See also: Open Source | Web browsers | Mozilla
Icon: 
Home Page: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Formerly: Phoenix, Firebird
A free web browser that is standards-compliant, open-source, and cross-platform, taken from the Mozilla browser and built for speed. Unlike Mozilla, it includes only a simple browser component, not a suite of applications (email, chat, HTML editor, etc). Firefox is the direction that the Mozilla project will be heading in as of versions 1.6 and beyond; a simple browser framework supplimented by Extensions to add extra features. The result is a low footprint and highly customizable Web solution for both developers and users that holds a variety of advantages over any other browser.
On the 24 November 2004, Firefox version 1.0 had 6 million downloads from it’s non-developer homepage Spread Firefox. The speed of this take-up has impressed many.
Firefox is faster than Mozilla and takes up around 1/4 the system memory (Mozilla uses ~20 megs versus Firefox’s 4 megs) on Windows XP and likely similar numbers on other operating systems. Firefox also has more skins available than Mozilla, despite being a younger project.
A Firefox Firefox Wishlist has been created and will be sent to the developers once a sufficent number has been added.
Quote from the homepage:
“Mozilla Firefox is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform.”
Contents
Extensions / Skins:
- Firefox Extensions (Plugins)
- Mouse Gestures
- Preferences Toolbar
- Session Saver (as seen in Opera)
- Wikalong (Wiki sidebar)
- ActiveX (for Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox. Careful, possible security hazards. Only use if you have to.)
- IE View – for those few pages that still require IE.
- SpiderZilla – download entire Web sites.
- FireFTP – FTP client inside your browser. Very useful and small footprint.
- AutoHide – for full screen, to hide even the toolbar.
- DownloadStatus – collapse downloads into the statusbar (a progress meter in base of the window).
- CookieButton – immediate control over cookies
- Prefbar – One of the most popular – common preferences in checkboxes. Images, cookies, flash elements, and more can all be flipped on and off for a given site.
- UndoCloseTab – re-open accidentally closed tabs.
- Autocopy – just highlighting text sends it to the clipboard – no “Ctrl + C” necessary. Ala mIRC.
- Dict – Reading a page you don’t know definitions for? Easy standards-friendly pop-up window format.
Project Info:
- Forums: Firefox discussion (MozillaZine).
- E-mail equivalent of Firefox: Thunderbird.
- Get involved! (You don’t need to be a developer.)
History:
Originally titled “Phoenix”, the Firebird name was chosen after Phoenix Technologies complained about the similarity of names. Firebird was the proposed solution, but met resistance from the Firebird relational database project. In the end, Mozilla Firefox became the official name of the project.
Useful links:
- Mozilla – Because Firefox was based on Mozilla, there is much information there which is useful to Firefox.
- CVS Nightlies – Firefox testing binaries for developers
- 13 reasons to use Firefox over IE
- NVU – A web authoring tool based on Mozilla Composer.
Bug Reporting
TakeDown.NET -> “Mozilla-Firefox”