Write your name in the Firefox code

The Mozilla Foundation is offering to "immortalize" people's names in the code of Firefox, if they manage to persuade a friend to download its Web browser before Sept. 15.

To commemorate the three-year anniversary of the creation of the Mozilla Foundation on July 15, the open-source group announced that if a Firefox user persuades a friend to download the browser, both the user and the friend's names will be added to the source code of the next version of the browser, Firefox 2.0.

"Share Firefox with a friend. If your friend downloads Firefox before Sept. 15, you'll both be immortalized in Firefox 2," the Mozilla Foundation said in a statement.

Firefox has steadily gained market share since its launch in November 2004. According to recent statistics from Web analytics company OneStat, Firefox has a global usage share of 12.93 percent, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer's share has dropped to 83.05 percent of the market. Apple Computer's Safari browser has 1.84 percent global usage, while Opera has 1 percent.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.