Mozilla isn’t just another tech company — we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible. For over 25 years, we’ve championed the idea that the web should be for everyone, no matter who you are or where you’re from. Now, with a brand refresh, we’re looking ahead to the next 25 years (and beyond), building on our work and developing new tools to give more people the control to shape their online experiences.
↫ Lindsey Lionheart O’Brien at the Mozilla blog
I have no clue about marketing and branding and what investments in those things cost, but all I could think about while reading this massive pile of marketing wank is that the name “Firefox” only occurs once. How many Firefox bugs could’ve been squashed with the money spent on this rebrand literally nobody is going to care about because nobody uses Firefox as it is? Is a new logo and accompanying verbal diarrea really what’s going to turn this sinking ship around?
I’ve already made my choice, and I’ve left Firefox behind on all my machines, opting for an entirely different browser instead. I’m writing about that experience as we speak, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out what choice I made, but rest assured I know I’m not the only one who is leaving Firefox behind after two decades of loyal service, and I doubt an expensive new logo is going to change anybody’s mind.
Jesus this is grim. At least we’re swimming in Firefox forks now?
“nobody uses Firefox as it is” ?
Replied with Firefox,
JaXX, hardcore RAMofil ailurus fulgens fidelis
Looking forward to what you switch to. I use all of the main browsers due to necessity a trait picked up during the first browser wars.
Seriously, nobody uses it? OMG, I use it all the time as my preferred browser and I’m not alone. In 2024, according to https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share, Firefox accounts for a measly 2.6% of the global market – that’s about 130 million out of a bit over 5 billion views. I find it bemusing that someone who rages against the machine wants to equate small market share with who cares about them.
Thom’s point was that Mozilla doesn’t seem to care about it anymore.
Oh, and not to mention – cuz nobody cares to track it :), but on Linux, I’m pretty sure it’s a much, much higher share given that it’s the default, delivered browser on a majority of distros.
I’m using it right now
This is a hard one: on one hand, as a press release that announces a new logo, I would not expect to see Firefox (or any other of Mozilla’s tech products) featured heavily in the announcement.
On the other: I have been a Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird user for 20 years. The last decade of that has mainly involved Mozilla neglecting core products (Thunderbird and later Firefox) and abandoning the ecosystem of extensions that made both TB and FF powerful and versatile.
It’s hard to make a non-ideological case for using e, whither one — Thunderbird is glitchy all the way down, and Firefox just refuses to lad a handful of websites that I Absolutely Must Use to live int the 21st century. Which is wild since so many other Free Software projects — think Apache, Git, VLC, Docker, or even Audacity — have become the best products in their category without the kinds of funding that Mozilla enjoys.
Seriously? I have yet to see a webpage that cannot work on Firefox. More often than not if the site detects FF and refuses to work on it, all it takes to make it work is a little user agent shenanigans to lie to the server about which browser is being used. So to sum it up – the sites either work straight on, or you can make them work (and any limitations lay squarely with the site developers purposefully disabling FF, kinda like certain gaming companies do to their games being ran in Wine).
I’ve been using linux almost exclusively (at home) since about 1999. Browser-wise, that’s meant W3, Lynx, Netscape, Mozilla, and Firefox. I’ve changed my share of User Agent strings.
What I’ve seen over the last three or four years goes beyond that. For work, the web-based system that we use to do credit card and spending reports doesn’t load on FF. The system I use to file health insurance claims doesn’t either. I have no love for either of these systems but need to use both of them regularly,
Other websites are kinda/sorta broken. I can access my home banking website through FF, but can’t authenticate through it (as one does periodically after OS upgrades).
Believe me, I would much rather live in a world where FF supports these sites, because I would much rather use an open-source browser managed by a privacy- and open-web-focused nonprofit than one that’s just an engine for slinging me ads and making sure my personal data inevitably gets stolen. But thanks to Mozilla’s stewardship of rFirefox, I don’t have that choice.
> I have yet to see a webpage that cannot work on Firefox.
I agree. I have 4 browsers installed.
I have a use for each of them.
Fierefox. Main use (of course subject to change and yes mozilla has lost the plot but there is no other main contender yet).
Pale moon. Just another browser for a few things to keep a different set of windows open easy (more easy that the same browser and whatever). It’s ok, I think there are probably better forks but whatever.
Edge. Used for MS stuff and some other things.
Chrome. WEll I used to use edge but after using it more and using the ad blocker I need something to work for signing up for things which seems to always trip ad blockers. Come on people do not write your legitimate sites like spam.
So, what is the alternative? Giving Chromium complete control over the web client? The problem with browsers like Brave is that Google won’t keep the underlying support for Manifest V2 forever.
I’ve asked Brendan Eich this exact question on Twitter, and he replied that it’s “tiresome to argue hypotheticals”:
https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/1821947058867056751
So, yeah, they don’t have a plan, the Chromium project (aka Google) is the one having creative control, not them.
At this point, I hope Mozilla survives enough to keep Firefox in a supported state, Firefox is already a mature-enough product anyway.
> The problem with browsers like Brave is that Google won’t keep the underlying support for Manifest V2 forever.
Genuine question.
Is it tied.
Why would it be?
Surely the browsing engine is seperate to such things.
Brave was a bad example of a bad browser anyway but really how is it tied?
it’s because it’s cheap to strip features off chrome and add some user-facing polish to it, as opposed to re-adding a major back-end feature back in.
many of those companies are – for lack of a better word, freeloaders. they do not have to do the hard work of implementing new web standards and intricacies of web technologies (and security patches), and instead integrate some top-level features on top of the engine Google provided.
manifest v2 is likely a non-trivial feature and will become more and more complex to reintegrate with chrome codebase as time goes on. and, as evidenced by Google and Mozilla, it is hard to write browsers nowadays, especially full-featured and performant ones. and on top of that, secure.
Ladybird hopefully will change that trend, but i think it will be compliant first, performant second. and for a while you will likely have to spoof user-agent for certain websites to even work with it. That is also a major factor.
How can people be so out of touch with reality? Mozilla will continue to be less and less relevant while they waste time in irrelevant things nobody cares about.
It’s a move of a desperation move. Chrome and its ability to sync with the Chrome for Android already on your phone has left Firefox without a market, and the funding from Google is about to dry out. Most normies don’t care about the rest.
Mozilla should have threatened to end the sponsorship dead with Google in exchange for Chrome never being released back when they had the chance.
What do you mean. My desktop Firefox syncs with Android Firefox just fine.
“TLDR: Mozilla rebrand. New logo, colors, fonts. Activist spirit. Reclaim the internet.” – bullshitremover.com
I’ve been wondering for how long they can hold out with their own engine before just jumping on Chromium. I suspect we are getting closer. Mozilla is a business, no matter how much bloggers like Thom whine about it. They need revenue. Even non-profits need revenue to be able to pay employees. If their revenue streams are under pressure – and they are – then they are gong to need to cut costs. There’s no more straight forward way for a browser company to cut costs, than to use the same engine that everyone else is helping to maintain. I bet you this is what is going on.
That’s not to say it’s the only way – but direct payments are probably out of the question in a market flooded with “free” browser options, and I don’t see a queue of other companies (or governments) ready to be Mozilla’s sugar daddy to replace Google. Writing is on the wall here.
(I wrote this in Firefox.)
Take up residence in the C-Suites, immediately get disconnected from reality.
Really, really need another browser alternative before current FF ESR is EOL.
I’ll probably stay on Mozilla-lineage browsers for a long time because I don’t know of any Chromium-based browser that has “Hold Shift when right-clicking to override site-defined context menus” and the about:config keys that force attempts to open new windows/tabs to navigate the current tab instead.
…oh, and the exact same extension codebases tend to have more analytics pref’d on for their Google App Store uploads than for their addons.mozilla.org uploads.
This just tells me that Mozilla is up for sale along with the IP.
If the government does not want to make browsers independent of Google, the Mozilla gravy-train will continue and they are not for sale. If they are for sale, it is because the taps will turn off. If that happens and you want to buy a browser, I think you would rather buy Chrome. Mozilla’s IP is not worth anything.
You could be right and they are trying to sell before the hammer falls. If that is the case though, why emphasize the cost side of the business instead of the technology? This “rebrand” is all about their activism. Who wants to buy that?
>> This “rebrand” is all about their activism. Who wants to buy that?
Microsoft.
> to wait a bit longer to find out what choice I made
In keeping with the good tradition of this blog, you should title this work-in-progress article “Stop using Mozilla Firefox”.
Just keep making a web browser and don’t be a bunch of activists
All those hundreds of millions of dollars made them stupid
Okay, just got around to checking out the article. The biggest crime here is the actual design. What where they thinking? lol HIDEOUS!
But seriously, rebranding, I don’t see how the sky is falling over that. Another trash take. It’s just a (bad) branding exercise. Who cares?
Mostly agree. However, what they told the branding people they wanted to emphasize tells us something more important about who Mozilla are, regardless of what lipstick they have paid to put on it. In their own words, they see their primary mission as being ““a trailblazing, activist organization”. To me, that is the important take-away.
I just know somebody in a meeting said “Can you make it more, Matrix-y?” That’s what the kids like, right?
Mozilla does not want to be a “browser” company. They could not make it any clearer. In their own words, “t’s a trailblazing, activist organization in both its mission and its approach”.
Currently, essentially all their revenue comes from Firefox and it is probably their biggest expense. They “make” close to $500 million and claim that about $200 million of that goes to developing “software”. We can guess that Firebox is 3/4 of that. So they are not ignoring Firefox despite what they say in their press releases.
That said, the revenue from Firefox is likely to drop or disappear. When that happens, Mozilla wants to still be “relevant”. Frankly, this press release feels like a sales pitch in that regard. Of course they want us |”grass roots” folks to support their mission of a free, fair, and open Internet. They no-doubt also want government to see them as an essential public good in that regard so that they can benefit from favorable funding and policy. No doubt, the timing of this “rebrand” is meant to influence decisions around letting Google continue to fund them.
But do we value Mozilla as champion of these wider causes? I am not sure that I do. They have proven time and again that their primary concern is their own interest. They are just another tech company. Just one without a lot of tech.
If the Google funding gets blocked, I think I will be happier to see Firefox spin out on its own. That is going to mean a lot fewer resources at first but at least they will be focused. A Firefox foundation that can take donations from companies and individuals may be able to fill more of the gap than we think. I also think I would support Firebox concentrating on being more of an engine that other projects can leverage. I am typing this in Firefox right now but I have been using Zen more and more.
Thunderbird is pretty close to self-funding at this point as they raise money directly that is about what Mozilla has said they spend in the past. A totally independent project would probably be more efficient. Perhaps it would be better off on its own. Is the same true of Firefox.
IMHO Mozilla and hence Firefox are not in any short or mid term danger to cease to exist. In terms of some judge in Google monopoly trial to end Mozilla funding or in terms of Google stopping to be sugar daddy. On top of that i don’t believe in alternative to emerge, on where somebody would be able to develop and maintain a modern web browser on their own. You actually do need tens or better hundreds millions annually to achieve that. The ideas on how people would pay for that directly, that is a mere pipe dream. So all in all forget about Firefox forks if Firefox stops existing and forget about things like Servo becoming a drop in replacement for Firefox anytime soon. That just won’t happen. Servo i guess is in position to get some serious industry funding, that could change things, still i find such scenario not all that realistic. Considering on how much funding is involved in other industry standards on when it comes to independent FOSS. In summary it’s laughable. Anyway, the question remains, on why are we all more or less angry at Mozilla and are not roasting Google. Considering Firefox market share is somewhere in the realms of statistical error. Here is where i feel the real solution is, to answer that question and then to force Mozilla to change. For example if they would really stand behind it, all the crap they wrote in this latest PR pamphlet, then we wouldn’t necessary be angry, at them, or would be to a lesser extend. It’s just that nobody is buying it any more. High salaries for executives, darn, that really is some activism going on there. Negligible market share and statements like we don’t care about that aspect of it. Well, you are failing and if you don’t really care about that, to be a loser and to suck, than not much we can do about it either. Just fire the upper third of executives ASAP and put some politically incorrect activists in that role. People that are doing it and still would do it for free anyway. Ditch the ones that are activist as long as they are paid for it. Then we can talk.
Firefox – I deleted it a few months ago and moved to Gnome Web or epiphany or whatever it’s called. No more .mozilla for the first time in like a quarter century.
Falkon is good too. Reminds me of reKonq from a long time ago.
With both of these browsers, set up a strong hosts file.
Midori still exists supposedly, they are always posting on Mastodon, but I don’t know what that company is all about.
I like Vivaldi even though I hate that it’s not free software and I hate that they are team snap in a flatpak world. Mainly I like left side tabs. There’s a bunch of weird shit with the themes, it’s hard to find anything that isn’t “muh dark mode.” The fonts look weird, just accept that I’m on KDE and I hate dark mode because I’m 40 and not 14 so make it look like that. I found a theme that doesn’t stick out too bad, but I’m looking at a fucking mountain every time I open a new tab and it’s not my mountain, so it’s weird.
Zen is okay but I think it’s just one person and totally dependent on Firefox.
I don’t know what’s going on with Brave, I think that if I use it long enough I will be a cocaine user addicted to crypto and hookers.
There’s a bunch of other stuff probably that I need to try. I’ve never tried Floorp or Arc browser or whatever the crossfit vegans are using these days.
Seamonkey still exists, about as relevant as Palemoon and TDE and probably just a thing where the current dev team is lucky to get it to compile.
I don’t know anymore. I guess it’s Vivaldi until they go out of business.
>”Seamonkey still exists, about as relevant as Palemoon and TDE and probably just a thing where the current dev team is lucky to get it to compile.”
When have Pale Moon, Seamonkey or TDE had trouble being compiled? That’s a strange thing to say. One strength for each of those projects is the ease with which they compile compared to other browsers and DE’s.
Cool.
>”massive pile of marketing wank is that the name “Firefox” only occurs once”
But “bespoke” occurs twice and “activist” occurs four times, so you know this is the work of real marketing geniuses.
> Mozilla […] we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to
The order matters. Their leftist activism is more important to them that providing what is needed. Firefox & Thunderbird are good tools that should have improved more than they have, they chose nonsense and feature bloat (useless “features”) over pragmatic useful improvements.
I’ve used it since well before it was called Firefox…
Mozilla’s logo has gotten worst with each “rebranding”. What a horrible thing.
FFS
Mozilla says: «we’re a global crew of activists, technologists and builders, all working to keep the internet free, open and accessible»
The same Mozilla Foundation, less that one month ago: «two of the foundation’s major divisions — advocacy and global programs — are “no longer a part of our structure.”»
Blatant ethics-washing. As a long-time user of Firefox and Thunderbird, I find it pretty grotesque.
It’s heart-wrenching.
I’ve used Firefox and proudly kept my family on Firefox even after the kids left home because it’s the clear voice of resistance.
But it’s hard not to agree with Thom that there has been an obvious slide/decline in relevance and those steering the ship are both to blame for letting that happen and least likely to be the best people to push forward.
I’ve always looked at Mozilla’s primary charter to be “resistance” and it seemed like the best strategy was to provide a user-focused product (instead of one serving corporate interests) but that didn’t seem to keep the user share up like I would’ve thought.
But what are the other options? Good product apparently isn’t going to do it — Google will continue to match the minimum amount of user-facing function that stands to attract people away from their well-entrenched product without compromising the privacy-compromising and revenue-generating underpinnings that they are really interested in. And with Mozilla signalling that they’re also willing to compromise that, what exactly are they proposing? Advocacy for what?
The small-potatoes forks may certainly have better tab management or sweet performance tweaks but that’s not going to keep The Juggernaut from ruling the world.
I continue to look here for advice on alternatives — at this point suggestions to Vive la Resistance by donating to Mozilla Foundation are certainly falling on deaf ears.
rlees42,
We see so many people suggesting mozilla should be taken out of the equation, almost gleefully even, but it doesn’t actually solve the problems. We’ll end up with even more fractured resistance to the dominant tech companies. Everything mozilla does to become more independent from the tech giants has been harshly criticized, I doubt there’s anything mozilla could have done to satisfy the critics since the critics want to have their cake and to eat it too.