Mozilla

The bottom line: Firefox 9 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Please note that the First Look video below is still applicable to Firefox 9, as is this Firefox How To collection, even though it features Firefox 4.

Review: For those of you who spent 2011 away from the Internet, it's the year that Firefox went from annual major-point updates to a Chrome-style quick-release cycle. How quick? A new major version number … Read more

Don't let the StatCounters and the NetApplications of the world fool you: despite stagnant and even slightly negative market share growth, Firefox and its default search box is still extremely valuable to Google.

How valuable? The three-year default search deal that Firefox's nonprofit parent company, Mozilla, just inked with Google is worth nearly $300 million per year, according to unnamed sources who spoke to AllThingsD.

In a statement to AllThingsD, Google's senior vice president of search, Alan Eustace, said: "Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing … Read more

Although Mozilla has never limited its stated goals to merely building an open-source browser, there's no doubt that Firefox has been the highest-profile project from the Mozilla Foundation.

But now, with skyrocketing mobile connectivity and Google's shockingly fast ascent in the browser world, Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher restated yesterday what the nonprofit organization is about, where it's going, and why you should care.

Ascher noted that the first few years of the Mozilla mission have borne useful fruit. Internet Explorer may still be dominant, but it doesn't command anywhere near as much of the market … Read more

Mozilla is laying claim to big performance improvements for Firefox 9, while Firefox for Android goes in for a shave and a haircut as it gets an entirely different look. Both desktop and Android updates are being released today.

Firefox 9 (download for Windows | Mac | Linux | Android) continues the browser's rapid-release development oscillation, where feature enhancements and performance improvements take the lead in alternating months.

The JavaScript improvement called Type Inference, which Mozilla spent more than a year developing, debuts on the PC version of Firefox. The short version is that sites that heavily rely on JavaScript--like Web apps … Read more

Mozilla, the maker of of Firefox, today announced that it has struck a new three-year deal with Google in which Google will remain the default search engine in the browser.

The financial terms were not disclosed, but reaching a new deal with Google has been seen as critical for Mozilla, a Silicon Valley nonprofit software maker.

Mozilla, which is charged with defending openness on the Web, recently reported that Google provided the lion's share of Mozilla's $120 million in revenues in 2010. That was an 18 percent jump in revenue from 2009.

The last agreement between Mozilla and … Read more

If you've ever filled in a Web form, chances are you have experienced having the text you just entered get wiped out when the page freezes, unexpectedly reloads, or otherwise causes the form to reset. Here are three Firefox add-ons that let you replace this lost text with just a few clicks.

Of course, some of what you enter on Web sites shouldn't be retrievable. The Clear Form History add-on deletes all entries saved in a search box, sign-in field, or other text field. And to see at a glance the country hosting the current site's server … Read more

Mozilla and Google are renegotiating a deal by which Google shares ad revenue that results from searches the browser drives to its site.

The partnership, which Mozilla renewed in 2008 for three more year, was set to expire in November. With that deadline and a noncommittal comment from Mozilla, Ed Bott, who blogs at ZDNet, surmised in a headline: "Google deal apparently ends."

But apparently there's some wiggle room in the organizations' relationship and the Googlebucks are still making their way across Mountain View.

"We generally don't disclose specific terms of business agreements. We can … Read more

Mozilla has begun notifying Firefox 3.6 users that now is a good time to upgrade to Firefox 8.0.1--and to the browser's new fast-moving ethos.

The change had been planned for at least two other occasions in recent weeks, but Mozilla postponed it. And then yesterday, Mozilla flipped the switch so that when Firefox 3.6 checks with a server to find out if there's an update, it'll find the newest version of the browser.

"It's live, and users should see an update in the next 24 hours," said spokeswoman Erica Jostedt. … Read more

Thunderbird 8 arrived today, a new version of Mozilla's e-mail software that now is linked with the Firefox rapid-release program.

Thunderbird 8 is built using the same Gecko 8 browser engine that's used in Firefox 8, also released today. Notably, the new version is accompanied by Lightning 1.0, an add-on under development for years that gives Thunderbird a calendar module, too.

Thunderbird 8 also includes "improvements to attachment handling and accessibility, updated Search and Find shortcuts, and several security, and stability fixes," according to a blog post by Mozilla's Rafael Ebron.

The Lightning add-on … Read more