Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of 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 curr ...

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application 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 scr ...

released on June 17, 2008, by the

Mozilla Corporation The Mozilla Corporation 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 open-source developers, s ...

. Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the

Gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates. They range from . Geckos are unique among lizards ...

layout engine for displaying

web page A web page (or webpage) is a World Wide Web, Web document that is accessed in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages hyperlink, linked together under a common domain name. The term "web page" is therefore a metaphor of pap ...

s. This version fixes many bugs, improves standards compliance, and implements many new web

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

s compared to Firefox 2.0. Other new features include a redesigned

download manager A download manager is a type of software that manages the downloading of files from the Internet, which may be built into a web browser, or as a standalone program. Functions A download manager manages files being downloaded from the internet. ...

, a new "Places" system for storing bookmarks and

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

, and separate themes for different

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s. Firefox 3.0 had over 8 million unique downloads the day it was released. By July 2008, it held over 5.6% of the recorded

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 user a ...

. Estimates of Firefox 3.0's global market share were generally in the range of 4–5%, and then dropped as users migrated to Firefox 3.5 and later Firefox 3.6. Partially as a result of this, between mid-December 2009 and the end of January 2010, Firefox 3.5 was the most popular browser (when counting individual browser versions), passing

Internet Explorer 7 Windows Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) (codenamed Rincon) is a version of Internet Explorer, a web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on October 18, 2006. It was the first major update to the browser since 2001. It does not support ve ...

.Firefox 3.5 is world's most popular browser, StatCounter says
, Nick Eaton. seattlepi blogs. 2009-12-21. Retrieved 2009-12-22. Mozilla ended support for Firefox 3 on March 30, 2010, with the release of 3.0.19.

Development

Firefox 3.0 was developed under the codename ''

Gran Paradiso The Gran Paradiso () or Grand Paradis ( ) is a mountain in the Graian Alps in Italy, located between the Aosta Valley and Piedmont regions. It is located in Gran Paradiso National Park. Etymology The Italian toponym ''Gran Paradiso'' deriv ...

''. This, like other Firefox codenames, is the name of an actual place; in this case the seventh-highest mountain in the

Graian Alps The Graian Alps (Latin language, Latin:: ''Alpes Graiæ'' ; ; ) are a mountain range in the western part of the Alps, and the name of an Roman province, Antic Rome province. Etymology The name ''Graie'' comes from the ''Graioceli'' Celts, Celt ...

where they first came up with the idea. Planning began in October 2006, when the development team asked users to submit feature requests that they wished to be included in Firefox 3. The Mozilla Foundation released the first

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

on November 19, 2007, the second beta on December 18, 2007, the third beta on February 12, 2008, the fourth beta on March 10, 2008, and the fifth and final beta on April 2, 2008. The first

release candidate The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

was announced on May 16, 2008, followed by a second release candidate on June 4, 2008, and a third (differing from the second release candidate only in that it corrected a serious bug for Mac users) on June 11, 2008. Mozilla shipped the final release on June 17, 2008. On its release date, Firefox 3 was featured in popular culture, mentioned on ''

The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late night television, late-night Late-night talk show, talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December ...

'', among others.

Changes and features

Backend changes

One of the big changes in Firefox 3 is the implementation of

1.9, an updated layout engine. The new version fixes many bugs, improves standard compliance, and implements new web APIs. In particular, it makes Firefox 3 the first official release of a Mozilla browser to pass the Acid2 test, a standards-compliance test for web-page rendering. It also receives a better score on the Acid3 test than Firefox 2. Some of the new features are defined in the

WHATWG The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a community of people interested in evolving HTML and related technologies. The WHATWG was founded by individuals from Apple Inc., the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software, ...

HTML 5 specification, such as support for web-based protocol handlers, a native implementation of the getElementsByClassName method, support for safe message-passing with postMessage, and support for offline web applications. Other new features include APNG support, and EXSLT support. A new internal memory allocator, jemalloc, is used rather than the default

libc The C standard library, sometimes referred to as libc, is the standard library for the C programming language, as specified in the ISO C standard.ISO/ IEC (2018). '' ISO/IEC 9899:2018(E): Programming Languages - C §7'' Starting from the origina ...

one. Gecko 1.9 uses

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

as a graphics backend, allowing for improved graphics performance and better consistency of the look and feel on various operating systems. Because of Cairo's lack of support for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

Windows ME Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...

, and

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

(versions 4.0 and below), and because

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

ended support for Windows 98 and Windows ME on July 11, 2006, Firefox 3 does not run on those operating systems. Similarly, the Mac version of Firefox 3 runs only on

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

10.4 or higher, but, unlike previous versions, has a native Cocoa widget interface.

Frontend changes

As for the frontend changes, Firefox features a redesigned download manager with built-in search and the ability to resume downloads. Also, a new plug-in manager is included in the add-ons window and extensions can be installed with a

package manager A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

Microformat Microformats (μF) are predefined HTML markup (like HTML classes) created to serve as descriptive and consistent metadata about elements, designating them as representing a certain type of data (such as contact information, geographic coor ...

s are supported for use by software that can understand their use in documents to store data in a machine-readable form. The

password manager A password manager is a software program to prevent password fatigue by Random password generator, automatically generating, Autofill, autofilling and storing Password, passwords. It can do this for Application software, local applications or web ...

in Firefox 3 asks the user if they would like it to remember the password after the

login In computer security, logging in (or logging on, signing in, or signing on) is the process by which an individual gains access to a computer system or program by identifying and authenticating themselves. Typically, user credential ...

attempt rather than before. By doing this users are able to avoid storing an incorrect password in the password manager after a bad login attempt. Firefox 3 uses a "Places" system for storing bookmarks and history in an

SQLite SQLite ( "S-Q-L-ite", "sequel-ite") is a free and open-source relational database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it ...

backend. The new system stores more information about the user's history and bookmarks, in particular letting the user tag the pages. It is also used to implement an improved frecency-based algorithm for the new location bar auto-complete feature (dubbed the "Awesomebar"). The Mac version of Firefox 3 supports

Growl Growling is a low, guttural vocalization produced by predatory animals; producing ''growls''. Growling or growl may also refer to: Sounds * Death growl, the dominant singing style in death metal music * Stomach rumble, Stomach growl, or borborygm ...

notifications, the Mac OS X spell checker, and Aqua-style form controls.

Themes

To give the browser a more native look and feel on different operating systems, Firefox 3 uses separate themes for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

, and

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

. When running on

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

, Firefox 3 displays icons from the environment; thus, when the desktop environment icon theme changes, Firefox follows suit. Additional icons were also made to be used when no appropriate icon exists; these were made following the

Tango Desktop Project The Tango Desktop Project was an Open-source software, open-source initiative to create a set of design guidelines and to provide a consistent user experience for applications on desktop environments. The project created a set of Icon (computi ...

guidelines. Additionally, the GTK version has replaced the non-native tab bar that was implemented in Firefox 2.0 and instead uses the native GTK+ tab style. The default icons and icon layout for Firefox 3 also changed dramatically, taking on a keyhole shape for the forward and back buttons by default on two of the three platforms. However, the keyhole shape does not take effect in Linux or in the small-icon mode. The Iconfactory created the icons for the Microsoft Windows platform. In addition, separate icons sets are displayed for Windows XP and Vista.

Breakpad

Breakpad
(previously called "Airbag") is an open-source crash reporter utility which replaced the proprietary Talkback. It has been developed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and Mozilla, and used in Firefox and Thunderbird. This product is significant because it is the first open-source multi-platform crash reporting system. During development, Breakpad was first included May 27, 2007 in Firefox 3 trunk builds on Windows NT, Mac OS X, and, weeks later, on Linux. Breakpad replaced Talkback (also known as the Quality Feedback Agent) as the crash reporter used by the

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

software to report crashes of its products to a centralized

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides requested information for other programs or devices, called clients. Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending custome ...

for aggregation or case-by-case analysis. Talkback was

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

licensed to the Mozilla Corporation by SupportSoft.

Usage

Net Applications noted that the use of Firefox 3 beta rapidly increased to a usage share of 0.62% in May 2008. They interpreted this increase to mean that Firefox 3 betas were stable and that users were using it as their primary browser. Within 24 hours after the release of Firefox 3.0, usage rose from under 1% to over 3% according to Net Applications. It reached a peak of 21.17% in April 2009 before declining as users switched to Firefox 3.5 and later Firefox 3.6.

Guinness World Record

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 was June 17, 2008, named "Download Day 2008". Firefox was aiming to set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours. Download Day officially started at 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

) on June 17. With the announced date, the download day was June 18 for

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

s greater than GMT +6, which includes half of

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and all of

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. The large number of users attempting to access the Mozilla website on June 17 caused it to become unavailable for at least a few hours, and attempts at upgrading to the new version resulted in server timeouts. The site was not updated for the download of Firefox 3 until 12:00 PDT (19:00 UTC), two hours later than originally scheduled. Firefox 3 Downloads

When "Download Day" ended at 11:16 AM PDT (18:16 UTC) June 18, 8,249,092 unique downloads had been recorded. On July 2 Mozilla announced they had won the record, with 8,002,530 unique downloads and parties in over 25 countries. As of July 7, 2008, more than 31 million people had downloaded Firefox 3. Gareth Deaves, Records Manager for

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

, complimented Mozilla, saying, "Mobilizing over 8 million internet users within 24 hours is an extremely impressive accomplishment and we would like to congratulate the Mozilla community for their hard work and dedication."

Operating System support

Firefox 3 runs on

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

and later, and on Windows 98 and ME with the third-party Kernel Extender installed.

Critical response

While the new functionality of the location bar, dubbed the "Awesomebar", was overall well-received, there were those who did not like it due to

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 fro ...

and performance changes, so much that extensions were made to revert it. Firefox 3 received CNET Editors' Choice in June 2008.