The company also takes into account its impact on the internet through its web technologies. It also places great value on the contributions to standards that it has made all the while. The company also sees how it works to protect its users while they use the internet.

Web technologies

Mozilla has always built technologies that would be beneficial for the entire ecosystem of the internet. The company believes that the web benefits largely from the support provided by open technologies and the browser. It has extended the capabilities of JavaScript with asm.js, SIMD, WebAssembly, and other technologies. 

In this way, the company has successfully demonstrated the key role of Mozilla as a steward of the internet. Today, every major browser vendor supports optimizations of asm.js and they’ve announced that they would support WebAssembly. It was Mozilla that pioneered WebGL, the standard of the web for 3D graphics. The company is currently working on WebGL2. 

This would bring additions and improvements in order to help developers in creating amazing visuals on the web. One of the biggest game engines in the world called ‘Unity’ made WebGL an officially supported platform. Mozilla played an important role in creating the WebRTC specification. It allows real-time communication over the internet. 

Mozilla’s influence is demonstrated by it being secure by default and allowing implementations that are free and open. The company has worked with Cisco to develop OpenH264. It made the world’s most popular and patented video codec available to open-source projects for free. Today, Mozilla is working to develop a completely free, next-generation video codec called ‘Dallas. 

It has also been submitted to the IETF for standardization. The company is also pioneering a new language called ‘Rust’. It provides language features for safe parallelism. Rust is also free of several issues of security that have plagued the browsers written in the C++ language. This was done upon realizing that the future of the internet would need security and high performance.

Security and privacy

Mozilla has always believed that the privacy and security of an individual on the internet are fundamental. The company also believes that this must not be treated as something that is optional. For this reason, Mozilla has made significant contributions towards creating an online experience that’s more secure. 

A new Certificate Authority called “Let’s Encrypt” was co-founded by the company. It was founded with the intention of bringing security to every website on the internet. Firefox on Android became the first mobile web browser to provide protection from malware and phishing. 

The company has played a key role in designing and developing internet protocols. In recent times, it has worked with several stakeholders to design and build HTTP/2. It is a new revision of the protocol that powers the internet. HTTP/2 has been designed for speed and security.

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The users can customize the browser based on their requirements. It is this particular aspect of the browser that made it immensely popular over the years. To load web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine with updated web standards. However, Gecko is not used in Firefox for iOS. 

This is owing to the restrictions placed by Apple. The third-party web browsers used with iOS must utilize the WebKit-based layout engine. This has been built into the iOS operating system. There are many interesting facts associated with Mozilla Firefox. Here are some of them:

1. It was initially named ‘Phoenix’

The Mozilla community members had created Firefox under the name ‘Phoenix’ in the year 2002. Rather than having a bundle of several Mozilla applications, they wanted a standalone browser. Firefox became popular with its testers even when it was in its beta phase. The web browser was praised for its security, add-ons, and speed. 

It was released in November 2004 and became immensely successful with 60 million downloads in 9 months. This challenged the popularity of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Since the Mozilla community was created by Netscape, this browser is considered to be the successor of Netscape Navigator.

2. Firefox 3.0 was named ‘Gran Paradiso’

While it was being created, Firefox 3.0 was called by the name ‘Gran Paradiso’. It is the name of the second-highest mountain group, situated in the Graian Alps. The Firefox development team had asked the browser’s users to submit ideas for features in Firefox 3 during 2006. 

The usage share of Firefox 3 had increased to 23.75% in September 2009 according to NetApplications. It was considered as a sign of Firefox 3’s stability. It also meant that Firefox was being used by many as their main browser.

3. World record

The browser was launched with the aim to set the record for most Firefox downloads in 24 hours. Its launch date of June 17 2008 was named ‘Download Day 2008’. By June 18 2008 over 6.88 million users had downloaded Firefox 3. 

The Mozilla website was unavailable for a few hours as many people were accessing the site on June 17. The website couldn’t be updated for the download of the browser until 12:00 PDT. As a result, the ‘Download Day’ ended on June 18 at 11:16 am PDT.

4. Global usage

The worldwide usage of Firefox grew to 32% towards the end of 2009. Its popularity began to decline after Google Chrome was released. In the year 2016, the worldwide usage of Firefox as a desktop browser was between 9% and 16%. This made it the second most popular web browser in the world. 

Firefox continues to enjoy massive popularity in countries such as Eritrea, Cuba, and Germany. According to Mozilla, the number of users of Firefox in December 2017 was 170 million. With the gradual decline of Internet Explorer, Firefox reached a second place as a desktop browser in April 2018.

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In their quest for such avenues, they’re trying to reach out to regions where smartphones are not widely used. A new operating system for mobile phones called KaiOS is being considered to be a key solution. It has even left behind iOS in terms of usage in certain countries.

About KaiOS

Built on top of Boot to Gecko, KaiOS is an operating system for feature phones. Boot to Gecko is a community-based successor of Firefox OS. Since KaiOS is a platform that’s web-based, it doesn’t require a lot of power to operate. It also has a minimum requirement of 256 MB. 

The operating system seeks to bring modern apps to individuals who’ve never owned a smartphone. The interface of KaiOS is designed for phones with physical keys and non-touch screens. In order to enable users to access the internet, it offers all the connectivity options. 

They include 4G/LTE, dual-SIM compatibility, NFC for payments, and Wi-Fi. The manufacturers making KaiOS-powered phones don’t need to worry about including high-end specifications in them. As a result, their phones can be priced aggressively to ensure maximum sales.

How KaiOS is different

KaiOS grew in popularity among several tech companies owing to its HTML5 app store. It allows developers to create powerful web-based apps for KaiOS easily. Most of the other feature phones come with proprietary Java-based software. So, in order to create dedicated apps, they demand more resources. 

KaiOS also has an open environment. It is available across the world from several brands, such as Nokia, Alcatel, and more. All that the companies need to do is simply create an app. They can then upload it to the KaiOS app store for widespread distribution in emerging markets.

Apps supported by KaiOS

The app store of KaiOS has tens of titles. You might be familiar with some of them. Such apps don’t offer the same set of functionality as they do on smartphones. You’ll find only the basics of those apps covered in this case. For example, you can’t live-stream from Facebook or Twitter by using KaiOS. 

Its store also has a handful of other generic apps. All of them have been developed by KaiOS itself. The best examples are KaiWeather for checking the weather and QR Reader for scanning codes.

The target customers for KaiOS

KaiOS has been developed primarily for the entry-level segment. It has been developed for places where smartphones have still not gone mainstream. The operating system is also meant for customers with lower literacy. They’re the ones who find it difficult to navigate on touchscreen phones. The apps that have been made available are the ones that can be operated through physical buttons. 

Phones with KaiOS can be an excellent alternative for those who want to get rid of their smartphone addiction. They can also be good for children. The small display of KaiOS phones would be too boring for them to keep staring at constantly. The elderly people would also find KaiOS phones appealing. They can use the apps without getting constant alerts and pop-ups.

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