Happy Ninth Birthday Firefox!

I am an avid Mozilla Firefox user and it's my pleasure to write about its 9th birthday on November 9, 2013. That's tomorrow!

Firefox is an amazingly fun, safe and fast Web browser that embodies the values of Mozilla's mission to promote openness, innovation and opportunity online. In the nine years since they first launched Firefox, they were able to move and shape the Web into the most valuable public resource of our time.

As an avid user of Firefox, I join the global community of Mozillians to start the celebration of Firefox’s golden ninth birthday on November 9. 

Let's look at the benefits that Mozilla gave the Web over the past year.

• Firefox in Mobile: Mozilla developed Firefox to support not just Windows, Mac and Linux, but also Android phones and tablets. Firefox for Android Web browser consistently offer users an amazing browsing experience, receives 4.5 stars in the Google Play Store and has been downloaded millions of times.
• Growing the Firefox Family: Mozilla also expanded the Firefox family this year with the birth and launch of the first ever Firefox OS smartphones – devices based entirely on open Web technologies. To date, they have launched Firefox OS in nine countries and have thousands of apps in the Firefox Marketplace.
• Speedy: Firefox is faster than ever before. They beat last year’s Kraken scores by 74%, and they’re 88% faster on Octane. Web Apps and games are 25 percent faster due to their JavaScript improvements and a new technology called asm.js. And, Tom’s Hardware recently named Firefox “the new speed king” and winner of the Web Browser Grand Prix due to startup times, page load times and reliability.
• Social: Mozilla is working on ways to integrate social sites and services directly into Firefox to quickly and easily connect you with your friends and family. Last year, they  launched with Facebook as the first Firefox social integration partner. Soon after that they added Cliqz, and Mixi and are working with more social sites, services and apps to make browsing experience more social, customizable and personal.
• Private: Mozilla is named the Most Trusted Internet Company for Privacy in 2012, according to a study performed by the Ponemon Institute. They just launched the Lightbeam Firefox Add-on, which brings to light the array of first and third party companies people interact with everyday across the Web in a visual way.
• Secure: Mixed Content Blocker in Firefox keep you secure, wherever you surf the Web. Firefox includes Click to Play plugins. By allowing you to decide which sites need to use plugins, Firefox will help protect them and keep their browser running smoothly.
• The Best Developer Tools: Firefox now boasts a robust set of tools for Web developers for editing and debugging HTML, CSS and JavaScript on the desktop and on mobile. Recent highlights include: the App Manager; Responsive Design View, Network Monitor; Page Inspector; and the JavaScript Debugger.
• WebRTC: Firefox enables video calls and file-sharing directly in the browser, all without the need for plugins or third-party software with Web Real Time Communications.
• Innovations in Web Gaming: Over the last year, Mozilla developers and engineers have been hard at work to make the Web the platform for high end game development, one of the last challenges to show the Web is a real development platform. They developed a supercharged subset of JavaScript called asm.js that enables developers to create high-intensity applications, like games, directly on the Web. The Web Audio API was added to Firefox and completed the Web as an amazing platform for gaming.

There are some exciting things coming soon including an updated browser interface and Firefox optimized for Windows 8 tablets. I can’t wait to see what other new innovations come to the Web in the next year! 

Join in on Twitter to celebrate Firefox. Tweet the hashtag #HappyBirthdayFirefox with your favorite Firefox memory or feature all week.