phrase was representative of the programmers' quirky sense of humor and a general reflection of the free software movement's unconventional approach. The phrase became something of a cult legend and was even featured in an O'Reilly computer book.
The original text was inserted by Blake Ross, one of the lead developers of Firefox, because, he says, "describing something so complicated in such a small space was quite frankly the last thing I wanted to worry about after rewriting the cookie manager".
However, in reflection of the growing acceptance and use of the Firefox browser in the Internet mainstream, the text was later changed. It was considered a bug and was "fixed" by Mike Connor to read "Cookies are pieces of information stored by web pages on your computer. They are used to remember login information and other data". The revision was regarded as more likely to be helpful for the less technically oriented computer users who were now using Firefox—representing Mozilla's desire to appeal to mainstream users.
After this happened, the following remarks were made by Blake Ross over IRC to Mike Connor:
congratulations mconnor
you just destroyed a legend!
The text became a popular in-joke and on August 2004, the Delicious Delicacies extension, which is no longer maintained and updated, was released by Jesse Ruderman. This extension restored the old description of cookies, available in several languages.
As of Firefox 2.0, cookies no longer have a description in the preferences window.
A screenshot showing the "cookies are delicious delicacies" line.
A screenshot showing the "cookies are delicious delicacies" line.
Early Firefox releases featured a preferences panel that described cookies by stating "Cookies are delicious delicacies".
The phrase was representative of the programmers' quirky sense of humor and a general reflection of the free software movement's unconventional approach. The phrase became something of a cult legend and was even featured in an O'Reilly computer book.
The original text was inserted by Blake Ross, one of the lead developers of Firefox, because, he says, "describing something so complicated in such a small space was quite frankly the last thing I wanted to worry about after rewriting the cookie manager".
However, in reflection of the growing acceptance and use of the Firefox browser in the Internet mainstream, the text was later changed. It was considered a bug and was "fixed" by Mike Connor to read "Cookies are pieces of information stored by web pages on your computer. They are used to remember login information and other data". The revision was regarded as more likely to be helpful for the less technically oriented computer users who were now using Firefox—representing Mozilla's desire to appeal to mainstream users.
After this happened, the following remarks were made by Blake Ross over IRC to Mike Connor:
The text became a popular in-joke and on August 2004, the Delicious Delicacies extension, which is no longer maintained and updated, was released by Jesse Ruderman. This extension restored the old description of cookies, available in several languages.
As of Firefox 2.0, cookies no longer have a description in the preferences window.
The road to 1.5
"Deer Park", the codename of the Firefox 1.1 and 1.6 Alphas, did not include Firefox branding.
"Deer Park", the codename of the Firefox 1.1 and 1.6 Alphas, did not include Firefox branding.
On June 23, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Firefox 1.1 (which became Firefox 1.5) and other new Mozilla products will no longer support Mac OS X v10.1. This is intended to improve the quality of Firefox releases on Mac OS X v10.2 and above. Users of 10.1 may still use Firefox versions from the 1.0.x branch (e.g. Firefox 1.0.7).
Updated options window introduced in Firefox 1.5
Updated options window introduced in Firefox 1.5
Firefox 1.5 was released on November 30, 2005. The original plan was for a Firefox 1.1 and later a Firefox 1.5. After the first two 1.1 alpha builds, the Mozilla Foundation abandoned the 1.1 release plan and merged it with the planned feature set of 1.5 instead, with 1.5 being released later than was planned for 1.1. The new version resynchronised the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contains additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there has been a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which are now available in 1.5. Version 1.5 implements a new Mac-like options interface, which has been the subject of much criticism from Windows and Linux users, with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. A user can clear all privacy-related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. Moreover, the software update system has been improved (with binary patches now possible). There are also improvements in the extension management system, with a number of new developer features.
Also, Firefox 1.5 has (partial) SVG 1.1 support, as shown in Mozilla's Bugzilla database. This unplanned movement may be due to the release of Opera 8.0 on April 19, 2005, which supports SVG Tiny.
Alpha builds of Firefox 1.5 (1.1a1 and 1.1a2) did not contain Firefox branding. They were labeled "Deer Park" (which was Firefox 1.5's internal codename) and contained a different program icon (see installation screenshot, right). This was done to dissuade end-users from downloading preview versions, which are intended for developers only.
"Deer Park", the codename of the Firefox 1.1 and 1.6 Alphas, did not include Firefox branding.
On June 23, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Firefox 1.1 (which became Firefox 1.5) and other new Mozilla products will no longer support Mac OS X v10.1. This is intended to improve the quality of Firefox releases on Mac OS X v10.2 and above. Users of 10.1 may still use Firefox versions from the 1.0.x branch (e.g. Firefox 1.0.7).
Updated options window introduced in Firefox 1.5
Updated options window introduced in Firefox 1.5
Firefox 1.5 was released on November 30, 2005. The original plan was for a Firefox 1.1 and later a Firefox 1.5. After the first two 1.1 alpha builds, the Mozilla Foundation abandoned the 1.1 release plan and merged it with the planned feature set of 1.5 instead, with 1.5 being released later than was planned for 1.1. The new version resynchronised the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contains additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there has been a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which are now available in 1.5. Version 1.5 implements a new Mac-like options interface, which has been the subject of much criticism from Windows and Linux users, with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. A user can clear all privacy-related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. Moreover, the software update system has been improved (with binary patches now possible). There are also improvements in the extension management system, with a number of new developer features.
Also, Firefox 1.5 has (partial) SVG 1.1 support, as shown in Mozilla's Bugzilla database. This unplanned movement may be due to the release of Opera 8.0 on April 19, 2005, which supports SVG Tiny.
Alpha builds of Firefox 1.5 (1.1a1 and 1.1a2) did not contain Firefox branding. They were labeled "Deer Park" (which was Firefox 1.5's internal codename) and contained a different program icon (see installation screenshot, right). This was done to dissuade end-users from downloading preview versions, which are intended for developers only.
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