Even if you don’t use Firefox as your web browser of choice, there’s no denying that it has profoundly impacted the Web over its lifetime. Just how long has its lifetime been, you ask? Well, as of today, Firefox is 15 years old.
Firefox 1.0 was released on this day (November 9th) in 2004, two years after the first public builds became available under the name “Phoenix.” The browser’s lineage actually dates back much farther than that, as Firefox was an open-source continuation of Netscape Navigator, which had its first initial release in 1994.
A lot has changed in the last 15 years.
What hasn’t is our commitment to creating an open, diverse and secure internet. https://t.co/OMfzKZ509W
— Firefox ? (@firefox) November 8, 2019
? Happy 15h birthday @firefox ?
Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9th, 2004. The scrappy alternative to Internet Explorer 6 (☠️) had revolutionary features such as tabbed browsing (!), popup blocking, themes, and extensions. ?
It changed the world. Really, it did ?? pic.twitter.com/LekBwUtF9T
— Changelog (@changelog) November 9, 2019
Firefox has seen accelerated development over the past few years, especially with ‘Project Quantum,’ the ongoing effort to rewrite parts of the engine in the super-fast Rust programming language. The Android version is undergoing a complete transformation at the moment, currently available as ‘Firefox Preview‘ on the Play Store.
Happy birthday Firefox, and here’s to the next 15 years! ?