Actually, Firefox was developed by the Mozilla project, which became the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit. For about ten years, Mozilla’s programmers and many independent programmers have developed and refined Firefox, the Netscape browser, a variety of other browsers, development tools and more.

The purpose of the non-profit is to keep the web in the public sphere. So much of the internet is dominated by corporations, commercialism and junk. The idea was to spread control of the programming to many programmers rather than allow the internet to be dominated by a handful of for-profit corporations.

As a non-profit, Firefox presumably does not pay business taxes, and it has the ability to recruit donations that are tax-deductible for its donors. The Mozilla Foundation is supported by other non-profits, private foundations and companies who seem to share its community-building vision.

By establishing itself as a non-profit organization, it is not forced to satisfy stock-holders. It does, however, have to adhere to the government’s strict guidelines for non-profit organizations.

Another important benefit to using Firefox is that it is less susceptible to an attack from a virus. Granted the security in Firefox is good, but much of security against virus attack simply is due to fewer viruses being programmed to infiltrate Firefox. Every time you hear about a new virus that infiltrates a browser, almost always it will be Internet Explorer. This is because this browser is so popular.

Internet Explorer on the other hand, comes with every new computer and people simply start using it right away. It is made to work with your computer and can be set up for use with the Internet quickly by anyone, regardless of their skills with a computer. Every website is compatible with Internet Explorer, and while it is becoming more rare, there are some websites that will not work with Firefox. Still, Firefox is the browser of choice for those who are computer and Internet savvy.

Firefox’s location bar is sometimes nicknamed “The Awesome Bar” because it gets you to where you want to go fast. It does this by “learning” as you use it. It begins to anticipate your preferences and then offers better suited matches. Firefox has even upped the ability to increase your control over the results of your searches and has provided better privacy settings. Overall the improvements seen in the lastest version of the Firefox browser is dramatically faster than the once mighty Internet Explorer.

In fact, since its inception, Internet Explorer has led the browser pack in terms of numbers of users. In just the last few years Firefox has taken off and millions more are using this browser. Much of this has to do with the search speed and number of convenient features the Firefox program has to offer.