Developer(s) | Mozilla Corporation, Mozilla Foundation |
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Initial release | June 17, 2008 |
Final release | 3.0.19 (March 30, 2010 ) |
Preview release | None (None) [±] |
Repository | |
Written in | C++, XUL, XBL, JavaScript |
Engine | Gecko |
Operating system | Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Solaris OS/2 |
Platform | Cross-platform |
Size | 7.2 MB (Windows) 17.2 MB (Mac OS X) 8.7 MB (Linux) |
Available in | Over 70 languages |
Type | Web browser, FTP client, gopher client |
License | MPL/GPL/LGPL/Mozilla EULA (for binary redistribution) |
Website | firefox |
Related articles |
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Origins and lineage |
Category |
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008, by the Mozilla Corporation. [1]
Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. This version fixes many bugs, improves standards compliance, and implements many new web APIs compared to Firefox 2.0. Other new features include a redesigned download manager, a new "Places" system for storing bookmarks and history, and separate themes for different operating systems.
Firefox 3.0 had over 8 million unique downloads the day it was released. By July 2008, it held over 5.6% of the recorded usage share of web browsers. [2] Estimates of Firefox 3.0's global market share as of February 2010 [update] were generally in the range of 4–5%, [3] [4] [5] and then dropped as users migrated to Firefox 3.5 and later Firefox 3.6. Partially as a result of this, between mid-December 2009 and the end of January 2010, Firefox 3.5 was the most popular browser (when counting individual browser versions), passing Internet Explorer 7. [6]
Mozilla ended support for Firefox 3 on March 30, 2010, with the release of 3.0.19. [7]
Firefox 3.0 was developed under the codename Gran Paradiso . [8] This, like other Firefox codenames, is the name of an actual place; in this case the seventh-highest mountain in the Graian Alps where they first came up with the idea.
Planning began in October 2006, when the development team asked users to submit feature requests that they wished to be included in Firefox 3. [9]
The Mozilla Foundation released the first beta on November 19, 2007, [10] the second beta on December 18, 2007, [10] the third beta on February 12, 2008, the fourth beta on March 10, 2008, and the fifth and final beta on April 2, 2008. [11] The first release candidate was announced on May 16, 2008, followed by a second release candidate on June 4, 2008, and a third (differing from the second release candidate only in that it corrected a serious bug for Mac users) on June 11, 2008. Mozilla shipped the final release on June 17, 2008. [1] [12]
On its release date, Firefox 3 was featured in popular culture, mentioned on The Colbert Report , among others. [13]
One of the big changes in Firefox 3 is the implementation of Gecko 1.9, an updated layout engine. The new version fixes many bugs, improves standard compliance, and implements new web APIs. [14] In particular, it makes Firefox 3 the first official release of a Mozilla browser to pass the Acid2 test, a standards-compliance test for web-page rendering. It also receives a better score on the Acid3 test than Firefox 2.
Some of the new features are defined in the WHATWG HTML 5 specification, [14] such as support for web-based protocol handlers, a native implementation of the getElementsByClassName
method, support for safe message-passing with postMessage
, and support for offline web applications. Other new features include APNG support, and EXSLT support. [14]
A new internal memory allocator, jemalloc, [15] is used rather than the default libc one.[ citation needed ]
Gecko 1.9 uses Cairo as a graphics backend, [16] allowing for improved graphics performance and better consistency of the look and feel on various operating systems. Because of Cairo's lack of support for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT (versions 4.0 and below), and because Microsoft ended support for Windows 98 and Windows ME on July 11, 2006, Firefox 3 does not run on those operating systems. Similarly, the Mac version of Firefox 3 runs only on Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, [17] but, unlike previous versions, has a native Cocoa widget interface. [18]
As for the frontend changes, Firefox features a redesigned download manager with built-in search and the ability to resume downloads. [19] Also, a new plug-in manager is included in the add-ons window [20] and extensions can be installed with a package manager. Microformats are supported for use by software that can understand their use in documents to store data in a machine-readable form. [21]
The password manager in Firefox 3 asks the user if they would like it to remember the password after the login attempt rather than before. By doing this users are able to avoid storing an incorrect password in the password manager after a bad login attempt. [22]
Firefox 3 uses a "Places" system for storing bookmarks and history in an SQLite backend. [23] The new system stores more information about the user's history and bookmarks, in particular letting the user tag the pages. It is also used to implement an improved frecency-based algorithm for the new location bar auto-complete feature (dubbed the "Awesomebar"). [24] [25]
The Mac version of Firefox 3 supports Growl notifications, the Mac OS X spell checker, and Aqua-style form controls.
To give the browser a more native look and feel on different operating systems, Firefox 3 uses separate themes for Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. When running on GNOME, Firefox 3 displays icons from the environment; thus, when the desktop environment icon theme changes, Firefox follows suit. [26] Additional icons were also made to be used when no appropriate icon exists; these were made following the Tango Desktop Project guidelines. [27] Additionally, the GTK version has replaced the non-native tab bar that was implemented in Firefox 2.0 and instead uses the native GTK+ tab style.
The default icons and icon layout for Firefox 3 also changed dramatically, taking on a keyhole shape for the forward and back buttons by default on two of the three platforms. [28] However, the keyhole shape does not take effect in Linux or in the small-icon mode. The Iconfactory created the icons for the Microsoft Windows platform. In addition, separate icons sets are displayed for Windows XP and Vista.
Windows Vista and Windows 7 "Strata" visual style. | Windows 2000 and Windows XP "Strata" visual style. |
Mac OS X "Firelight" visual style. | "Tango" visual style for Linux and Unix-like operating systems in Ubuntu. (Icons changed based on applied GTK+ 2 theme.) |
Breakpad (previously called "Airbag") is an open-source crash reporter utility which replaced the proprietary Talkback. It has been developed by Google and Mozilla, and used in Firefox and Thunderbird. [30] [31] This product is significant because it is the first open-source multi-platform crash reporting system.[ citation needed ]
During development, Breakpad was first included May 27, 2007 in Firefox 3 trunk builds on Windows NT, Mac OS X, and, weeks later, on Linux. [32] Breakpad replaced Talkback (also known as the Quality Feedback Agent) as the crash reporter used by the Mozilla software to report crashes of its products to a centralized server for aggregation or case-by-case analysis. [33] Talkback was proprietary software licensed to the Mozilla Corporation by SupportSoft.
Market share overview According to StatCounter data December 2023 [34] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Net Applications noted that the use of Firefox 3 beta rapidly increased to a usage share of 0.62% in May 2008. They interpreted this increase to mean that Firefox 3 betas were stable and that users were using it as their primary browser. [36] Within 24 hours after the release of Firefox 3.0, usage rose from under 1% to over 3% according to Net Applications. [37] It reached a peak of 21.17% in April 2009 before declining as users switched to Firefox 3.5 and later Firefox 3.6. [38]
Mozilla sets record for most software downloads in 24 hours at Wikinews
The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 was June 17, 2008, named "Download Day 2008". Firefox was aiming to set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours.
Download Day officially started at 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16 UTC) on June 17. [39] With the announced date, the download day was June 18 for time zones greater than GMT +6, which includes half of Asia and all of Oceania.
The large number of users attempting to access the Mozilla website on June 17 caused it to become unavailable for at least a few hours, and attempts at upgrading to the new version resulted in server timeouts. The site was not updated for the download of Firefox 3 until 12:00 PDT (19:00 UTC), two hours later than originally scheduled. [40] [41]
When "Download Day" ended at 11:16 AM PDT (18:16 UTC) June 18, [42] 8,249,092 unique downloads had been recorded. [43] On July 2 Mozilla announced they had won the record, with 8,002,530 unique downloads [44] and parties in over 25 countries. [45] As of July 7, 2008, more than 31 million people had downloaded Firefox 3. [44] [46]
Gareth Deaves, Records Manager for Guinness World Records, complimented Mozilla, saying, "Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication." [47]
Firefox 3 runs on Windows 2000 and later, and on Windows 98 and ME with the third-party Kernel Extender installed. [48]
While the new functionality of the location bar, dubbed the "Awesomebar", was overall well-received, [49] there were those who did not like it due to user interface and performance changes, [50] [51] [52] so much that extensions were made to revert it. [53] [54] Firefox 3 received CNET Editors' Choice in June 2008. [55]
Gecko is a browser engine developed by Mozilla. It is used in the Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client, and many other projects.
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In November 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name "Quantum" to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 10 or later versions, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. It is also available for Android and iOS. However, as with all other iOS web browsers, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements. An optimized version is also available on the Amazon Fire TV as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser.
A browser war is a competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995–2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer's market share and the popularity of other browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Opera.
Mozilla Firefox has features that allow it to be distinguished from other web browsers, such as Chrome and Internet Explorer.
A crash reporter is usually a system software whose function is to identify reporting crash details and to alert when there are crashes, in production or on development / testing environments. Crash reports often include data such as stack traces, type of crash, trends and version of software. These reports help software developers- Web, SAAS, mobile apps and more, to diagnose and fix the underlying problem causing the crashes. Crash reports may contain sensitive information such as passwords, email addresses, and contact information, and so have become objects of interest for researchers in the field of computer security.
NoScript is a free and open-source extension for Firefox- and Chromium-based web browsers, written and maintained by Giorgio Maone, a software developer and member of the Mozilla Security Group.
A browser extension is a software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow users to install a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and styling of web pages.
The Netscape web browser is the general name for a series of web browsers formerly produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, which eventually became a subsidiary of AOL. The original browser was once the dominant browser in terms of usage share, but as a result of the first browser war, it lost virtually all of its share to Internet Explorer due to Microsoft's anti-competitive bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.
Netscape Navigator 9 is a discontinued web browser that was produced by the Netscape Communications division of parent AOL, first announced on January 23, 2007. It was the ninth major release of the Netscape line of browsers. After AOL outsourced the development of Netscape Browser 8 to Mercurial Communications in 2004, Netscape Navigator 9 marked the first Netscape browser to be produced in-house since the Netscape 7 suite. It also saw the return of the classic Navigator name, which was previously used during Netscape's heyday between versions 1.0 and 4.08 in the 1990s. Netscape Navigator 9 is based on Mozilla Firefox 2.0.
Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 is the ninth version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the ninth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 as a major out-of-band version that was not tied to the release schedule of any particular version of Windows, unlike previous versions. It is the first version of Internet Explorer not to be bundled with a Windows operating system, although some OEMs have installed it with Windows 7 on their PCs. Internet Explorer 9 is the last version that is called Windows Internet Explorer. The software was rebranded simply as Internet Explorer starting in 2012 with the release of Internet Explorer 10.
Mozilla Firefox 4 is a version of the Firefox web browser, released on March 22, 2011. The first beta was made available on July 6, 2010; Release Candidate 2 was released on March 18, 2011. It was codenamed Tumucumaque, and was Firefox's last large release cycle. The Mozilla team planned smaller and quicker releases following other browser vendors. The primary goals for this version included improvements in performance, standards support, and user interface.
Mozilla Firefox 2 is a version of Firefox, a web browser released on October 24, 2006 by the Mozilla Corporation.
Firefox for Android is a web browser developed by Mozilla for Android smartphones and tablet computers. As with its desktop version, it uses the Gecko layout engine, and supports features such as synchronization with Firefox Sync, and add-ons.
Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.
Firefox Sync, originally branded Mozilla Weave, is a browser synchronization feature for Firefox web browsers. It allows users to partially synchronize bookmarks, browsing history, preferences, passwords, filled forms, add-ons, and the last 25 opened tabs across multiple computers. The feature is now included in Firefox and is being implemented in Thunderbird.
Web Slices are a web feed technology based on the hAtom Microformat that allows users to subscribe to portions of a web page. Microsoft developed the Web Slice format, and published a specification under their Open Specification Promise. The specification is not published by any independent standards body. Introduced in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, Web Slices can be previewed in a fly-out window. As of 2012, Internet Explorer 8 and 9 were the only browsers to support Web Slices natively, although Mozilla Firefox had support via an add-on called webchunks.
Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in June 2009, adding a variety of new features to Firefox. Version 3.5 was touted as being twice as fast as 3.0. It includes private browsing, has tear-off tabs, and uses the Gecko 1.9.1 engine. It was codenamed Shiretoko during development, and was initially numbered Firefox 3.1 before Mozilla developers decided to change the version to 3.5, to reflect the inclusion of a significantly greater scope of changes than were originally planned. It is the last major version to support X BitMap images.
Mozilla Firefox 3.6 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in January 2010. The release's main improvement over Firefox 3.5 is improved performance. It uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine, which improves compliance with web standards. It was codenamed Namoroka. In this version, support for X BitMap images was dropped.
Firefox was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla browser, first released as Firefox 1.0 on November 9, 2004. Starting with version 5.0, a rapid release cycle was put into effect, resulting in a new major version release every six weeks. This was gradually accelerated further in late 2019, so that new major releases occur on four-week cycles starting in 2020.
The project that became Firefox today began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b. 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. Many of these projects started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.