In a short 5 year period of time, the open source web browser Mozilla Firefox has changed the way wew use the Internet, which has changed the Internet as a whole, which in turn has changed the world in many ways. Don’t believe me? Look at a few of these statistics:

• 1 billion downloads
• about 300 million users
• 70 languages
• 4000+ extensions
• 30,000+ personas
• 25% global market share

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The Firefox Effect

Simply put, if it were not for Firefox we could all very well be using the Internet Explorer browser from Microsoft. Microsoft without the competition of the Mozilla Firefox browser, would never have had a great motivation to improve the IE browser and we would all be stuck viewing the web with a buggy and low-functional web browser.

The technology of the browser enables us to increase the technology of the web applications that we build and use. Because Firefox has been an open source project, it has been able to grow, adapt, and change on a regular basis for the last 5 years. It’s safe to say that if this project was not open source, we would be stuck with a lower functioning web browser and we would be years behind where we are today in web technologies.

After seeing the progress of the Firefox browser over the last 5 years, I am excited to be a part of the efforts over the next 5 years. I cannot wait to see what changes we all collaborate to make and what technologies can be created. Understanding that Firefox only has 25% of the market share, there is still much room for growth and innovation. These next few years should be exciting!

To read more about the celebration of 5 years of Firefox go to spreadfirefox.com