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, after about seven months of alpha and beta development. Firefox 3, which has been in alpha development since late 2006, is presently in its release candidate stage. The most recent stable version is 2.0.0.14, and the first stable build of Firefox 3 is scheduled to be released on June 17th.

Early beginnings: a pared-down browser

Phoenix 0.1, the first official release

Firefox 1.0, the first release targeted for general public

Hyatt and Ross' 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.

The first sign of a Firefox-like project was a small application sample (presumably to demonstrate how to embed Gecko in another application) shipped with early milestone builds of Mozilla. Featuring only "back", "forward", and "stop" buttons and a URL field (no cache, no stored history, etc.), it was minimalistic and thus a lot lighter than Mozilla itself. Eventually, it was no longer shipped with Mozilla's binary builds.

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 browsers by The Charlton Company. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.

The repeated renaming of the program prompted the development of the tongue-in-cheek extension "Firesomething", which allowed users to randomize the name on startup, giving it such satirical soubriquets as "Firegiraffe" or "Moonbadger".

Branding and visual identity

File:Mozilla Firefox logo history.png

Various logos used during the development of Firefox

One of the most visible enhancements is the new visual identity of Firefox and Thunderbird. It has often been argued that free software is typically designed only by programmers — rather than graphic designers or usability gurus — and that it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI design and lacks a strong visual identity. The 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 (it was slashdotted). The majority of the criticisms levelled at the article were along the lines of "where's the patch?", an open source way of saying "if you don't like it, you can fix it yourself."

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 Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on Camino. The logo was revised and updated later, fixing some flaws found when the logo was enlarged.

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

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 (along with the quality feedback agent and parts of the installer) is 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.

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.

Firefox 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 contains additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there has been a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which are now available in 1.5. Version 1.5 implements a new Mac-like options interface, which has been 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. 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 has been improved (with binary patches now possible). There are also improvements in the extension management system, with a number of new developer features.

Also, Firefox 1.5 has (partial) SVG 1.1 support, as shown in Mozilla's Bugzilla database. This unplanned movement may be due to the release of Opera 8.0 on April 19 2005, which supports 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.

Firefox 2

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6 running in Ubuntu Linux

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.

The final version of Firefox 2, the current version, was released on October 24 2006. The release 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 and Windows 98.

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.

Future development

Development of Firefox after version 2.0 is split over two milestones: version 3.0 and version 4.0. Firefox 3.0 is now in the release candidate stage and is expected to be released in June 2008. Development for the 3.0 releases takes place on the Mozilla trunk, with releases coming from the Mozilla 1.8.1 branch (2.0) and the Mozilla 1.9 branch (3.0).

Version 3.0

The development name for Mozilla Firefox 3 is Gran Paradiso. The precursory releases are codenamed "Minefield", as this is the name of the trunk builds. "Gran Paradiso", like other Firefox development names, is an actual place; in this case the highest mountain group in the Graian Alps.

The Mozilla Foundation released the first beta on 19 November 2007. The second beta was released on 18 December 2007, the third beta was made available on 12 February 2008, the fourth beta was released on 10 March 2008 and the fifth and final beta on 2 April 2008. The first release candidate was released on May 16, 2008. The second release candidate was released on June 4, 2008. The third release candidate was released on June 11, 2008. A final release is scheduled for June 17 2008.

Backend changes

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. In particular, it will make Firefox 3 the first official release of a Mozilla browser to pass the Acid2 test, a standards-compliance test for web-page rendering. Gecko 1.9 uses cairo as a graphics backend, allowing for improved graphics performance and better consistency of look and feel on various operating systems.

Other new features include support for offline web applications, cross-site XMLHttpRequest, and APNG support. Many of the new features in Firefox 3 are defined in the WHATWG HTML5 specification.

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 will not run on those operating systems. Similarly, the Mac version of Firefox 3 will only run on Mac OS X 10.4 or higher, but, unlike previous versions, will have a native Cocoa widget interface.

Frontend changes

Work is currently in progress to make new default themes for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, giving Firefox a more native look and feel on different operating systems. As of 3.0 beta 2, the GNOME/GTK version inherits the native GNOME icon theme. Similarly, the KDE version gets icons from the environment. As such when the desktop environment icon theme changes, Firefox follows suit. Additionally, the GTK version has reverted the non-native tab bar that was implemented in Firefox 2.0 and instead uses the native GTK+ tab style.

Firefox 3 will feature a redesigned download manager with built-in search and the ability to resume downloads, as well as a new plug-in manager in the add-ons menu. Microformats are supported for use by software that can understand their use in documents to store data in a machine-readable form. In addition, Firefox 3 will use the new Places system for storing bookmarks and history in an SQLite backend. The new system stores more information about user's history and bookmarks, in particular letting the user tag the pages. It is also used to implement an improved algorithm for the new location bar auto-complete feature.

The default icons and icon layout for Firefox 3 will also change dramatically, and Firefox 3 will take on a keyhole shape for the forward and back buttons. The Iconfactory are redesigning the icons for the different supported platforms (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). In addition, separate icons sets were planned for Windows XP and Vista.

File:Firefox 3 on windows vista.png Microsoft Windows Vista "Strata" visual style.	File:Firefox 3 on windows xp.png Microsoft Windows XP "Strata" visual style.
File:Firefox 3 Mac OS X.png Mac OS X "Firelight" visual style.	Linux "Tango" theme on Ubuntu.

Version 4.0

On October 13 2006, Brendan Eich, Mozilla's Chief Technology Officer, wrote about the plans for Mozilla 2.0, the platform on which Firefox 4.0 is likely to be based. These changes include improving and removing XPCOM APIs, switching to standard C++ features, just-in-time compilation with JavaScript 2 (known as the Tamarin project), tool-time and runtime security checks.

Future features

Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's former Chief Executive Officer, had mentioned some possible future features of Firefox in an interview for APC Magazine. These features included open-source, in-browser video playback, offline application support, and a version of Firefox for mobile phones.

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		June 24 2008	Stability and security fixes.
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. 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
Mozilla Firefox 3.1	1.9.1	3.1
Mozilla Firefox 4	2.0	4.0

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.

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 version
Linux kernel 2.2.14 and newer (with some libraries)		3.0
Mac OS X	v10.1	1.0.8
	v10.2-10.3	2.0.0.14
	v10.4-10.5	3.0
OS/2 and eComStation		2.0.0.14
Microsoft Windows	95	1.5.0.12
	NT 4/98/ME	2.0.0.14
	2000/XP/2003/Vista/ Home Server/2008	3.0

See also

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

References

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

External links

• Firefox release notes for each version
• Unofficial changelogs for Firefox releases
• Where Did Firefox Come From?
• Flexbeta article on the history of Firefox
• Large amount of useful info about Firefox and its history
• ReleaseRoadmap - MozillaWiki
• BBC: Firefox browser for web 2.0 age
• The SeBlog - A short picture history of Firefox
• Another picture history of Firefox, with commentary