Firefox OS[4] (project name: Boot to Gecko, also known as B2G)[5] is a discontinued open-source operating system made for smartphones,[6] tablet computers,[7] smart TVs,[8] and dongles designed by Mozilla and external contributors.

[22] On July 25, 2011, Andreas Gal, Director of Research at Mozilla Corporation, announced the "Boot to Gecko" Project (B2G) on the mozilla.dev.platform mailing list.

[23][24] According to Ars Technica, "Mozilla says that B2G is motivated by a desire to demonstrate that the standards-based open Web has the potential to be a competitive alternative to the existing single-vendor application development stacks offered by the dominant mobile operating systems.

He characterized the current set of mobile operating systems as "walled gardens"[26] and presented Firefox OS as more accessible: "We use completely open standards and there’s no proprietary software or technology involved.

[27] These are intended W3C standards that attempt to bridge the capability gap that currently exists between native frameworks and web applications.

[citation needed] In July 2012, Boot to Gecko was rebranded as 'Firefox OS',[29] after Mozilla's well-known desktop browser, Firefox, and screenshots began appearing in August 2012.

[32] Mozilla announced at a press conference before the start of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the first wave of Firefox OS devices would be available to consumers in Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, Mexico, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Venezuela.

Mozilla also announced that LG Electronics, ZTE, Huawei and TCL Corporation had committed to making Firefox OS devices.

[33] In December 2013, new features were added with the 1.2 release, including conference calling, silent SMS authentication for mobile billing, improved push notifications, and three state settings for Do Not Track.

[citation needed] In 2015, Mozilla ported Firefox OS (an "experimental version") to MIPS32 to work in a sub-$100 tablet (that can also run Android 4.4 KitKat).

[11] In 2014, Gal announced a change in course, writing that future versions of the Firefox browser would include digital rights management (DRM).

[42] At Mobile World Congress 2012, Mozilla and Telefónica announced that the Spanish telecommunications provider intended to deliver "open Web devices" in 2012, based on HTML5 and these APIs.

[44] Mozilla demonstrated a "sneak preview" of the software and apps running on Samsung Galaxy S II phones (replacing their usual Android operating system).

[51] Mozilla has collaborated with four handset makers and five wireless carriers to provide five Firefox-powered smartphones in Europe and Latin America so far with cellphone launches being led by UK marketer John D. Bernard.

[54] Panasonic continues to develop the operating system for use in their Smart TVs, which run My Home Screen, powered by the Firefox OS.

Li Gong, the founder of the company, had overseen the development of Firefox OS while serving as president of Mozilla Corporation.

[68] The system brings support for 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, GPS, and HTML5-based apps onto non-touch devices with an optimized user interface, less memory usage, and longer battery life.

It follows the Firefox OS goal of providing a complete, community-based alternative operating system, that runs software as web applications.

[72] The decision was made, according to Ari Jaaksi and David Bryant, in order to "evolve quickly and enable substantial new architectural changes in Gecko, Mozilla’s Platform Engineering organization needs to remove all B2G-related code from mozilla-central.

[78][79] At the Mobile World Congress, Mozilla's CEO Gary Kovacs said that Firefox OS has the advantage that users need not install an app to use it.

[80] Janne Lindqvist, a mobile security researcher at the Rutgers University WINLAB, expressed concern about the discovery mechanism of a Web-based platform, but a Mozilla spokesperson stated that Mozilla required developers to "package downloadable apps in a zip file that has been cryptographically signed by the store from which it originated, assuring that it has been reviewed."