Firefox, Internet Explorer nemesis, turns five

Not surprisingly, Firefox isn't willing to bask in its past glory and aims to make new breakthroughs that offer users more enjoyable web browsing experience.

"With additional entrants, most notably Google and Apple, joining the fray there's a massive amount of competition in the browser market that is fueling constant innovation and envelope pushing, from speed and features to the development of the mobile browser," Mozilla said in a statement.

"Five years ago today, Mozilla launched Firefox 1.0 with belief that, as the most significant social and technological development of our time, the Internet is a public resource that must remain open and accessible to all," said company spokesperson Sarah Doherty in an official blog post. "From your desktop to your mobile device, Mozilla is committed to building an open and participatory Internet. We've come so far in the past five years and we're incredibly excited about the next five."

According to Chris Blizzard of the Mozilla Foundation, a fourth major upgrade to Firefox will be released towards the end of this year or in early 2010 along with a mobile version of the browser called Fennec.

"Over the last five years we have been setting ourselves up for the next five. The web is moving faster, not slower, and modern browsers are set to handle it," Blizzard said.

"The modern browser is built for the future of web applications - super-fast JavaScript, modern CSS, HTML 5, support Relevant Products/Services for the various web-apps standards, downloadable font support, offline application support, raw graphics through canvas and WebGL, native video, advanced XHR capabilities mixed with new security Relevant Products/Services tools, and network capabilities," he said.

"Expect to see big changes in the video space. HTML5-based video and open video codecs are starting to appear on the web as web developers make individual choices to support a standards-based, royalty-free approach. Expect to see changes in the expectations around the licensing of codecs," he added.

Blizzard also took a jibe at Microsoft, saying, "We've managed to keep Microsoft honest and forced them to release newer versions of their browsers."