The mission of the Mozilla Foundation is to improve and protect the Internet as a public commons, by working with thousands of volunteers to (1) keep the Internet a universal platform and (2) promote continued innovation on the Internet.

The Mozilla Foundation improves and protects the Internet as a public commons by working with thousands of volunteers to (1) keep the Internet a universal platform accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and (2) promote the continuation of the innovation on the Internet. It does this by creating technology and sharing ideas that keep the internet open.

Specifically, the Mozilla Foundation runs programs designed to make the Web more accessible, fuel innovation and facilitate education about open source and the open Internet. it also supports the broader Mozilla community by managing the www.mozilla.org web site, maintaining the ground-breaking Mozilla community governance structure and making grants to independent community organizations such as Mozdev. This community includes thousands of people and organizations who develop their own open source software using Mozilla technologies, including tools for students, researchers and people with disabilities.

In addition to these programs, the Mozilla Foundation makes significant contributions to the civic, scientific and educational value of the Internet through the work of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, the Mozilla Corporation and the newly created Mozilla Messaging, Inc. These organizations develop the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, highly-complex open source software programs that are created with contributions from thousands of volunteers and are available for free to anyone anywhere.

Firefox and Thunderbird help over 300 million people fully benefit from the Internet. They are of particular value to people whose native language is not English. In 2008, Firefox was available in 60+ languages including Basque (~1 million speakers), Icelandic (~320,000 speakers), and Irish Gaelic ( ~1.6 million speakers). Firefox is often the only way that people in small language groups like these can access the Internet in their native tongue.