{"id":62877,"date":"2017-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/foxtail\/2017\/07\/14\/browser-built-with-love-sweat-volunteers\/"},"modified":"2017-07-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T00:00:00","slug":"browser-built-with-love-sweat-volunteers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/en\/firefox\/browser-built-with-love-sweat-volunteers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Browser Built with Love, Sweat & Volunteers"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a fan of Firefox, then you probably didn\u2019t come across our web browser by chance. (And if you\u2019re not a fan yet, let\u2019s get you there.)<\/p>\n

Maybe you heard about our beginning as the original open source browser or as the indie spin-off to Netscape back in the late 90s. Or perhaps you\u2019re just not the kind to buy into the mainstream idea that whatever is biggest must be best.<\/p>\n

Firefox was built to serve as the original\u00a0alternative<\/a> to the status quo,\u00a0AKA the Big Guys. Through the past two decades, we\u2019ve stood up to corporate interests and even to governments<\/a> to safeguard the internet as a public resource that should be open and accessible to all. Today, our focus on remaining free and nimble gives us a competitive edge as giants continue to rise around us. Like our Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker once said<\/a>, \u201c[Google] certainly has resources that dwarf many of ours. Except our community.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That community makes us who we are. Did you know that Firefox is still built on code contributed by volunteer engineers from all over the world and passionate users who\u2019ve translated the browser into 94 local languages<\/em>? And unlike most tech organizations of our size and reach, our parent company Mozilla is a nonprofit, so we started indie and stayed that way.<\/p>\n

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Our folks clearly have a fierceness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s an undercurrent of online-offline synergy, too, where our community spreads the love not just on the web, but in real life. For example, take the infamous Firefox Crop Circle<\/a> masterminded by two Mozilla video interns back in 2006. Along with our own Asa Dotzler<\/a>, they recruited an enthusiastic team of twelve made up of Firefox fans from Oregon State University, and together they plotted to stomp down oats\u2014across 220 feet\u2014in an unharvested field to show their allegiance in a huge, can\u2019t-miss-it-if-you-tried, kind of way.<\/p>\n

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A crop circle depicting the Firefox logo masterminded by Mozilla interns and Oregon State University students near Amity, Oregon (2006) | Photo by Beth Gordon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have also been other totally word of mouth-driven campaigns, like \u201cDownload Day\u201d<\/a> when Firefox fans set a Guinness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours. (This was before the time of auto-updates when you had to manually download the latest Firefox.) The result? Over 8 MILLION downloads of Firefox thanks to people who give a damn about the world wide web.<\/p>\n

Even our former CEO John Lilly weighed in on the power of Firefox volunteers on the podcast,\u00a0Masters of Scale<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

There’s a guy I remember from Ulaanbaatar, who translated Firefox into Mongolian. He did it because if he hadn’t done it, his parents \u2013 who only spoke Mongolian \u2013 wouldn’t have been able to understand software to access the internet. These [volunteers] do it as a labor of love. Volunteers, in many ways, are more powerful than professionals because they do it despite all the challenges and all the hard parts.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Ex @Mozilla<\/a> CEO John Lilly: In many ways, #volunteers<\/a> are more powerful than professionals. Hear the episode in full https:\/\/t.co\/Mj81yOEuUa<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/VmH9nRAmfx<\/a><\/p>\n

— Masters of Scale (@mastersofscale) June 14, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n