History of Firefox

The Mozilla Firefox project was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project. Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005. Version 2.0 was released on October 24, 2006 and Firefox 3.0 was released on June 17, 2008. Version 3.5 was released on June 30, 2009.

Early history

Phoenix 0.1, the first official release

Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public

Hyatt and Ross's browser was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed, internally referred to, and continued by the community as SeaMonkey), which integrated features such as IRC, mail and news, and WYSIWYG HTML editing into one software suite.

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 (Galeon and Epiphany use GTK+; K-Meleon uses MFC; and Camino uses Cocoa). Many of these projects were started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.

Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continued to maintain the suite until April 12, 2006 because it had many corporate users, as well as being bundled with other software. The Mozilla community (as opposed to the Foundation) continues to release new versions of the suite using the product name SeaMonkey to avoid any possible confusion with the original Mozilla Suite.

On February 5, 2004 the business and IT consulting company AMS categorized Mozilla Firefox (then Firebird) as a "Tier 1" (meaning "Best of Breed") open source product. This meant that AMS considered Firebird (as it was called at the time) to be virtually risk-free and technically strong.

Naming

The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix.

The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003 when it was changed (after a short stint as Phoenix Browser) due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as the Firebird database server already carried the name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation issued an official statement which stated that the browser should be referred to as Mozilla Firebird (as opposed to just Firebird). Continuing pressure from the Firebird community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004 the project was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short).

The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. This trademark process led to a delay of several months in the release of Firefox 0.8 when the foundation discovered that in the UK Firefox had already been registered as a trademark for software by The Charlton Company. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.

Branding and visual identity

File:Mozilla Firefox logo history.png

Various logos used during the development of Firefox

Early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not up to the same standard as many professionally released software packages. In October 2003, professional interface designer, Steven Garrity, wrote an article covering everything he considered to be wrong with Mozilla's visual identity. The page received a great deal of attention. The majority of the criticisms levelled at the article were along the lines of "where's the patch?"

Blue globe artwork is distributed with Firefox source code, and is explicitly not protected as a trademark

Shortly afterwards, Garrity was invited by the Mozilla Foundation to head up the new visual identity team. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of the new branding efforts, including new icons designed by silverorange, a group of web developers with a long-standing relationship with Mozilla, with final renderings by Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on Camino. The logo was revised and updated later, fixing some flaws found when the logo was enlarged.

The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is considered to be a common name for the Red Panda. The panda, according to Hicks, "didn't really conjure up the right imagery", besides not being widely known. The logo was chosen for the purpose of making an impression, while not shouting out with overdone artwork. The logo had to stand out in the user's mind, be easy for others to remember and stand out while not causing too much distraction when among other icons. It was expected to be the final logo for the product.

The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software, and builds of official distribution partners. Although the core software is open source, the artwork, the Crash Reporter until Firefox 3, and parts of the installer, are not freely licensed without official permission from the developers. For this reason, Debian and other software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox do not use the icon. The crash reporting service switched with version three, going from a program called Talkback, to the open source BreakPad & Socorro.

"Delicious delicacies"

A screenshot showing the "cookies are delicious delicacies" line.

Early Firefox releases featured a preferences panel that described cookies by stating "Cookies are delicious delicacies".

The phrase was representative of the programmers' quirky sense of humor and a general reflection of the free software movement's unconventional approach. The phrase became something of a cult legend and was even featured in an O'Reilly computer book.

The original text was inserted by Blake Ross, one of the lead developers of Firefox, because, he says, "describing something so complicated in such a small space was quite frankly the last thing I wanted to worry about after rewriting the cookie manager".

However, in reflection of the growing acceptance and use of the Firefox browser in the Internet mainstream, the text was later changed. It was considered a bug and was "fixed" by Mike Connor to read "Cookies are pieces of information stored by web pages on your computer. They are used to remember login information and other data". The revision was regarded as more likely to be helpful for the less technically oriented computer users who were now using Firefox—representing Mozilla's desire to appeal to mainstream users.

After this happened, the following remarks were made by Blake Ross over IRC to Mike Connor:

   <blake2> congratulations mconnor
   <blake2> you just destroyed a legend!

The text became a popular in-joke and on August 2004, the Delicious Delicacies extension, which is no longer maintained and updated, was released by Jesse Ruderman. This extension restored the old description of cookies, available in several languages.

As of Firefox 2.0, cookies no longer have a description in the preferences window.

Version 1.5

"Deer Park", the codename of the Firefox 1.1 and 1.5 Alphas, did not include Firefox branding.

On June 23, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Firefox 1.1 (which became Firefox 1.5) and other new Mozilla products will no longer support Mac OS X v10.1. This is intended to improve the quality of Firefox releases on Mac OS X v10.2 and above. Users of 10.1 could still use Firefox versions from the 1.0.x branch (e.g. Firefox 1.0.7).

Updated options window introduced in Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 was released on November 30, 2005. The original plan was for a Firefox 1.1 and later a Firefox 1.5. After the first two 1.1 alpha builds, the Mozilla Foundation abandoned the 1.1 release plan and merged it with the planned feature set of 1.5 instead, with 1.5 being released later than was planned for 1.1. The new version resynchronised the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contained additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there was a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which were made available in 1.5. Version 1.5 implemented a new Mac-like options interface, which was the subject of much criticism from Windows and Linux users, with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. In Firefox 1.5, a user can clear all privacy-related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. Moreover, the software update system was improved (with binary patches now possible). There were also improvements in the extension management system, with a number of new developer features.

Also, Firefox 1.5 had preliminary SVG 1.1 support. This unplanned movement may have been due to the release of Opera 8.0 on April 19, 2005, which supported SVG Tiny.

Alpha builds of Firefox 1.5 (1.1a1 and 1.1a2) did not contain Firefox branding. They were labeled "Deer Park" (which was Firefox 1.5's internal codename) and contained a different program icon. This was done to dissuade end-users from downloading preview versions, which are intended for developers only.

Firefox 1.5.0.12 is the final version supported on Windows 95.

Version 2

Main article: Mozilla Firefox 2

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12 running on Ubuntu

On March 22, 2006, the first alpha version of Firefox 2 (Bon Echo Alpha 1) was released. It featured Gecko 1.8.1 for the first time.

Firefox 2 was released on October 24, 2006 and contained many new features not found in Firefox 1.5, including improved support for SVG and JavaScript 1.7, as well as UI changes.

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.x is the final version supported on Windows NT 4.0, 98 and Me. Mozilla Corporation has announced that it will not develop new versions of Firefox 2 after the 2.0.0.20 release. They did however continue development of Firefox 2 as long as other programs, like the Thunderbird mail client, were depending on it. The final internal release was 2.0.0.22, released in late April 2009.

Firefox Live Chat

In December 2007, Firefox Live Chat was launched. It allows users to ask volunteers questions through a system powered by Jive Software, with guaranteed hours of operation and the possibility of help after hours. Because this service is kept running because of volunteers, if there are not enough volunteers to help, they may not open during the Official Hours.

Version 3.0

Main article: Mozilla Firefox 3

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 on Ubuntu

The Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 3 on June 17, 2008. The first Firefox 3 beta (under codename 'Gran Paradiso'). had been released several months earlier on 19 November 2007, which was followed by several more beta releases in the Spring of 2008 culminating in the June release.

One of the major changes in Firefox 3 is the implementation of Gecko 1.9, an updated layout engine. The new version fixes many bugs and implements new web APIs.

Version 3.5

Main article: Mozilla Firefox 3.5

After several development releases, the final version was released on June 30, 2009. The current version is 3.5.7, released on 5 January, 2010. Also, as of mid-December 2009, Firefox 3.5 is the most popular browser (when counting individual browser versions) passing Internet Explorer 7. It is the first version to accomplish this feat.

Future releases

Mozilla usually plans new Firefox versions up to a year in advance. Each version is targeted to be released in about six months from the last.

The precursory releases of upcoming Firefox releases are codenamed "Minefield", as this is the name of the trunk builds. As of December 2009, development for Firefox 3.7 takes place on the Mozilla trunk, with pre-release builds coming nightly.

Starting with a minor update to Firefox 3.6 code-named Lorentz, Mozilla plans to start releasing non-intrusive changes as minor updates that previously included only stability and security fixes. This new development approach means that Mozilla's product road map will also be updated. Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, and Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, hope to release a new roadmap that reflects the changes.

On January 15, 2010 Mike Beltzner responded in a blog post to rumors that Mozilla planned "to drop Firefox 3.7 from its schedule", stating that "The rumours of Firefox 3.7’s demise have been greatly exaggerated."

Version 3.6

The release following Firefox 3.1 (since changed to Firefox 3.5) was originally referred to as 3.2. Since the change, Mozilla developer Mike Shaver has indicated that the release number will be referred to as 3.6 ad interim. The codename for this version has been set to Namoroka. The release date was originally planned for November 2009. Development started on 1 December 2008. This release will use the Gecko 1.9.2 engine and include several interface improvements, such as new graphical tab-switching behavior, which was removed from 3.1 Beta 2.

Version 3.7

Firefox 3.7, based on Gecko 1.9.3, is scheduled for the first half of 2010. As of August 17, 2009, Firefox 3.7 is being developed on the trunk.

The versions main set of features will be changes to the user interface. Mockups of a UI overhaul for the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux versions have been posted on the Mozilla Wiki. On the Windows and Linux versions, the items inside the menu bar will be either removed or transferred into two buttons named "Page" and "Tools" to minimize the amount of space that the UI takes up. The UI will use animations for manipulating tags and buttons.

The browser will be given a home tab. This will be similar to the new tab pages found in Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome. However, users are able to customise the button so that it takes the user to their homepage instead.

The installer on the Mac OS X will be redesigned to make installations easier. Also, the start up windows that appear when Firefox starts up will be eradicated to make the start up process quicker.

The preferences and add-ons manager windows will also be redesigned to better assist users.

The Gecko layout engine will be improved to support more HTML5 and CSS3 features.

Version 4.0

There was a nightly build being marked as Firefox 4.0 alpha 1 pre between February and June of 2008, but it seems to be renamed to Firefox 3.1 alpha 1 pre afterward.

Firefox 4.0 will be based on Gecko 1.9.4 and possibly released in the second half of 2010.

Like version 3.7, one of the main focuses is to improve the user interface. Mockups for an expansion to the Firefox 3.7 have been posted in the Mozilla Wiki. They show plans for many changes, including optionally display the tabs bar at the top of the window, integrating the status bar into the navigation toolbar and integrating the search bar and the reload and stop buttons into the awesomebar.

As well as this, the Mozilla Weave project will be integrated into the browser to allow users to sync things such as bookmarks and history with the cloud.

A new type of tab, called an application tab, can be placed in the tab bar. It is based on the Mozilla Prism project, which allows web pages (such as Google Mail) to become applications.

Release history

Colour	Meaning
Red	Old release; not supported
Yellow	Old release; still supported
Green	Current release
Purple	Test release
Blue	Future release

Browser name	Gecko version	Version	Codename	Release date	Significant changes
Phoenix	1.2	0.1	Pescadero	September 23, 2002	First release; customizable toolbar, quicksearch.
		0.2	Santa Cruz	October 1, 2002	Sidebar, extension management.
		0.3	Lucia	October 14, 2002	Image blocking, pop-up blocking whitelist, tabbed browsing.
	1.3	0.4	Oceano	October 19, 2002	Themes, pop-up blocking improvements, toolbar customization.
		0.5	Naples	December 7, 2002	Multiple homepages, sidebar and accessibility improvements, history
Mozilla Firebird	1.5	0.6	Glendale	May 17, 2003	New default theme (Qute), bookmark and privacy improvements, smooth scrolling, automatic image resizing.
		0.6.1		July 28, 2003	Bugfix release.
		0.7	Indio	October 15, 2003	Automatic scrolling, password manager, preferences panel improvements.
		0.7.1	Three Kings	October 26, 2003	Bugfix release (Mac OS X only).
Mozilla Firefox	1.6	0.8	Royal Oak	February 9, 2004	Windows installer, offline working, bookmarks and download manager improvements, rebranded with new logo.
	1.7	0.9	One Tree Hill	June 15, 2004	New default theme (Winstripe), comprehensive data migration, new extension/theme manager, reduced download size, new help system, Linux installer, mail icon (Windows only).
		0.9.1		June 28, 2004	Bugfix release, updated default theme.
		0.9.2		July 8, 2004	Vulnerability patch (Windows only).
		0.9.3		August 4, 2004	Vulnerability patch.
		0.10 (1.0 PR)	Greenlane	September 14, 2004	("Preview Release") Bugs with higher complexity/risk, localization impact, RSS/Atom feed support, find toolbar, plugin finder.
		0.10.1		October 1, 2004	Vulnerability patch.
		1.0 RC1	Mission Bay	October 27, 2004	First release candidate.
		1.0 RC2	Whangamata	November 3, 2004	Second release candidate.
		1.0	Phoenix	November 9, 2004	Official version 1.0 release. Official localized builds.
		1.0.1	Rose & Crown	February 24, 2005	Stability and security improvements.
		1.0.2		March 23, 2005	Stability and security improvements.
		1.0.3		April 15, 2005	Security and installer improvements.
		1.0.4		May 11, 2005	Vulnerability and DHTML regression patch.
		1.0.5		July 12, 2005	Vulnerability patch.
		1.0.6		July 19, 2005	Fix for extension API regression.
		1.0.7		September 20, 2005	Vulnerability patch and regression fix.
		1.0.8		April 13, 2006	Stability improvement and security fixes. End-of-life of 1.0.x product line.
	1.8	1.1a1	Deer Park Alpha 1 "Strippenkaart"	May 31, 2005	Support for SVG and canvas. "Sanitize" privacy feature. Improvements in JavaScript 1.5 and CSS 2/3. Broken website reporter tool.
		1.1a2	Deer Park Alpha 2	July 12, 2005	Blazing fast backwards and forwards (FastBack), drag-and-drop tab reordering, improved pop-up blocking, error pages instead of error dialogs.
		1.4	Firefox 1.5 Beta 1	September 9, 2005	New update system (binary patch). Prettier error pages, more Luna-like Winstripe theme (does not blend well with the Classic theme).
		1.4.1	Firefox 1.5 Beta 2	October 6, 2005	Improvements to automated update system, website rendering and performance. Several security fixes.
		1.5 RC1		November 1, 2005	First release candidate.
		1.5 RC2		November 10, 2005	Second release candidate.
		1.5 RC3		November 17, 2005	Third release candidate.
		1.5	Firefox 1.5 "Deer Park"	November 29, 2005	Official version 1.5 release. Official localized builds. Identical to 1.5 RC3.
		1.5.0.1		February 1, 2006	Security and "reliability" improvements.
		1.5.0.2		April 13, 2006	Stability improvements, security fixes and native support for Intel-based Macintosh computers, aka universal binary.
		1.5.0.3		May 2, 2006	Security fix for a publicly disclosed denial of service weakness.
		1.5.0.4		June 1, 2006	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		1.5.0.5		July 26, 2006	Stability improvements, added changes for Frisian locale (fy-NL), several security fixes.
		1.5.0.6		August 2, 2006	Fixes a streaming Windows Media regression introduced by a security fix in version 1.5.0.5.
		1.5.0.7		September 14, 2006	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		1.5.0.8		November 7, 2006	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		1.5.0.9		December 19, 2006	Security and stability updates.
		1.5.0.10		February 23, 2007	Security and stability updates.
		1.5.0.11		March 20, 2007	Regression fixes.
		1.5.0.12		May 30, 2007	Stability improvements and security fixes. End-of-life of 1.5.0.x product line.
Mozilla Firefox 2	1.8.1	2.0a1	Bon Echo Alpha 1	March 22, 2006	First Firefox 2.0 alpha release.
		2.0a2	Bon Echo Alpha 2	May 12, 2006	Links default to open in new tab. Close button on every tab. Inline spell checking for text boxes. Session restoration after a browser crash. Search suggestion for Google and Yahoo!. New search plugin manager and add-on manager. Web feed previewing. Bookmark microsummaries. Updates to the extension system. Support for Sherlock and OpenSearch. Support for SVG text using svg:textPath.
		2.0a3	Bon Echo Alpha 3	May 26, 2006	Anti-phishing protection. Search suggestions appear with search history in the search box for Google and Yahoo!. Support for client-side session and persistent storage.
		2.0b1	Firefox 2.0 Beta 1	July 12, 2006	Improved feed support. A new NSIS-based installer. JavaScript 1.7. Enhanced security and localization support for extensions.
		2.0b2	Firefox 2.0 Beta 2	August 31, 2006	New Winstripe theme refresh: New navigation icons, URL bar refresh (New Go button attached to the URL bar), Search bar refresh, Tab bar refresh, Alltabs button (used to view a popup list of all tabs open)
		2.0 RC1		September 26, 2006	First release candidate.
		2.0 RC2		October 6, 2006	Second release candidate.
		2.0 RC3		October 16, 2006	Third release candidate.
		2.0	Firefox 2 "Bon Echo"	October 24, 2006	Official version 2.0 release. Official localized builds. Identical to 2.0 RC3.
		2.0.0.1		December 19, 2006	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		2.0.0.2		February 23, 2007	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		2.0.0.3		March 20, 2007	Regression fixes and security fixes.
		2.0.0.4		May 30, 2007	Stability improvements and security fixes.
		2.0.0.5		July 17, 2007	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.6		July 30, 2007	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.7		September 18, 2007	Security fix.
		2.0.0.8		October 18, 2007	Security fix, Mac OS X 10.5 support.
		2.0.0.9		November 1, 2007	Stability fixes.
		2.0.0.10		November 26, 2007	Security issues fixed.
		2.0.0.11		November 30, 2007	Corrected a problem that was found in the previous release, Firefox 2.0.0.10.
		2.0.0.12		February 7, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.13		March 25, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.14		April 16, 2008	Stability fixes.
		2.0.0.15		July 1, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.16		July 15, 2008	Security fixes.
		2.0.0.17		September 23, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.18		November 12, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.19		December 16, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		2.0.0.20		December 18, 2008	Single security fix. End-of-life of 2.0.0.x product line.
Mozilla Firefox 3	1.9	3.0a1	Gran Paradiso Alpha 1	December 8, 2006	Cairo graphics library. Cocoa Widgets in OS X builds. Updated threading model. Changes to how DOM events are dispatched, how HTML object elements are loaded, and how web pages are painted. New SVG elements and filters, and improved SVG specification compliance. Windows 95, 98, ME and Mac OS X v10.2 are no longer supported. Moving DOM nodes between documents now requires a call to importNode or adoptNode as per the DOM specification.
		3.0a2	Gran Paradiso Alpha 2	February 7, 2007	Reflow refactoring, which led to Acid2 test compliance among many other fixes to layout bugs. Web Apps 1.0 API for changing stylesheets support. The inline-block and inline-table values of CSS 2.1's display property are now implemented. XML documents can now be rendered as they're downloaded instead of only after the full document has been loaded. Greatly improved Mac widgets support since Alpha 1. Improvements in the Cairo graphics layer. The non-standard JavaScript "Script" object is no longer supported.
		3.0a3	Gran Paradiso Alpha 3	March 23, 2007	Support for allowing web pages to store resources in the browser's offline cache. Support for Animated PNG images. Support for the "HTTPOnly" cookie extension which provides enhanced cookie privacy (also backported to Firefox 2.0.0.5). Improvements to the precision of layout and scaling across many screen and printer resolutions.
		3.0a4	Gran Paradiso Alpha 4	April 27, 2007	Adding of FUEL JavaScript library for extension developers. Rewrite of the Page Info dialog. Upgrade to Cairo 1.4.2. More Cocoa regression fixes.
		3.0a5	Gran Paradiso Alpha 5	June 6, 2007	Places (bookmark and history service based on SQLite) now used by default, but no front-end changes. Breakpad now used as crash reporter on Windows and Mac OS X, which will supersede the closed-source Talkback. Password manager rewrite. Support for Growl and native widgets within forms for Mac OS X.
		3.0a6	Gran Paradiso Alpha 6	July 2, 2007	Upgrade of SQLite to version 3.3.17, which led to increased cookie performance due to the transition of the cookie service to SQLite. A site-specific preference service; so far only text zoom uses it which allows the text zoom setting to stay persistent on each website. Support for native widgets within forms for Linux. A new Quit dialog which handles multiple windows more elegantly, and allows the user to save the session once to resume next time. Autoscroll rewrite: many bug fixes and a significant performance gain. Fixes to the use of units within the download manager. Various Places bug fixes.
		3.0a7	Gran Paradiso Alpha 7	August 3, 2007	More API's implemented from WHATWG specs, such as the ability to read files from file selection fields without the need to upload, oncut/copy/paste events and cross-site XMLHttpRequest. New protocol-handling dialog. Experimental full-page zoom support, but no UI to control it yet. Many Mac OS X bug fixes, at the cost of OS X 10.3 no longer being supported for Gecko 1.9. Many general bug fixes.
		3.0a8	Gran Paradiso Alpha 8	September 20, 2007	New, basic UI for tagging bookmarks. Remember Password prompt changed to a non-modal information bar. Malware blacklist support. New UI for the FTP and File protocol listings. Applications pane added to preferences. Basic support for web-based protocol handlers.
		3.0b1	Firefox 3.0 Beta 1	November 19, 2007	First Firefox 3.0 beta release.
		3.0b2	Firefox 3.0 Beta 2	December 18, 2007	New UI improvements, including redesigned location bar, Places Organizer, Smart Bookmarks. Various stability and performance improvements.
		3.0b3	Firefox 3.0 Beta 3	February 12, 2008	New UI improvements, including redesigned buttons and location bar. Firefox now features different default native themes for different operating systems. Upgraded to SQLite 3.5.4 Various stability and performance improvements.
		3.0b4	Firefox 3.0 Beta 4	March 10, 2008	New UI improvement, including improved default themes for different operating systems. Various improvements in speed and resource usage.
		3.0b5	Firefox 3.0 Beta 5	April 2, 2008	Further improved themes to match various operating systems, JavaScript engine optimizations for speed, improved Places organizer.
		3.0 RC1	Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1	May 16, 2008	First release candidate of Firefox 3.
		3.0 RC2	Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 2	June 5, 2008	Second release candidate of Firefox 3.
		3.0 RC3	Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 3	June 11, 2008	Third release candidate of Firefox 3.
		3.0	Firefox 3 "Gran Paradiso"	June 17, 2008	Official version 3.0 release.
		3.0.1		July 16, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.2		September 23, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.3		September 26, 2008	Bug fix for retrieving and saving passwords
		3.0.4		November 12, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.5		December 16, 2008	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.6		February 3, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.7		March 4, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.8		March 27, 2009	Two critical security fixes.
		3.0.9		April 21, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.10		April 27, 2009	One major stability fix and one security issue.
		3.0.11		June 11, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.12		July 21, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.13		August 3, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.14		September 9, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.15		October 27, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.16		December 15, 2009	Stability and security fixes.
		3.0.17		January 5, 2010	Off cycle update containing stability updates to fix only 2 bugs.
		3.0.18		February 16, 2010	Stability and security fixes.
Mozilla Firefox 3.5	1.9.1	3.1a1	Shiretoko Alpha 1	July 28, 2008	Web standards improvements. Text API for the <canvas> element. Support for using border images. Support for DOM query selectors. Improvements to Smart Location Bar. New tab switching behavior.
		3.1a2	Shiretoko Alpha 2	September 5, 2008	Second Firefox 3.1 alpha release.
		3.1b1	Firefox 3.1 Beta 1	October 14, 2008	Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine. Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties. A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you're switching to. Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search. Support for new web technologies.
		3.1b2	Firefox 3.1 Beta 2	December 8, 2008	This beta is now available in 54 languages. Added a new Private Browsing Mode. Added functions to make it easy to clear recent history by time as well as remove all traces of a website. New support for web worker threads. The new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine is on by default for web content. Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering. Removed the new tab-switching behavior based on feedback from users. Support for new web technologies.
		3.1b3	Firefox 3.1 Beta 3	March 12, 2009	This beta is now available in 64 languages. Improved the new Private Browsing Mode. Improvements to web worker thread support. Improved performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. New native JSON support. Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering. Support for new web technologies such as the <video> and <audio> elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, CSS 2.1 and 3 properties, SVG transforms and offline applications.
		3.5b4	Firefox 3.5 Beta 4	April 27, 2009	This is the first beta with the version number 3.5 rather than 3.1. This beta is now available in 70 languages. Improved tools for controlling your private data, including a Private Browsing Mode. Better performance and stability with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine. The ability to provide Location Aware Browsing using web standards for geolocation. Support for native JSON, and web worker threads. Improvements to the Gecko layout engine, including speculative parsing for faster content rendering. Support for new web technologies such as: HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements, downloadable fonts and other new CSS properties, JavaScript query selectors, HTML5 offline data storage for applications, and SVG transforms.
		3.5b99	Firefox 3.5 Preview	June 8, 2009	Preview for 3.5, pre-release candidate.
		3.5 RC1	Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 1	June 16, 2009	First release candidate.
		3.5 RC2	Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 2	June 19, 2009	Second release candidate.
		3.5 RC3	Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 3	June 24, 2009	Third release candidate.
		3.5	Firefox 3.5 "Shiretoko"	June 30, 2009	Official version 3.5 release. Identical to 3.5 RC3.
		3.5.1		July 16, 2009	Off cycle update to address a critical bug.
		3.5.2		August 3, 2009	Security and ICC profile rendering updates.
		3.5.3		September 9, 2009	Security and stability updates.
		3.5.4		October 27, 2009	Security and stability updates.
		3.5.5		November 5, 2009	Security and stability updates.
		3.5.6		December 15, 2009	Security and stability updates.
		3.5.7		January 5, 2010	Off cycle update containing stability updates to fix only 3 bugs.
		3.5.8		February 16, 2010	Security and stability updates.
Mozilla Firefox 3.6	1.9.2	3.6a1	Namoroka Alpha 1	August 7, 2009
		3.6b1	Firefox 3.6 Beta 1	October 30, 2009
		3.6b2	Firefox 3.6 Beta 2	November 10, 2009
		3.6b3	Firefox 3.6 Beta 3	November 17, 2009
		3.6b4	Firefox 3.6 Beta 4	November 26, 2009
		3.6b5	Firefox 3.6 Beta 5	December 17, 2009
		3.6 RC1	Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 1	January 8, 2010	First release candidate.
		3.6 RC2	Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 2	January 17, 2010	Second release candidate.
		3.6	Firefox 3.6 "Namoroka"	January 21, 2010
		3.6.xTemplate:Refun	Firefox 3.6.xTemplate:Refun "Lorentz"	March/April/Q3 2010Template:Refun
Mozilla Firefox 3.7	1.9.3	3.7		mid-to-late spring 2010
Mozilla Firefox 4.0	1.9.4	4.0		early 2011
Browser name	Gecko version	Version	Codename	Release date	Significant changes

• ^ Note that "Lorentz" is the codename for all betas of 3.6.x with Out Of Process Plug-ins (OOPP). They are intended to be combined with the regular security and stability update betas to ship as point releases of Firefox 3.6.x probably starting with 3.6.3 possibly as early as March.

Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill, Mission Bay, and Greenlane are all suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand; Whangamata is a small seaside town in the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand. The codenames were chosen from these suburb names by Ben Goodger, who grew up in Auckland. The other codenames included in the Firefox roadmap are derived from an actual roadmap of a journey through California to Phoenix, Arizona. Gran Paradiso is an Italian mountain.

According to Ben Goodger, "Deer Park is not Deer Park, Victoria, but just a symbolic name: "I was riding LIRR a few weeks ago and saw the name go by and I thought it sounded nice". Therefore, this is likely a reference to Deer Park, New York, a CDP on Long Island.

Release compatibility

Operating system		Latest stable version
Linux kernel 2.2.14 and newer (with some libraries)		3.5.7
Mac OS X	v10.1	1.0.8
	v10.2-10.3	2.0.0.20
	v10.4-10.6	3.5.7
OS/2 and eComStation		3.5.4
Microsoft Windows	95	1.5.0.12
	NT 4/98/ME	2.0.0.20
	2000/XP/2003/Vista/ Home Server/2008/2008R2	3.5.7

See also

• GNU IceCat
• History of free software
• History of Mozilla Application Suite
• Mozilla Corporation software rebranded in Debian

References

• Eich, Brendan (2005). Global:1.9 Trunk 1.8 Branch Plan. In Mozilla Wiki. Retrieved December 21, 2005.

External links

• Mozilla.com, Firefox release notes for each version.
• Squarefree.com, Unofficial changelogs for Firefox releases.
• Weblogs.mozillazine.org, Where Did Firefox Come From?
• Flexbeta.net, article on the history of Firefox.
• Wiki.Mozilla.org, MozillaWiki - ReleaseRoadmap.
• News.BBC.co.uk, Firefox browser for web 2.0 age.
• Theseblog.free.fr, The SeBlog - A short picture history of Firefox.
• Andrew-turnbull.net, picture history of Firefox, with commentary.
• ITworld.com, Mozilla plans for Firefox 2.0's final days.