Fantastic Mr Firefox

Nick Peers takes a trip down memory lane to reveal the story behind the rise - and slight fall - of Mozilla's popular web browser.

- Nick Peers

The last decade may not have been kind to Firefox and its parent Mozilla, but there’s no denying it’s still a vitally  important cog in the web browser marketplace. Google doesn’t simply dominate the market with its Chrome browser, it’s also got fingers in virtually every other browser out there. Whether you’re using Opera, Vivaldi or even Microsoft’s Edge browser, you’re actually using the same underlying browser engine – Google’s Blink – as used by Chrome and its open-source brother, Chromium.

While Apple continues to plough its own furrow, powering Safari and all web browsers on the iPhone and iPad through its own WebKit engine, those of us who naturally detest large monopolies have just one holdout to turn to, and that’s Firefox. It continues to develop its own browser engine – Gecko – and for that reason alone you should consider giving it a spin if you’re not already using it. But there’s more to choosing Firefox than a simple desire to stand up to the big boys: Gecko and its own variant, Goanna, are favoured by a number of privacy-focussed browsers, including Tor and Pale Moon, for its strong security and privacy credentials.

So, while Firefox and Mozilla continue to overcome setbacks and dwindling popularity, we’re keen to celebrate its continuing mission, which has barely changed since the days it emerged to take on another behemoth. Discover where Firefox came from, how it’s developed over the years, what off-shoots (successful or otherwise) it’s inspired, and where Mozilla plans to take it next.