SAN FRANSISCO, Calif., Nov. 9 (UPI) -- A San Francisco foundation launched the Firefox browser Tuesday as an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
The release of Firefox 1.0 by the Mozilla Foundation as a free download could further erode the market share of Internet Explorer, the BBC reported.
The browser can be found at mozilla.org/products/firefox.
In July the Internet Explorer-using population dropped to 94.7 percent, and by the end of October stood at 92.9 percent, and the foundation says Firefox, originally called Firebird, has been downloaded almost 8 million times.
The upstart browser is popular because it, currently at least, has far fewer security holes than Internet Explorer and also has some innovations lacking in Microsoft's program.
Firefox, for example, allows the pages of different Web sites to be arranged as tabs so users can switch easily between them. It blocks pop-ups, has a neat way of finding text on a page and lets you search through the pages you have browsed.
The foundation is an open source organization, meaning that the creators of the browser let others customize the core code of the program. This has resulted in many different add-ons or extensions.
