
The correct abbreviation for Firefox is ‘Fx’, not ‘FF’ - mathias
http://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-US/firefox/releases/1.5.html#FAQ
======
etfb
As another commenter here pointed out, it's _preferred_ , not _correct_. This
is the old prescriptivist vs descriptivist debate, as seen among linguists.
(Disclaimer: I am not a linguist. I just read Language Log.) If you're
fretting about the correct this and the proper that (prepositions at the end
of sentences, "whom" instead of "who", and so on), you're a prescriptivist,
and you may (note, I said _may_ ) be making up rules where no rules are
needed. I prefer descriptivism (as in: "nauseous" now means the same thing as
"nauseated", which is different from its old meaning of "nausea-making",
because that's how it's used).

(Edit: "different to" sounded wrong. I could never remember which way that
goes.)

~~~
dantheta
As an aside to your edit, I have also seen "different than" used more and more
often of late. I'm not sure if it is an Americanism that I was just unaware
of. It's not that "different than" is wrong, it's just different from what I'm
used to!

~~~
etfb
In Year Eight at school, I had an English teacher who liked to mix things up a
little. One time, I was answering a question in class, and I used "different
to" or "different from" or something -- maybe even "different than", I don't
remember now. The teacher told me to stand up, then explained that there was a
right form and a wrong form for this, and got everyone to pick sides -- "than"
here, "from" there and "to" over there. Then I bamboozled him, because I
noticed that the smartest girl in the class, a gorgeous lass who gloried in
the surname of Snodgrass, had picked a different side, so I reasoned that she
was more likely right and defected to the same group. The teacher was deeply
annoyed that I apparently didn't have the courage of my convictions; my point,
which I understood instinctively even at that age, was that embarrassing a
student to make a point was a totally shit way to educate people, and if he
was going to place such a high premium on game playing in class, he could call
me Kobayashi Maru.

To this day, I still can't remember which is correct - "than", "from" or "to".
But I can remember the look on his face, and the fact that after that he stuck
with slightly less aggravating teaching methods.

------
ozh
The whole planet says "FF". This makes it de facto the
correct/preferred/official abbr

------
sheraz
I think they need to change their FAQ. I've never seen it abbreviated as Fx --
only as FF.

~~~
yati
Agreed FF is more popular than Fx, but Firefox OS is mostly abbreviated as
FxOS[which IMO is much cooler than FFOS]

------
abdias
The FAQ says _preferred_ not correct though. But it feels unnatural. Having
media background FX for me at least means "effects" (as in special effects).
Firefox may be written as a single word but there are two words in there and
the natural way would be FF IMO. I have seen someone use Fx once and it
confused the heck out of me... sorry Mozilla, I will use FF..

~~~
arcatek
Depending on the context, FF can also mean Final Fantasy.

~~~
brazzy
It can also mean a sexual practice. I'll leave it as an exercise for the kind
reader to figure out which one.

------
mahdavi
Searching "FX" on Google brings nothing related to Firefox, not a single link,
but "FF" brings Firefox download page. Sorry but I'm going to stick with FF.

------
restlessdesign
…and “GIF” is supposed to be pronounced “JIFF” …and “npm” doesn’t _really_
stand for “Node Package Manager”

 _sigh_

~~~
wlesieutre
From wikipedia:

 _Contrary to the belief of many, "npm" is not in fact an abbreviation for
"Node Package Manager." It is a recursive bacronymic abbreviation for "npm is
not an acronym." (If it was "ninaa", then it would be an acronym, and thus
incorrectly named.)_

So the author named it npm for node package manager, then wanted to sound
clever so he said it doesn't stand for that? He could just as easily called it
"aslkdjghasjklg" and said it's an abbreviated version of "aslkdjghasjklg is
not an acronym. And that would still be dumb.

It's like inventing a device to produce collimated beams of light, and then
naming it "laser" for "laser is not an acronym" when everyone knows what it
actually means.

~~~
naturalethic
Maybe you need to get your satire detector checked?

~~~
wlesieutre
Wikipedia is not really a place for satire.

------
davidgerard
I'm sure they'll convince everyone in the world before the end of time.

------
Derpdiherp
I don't think there's many situations where you'd have to abbreviate Firefox
anyway, it's not a large word to begin with. Internet Explorer as IE I can
understand, it's large and compounding it is useful - but we don't abbreviate
Opera or Chrome?

~~~
weavie
All the browsers could be abbreviated to COFFIE. if it wasn't for IE we'd have
a perfect acronym there. Darn IE messing things up again...

~~~
icebraining
Safari?

~~~
counterplex
COFFIES then. IE remains an offender.

------
CPLX
In related news they would prefer we use FrskQet instead of FAQ

------
notduncansmith
I wonder if they were inspired by Steve Wilhite (creator of the "jif").

~~~
robert_tweed
It's definitely going in the same file as that and mebibytes.

------
bruceb
FF is faster to type. I doubt most people who abbreviated it will change to
Fx.

~~~
wazari972
I think it's too late to expect any change, the webpage is from 2005, for FF
1.5 ;-)

------
digitalcreate
I'm looking through their bug reports and developer message boards all of the
time... and I've never seen anyone abbreviate it as anything other than "FF".

------
usingpond
Ugh, shut up, nobody cares. Hey, maybe start taking care of your God-awful
rendering engine and CPU cycles instead of wasting time on stuff like this?

------
rikkus
I use ffx, because unambiguity

~~~
edu
Final Fantasy X?

~~~
rikkus
Argh!

------
peapicker
Good luck with that, Mozilla.

------
otikik
Well, that page is wrong.

------
izietto
What about Fifx :)

------
mkesper
What was the point of showing this here?

