Mozilla Firefox

Features

The developers of Firefox aim to produce a browser that "just works" for most casual users. Those interested can add (as extensions and plugins) many features not packaged with Firefox.

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Usability and accessibility

Developers put in a large amount of work towards simplifying Firefox's user interface. As a result, the interface appears less cluttered than that of many other internet suites. The design of Firefox's option panels leaves many of the infrequently used options found in the Mozilla Suite not visible in Firefox.

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Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple web pages in the same browser window. This feature originated in the Mozilla Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla. Firefox also belongs in the group of browsers which early on adopted customizable pop-up blocking.

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The browser has a number of features which help users find information. First, Firefox has an incremental find feature known as "find as you type". With this feature enabled, a user can simply begin typing a word while viewing a web page, and Firefox automatically searches for it and highlights the first instance found. As the user types more of the word, Firefox refines its search.

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Firefox also sports a built-in search toolbar with an extensible search engine listing. By default, Firefox allows users to search Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Creative Commons, Dictionary.com, and eBay. Users may download more search plugins (including one for Wikipedia) from the Mycroft project or remove any unwanted ones.

Related Topics:
Google - Yahoo! - Amazon.com - Creative Commons - Dictionary.com - EBay - Search plugin - Mycroft project

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Additionally, Firefox supports the "custom keyword" feature introduced by the Mozilla Suite. This feature allows users to access their bookmarks from the location bar using keywords (and an optional query parameter). For example, using a custom keyword, a user can type "google apple" into the address bar and be redirected to the results of a Google search for "apple". Custom keywords are provided "out of the box" for Google Search, Google Stock Search, Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia. When a user enters a keyword into the address bar that is not recognized by Firefox (for example, simply typing "apple"), it automatically redirects the user to the first result yielded by a Google search for the word (or words).

Related Topics:
Bookmark - Google Search - Dictionary.com - Urban Dictionary - Wikipedia

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Customizability

The design of Firefox aims at high extensibility. Through extensions (installed via XPInstall modules), users may activate new features, such as mouse gestures, advertisement blocking, proxy server switching, and debugging tools. Wikipedia editors using Firefox can even download a customised toolbar. Many features formerly part of the Mozilla Suite, such as the ChatZilla IRC client and a calendar, have become Firefox extensions.

Related Topics:
XPInstall - Mouse gesture - Debugging - Toolbar - ChatZilla - IRC client

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One can view the extension system as a ground for experimentation, where one can test new functionalities. Occasionally, an extension becomes part of the official product (for example tabbed browsing, a feature which proved popular through the MultiZilla extension, eventually became part of standard Mozilla).

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Firefox also supports a variety of themes/skins, which change its appearance. Themes consist of packages of CSS and image files. The Mozilla Update web site offers many themes for downloading. Beyond adding a new theme, users can customize Firefox's interface by moving and manipulating its various buttons, fields, and menus, and likewise by adding and deleting entire toolbars.

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A Firefox installation can keep all extensions and themes available on the Mozilla Update site up-to-date through Firefox's interface, which periodically checks for updates to installed themes and extensions.

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Additionally, Firefox stores many hidden preferences that users can access by typing config in the address bar. This mechanism enables features such as single-window mode and error pages, or speeding up page rendering by various tweaks. Experimental features like HTTP pipelining often lurk hidden in the about:config menu.

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Support for software standards

The Mozilla Foundation takes pride in Firefox's compliance with existing standards, especially W3C web standards. Firefox has extensive support for most basic standards including HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM, MathML, DTD, XSL and XPath.

Related Topics:
W3C - HTML - XML - XHTML - CSS - JavaScript - DOM - MathML - DTD - XSL - XPath

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Firefox also supports PNG images and variable transparency, (which Internet Explorer will not support fully until the not-yet-released version 7 {{ref|IEPNGTransparency}}). Indeed, Internet Explorer's lack of support for PNG images has occasioned much debate, as many web developers want to move away from the old GIF format, which does not have the same capabilities and image quality as PNG.

Related Topics:
PNG - Internet Explorer - GIF

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Mozilla contributors constantly improve Firefox's support for existing standards. Firefox has already implemented most of CSS Level 2 and some of the not-yet-completed CSS Level 3 standard. Also, work continues on implementing standards currently missing, including SVG, APNG, and XForms. The latest Firefox nightlies build with partial SVG 1.1 support, enabling the functionality by default {{ref|SVGNightlies2}}. (See Firefox's SVG status page.)

Related Topics:
SVG - APNG - XForms

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Cross-platform support

Mozilla Firefox runs on a wide variety of platforms. Releases available on the primary distribution site support the following operating systems {{ref|FirefoxSystemRequirements}}:

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• Various versions of Microsoft Windows, including 98, 98SE, Me, NT 4.0, 2000, XP, and Server 2003
• Mac OS X. At the 2005 WWDC, Apple programmers created a Firefox version for Mac OS X on the Intel platform, which worked well.
• Linux-based operating systems using X.Org Server or XFree86

Firefox does not officially support Windows 95, but reportedly functions properly after the application of a few tweaks {{ref|Win95Install}}.

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Since the Mozilla Foundation makes the Firefox source code available, users can also compile and run Firefox on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Operating systems not supported by Firefox, but known to run the browser include:

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• Solaris (x86 and SPARC)
• OS/2
• AIX {{ref|ReleaseNotesFirefox1}}
• FreeBSD {{ref|FreshPortsFirefox}}
• PC-BSD
• NetBSD
• BeOS
• SkyOS
• RISC OS (ARM)

Builds for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition also exist {{ref|x86-64}}.

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As of September 2005, known projects exist to port Firefox to RISC OS.

Related Topics:
As of September 2005 - RISC OS

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Firefox uses the same format to store users' profiles (which contain their personal browser settings) even on different operating systems, so a profile may be used on multiple platforms, so long as all of the platforms can access the profile (e.g., the profile is stored on a FAT32 partition accessible from both Windows and Linux). This functionality is useful for users who dual-boot their machines. However, it may occasionally cause problems, especially with extensions.

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Internationalization and localization

Contributors throughout the world have collaborated in translating the Firefox browser into many frequently used languages/locales, including some of the least often supported locales, such as Chichewa, but excluding Latvian, Malay, Arabic, Thai, Vietnamese, Hindi and Persian. Because of the use of DTD and property files for storing the string literals displayed to users, even users without a programming background can easily complete part of the internationalization and localization process, requiring only a simple text editor.

Related Topics:
Chichewa - Latvian - Malay - Arabic - Thai - Vietnamese - Hindi - Persian - String literals - Internationalization and localization - Text editor

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Web development tools

Like the Mozilla Suite, Firefox comes with two web-development tools: a DOM Inspector and a JavaScript Console. Firefox aficionados claim that no other browser includes the DOM Inspector, and that Firefox's JavaScript Console surpasses the consoles available in other browsers. While not installed by default, the tools become available via a "custom" install.

Related Topics:
DOM Inspector - JavaScript Console

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Other features

Powered by RSS or Atom feeds, "Live Bookmarks", another feature of Firefox, allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, some users worried that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features, and succumb to bloat, much like the Mozilla Suite. However, these worries have largely abated.

Related Topics:
RSS - Atom

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Firefox also includes a customizable download manager. Users can configure the browser to either open downloaded files automatically or save them directly to the disk. By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user's desktop on Windows or to the user's home directory on Linux, but users can easily configure it to prompt for a specific download location.

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Security

Some of Firefox's key security features include the use of the sandbox security model, same origin policy and external protocol whitelisting {{ref|ExternalProtocolWhitelisting}}.

Related Topics:
Sandbox security model - Same origin policy

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Some argue that an important characteristic of Firefox security lies in the fact that anyone can see its source code. At least one other person reviews proposed software changes, and typically yet another person carries out a "super-review". Once placed in the software, changes become visible for anyone else to consider, protest against, or improve {{ref|HackingMozilla}}.

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In addition, the Mozilla Foundation operates a "bug bounty" scheme: people who report a valid critical security bug receive a US$500 cash reward (for each report) and a Mozilla T-shirt {{ref|MozillaSecurityBugBounty}}. According to the Mozilla Foundation, this "bug bounty" system aims to "encourage more people to find and report security bugs in our products, so that we can make our products even more secure than they already are" {{ref|MozillaSecurityBugBountyFAQ}}. It should be noted that anyone in the world can report a bug. Also, all users can have access to the source code of Mozilla Firefox, to the internal design documentation, to forum discussions, and to other materials that can help in finding bugs.

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The Mozilla Foundation has implemented a policy on security bugs in order to help contributors to deal with security vulnerabilities {{ref|HandlingMozillaSecurityBugs}}. The policy restricts access to a security-related bug report to members of the security team until after Mozilla has shipped a fix for the problem. This approach aims to minimize the exploitation of publicly known vulnerabilities and to give the developers time to issue a patch. While similar to other "responsible disclosure" policies operated by software vendors such as Microsoft, this policy falls short of the full disclosure principle favored by some security researchers.

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As of September 2005, Secunia has reported 3 unpatched vulnerabilities in Firefox (with the most serious one marked "less critical"), versus 20 for Internet Explorer (with the most serious one marked "highly critical"), and 0 for Opera.

Related Topics:
As of September 2005 - Secunia

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Another security source, SecurityFocus, reports no known vulnerabilities in Firefox 1.0.7, versus 57 unpatched vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 6 on Microsoft Windows XP SP2.

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No publicly-known attacks since its launch have been discovered.

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