Firefox was built by a group of passionate developers, and has been supported by a dedicated community of caring contributors since day one.
The SUMO platform was originally built in 2007 to provide an open-source community support channel for users, and to help us collaborate more effectively with our volunteer contributors.
Over the years, SUMO has become a powerful platform that helps users get the most out of Firefox, provides opportunities for users to connect and learn more from each other, and allows us to gather important insights – all powered by our community of contributors.
SUMO is not just a support platform but a place where other like-minded users, who care about making the internet a better place for everyone, can find opportunities to grow their skills and contribute.
Our contributor community has been integral to Firefox’s success. Contributors humanize the experience across our support channels, champion meaningful fixes and changes, and help us onboard the next generation of Firefox users (and potential contributors!).
Fun facts about our community:
- We’re global! We have active contributors in 63 countries.
- 6 active contributors have been with us since day one (Shout outs to Cor-el, jscher2000, James, mozbrowser, AliceWyman, and marsf) and 16 contributors have been here for 15+ years!
- In 2024*, our contributor community responded to 18,390 forum inquiries, made 747 en-US revisions and 5,684 l10n revisions to our Knowledge Base, responded to 441 Tweets, and issued 1,296 Play Store review responses (*from Jan-Oct 2024 for Firefox desktop, Android, and iOS. Non OP and non staff)
Chart reflects top contributors for Firefox (Desktop, Android, and iOS)
Highlights from throughout the years:
Started in October 2007, SUMO has evolved in many different ways, but its spirit remains the same. It supports our wider user community while also allowing us to build strong relationships with our contributors. Below is a timeline of some key moments in SUMO’s history:
- 2 October 2007 – SUMO launched on TikiWiki. Knowledge Base was implemented in this initial phase, but article localization wasn’t supported until February 2008.
- 18 December 2007 – Forum went live
- 28 December 2007 – Live chat launched
- 5 February 2009 – SUMO logo was introduced
- 11 October 2010 – We expanded to Twitter (now X) supported by the Army of Awesome
- December 2010 – SUMO migrated from TikiWiki to Kitsune. The migration was done in stages and lasted most of 2010.
- 14 March 2021 – We expanded to take on Play Store support and consolidated our social support platforms in Conversocial/Verint
- 9 November 2024 – Our SUMO channels are largely powered by active contributors across forums, Knowledge Base and social
We are so grateful for our active community of contributors who bring our mission to life every day. Special thanks to those of you who have been with us since the beginning.
And to celebrate this milestone, we are going to reward top contributors (>99 contributions) for all products in 2024 with a special SUMO badge. Additionally, contributors with more than 999 contributions throughout SUMO’s existence and those with >99 contributions in 2024 will be given swag vouchers to shop at Mozilla’s swag stores.
Cheers to the progress we’ve made, and the incredible foundation we’ve built together. The best is yet to come!
P.S.Thanks to Chris Ilias for additional note on SUMO's history.