Mozilla Foundation and its contributors - Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox, Firefox Browser, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source[24] web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.[25] In 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name Quantum to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface.[26] Firefox is officially available for Windows 7 or newer, macOS and Linux; its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems including FreeBSD,[9] OpenBSD,[10] NetBSD,[11] illumos[12] and Solaris Unix.[14] Firefox is also available for Android and iOS, however the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform limitations, as with all other iOS web browsers. Firefox was created in 2002 under the codename "Phoenix" by the Mozilla community members who desired a standalone browser, rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. 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. Firefox was released on November 9, 2004,[27] and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months.[28] Firefox is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.[29] Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32.21% at the end of 2009,[30] with version 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole.[31][32] Usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome.[30] As of October 2019, Firefox has 9.54% usage share as a "desktop" browser, according to StatCounter, making it the second-most popular browser against Google Chrome with 69.08% (while share is exceptionally high in some countries where Firefox is most popular; up to over 75% share);[33] usage share across all platforms is lower at 4.44% (third-most popular overall).[34] According to Mozilla, in December 2014, there were half a billion Firefox users around the world.[35]