FireFox

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser developed for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux coordinated by Mozilla Corporation and Mozilla Foundation. As of May 2012, Firefox has approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the third most widely used web browser. The browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Germany and Poland, where it is the most popular browser with 67%, 50% and 44% of the market share respectively. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.

History
The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. They believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a stand-alone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that they planned to change their focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.

Naming
The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). After it had been sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix. The Phoenix name was kept until April 14, 2003, when it was changed because of a trademark dispute with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (which produces a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). The new name, Firebird, met with mixed reactions, particularly as the Firebird database server already carried the name. In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated that the browser should always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion with the database software. 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" (a reference to the red panda) 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 Firefox had already been registered as a trademark in the UK for Charlton Company software. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Mozilla Firefox is an internet browsers that can be downloaded for free from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html There are many advantages and disadvantages to this web browser. And this is a few ideas of both are listed:
Advantages of Mozilla Firefox

Download is free and the installer is saved on your computer Features Tabbed Browsing allowing the user to have more than one webpage open in the browser. Equipped with Pop-Up Blocker, high security standards and the Google toolbar Equipped with the Firefox Safe Mode feature. With this feature you can decide whether or not to disable add-ons, reset toolbars and controls, reset bookmarks to firefox defaults, reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults, and restore default search engines. Firefox has a clean, simple interface that makes it easier to use and work on slower machines.

Disadvantages of Mozilla Firefox

Users may experience compatibility issues when opening websites with Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla Firefox does not properly read and load many types of scripts and widgets. Mozilla Firefox does not properly read font colors that are written on top of one another. Programmers, coders and other users cannot directly edit HTML using Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox are susceptible to hacker access. Hackers can specifically target users that haven't updated their Mozilla Firefox installation