Firebase#Firebase Dynamic Links

Firebase evolved from Envolve, a prior startup founded by James Tamplin and Andrew Lee in 2011. Envolve provided developers an API that enables the integration of online chat functionality into their websites. After releasing the chat service, Tamplin and Lee found out that it was being used to pass application data that were not chat messages. Developers were using Envolve to sync application data such as game state in real time across their users. Tamplin and Lee decided to separate the chat system and the real-time architecture that powered it.{{Cite web |last=Melendez |first=Steven |date=May 27, 2014 |title=Sometimes You're Just One Hop From Something Huge |url=http://www.fastcolabs.com/3031109/sometimes-youre-just-one-hop-from-something-huge |access-date=June 11, 2014 |website=fastcompany |publisher=Fast Company |language=en-US}} They founded Firebase as a separate company in 2011 and it launched to the public in April 2012.{{Cite web |last=Metz |first=Cade |date=April 12, 2012 |title=Firebase Does for Apps What Dropbox Did for Docs |url=https://www.wired.com/2012/04/firebase/ |access-date=February 1, 2019 |publisher=Wired}}

Firebase's first product was the Firebase Realtime Database, an API that synchronizes application data across iOS, Android, and Web devices, and stores it on Firebase's cloud. The product assists software developers in building real-time, collaborative applications.

In May 2012, a month after the beta launch, Firebase raised $1.1 million in seed funding from venture capitalists Flybridge Capital Partners, Greylock Partners, Founder Collective, and New Enterprise Associates.{{Cite web|url = https://techcrunch.com/2012/05/22/firebase-funding//|title = Firebase Raises $1.1M For Real-Time App Infrastructure|date = May 22, 2012|access-date = Feb 1, 2019|publisher = TechCrunch|last = Ha|first = Anthony}} In June 2013, the company further raised $5.6 million in Series A funding from Union Square Ventures and Flybridge Capital Partners.{{Cite web|url = http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/firebase-gets-5-6m-to-launch-its-paid-product-and-fire-up-its-base/|title = Firebase gets $5.6M to launch its paid product and fire up its base|date = June 6, 2013|access-date = June 11, 2014|publisher = Gigaom|last = Darrow|first = Barb|archive-date = May 4, 2014|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140504144149/http://gigaom.com/2013/06/20/firebase-gets-5-6m-to-launch-its-paid-product-and-fire-up-its-base/|url-status = dead}}

In 2014, Firebase launched two products: Firebase Hosting{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2014/05/13/firebase-adds-web-hosting-to-its-database-platform/|title=Firebase Adds Web Hosting To Its Database Platform|date=May 13, 2014|first=Frederic|last=Lardonis|access-date=2019-02-01}} and Firebase Authentication.{{Cite web|url=https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth/|title=Firebase Auth|publisher=Firebase, Inc.|access-date=May 19, 2016}} This positioned the company as a mobile backend as a service.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}}

In October 2014, Firebase was acquired by Google.{{cite web|url=https://firebase.googleblog.com/2014/10/firebase-is-joining-google.html|title=Firebase is Joining Google!|publisher=Firebase, Inc|author=Tamplin, James|access-date=October 22, 2014}} A year later, in October 2015, Google acquired Divshot, an HTML5 web-hosting platform, to merge it with the Firebase team.{{cite web|url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/13/google-acquires-divshot-to-join-its-firebase-team-will-shut-down-in-december |title=Google Acquires Divshot To Join Its Firebase Team, Will Shut Down In December|publisher=TechCrunch|author=Olanoff, Drew|date=13 October 2015 |access-date=Feb 1, 2019}}

In May 2016, at Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference, Google introduced Firebase Analytics and announced that it was expanding its services to become a unified backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform for mobile developers. Firebase now integrates with various other Google services, including Google Cloud Platform, AdMob, and Google Ads to offer broader products and scale for developers.{{cite web |url=https://firebase.googleblog.com/2016/05/firebase-expands-to-become-unified-app-platform.html |title=Firebase expands to become a unified app platform |publisher=Firebase, Inc |author=Tamplin, James |date=May 18, 2016 |access-date=Feb 1, 2019}} Google Cloud Messaging, the Google service to send push notifications to Android devices, was superseded by a Firebase product, Firebase Cloud Messaging, which added the functionality to deliver push notifications to Android, iOS and web devices.

In July 2016, Google announced that it was acquiring the mobile developer platform LaunchKit,{{Cite web |url=https://thenextweb.com/news/google-acquires-launchkit |title=Google acquires LaunchKit to make life easier for Android developers |website=The Next Web |date=27 July 2016 |access-date=2016-07-27}} which specialized in app developer marketing, and would be folding it into the Firebase Growth Tools team. In January 2017, Google acquired Fabric and Crashlytics from Twitter to add those services to Firebase.{{Cite web |last1=Wagner |first1=Kurt |last2=Townsend |first2=Tess |date=2017-01-18 |title=Google has acquired most of Twitter's developer products, including Fabric and Crashlytics |url=https://www.vox.com/2017/1/18/14313164/google-twitter-acquisition-fabric-crashlytics |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=Recode |language=en}}

In October 2017, Google launched Cloud Firestore, a real-time document database as the successor product to the original Firebase Realtime Database.{{Cite web|url=https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/10/google-firestore|title=Google Announces Firestore, a Document Database|website=InfoQ|access-date=2017-10-19}}{{Cite news |url=http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/10/03/firebase-launching-cloud-firestore-new-document-database-featuring-realtime-sync-no-hassle-scaling-offline-support/|title=Firebase is launching Cloud Firestore, a new document database featuring real-time sync, no-hassle scaling, and offline support|date=2017-10-03|work=Android Police|access-date=2017-10-19|language=en-US}}

Firebase software has been claimed to be used by Google to track users without their knowledge. On July 14, 2020, a lawsuit was filed accusing Google of violating federal wire tap law and California privacy law. It stated that through Firebase, Google collected and stored user data, logging what the user was looking at in many types of apps, despite the user following Google's own instructions to turn off the web and app activity collected by the company.{{Cite news|date=2020-07-14|title=Google faces lawsuit over tracking in apps even when users opted out|language=en|publisher=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-google-privacy-lawsuit-idUSKCN24F2N4|access-date=2020-07-14}}{{Cite news|date=2020-07-14|title=Role-Based Access Control in Cloud Firestore|language=en|publisher=Aravind Chowdary|url=https://www.aravi.me/blog/role-based-access-in-firebase-firestore-firestore-rules|access-date=2024-03-27}} The lawsuit was dismissed in January 2022, with Chief US District Judge Richard Seeborg ruling that a promise to avoid collecting user data did not amount to a contract.{{Cite web |title=US federal judge dismisses breach of contract claims in privacy class action against Google |url=https://www.jurist.org/news/2022/01/us-federal-judge-dismisses-breach-of-contract-claims-in-privacy-class-action-against-google/ |access-date=2022-05-18 |website=www.jurist.org |date=27 January 2022 |language=en-US}}

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