Brendan Eich, who financially backed efforts to ban equal marriage in California, has been appointed CEO of Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser.

The American computer programmer and creator of the JavaScript scripting language is a co-founder of Mozilla.

It was revealed in 2012 that Mr Eich donated $1,000 (£605) in 2008 to the campaign supporting California’s Proposition 8.

The law banned same-sex marriages in the state and was finally struck down by the US Supreme after years of legal battles in June 2013.

Following the appointment of Mr Eich as Mozilla chief executive, San-Francisco based computer programmer Hampton Catlin and his husband Michael, said they are boycotting Mozilla as a result.

In a letter to the company, Mr Catlin wrote:-