Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, with only minor exceptions. The community is supported institutionally by the

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation (stylized as moz://a) is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

and its tax-paying subsidiary, the

Mozilla Corporation The Mozilla Corporation (stylized as moz://a) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates and integrates the development of Internet-related applications such as the Firefox web browser, by a global community of ope ...

. Mozilla's current products include the

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. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current ...

web browser,

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...

e-mail client (now through a subsidiary),

Bugzilla Bugzilla is a web-based general-purpose bug tracking system and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project, and licensed under the Mozilla Public License. Released as open-source software by Netscape Communications in 199 ...

bug tracking system, Gecko layout engine, Pocket "read-it-later-online" service, and others.

History

On January 23, 1998, Netscape made two announcements. First, that

Netscape Communicator Netscape Communicator (or ''Netscape 4'') is a discontinued Internet suite produced by Netscape Communications Corporation, and was the fourth major release in the Netscape line of browsers. It was first in beta in 1996 and was released in June ...

would be free; second, that the source code would also be free. One day later, Jamie Zawinski from Netscape registered . The project took its name "Mozilla", after the original code name of the

Netscape Navigator Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...

browser—a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsMosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

and

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film '' Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films prod ...

", and used to coordinate the development of the

Mozilla Application Suite The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite) is a discontinued cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition ...

, the

version of Netscape's internet software,

. Jamie Zawinski says he came up with the name "Mozilla" at a Netscape staff meeting. A small group of Netscape employees were tasked with coordination of the new community. Mozilla dinosaur head logo

Originally, Mozilla aimed to be a technology provider for companies such as Netscape, who would commercialize their

code. When AOL (Netscape's parent company) greatly reduced its involvement with Mozilla in July 2003, the

was designated the legal steward of the project. Soon after, Mozilla deprecated the Mozilla Suite in favor of creating independent applications for each function, primarily the

web browser and the

email client, and moved to supply them directly to the public. Mozilla's activities have since expanded to include Firefox on mobile platforms (primarily Android), a mobile OS called

Firefox OS Firefox OS (project name: ''Boot to Gecko'', also known as ''B2G'') is a discontinued open-source operating system made for smartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs, and dongles designed by Mozilla and external contributors. It is based on the ...

(since cancelled), a web-based identity system called Mozilla Persona and a marketplace for HTML5 applications. In a report released in November 2012, Mozilla reported that their total revenue for 2011 was $163 million, which was up 33% from $123 million in 2010. Mozilla noted that roughly 85% of their revenue comes from their contract with Google. At the end of 2013, Mozilla announced a deal with

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

, whereby Firefox would download and use a Cisco-provided binary build of an open-source

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

to play the proprietary

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

video format. As part of the deal, Cisco would pay any patent licensing fees associated with the binaries that it distributes. Mozilla's CTO,

Brendan Eich Brendan Eich (; born July 4, 1961) is an American computer programmer and technology executive. He created the JavaScript programming language and co-founded the Mozilla project, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mozilla Corporation. He served ...

, acknowledged that this is "not a complete solution" and isn't "perfect". An employee in Mozilla's video formats team, writing in an unofficial capacity, justified it by the need to maintain their large user base, which would be necessary for future battles for truly free video formats. In December 2013, Mozilla announced funding for the development of paid games through its Game Creator Challenge. However, even those games that may be released under a non-free software or

license must be made with open web technologies and Javascript as per the work criteria outlined in the announcement. In January 2017 the company rebranded away from its dinosaur symbol in favor of a logo that includes a "://" character sequence from a URL, with the revamped logo: "moz://a". In 2020 Mozilla announced it would be cutting off 25% of its worldwide staff of nearly 1,000 to reduce costs; at United States Federal minimum wage full-time, this would reduce costs by $3.8m, while at an average pay of $50k/year this would represent a $12.5M cost reduction. Firefox has fallen from 30% market share to 4% in 10 years. Despite this, executive pay increased 400%, with

Mitchell Baker Winifred Mitchell Baker (born 1957) is the Executive Chairwoman and CEO of the Mozilla Foundation and of Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet applications ...

, Mozilla’s top executive, being paid $2.4m in 2018. In December 2020, Mozilla closed its Mountain View office.

Values

Mozilla Manifesto

The Mozilla Manifesto outlines Mozilla's goals and principles. It asserts Mozilla's commitment to the

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, saying: "The open, global internet is the most powerful communication and collaboration resource we have ever seen. It embodies some of our deepest hopes for human progress." It then outlines what Mozilla sees as its place in the development of the internet, stating "The Mozilla project uses a community-based approach to create world-class open source software and to develop new types of collaborative activities". And finally, it lays out their ten principles: # The internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment, and society as a whole. # The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible. # The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings. # Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. # Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it. # The effectiveness of the internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation, and decentralized participation worldwide. # Free and open source software promotes the development of the internet as a public resource. # Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust. # Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical. # Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention, and commitment.

Pledge

According to the Mozilla Foundation:

Software

Firefox

is a family of

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

products developed by Mozilla, with the Firefox browser as the

flagship product A core product or flagship product is a company's primary promotion, service or product that can be purchased by a consumer. Core products may be integrated into end products, either by the company producing the core product or by other companies ...

Firefox browser

browser, or simply Firefox, is a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

and Mozilla's flagship software product. It is available in both desktop and mobile versions. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated

web standards Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...

. , Firefox had approximately 10-11% of worldwide

usage share of web browsers The usage share of web browsers is the portion, often expressed as a percentage, of visitors to a group of web sites that use a particular web browser. Accuracy Measuring browser usage in the number of requests (page hits) made by each use ...

, making it the 4th most-used web browser. Firefox began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla codebase by

Dave Hyatt David Hyatt (born 28 June 1972) is an American software engineer and a ''Shadowrun'' game expansion author. Employed by Apple starting in 2002, he was part of the Safari web browser and WebKit framework development team. He also helped develop ...

, 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. Firefox was originally named ''Phoenix'' but the name was changed so as to avoid trademark conflicts with

Phoenix Technologies Phoenix Technologies Ltd is an American company that designs, develops and supports core system software for personal computers and other computing devices. The company's products commonly referred to as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or firm ...

. The initially-announced replacement, ''Firebird'', provoked objections from the Firebird project community. The current name, Firefox, was chosen on February 9, 2004. It was previously announced that Mozilla is going to launch a premium version of the Firefox browser by October 2019. The company's CEO, Chris Beard, has been quoted by ''

The Next Web TNW (The Next Web) is a website and annual series of conferences focused on new technology and start-up companies in Europe. The Next Web company was established in 2006 by co-founders Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive in Amsterd ...

'' to say that "there is no plan to charge money for things that are now free. So we will roll out a subscription service and offer a premium level." In September, Mozilla revealed their new offering, Firefox Premium Support, priced at $10 per installation. However, shortly after news broke of the service, Mozilla removed information about the service from the website. Computerworld reported that in an email statement, Mozilla claimed "the page outlining that these paid support services for enterprise clients will be available was posted incorrectly."

Firefox for mobile

Firefox for mobile (codenamed ''Fennec'') is the build of the Mozilla Firefox

for mobile devices such as

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s and

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being com ...

s. Initially available on multiple platforms, it is now available in two versions:

Firefox for Android Firefox for Android is a web browser developed by Mozilla for Android smartphones and tablet computers. As with its desktop version, it uses the Gecko layout engine, and supports features such as synchronization with Firefox Sync, blocking w ...

and Firefox for iOS. Firefox for Android runs on the Android

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobile", the operating systems used on ...

and uses the same Gecko layout engine as Mozilla Firefox; for example, version 1.0 used the same engine as Firefox 3.6, and the following release, 4.0, shared core code with Firefox 4.0. Firefox for iOS, which runs on the

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

mobile operating system, does not use the Gecko Layout Engine because of

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

's policy that all iOS apps that browse the web must use the built-in iOS

WebKit WebKit is a browser engine developed by Apple and primarily used in its Safari web browser, as well as on the iOS and iPadOS version of any web browser. WebKit is also used by the BlackBerry Browser, PlayStation consoles beginning from the P ...

rendering engine. Both version include features like

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

support, Firefox Sync, private browsing,

web tracking Web tracking is the practice by which operators of websites and third parties collect, store and share information about visitors’ activities on the World Wide Web. Analysis of a user's behaviour may be used to provide content that enables the ...

protection, and

tabbed browsing In interface design, a tab is a graphical user interface object that allows multiple documents or panels to be contained within a single window, using tabs as a navigational widget for switching between sets of documents. It is an interface s ...

, and Firefox for Android also includes support for add-ons.

Firefox Focus

Firefox Focus is a free and open-source privacy-focused

mobile browser A mobile browser is a web browser designed for use on a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA. Mobile browsers are optimized to display Web content most effectively on small screens on portable devices. Mobile browser software must be smal ...

for Android and

. Initially released in 2015 as only a tracker-blocking application for iOS, it has since been developed into a full mobile browser for both iOS and Android.

Firefox Lockwise

Firefox Lockwise was a password manager offered by Mozilla. On desktop, it was a built-in feature of the

browser. On mobile, it was offered as a standalone app that can be set as the device's default password manager.

Firefox Monitor

Firefox Monitor is an online service that informs users if their

email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...

and

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

s have been leaked in data breaches.

Firefox Send

Firefox Send was an online

encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

file-transfer service offered by Mozilla. In September 2020, Mozilla announced that Firefox Send will be decommissioned and will no longer be part of the product lineup.

Mozilla VPN

Mozilla VPN, formerly Firefox Private Network, is a subscription-based

VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

and a free privacy extension.

Firefox Private Relay

Firefox Private Relay provides users with disposable email addresses that can be used to combat spam (by hiding the user's real email address) and manage email subscriptions by categorizing them based on the party a particular address was given to.

Firefox Reality

In September 2018, Mozilla announced that its VR version was ready for consumers to download. Called Firefox Reality, the browser was built entirely for virtual reality. It is currently available on the Oculus. In January 2019, HTC also announced its partnership with Mozilla. Under the partnership, the Firefox Reality web browser has been made available on the Vive headsets.

Firefox OS

Firefox OS (project name: ''Boot to Gecko'' also known as ''B2G'') is a

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

that was developed by Mozilla to support

apps written using "

open Web Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of s ...

" technologies rather than platform-specific native APIs. The concept behind Firefox OS is that all user-accessible software will be HTML5 applications, that use Open Web APIs to access the phone's hardware directly via

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

. Some devices using this OS include Alcatel One Touch Fire, ZTE Open, and LG Fireweb. Mozilla announced the end of Firefox OS development in December 2015. A fork of B2G,

KaiOS KaiOS is a mobile Linux distribution for keypad feature phones based on the Firefox OS open-source project. It is developed by KaiOS Technologies (Hong Kong) Limited; a company based in Hong Kong, whose largest shareholder is Chinese multina ...

, has continued development and ships with numerous low-cost devices.

Pocket

Pocket is a

mobile application A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on des ...

and web service for managing a reading list of articles from the Internet. It was announced that it would be acquired by the

, the commercial arm of Mozilla's

development group, on February 27, 2017. Originally designed only for desktop browsers, it is now available for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

, Android,

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

Kobo eReader The Kobo eReader is an e-reader produced by Toronto-based Kobo Inc. The company's name is an anagram of "book". The original version was released in May 2010 and was marketed as a minimalist alternative to the more expensive e-book readers avai ...

s, and

Thunderbird

is a

, cross-platform email and news client developed by the volunteers of the Mozilla Community. On July 16, 2012, Mitchell Baker announced that Mozilla's leadership had come to the conclusion that ongoing stability was the most important thing for Thunderbird and that innovation in Thunderbird was no longer a priority for Mozilla. In that update, Baker also suggested that Mozilla had provided a pathway for its community to innovate around Thunderbird if the community chooses.

SeaMonkey

SeaMonkey SeaMonkey is a free and open-source Internet suite. It is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite, based on the same source code, which itself grew out of Netscape Communicator and formed the base of Netscape 6 and Netscape ...

(formerly the Mozilla Application Suite) is a free and open-source cross-platform suite of Internet software components including a web browser component, a client for sending and receiving email and

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...

newsgroup messages, an HTML editor ( Mozilla Composer) and the

ChatZilla ChatZilla is an IRC client that is part of SeaMonkey. It was previously an extension 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 acr ...

IRC client. On March 10, 2005, the

announced that it would not release any official versions of Mozilla Application Suite beyond 1.7.x, since it had now focused on the stand-alone applications

and

. SeaMonkey is now maintained by the SeaMonkey Council, which has

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

ed the SeaMonkey name with help from the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation provides project hosting for the SeaMonkey developers.

Bugzilla

is a web-based general-purpose

bug tracking system A bug tracking system or defect tracking system is a software application that keeps track of reported software bugs in software development projects. It may be regarded as a type of issue tracking system. Many bug tracking systems, such as thos ...

, which was released as

Netscape Communications Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

in 1998 along with the rest of the Mozilla codebase, and is currently stewarded by Mozilla. It has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a

for both free and open-source software and proprietary projects and products, including the

, the Linux kernel, KDE, Red Hat, Eclipse and

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. The LibreOffice suite co ...

WebThings

WebThings is a framework that allowed management of IoT devices through a single framework, gateway and UI. It was based on W3C

Web of Things Web of Things (WoT) describes a set of standards by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for the interoperability of different Internet of things (IoT) platforms and application domains. Building blocks The WoT building blocks provide a way to i ...

standard. As of 2020, it is no longer affiliated with Mozilla. It was spinner of as independent project during 2020 layoff of 250 employees. It was known as ''Project Things'' and allowed users to use a

raspberry pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

as a gateway for IoT management with decentralized software.

Components

NSS

Network Security Services Network Security Services (NSS) is a collection of cryptographic computer libraries designed to support cross-platform development of security-enabled client and server applications with optional support for hardware TLS/SSL acceleration on th ...

(NSS) comprises a set of

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

designed to support

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

development of security-enabled client and server applications. NSS provides a complete

implementation of crypto libraries supporting SSL and

S/MIME S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for public key encryption and signing of MIME data. S/MIME is on an IETF standards track and defined in a number of documents, most importantly . It was originally developed by R ...

. NSS is licensed under the GPL-compatible

Mozilla Public License The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a free and open-source weak copyleft license for most Mozilla Foundation software such as Firefox and Thunderbird The MPL license is developed and maintained by Mozilla, which seeks to balance the concerns ...

2.0. AOL, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems/ Oracle Corporation,

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

and other companies and individual contributors have co-developed NSS and it is used in a wide range of non-Mozilla products including

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, Pidgin, and

SpiderMonkey

SpiderMonkey SpiderMonkey is the first JavaScript engine, written by Brendan Eich at Netscape Communications, later released as open source and currently maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. It is used in the Firefox web browser. History Eich "wrote ...

is the original JavaScript engine developed by

when he invented

in 1995 as a developer at Netscape. It became part of the Mozilla product family when Mozilla inherited Netscape's code-base in 1998. In 2011, Eich transferred the nominal ownership of the SpiderMonkey code and project to Dave Mandelin. SpiderMonkey is a

engine written in

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

which implements

ECMAScript ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262 ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripting o ...

, a standard developed from JavaScript. It comprises an interpreter, several just-in-time compilers, a

decompiler A decompiler is a computer program that translates an executable file to a high-level source file which can be recompiled successfully. It does therefore the opposite of a typical compiler, which translates a high-level language to a low-level l ...

and a garbage collector. Products which embed SpiderMonkey include

, and many non-Mozilla applications.

Rhino

Rhino is a

JavaScript engine managed by the

. It is developed entirely in

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. Rhino converts JavaScript scripts into Java classes. Rhino works in both compiled and interpreted mode.

Gecko

Gecko is a layout engine that supports web pages written using

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...

, SVG, and MathML. Gecko is written in

and uses NSPR for platform independence. Its source code is licensed under the

. Firefox uses Gecko both for rendering web pages and for rendering its

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

. Gecko is also used by Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and many non-Mozilla applications.

Rust

Rust Rust is an iron oxide, a usually reddish-brown oxide formed by the reaction of iron and oxygen in the catalytic presence of water or air moisture. Rust consists of hydrous iron(III) oxides (Fe2O3·nH2O) and iron(III) oxide-hydroxide (FeO( ...

is a compiled

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...

being developed by Mozilla Research. It is designed for safety, concurrency, and performance. Rust is intended for creating large and complex software which needs to be both safe against exploits and fast. Rust is being used in an experimental layout engine,

Servo Servo may refer to: Mechanisms * Servomechanism, or servo, a device used to provide control of a desired operation through the use of feedback ** AI servo, an autofocus mode ** Electrohydraulic servo valve, an electrically operated valve that c ...

, which was developed by Mozilla and Samsung. Servo is not used in any consumer-oriented browsers yet. However, the Servo project developers plan for parts of the Servo source code to be merged into Gecko, and Firefox, incrementally.

XULRunner

XULRunner XULRunner is a discontinued, packaged version of the Mozilla platform to enable standalone desktop application development using XUL, developed by Mozilla. It replaced the ''Gecko Runtime Environment'', a stalled project with a similar purpose. T ...

is a software platform and technology experiment by Mozilla, that allows applications built with the same technologies used by Firefox extensions (XPCOM, Javascript, HTML, CSS, XUL) to be run natively as desktop applications, without requiring Firefox to be installed on the user's machine. XULRunner binaries are available for the Windows, Linux and OS X operating systems, allowing such applications to be effectively cross-platform.

pdf.js

Pdf.js PDF.js is a JavaScript library that renders Portable Document Format (PDF) files using the web standards-compliant HTML5 Canvas. The project is led by the Mozilla Corporation after Andreas Gal launched it (initially as an experiment) in 2011 ...

is a library developed by Mozilla that allows in-browser rendering of pdf documents using HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript. It is included by default in Firefox, allowing the browser to render pdf documents without requiring an external plugin; and it is available separately as an extension named "PDF Viewer" for Firefox for Android, SeaMonkey, and the Firefox versions which don't include it built-in. It can also be included as part of a website's scripts, to allow pdf rendering for any browser that implements the required HTML5 features and can run JavaScript.

Shumway

Shumway is a

replacement for the Adobe Flash Player, developed by Mozilla since 2012, using open web technologies as a replacement for Flash technologies. It uses Javascript and HTML5 Canvas elements to render Flash and execute Actionscript. It is included by default in Firefox Nightly and can be installed as an extension for any recent version of Firefox. The current implementation is limited in its capabilities to render Flash content outside simple projects.

Servo

Servo is a browser engine being developed for application and embedded use. In August 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, due to lack of funds and organization restructuring, Mozilla laid off most of the Servo development team. After the team was disbanded, Servo became part of the Linux Foundation, where development currently continues.

SOPS: Secrets OPerationS

sops is an editor of encrypted files that supports YAML, JSON, ENV, INI and BINARY formats and encrypts with AWS KMS, GCP KMS, Azure Key Vault, age, and PGP.

WebXR Viewer

WebXR Viewer is an AR viewer that lets a developer create and run AR experiences built with web technologies and ARKit.

Other activities

Mozilla VR

Mozilla VR is a team focused on bringing

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

(VR) tools, specifications, and standards to the open Web. Mozilla VR maintains A-Frame (VR), a web framework for building VR experiences, and works on advancing WebVR support within web browsers. On April 26, 2018, the first experiment from their Social Mixed Reality efforts was released
Hubs
a multi-user virtual space in WebVR.

Mozilla Persona

Mozilla Persona was a secure, cross-browser website

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicatin ...

mechanism which allowed a user to use a single username and password (or other authentication method) to log into multiple sites. Mozilla Persona shut down on November 30, 2016.

Mozilla Location Service

This

crowdsourced geolocation service was started by Mozilla in 2013 and offers a free

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

Webmaker

Mozilla Webmaker is Mozilla's educational initiative, and Webmaker's goal is to "help millions of people move from using the web to making the web." As part of Mozilla's non-profit mission, Webmaker aims "to help the world increase their understanding of the web, take greater control of their online lives, and create a more web literate planet."

MDN Web Docs

Mozilla maintains a comprehensive developer documentation website called the

MDN Web Docs MDN Web Docs, previously Mozilla Developer Network and formerly Mozilla Developer Center, is a documentation repository and learning resource for web developers. It was started by Mozilla in 2005 as a unified place for documentation about open web ...

which contains information about web technologies including

, CSS, SVG,

, as well as Mozilla-specific information. In addition, Mozilla publishes a large number of videos about web technologies and the development of Mozilla projects on the Air Mozilla website. This was renamed to MDN Plus.

Common Voice

In July 2017, Mozilla launched the project Common Voice to help make voice recognition open to everyone. Visitors to the website can donate their voice to help build a

voice recognition engine that anyone can use to make apps for devices and the web that make use of voice recognition. The website allows visitors to read a sentence to help the machine system learn how real people speak, as well as validate the read sentences of other people. Mozilla publishes Common Voice data sets under a CC-0 license.

IRL – Online Life Is Real Life

On June 26, 2017, Mozilla launched ''IRL – Online Life Is Real Life'' to explore popular stories from the web that deal with issues of the internet that affect society as a whole.

Controversies

Eich CEO promotion

In 2008,

donated US$1,000 in support of California's Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment in opposition to same-sex marriage. Eich's donation eventually became public knowledge in 2012, while he was Mozilla's chief technical officer, leading to angry responses on Twitter—including the use of the hashtag "#wontworkwithbigots". Controversy later re-emerged in 2014, following the announcement of Eich's appointment as CEO of Mozilla. U.S. companies

OkCupid OkCupid (often abbreviated as OKC, but officially OkC) is a U.S.-based, internationally operating online dating, friendship, and formerly also a social networking website and application. It features multiple-choice questions to match members. ...

and

CREDO Mobile CREDO Mobile (formerly Working Assets Wireless) is an American mobile virtual network operator headquartered in San Francisco, California. CREDO Mobile's mobile network operator is Verizon Wireless. CREDO Mobile had a five star privacy rating f ...

notably objected to his appointment, with the former asking its users to boycott the browser, while Credo amassed 50,000 signatures for a petition that called for Eich's resignation. Due to the controversy, Eich voluntarily stepped down on April 3, 2014, and

, executive chairwoman of Mozilla Corporation, posted a statement on the Mozilla blog: "We didn't move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. Mozilla believes both in equality and freedom of speech. Equality is necessary for meaningful speech. And you need free speech to fight for equality."

Push Notifications for Mozilla Blog without user consent

In July 2020 Mozilla forced push notifications, an advertisement for its own blog post about Facebook and Mozilla's ''#StopHateForProfit'' campaign. These notifications were sent without user consent and faced a backlash by Firefox users.

Mozilla and Meta (Facebook) partnership

In February 2022, Mozilla and Meta partnered to propose a privacy-preserving advertising technology. This faced a backlash on the internet because Mozilla partnered with the same company they were running a campaign against 2 years ago and given Meta's reputation, Mozilla was criticized for collaborating with them.

Community

The Mozilla Community consists of over 40,000 active contributors from across the globe. It includes both paid employees and volunteers who work towards the goals set forth in the Mozilla Manifesto. Many of the sub-communities in Mozilla have formed around localization efforts for Mozilla Firefox, and the Mozilla web properties.

Local communities

There are a number of sub-communities that exist based on their geographical locations, where contributors near each other work together on particular activities, such as localization, marketing, PR, and user support. In 2017, Mozilla created a Wireless Innovation for Network Security (WINS) challenge that awarded a total of $2 million in prize money to innovators who used its decentralized design to create wireless solutions for post-natural disaster internet access. This challenge also envisioned connecting communities that lacked internet access.

Mozilla Reps

The Mozilla Reps program is a volunteer-based program, which allows volunteers to become official representatives of Mozilla. Volunteers are required to be 18 years or older in order to participate in the program. Activities under the program include recruitment for contributors, workshops, and attending Mozilla summits.

Conferences and events

Mozilla Festival

The Mozilla Festival (MozFest) is a unique hybrid: part art, tech, and society convening, part maker festival, and the premiere gathering for activists in diverse global movements fighting for a more humane digital world. Journalists, coders, filmmakers, designers, educators, gamers, makers, youth, and anyone else, from all over the world, are encouraged to attend, with nearly 10,000 participating virtually in 2021 from more than 87 countries, working together at the intersection of human rights, climate justice, and technology, specifically trustworthy artificial intelligence. The event revolves around key issues based on the chosen theme for that year's festival. MozFest unfolds over the span of two weeks, with more than 500 interactive sessions, films, talks, round-tables, hack-a-thons, exhibits, and socials. Topics range from privacy best practices, developing solutions to online misinformation and harassment, building

tools, supporting Trustworthy AI innovations, and more. The titles of the festival revolve around the main theme, freedom, and the Web.

MozCamps

MozCamps are multi-day gatherings aimed at growing the contributor network by providing lectures, workshops, and breakout sessions led by Mozilla staff and volunteers. While these camps have been held in multiple locations globally in the past, none have occurred since 2014.

Mozilla Summit

Mozilla Summit was a global event with active contributors and Mozilla employees who collaborated to develop a shared understanding of Mozilla's mission together. Over 2,000 people representing 90 countries and 114 languages gathered in Santa Clara, Toronto, and Brussels in 2013. Mozilla had its last Summit in 2013 and replaced them with smaller all-hands where both employees and volunteers come together to collaborate.

References

External links

*, includin
the Mozilla Manifesto
* * Mozilla Wiki * /hg.mozilla.org/ Mozilla Mercurial Repository {{Portal bar, Free and open-source software 1998 establishments in the United States Netscape Projects established in 1998