FireFox

Mozilla Firefox or simply Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ It was created by Mozilla Foundation in 2004 and is written in 
C++, JavaScript, HTML, C, Rust, and others.
==Features==
Features of the desktop edition include: tabbed browsing, full-screen mode, spell checking, incremental search, smart bookmarks, bookmarking and downloading through drag and drop, a download manager, user profile management, private browsing, bookmark tags, bookmark exporting, offline mode, a screenshot tool, web development tools, a "page info" feature which shows a list of page metadata and multimedia items, a configuration menu at about:config for power users, and location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based on a Google service. Firefox has an integrated search system which uses Google by default in most markets. DNS over HTTPS is another feature whose default behavior is determined geographically.
Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the Error Console or the DOM Inspector, and extensions, such as Firebug and more recently there has been an integration feature with Pocket.
==Privacy==
When Firefox initially released, it used a custom script permission policy where scripts that were signed by the page could gain access to higher privilege actions such as the ability to set a user's preferences. However, this model was not widely used and was later discontinued by Firefox. Modern day Firefox instead follows the standard same-origin policy permission model that is followed by most modern browsers which disallows scripts from accessing any privileged data including data about other websites.The same origin policy - Mozilla Developer
It uses TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol.https://web.archive.org/web/20070207074919/http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/pki/psm/help_21/ssl_help.html The freely available HTTPS Everywhere add-on enforces HTTPS, even if a regular HTTP URL is entered. Firefox now supports HTTP/2.https://web.archive.org/web/20210813112455/https://www.browsermentor.com/why-you-should-use-firefox/
==History==
It was implemented as a project that was 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.Where did FireFox come from? (February 6, 2006) Version 0.1 was released on September 23, 2002, where it was intended to replace the Mozilla Suite.https://books.google.com/books?id=sfciobmzOOcC On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that it planned to change its focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird.Mozilla Development Roadmap (April 2, 2003)
It was originally named "Phoenix" after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor. Phoenix was renamed into Firebird in 2003 due to a trademark claim from Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird database software project.https://web.archive.org/web/20070914035447/http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_Mozilla0 The Mozilla Foundation reassured them that the browser would always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion. After further pressure, Mozilla Firebird was renamed into Mozilla Firefox on February 9, 2004.https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-holds-fire-in-naming-fight/
Version 1.0 of Firefox was released on November 9, 2004.https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-US/firefox/releases/1.0.html This was followed by version 1.5 in November 2005, version 2.0 in October 2006, version 3.0 in June 2008, version 3.5 in June 2009, version 3.6 in January 2010, and version 4.0 in March 2011. From version 5 onwards, the development and release model changed into a "rapid" one; by the end of 2011 the stable release was version 9, and by the end of 2012 it reached version 17.Mozilla Release Notes (Archived)
Major redesigns of its graphical user interface occurred on versions 4.0 (Strata) in March 2011, 29.0 (Australis) in April 2014, 57.0 (Photon) in November 2017, and 89.0 (Proton) in June 2021.
On May 3, 2019, an intermediate signing certificate on Mozilla servers was expired, causing Firefox to automatically disable and lock all browser extensions (add-ons). Mozilla began the roll-out of a fix shortly thereafter, using their Mozilla Studies component.https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2019/05/04/update-regarding-add-ons-in-firefox/https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/04/your-firefox-extensions-are-all-disabled-thats-a-bug/
On June 1, 2021, Firefox's 'Proton' redesign was offered through its stable release channel after being made available in the beta builds."Firefox Beta 89.0beta, See All New Features, Updates and Fixes"
On January 13, 2022, an issue with Firefox's HTTP/3 implementation resulted in a widespread outage for multiple hours.https://web.archive.org/web/20220113104452/https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/13/firefox-browser-suddenly-failing-to-load-websites-this-morning-heres-the-fix/amp/
On September 26, 2023, Firefox 118.0 introduced on-device translation of web page content.https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/118.0/releasenotes/
On January 23, 2024, along with the release of Firefox 122.0, Mozilla introduced an official APT repository for Debian-based Linux distributions."Firefox 122.0, See All New Features, Updates and Fixes" (Archived from the original on January 27, 2024)
==External Links== 
*Firefox in Wikipedia.
==References==