Etymograph

English

Firefox

Renamed from Firebird in 2004.

A compound of fire + fox

Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥

…

Proto-Germanic *fuïr

Proto-West Germanic *fuir

Old English fȳr ‘fire’

Middle English fyr

English fire

Proto-Indo-European *púḱsos ‘the tailed one’

Proto-Germanic *fuhsaz ‘fox’

Proto-West Germanic *fuhs

Old English fox ‘fox’

Middle English fox

English fox

The story

Renamed from Firebird in 2004. The reasoning given for the name, explained as another name for the red panda (see firefox), was, “It's similar to Firebird. And we weren't able to find any other project or company even remotely similar to a web browser that uses the same name.” The logo depicts a fox (hence the name is equivalent to fire + fox); its original designer, Jon Hicks, has stated, “A firefox is actually a cute red panda, but it didn’t really conjure up the right imagery.

Today it means

name A free, open-source, cross-platform, graphical web browser, developed by the Mozilla Foundation.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Firefox

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