Mozilla Firefox

Firefox began in 2002 under the codename Phoenix, assembled by Mozilla volunteers as a lean alternative to the Netscape suite. It combined the Gecko rendering engine with tabbed browsing and a small install footprint. Version 1.0 shipped on November 9, 2004, and drew 60 million downloads within nine months, a figure that put Internet Explorer 6 on notice. The Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation, maintain the project under the stated mission of keeping the internet "for people, not profit."

Official builds cover Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. On iOS, Apple's platform rules require every browser to use WebKit rather than Gecko, a constraint that applies to Firefox and all other third-party browsers alike. Unofficial ports have reached FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and ReactOS, while Debian and Ubuntu ship Firefox as their default browser. The browser spent years as a standard option on Amazon's Fire TV until that build was retired in April 2021. The Quantum release of November 2017 rebuilt core components for parallel processing and a cleaner interface, and the project has kept a steady release cadence since: Firefox 156 arrived in September 2026, with version 160 entering public beta the following month.

Usage share peaked at 32.21% in November 2009, when version 3.5 briefly passed Internet Explorer 7. Chrome's rise cut into that lead. By July 2026, StatCounter placed Firefox at 6.3% of desktop use, third behind Chrome at 72% and Edge at 10%, but ahead of Safari's 5.2%. Mozilla's finances remain tied to Google, which supplied roughly 85% of its revenue as of October 2026 reporting, even as the organization promotes Firefox's independence from advertising-driven rivals. [edit]

Firefox's interaction model centers on tabbed browsing, with settings organized around speed, privacy, and user control. The Android build blocks trackers and markets itself on data protection. Extension support sets the mobile version apart: a 2026 reviewer who switched from Chrome cited extensions as the reason for staying. The desktop browser includes a built-in PDF editor capable of replacing paid PDF applications, a feature Chrome and Edge are only now beginning to match. [edit]