Features of Mozilla Firefox
Encyclopedia
These are some of the features of Mozilla Firefox
that distinguish it from other web browser
s such as Internet Explorer
. In an effort to combat interface bloat and to allow the browser to be shipped as a small, pared-down core easily customizable to meet individual users' needs, Firefox relies on the extension system to allow users to modify the browser according to their requirements instead of providing all features in the standard distribution.
, XML
, XHTML
, CSS
(with extensions), JavaScript
, DOM
, MathML
, SVG, XSLT
and XPath
. Firefox's standards support and growing popularity have been credited as one reason Internet Explorer 7
was to be released with improved standards support.
Since Web standards are often in contradiction with Internet Explorer's behavior, Firefox, like other browsers, has a quirks mode
. This mode attempts to mimic Internet Explorer quirk modes, which equates to using obsolete rendering standards dating back to Internet Explorer 5
, or alternately newer peculiarities introduced in IE 6
or 7. However, it is not completely compatible Because of the differing rendering, PC World notes that a minority of pages do not work in Firefox, however Internet Explorer 7 quirk mode does not either.
CNET notes that Firefox does not support ActiveX
controls by default, which can also cause webpages to be missing features or to not work at all in Firefox. Mozilla made the decision to not support ActiveX due to potential security vulnerabilities, its proprietary nature and its lack of cross-platform compatibility. There are methods of using ActiveX in Firefox such as via third party plugins but they do not work in all versions of Firefox or on all platforms.
Beginning on December 8, 2006, Firefox trunk nightly builds pass the Acid2
CSS standards compliance test, so all future releases of Firefox 3 will pass the test.
Firefox also implements a proprietary protocol from Google called "safebrowsing", which is not an open standard
.
Mozilla Firefox runs on certain platforms that coincide OS versions in use at the time of release. In 2004 Version 1 supported older OS such as Windows 95 and Mac OS X 10.1, by 2008 version 3 required at least OS X 10.4 and even Windows 98 support ended.
Various releases available on the primary distribution site can support the following operating systems, although not always the latest Firefox version.
Builds for Solaris (x86 and SPARC), contributed by the Sun
Beijing Desktop Team, are available on the Mozilla web site.
Mozilla Firefox 1.x installation on Windows 95
requires a few additional steps.
Since Firefox is open source
and Mozilla actively develops a platform independent abstraction
for its graphical front end
, it can also be compiled and run on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Thus, Firefox is also available for many other systems. This includes OS/2
, AIX
, and FreeBSD
. Builds for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
are also available. Mozilla Firefox is also the browser of choice for a good number of smaller operating systems, such as SkyOS
and ZETA.
Firefox uses the same profile format on the different platforms, so a profile may be used on multiple platforms, if all of the platforms can access the same profile; this includes, for example, profiles stored on an NTFS
(via FUSE
) or FAT32
partition accessible from both Windows and Linux, or on a USB flash drive
. This is useful for users who dual-boot their machines. However, it may cause a few problems, especially with extensions.
, external protocol whitelisting, a phishing
detector, and an option to clear all private data, such as browser history and cookies
.
Firefox is open source software, and thus, its source code is visible to everyone. This allows anyone to review the code for security vulnerabilities, whether their intentions are good or malicious. It also allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give funding for the automated tool Coverity
to be run against Firefox code.
Additionally, Mozilla has a security bug bounty system - anyone who reports a valid critical security bug receives a $3000 (US) cash reward for each report and a Mozilla T-shirt. With effect from December 15, 2010 Mozilla added Web Applications to its Security Bug Bounty Program.
Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open several pages in one window. This feature was carried over from the Mozilla Application Suite
, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla.
Firefox also permits the "homepage" to be a list of URLs
delimited with vertical bar
s (|), which are automatically opened in separate tabs, rather than a single page.
Firefox 2 supports more tabbed browsing features, including a "tab overflow" solution that keeps the user's tabs easily accessible when they would otherwise become illegible, "session store" which lets the user keep the opened tabs across the restarts, and an "undo close tab" feature.
-based links opening a new window while a page is loading unless the site is added to a "safe list" found in the options menu.
In many cases it is possible to view the pop-up's URL by clicking the dialog that appears when one is blocked. This makes it easier to decide if the pop-up should be displayed.
An integrated customizable download manager is also included. Downloads can be opened automatically depending on the file type, or saved directly to disk. By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user's desktop on Mac and Windows or to the user's home directory on Linux, but it can be configured to prompt for a specific download location. Version 3.0 added support for cross-session resuming (stopping a download and resuming it after closing the browser). From within the download manager, a user can view the source URL
from which a download originated as well as the location to which a file was downloaded.
or Atom
feeds, "Live Bookmarks", allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, there were a few worries that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features and that it was beginning to bloat the browser much like the Mozilla Suite.
Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most news aggregators do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source. Live bookmarks are updated automatically; however no browser option exists to prevent or control the automatic Live Bookmark updates.
feature known as "Find as you type", invoked by pressing Ctrl+F. 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. Also, if the user's exact query does not appear anywhere on the page, the "Find" box turns red. Ctrl+G can be pressed to go to the next found match.
Alternatively the slash (/) key can be used instead to invoke the "quick search". The "quick search", in contrast to the normal search, lacks search controls and is wholly controlled by keyboard. In this mode highlighted links can be followed by pressing the enter key
. The "quick search" has an alternate mode which is invoked by pressing the apostrophe (') key, in this mode only links are matched.
Web search function with extensible search engine listing; by default, Firefox includes plugins for Google
and Yahoo!
, and also includes plugins for looking up a word on dictionary.com and browsing through Amazon.com
listings. Other popular Mycroft search engines include Wikipedia
, eBay
, and IMDb.
, jump to the location bar with the CTRL+L shortcut, type "imdb Firefox" and press the Enter key
or just simply type in "imdb" if one wants to get to the frontpage instead.
s that are used to convey more information than page titles. Microsummaries are regularly updated to reflect content changes in web pages so that viewers of the web page will want to revisit the web page after updates. Microsummaries can either be provided by the page, or be generated by the processing of an XSLT
stylesheet
against the page. In the latter case, the XSLT stylesheet and the page that the microsummary applies to are provided by a microsummary generator. Support for Microsummaries was removed as of Firefox 6.
External links:
Firefox also won UK Usability Professionals' Association's 2005 award for "Best software application".
There are 4 types of add-ons in Firefox: extensions, themes, language packs
and plugins. Firefox add-ons may be obtained from the Mozilla Add-ons
web site or from other sources.
, and those that enhance tabbed browsing.
Features that the Firefox developers believe will be used by only a small number of its users are not included in Firefox, but instead left to be implemented as extensions. Many Mozilla Suite features, such as IRC chat (ChatZilla
) and calendar
have been recreated as Firefox extensions. Extensions are also sometimes a testing ground for features that are eventually integrated to the main codebase. For example, MultiZilla was an extension that provided tabbed browsing when Mozilla lacked that feature.
While extensions provide a high level of customizability, PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions as compared to their features being available by default.
Most extensions are not created or supported by Mozilla. Extensions have the same rights to the user's system as Firefox itself, and malicious extensions have been created. Mozilla provides a repository of extensions that have been reviewed by volunteers and are believed to not contain malware. Since extensions are mostly created by third parties, they do not necessarily go through the same level of testing as official Mozilla products, and they may have bugs or vulnerabilities.
for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of CSS
and image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.
), i.e. Netscape-style plugins. As a side note, Opera and Internet Explorer 3.0 to 5.0 also support NPAPI.
On June 30, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation, in partnership with Adobe
, Apple
, Macromedia
, Opera
, and Sun Microsystems
, announced a series of changes to web browser plugins. The new API
will allow web developers to offer richer web browsing experiences, helping to maintain innovation and standards. The new plugin technologies are expected to be implemented in the future versions of the Mozilla applications.
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and later versions include the Java Embedding plugin, which allow Mac OS X users to run Java applets with the latest 1.4 and 5.0 versions of Java (the default Java software shipped by Apple is not compatible with any browser, except its own Safari).
A number of internal configuration options are not accessible in a conventional manner through Firefox's preference dialogs, although they are exposed through its about:config interface.
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
that distinguish it from other web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s such as Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
. In an effort to combat interface bloat and to allow the browser to be shipped as a small, pared-down core easily customizable to meet individual users' needs, Firefox relies on the extension system to allow users to modify the browser according to their requirements instead of providing all features in the standard distribution.
Web technologies support
Firefox supports most basic Web standards including HTMLHTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, XHTML
XHTML
XHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
, CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
(with extensions), JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
, DOM
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
, MathML
MathML
Mathematical Markup Language is an application of XML for describing mathematical notations and capturing both its structure and content. It aims at integrating mathematical formulae into World Wide Web pages and other documents...
, SVG, XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
and XPath
XPath
XPath is a language for selecting nodes from an XML document. In addition, XPath may be used to compute values from the content of an XML document...
. Firefox's standards support and growing popularity have been credited as one reason Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7
Windows Internet Explorer 7 is a web browser released by Microsoft in October 2006. Internet Explorer 7 is part of a long line of versions of Internet Explorer and was the first major update to the browser in more than 5 years...
was to be released with improved standards support.
Since Web standards are often in contradiction with Internet Explorer's behavior, Firefox, like other browsers, has a quirks mode
Quirks mode
In computing, quirks mode refers to a technique used by some web browsers for the sake of maintaining backward compatibility with web pages designed for older browsers, instead of strictly complying with W3C and IETF standards in standards mode....
. This mode attempts to mimic Internet Explorer quirk modes, which equates to using obsolete rendering standards dating back to Internet Explorer 5
Internet Explorer 5
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 was a graphical web browser released in March 1999 by Microsoft, primarily for Microsoft Windows, but initially with versions available for Apple Macintosh, Sun Solaris, and HP-UX. It was one of the main participants of the first browser war...
, or alternately newer peculiarities introduced in IE 6
Internet Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 6 is the sixth major revision of Internet Explorer, a web browser developed by Microsoft for Windows operating systems...
or 7. However, it is not completely compatible Because of the differing rendering, PC World notes that a minority of pages do not work in Firefox, however Internet Explorer 7 quirk mode does not either.
CNET notes that Firefox does not support ActiveX
Object Linking and Embedding
Object Linking and Embedding is a technology developed by Microsoft that allows embedding and linking to documents and other objects. For developers, it brought OLE Control eXtension , a way to develop and use custom user interface elements...
controls by default, which can also cause webpages to be missing features or to not work at all in Firefox. Mozilla made the decision to not support ActiveX due to potential security vulnerabilities, its proprietary nature and its lack of cross-platform compatibility. There are methods of using ActiveX in Firefox such as via third party plugins but they do not work in all versions of Firefox or on all platforms.
Beginning on December 8, 2006, Firefox trunk nightly builds pass the Acid2
Acid2
Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading...
CSS standards compliance test, so all future releases of Firefox 3 will pass the test.
Firefox also implements a proprietary protocol from Google called "safebrowsing", which is not an open standard
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
.
Cross-platform support
| Operating system Operating system An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system... |
Latest version | |
|---|---|---|
| Linux kernel Linux kernel The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software.... 2.2.14 and newer (with some libraries) |
3.6.6 | |
| Apple Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... |
v10.1 Mac OS X v10.1 Mac OS X version 10.1, code named "Puma", is the second major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.0 and preceded Mac OS X v10.2. Version 10.1 was released on 25 September 2001 as a 'free update' to version 10.0... |
1.0.8 |
| v10.2 Mac OS X v10.2 Mac OS X version 10.2 "Jaguar" is the third major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It superseded Mac OS X v10.1 code name Puma and preceded Mac OS X Panther... -10.3 Mac OS X v10.3 Mac OS X Panther is the fourth major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. It followed Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar" and preceded Mac OS X Tiger... |
2.0.0.20 | |
| v10.4 Mac OS X v10.4 Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger is the fifth major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Tiger was released to the public on 29 April 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X Panther , which had been released 18 months earlier... -10.6 Mac OS X v10.6 Mac OS X Snow Leopard is the seventh major release of Mac OS X, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers.Snow Leopard was publicly unveiled on June 8, 2009 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference... |
3.6.6 | |
| OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal... and eComStation EComStation eComStation or eCS is a PC operating system based on OS/2, published by Serenity Systems. It includes several additions and accompanying software not present in the IBM version of the system.-Differences between eComStation and OS/2:... |
3.5.4 | |
| Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... |
95 Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products... |
1.5.0.12 |
| NT 4 Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996... /98 Windows 98 Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid... /ME Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006.... |
2.0.0.20 | |
| 2000 Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the... /XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... /2003 Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005... /Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... / Home Server Windows Home Server Windows Home Server, code-named Quattro, is a home server operating system from Microsoft. Announced on 7 January 2007, at the Consumer Electronics Show by Bill Gates, Windows Home Server is intended to be a solution for homes with multiple connected PCs to offer file sharing, automated backups,... /2008/7 |
3.6.6 | |
Mozilla Firefox runs on certain platforms that coincide OS versions in use at the time of release. In 2004 Version 1 supported older OS such as Windows 95 and Mac OS X 10.1, by 2008 version 3 required at least OS X 10.4 and even Windows 98 support ended.
Various releases available on the primary distribution site can support the following operating systems, although not always the latest Firefox version.
- Various versions of Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, including 98Windows 98Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
, 98SE, MeWindows MeWindows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
, NTWindows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
4.0, 2000Windows 2000Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
, XPWindows XPWindows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Server 2003Windows Server 2003Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...
, VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and 7 - Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
- LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
-based operating systems using X.Org ServerX.Org ServerX.Org Server refers to the X server release packages stewarded by the X.Org Foundation,which is hosted by freedesktop.org, and grants...
or XFree86XFree86XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and is now available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the XFree86 License version 1.1. It is developed by the...
Builds for Solaris (x86 and SPARC), contributed by the Sun
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
Beijing Desktop Team, are available on the Mozilla web site.
Mozilla Firefox 1.x installation on Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
requires a few additional steps.
Since Firefox is open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
and Mozilla actively develops a platform independent abstraction
Mozilla application framework
The Mozilla application framework is a collection of cross-platform software components that make up the Mozilla applications. It was originally known as XPFE, an abbreviation of cross-platform front end. It was also known as XPToolkit...
for its graphical front end
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
, it can also be compiled and run on a variety of other architectures and operating systems. Thus, Firefox is also available for many other systems. This includes OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
, AIX
AIX operating system
AIX AIX AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced "a i ex" is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms...
, and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. Builds for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition released on April 25, 2005 is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture....
are also available. Mozilla Firefox is also the browser of choice for a good number of smaller operating systems, such as SkyOS
SkyOS
SkyOS was a prototype commercial, proprietary, graphical desktop operating system written for the x86 computer architecture. As of January 30, 2009 development has halted and no plans to resume its development have been announced.- History :...
and ZETA.
Firefox uses the same profile format on the different platforms, so a profile may be used on multiple platforms, if all of the platforms can access the same profile; this includes, for example, profiles stored on an NTFS
NTFS
NTFS is the standard file system of Windows NT, including its later versions Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, and Windows 7....
(via FUSE
Filesystem in Userspace
Filesystem in Userspace is a loadable kernel module for Unix-like computer operating systems that lets non-privileged users create their own file systems without editing kernel code...
) or FAT32
File Allocation Table
File Allocation Table is a computer file system architecture now widely used on many computer systems and most memory cards, such as those used with digital cameras. FAT file systems are commonly found on floppy disks, flash memory cards, digital cameras, and many other portable devices because of...
partition accessible from both Windows and Linux, or on a USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
. This is useful for users who dual-boot their machines. However, it may cause a few problems, especially with extensions.
Aero peek capability
Mozilla has included aero peek capability for each tab on Windows 7. This feature was previously not been enabled by default (but can be user enabled), but now is included as a full feature of Firefox. This resulting in a displayed thumbnail image of the tab. This will create similar functioning to that which is already included in IE8.Security
Firefox includes many features designed to improve security. Key features include a sandbox security model, same origin policySame origin policy
In computing, the same origin policy is an important security concept for a number of browser-side programming languages, such as JavaScript. The policy permits scripts running on pages originating from the same site to access each other's methods and properties with no specific restrictions, but...
, external protocol whitelisting, a phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
detector, and an option to clear all private data, such as browser history and cookies
HTTP cookie
A cookie, also known as an HTTP cookie, web cookie, or browser cookie, is used for an origin website to send state information to a user's browser and for the browser to return the state information to the origin site...
.
Firefox is open source software, and thus, its source code is visible to everyone. This allows anyone to review the code for security vulnerabilities, whether their intentions are good or malicious. It also allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give funding for the automated tool Coverity
Coverity
Coverity is a software vendor based in San Francisco. It was incorporated in November 2002. It develops static code analysis tools, for C, C++ and other programming languages, used to find defects and security vulnerabilities in source code...
to be run against Firefox code.
Additionally, Mozilla has a security bug bounty system - anyone who reports a valid critical security bug receives a $3000 (US) cash reward for each report and a Mozilla T-shirt. With effect from December 15, 2010 Mozilla added Web Applications to its Security Bug Bounty Program.
Tabbed browsing
Mozilla Application Suite
The Mozilla Application Suite is a cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator...
, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla.
Firefox also permits the "homepage" to be a list of URLs
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
delimited with vertical bar
Vertical bar
The vertical bar is a character with various uses in mathematics, where it can be used to represent absolute value, among others; in computing and programming and in general typography, as a divider not unlike the interpunct...
s (|), which are automatically opened in separate tabs, rather than a single page.
Firefox 2 supports more tabbed browsing features, including a "tab overflow" solution that keeps the user's tabs easily accessible when they would otherwise become illegible, "session store" which lets the user keep the opened tabs across the restarts, and an "undo close tab" feature.
Pop-up blocking
Firefox also includes integrated customizable pop-up blocking. Firefox was given this feature early in beta development, and it was a major comparative selling point of the browser until Internet Explorer gained the capability in the Windows XP SP2 release of August 25, 2004. Firefox's pop-up blocking can be turned off entirely to allow pop-ups from all sites. Firefox's pop-up blocking can be inconvenient at times — it prevents JavaScriptJavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
-based links opening a new window while a page is loading unless the site is added to a "safe list" found in the options menu.
In many cases it is possible to view the pop-up's URL by clicking the dialog that appears when one is blocked. This makes it easier to decide if the pop-up should be displayed.
Private Browsing
Private Browsing is the most recent feature inclusion in Mozilla Firefox. It was introduced in Firefox 3.5, which released on June 30, 2009. This feature lets users browse the Internet without leaving any traces in the browsing history.Download manager
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....
from which a download originated as well as the location to which a file was downloaded.
Live bookmarks
Powered by RSSRSS (file format)
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...
or Atom
Atom (standard)
The name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a...
feeds, "Live Bookmarks", allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, there were a few worries that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features and that it was beginning to bloat the browser much like the Mozilla Suite.
Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most news aggregators do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source. Live bookmarks are updated automatically; however no browser option exists to prevent or control the automatic Live Bookmark updates.
Other features
Find as you type
Firefox also has an incremental findIncremental find
In computing, incremental search, incremental find or real-time suggestions is a user interface interaction method to progressively search for and filter through text. As the user types text, one or more possible matches for the text are found and immediately presented to the user...
feature known as "Find as you type", invoked by pressing Ctrl+F. 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. Also, if the user's exact query does not appear anywhere on the page, the "Find" box turns red. Ctrl+G can be pressed to go to the next found match.
Alternatively the slash (/) key can be used instead to invoke the "quick search". The "quick search", in contrast to the normal search, lacks search controls and is wholly controlled by keyboard. In this mode highlighted links can be followed by pressing the enter key
Enter key
In computer keyboards, the enter key in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function...
. The "quick search" has an alternate mode which is invoked by pressing the apostrophe (') key, in this mode only links are matched.
Mycroft Web Search
There is also a built-in MycroftMycroft project
The Mycroft project provides a collection of search plugins for Mozilla-based web browsers. The open source project is hosted on Mozdev.org and has been in existence since 2000...
Web search function with extensible search engine listing; by default, Firefox includes plugins for Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
and Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, and also includes plugins for looking up a word on dictionary.com and browsing through Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
listings. Other popular Mycroft search engines include Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, and IMDb.
Smart Keywords
Smart keywords can be used to quickly search for information on specific Web sites. A smart keyword is defined by the user and can be associated with any bookmark, and can then be used in the location bar as a shortcut to quickly get to the site or, if the smart keyword is linked to a searchbox, to search the site. For example, "imdb" is a pre-defined smart keyword; to search for information about the movie 'Firefox' on IMDbInternet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
, jump to the location bar with the CTRL+L shortcut, type "imdb Firefox" and press the Enter key
Enter key
In computer keyboards, the enter key in most cases causes a command line, window form, or dialog box to operate its default function...
or just simply type in "imdb" if one wants to get to the frontpage instead.
Enhanced search capabilities
Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines. A new search engine manager makes it easier to add, remove and re-order search engines, and users will be alerted when Firefox encounters a website that offers new search engines that the user may wish to install.Microsummaries
Support for Microsummaries was added in version 2.0. Microsummaries are short summaries of web pageWeb page
A web page or webpage is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext...
s that are used to convey more information than page titles. Microsummaries are regularly updated to reflect content changes in web pages so that viewers of the web page will want to revisit the web page after updates. Microsummaries can either be provided by the page, or be generated by the processing of an XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
stylesheet
Extensible Stylesheet Language
In computing, the term Extensible Stylesheet Language is used to refer to a family oflanguages used to transform and render XML documents....
against the page. In the latter case, the XSLT stylesheet and the page that the microsummary applies to are provided by a microsummary generator. Support for Microsummaries was removed as of Firefox 6.
External links:
Live Titles
When a website offers a microsummary (a regularly updated summary of the most important information on a Web page), users can create a bookmark with a "Live Title". Compact enough to fit in the space available to a bookmark label, they provide more useful information about pages than static page titles, and are regularly updated with the latest information. There are several websites that can be bookmarked with Live Titles, and even more add-ons to generate Live Titles for other popular websites. Support for Live Titles was removed as of Firefox 6.Session Restore
The Session Restore feature restores windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and in-progress downloads from the last user session. It will be activated automatically when installing an application update or extension, and users will be asked if they want to resume their previous session after a system crash.Inline Spell Checker
A built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms without having to use a separate application.Usability in version 2
Firefox 2 was designed for the average user, hiding advanced configuration and making features that do not require user interaction to function. Jim Repoza of eWEEK statesFirefox also won UK Usability Professionals' Association's 2005 award for "Best software application".
Star button
Quickly add bookmarks from the location bar with a single click; a second click lets the user file and tag them.Smart Location Bar
Firefox 3 includes a "Smart Location Bar". While most other browsers, such as Internet Explorer, will search through history for matching web sites as the user types a URL into the location bar, the Smart Location Bar Will also search through bookmarks for a page with a matching URL. Additionally, Firefox's Smart Location Bar will also search through page titles, allowing the user to type in a relevant keyword, instead of a URL, to find the desired page.Library
View, organize and search through bookmarks, tags and browsing history using the new Library window. Create or restore full backups of this data whenever with a few clicks.Smart Bookmark Folders
Users can quickly access their most visited bookmarks from the toolbar, or recently bookmarked and tagged pages from the bookmark menu. Smart Bookmark Folders can be created by saving a search query in the Library.Full page zoom
From the View menu and via keyboard shortcuts, the new zooming feature lets users zoom in and out of entire pages, scaling the layout, text and images, or optionally only the text size. Zoom settings will be remembered for each site.Text selection improvements
In addition to being able to double-click and drag to select text by words; or triple-click and drag to select text by paragraph. Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) can be held down to retain the previous selection and extend it instead of replacing it when doing another selection.Web-based protocol handlers
Web applications, such as a user's favorite webmail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is available for other protocols (Web applications will have to first enable this by registering as handlers with Firefox).Add-ons & Extensions
Internationalization and localization
In computing, internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market...
and plugins. Firefox add-ons may be obtained from the Mozilla Add-ons
Mozilla Add-ons
Mozilla Add-ons is the official Mozilla Foundation website to act as a repository for add-ons for Mozilla software, including Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Mozilla Sunbird. These add-ons include extensions, themes, dictionaries, search bar "search engines," and plugins...
web site or from other sources.
Extensions
Firefox users can add features and change functionality in Firefox by installing extensions. Extension functionality is varied; such as those enabling mouse gestures, those that block advertisementsAdblock
Adblock Plus is a content-filtering extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. ABP, a forked version of Adblock, allows users to prevent page elements, such as advertisements, from being downloaded and displayed.-How it works:Like Mozilla's built-in image blocker, Adblock...
, and those that enhance tabbed browsing.
Features that the Firefox developers believe will be used by only a small number of its users are not included in Firefox, but instead left to be implemented as extensions. Many Mozilla Suite features, such as IRC chat (ChatZilla
ChatZilla
ChatZilla is an IRC client for Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox, introduced in 2000. It is cross-platform open source software which has been noted for its consistent appearance across platforms, CSS appearance customization and scripting....
) and calendar
Mozilla Calendar Project
The Mozilla Calendar Project is the name for the Mozilla project that led to the development of Sunbird calendar application and the Lightning integrated calendar...
have been recreated as Firefox extensions. Extensions are also sometimes a testing ground for features that are eventually integrated to the main codebase. For example, MultiZilla was an extension that provided tabbed browsing when Mozilla lacked that feature.
While extensions provide a high level of customizability, PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions as compared to their features being available by default.
Most extensions are not created or supported by Mozilla. Extensions have the same rights to the user's system as Firefox itself, and malicious extensions have been created. Mozilla provides a repository of extensions that have been reviewed by volunteers and are believed to not contain malware. Since extensions are mostly created by third parties, they do not necessarily go through the same level of testing as official Mozilla products, and they may have bugs or vulnerabilities.
Themes
Firefox also supports a variety of themesTheme (computing)
In computing, a theme is a preset package containing graphical appearance details, used to customize the look and feel of an operating system, widget set or window manager....
for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
and image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.
Plugins
Firefox supports plugins based on Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface (NPAPINPAPI
Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface is a cross-platform plugin architecture used by many web browsers.It was first developed for the Netscape family of browsers starting with Netscape Navigator 2.0 but was subsequently implemented by many other browsers, including all of the browsers...
), i.e. Netscape-style plugins. As a side note, Opera and Internet Explorer 3.0 to 5.0 also support NPAPI.
On June 30, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation, in partnership with Adobe
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
, Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
, Macromedia
Macromedia
Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...
, Opera
Opera Software
Opera Software ASA is a Norwegian software company, primarily known for its Opera family of web browsers with over 220 million users worldwide. Opera Software is also involved in promoting Web standards through participation in the W3C. The company has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway and is...
, and Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, announced a series of changes to web browser plugins. The new API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
will allow web developers to offer richer web browsing experiences, helping to maintain innovation and standards. The new plugin technologies are expected to be implemented in the future versions of the Mozilla applications.
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and later versions include the Java Embedding plugin, which allow Mac OS X users to run Java applets with the latest 1.4 and 5.0 versions of Java (the default Java software shipped by Apple is not compatible with any browser, except its own Safari).
Customizability
Beyond the use of Add-ons, Firefox additional customization features.- The position of the toolbars and interface are customizable
- User stylesheets to change the style of webpages and Firefox's user interface.
A number of internal configuration options are not accessible in a conventional manner through Firefox's preference dialogs, although they are exposed through its about:config interface.
External links
- Firefox Features at Mozilla.com