Although Firefox was created as "Phoenix" by the Mozilla community it
was first released as "Firefox" in November of 2004. Firefox is thought
of as the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator as the Mozilla
community was created by Netscape in 1998 before they were taken over by
AOL. In certain areas Firefox is still dominant. In Cuba it has 85.93
percent of the market. In Eritrea it has 79.3 percent of the market.
Even in Germany it still enjoys 37.01 percent of the market.
Yet
Firefox has fallen far
behind as Chrome has long dominated with about 54 percent of the market
now especially if one includes not just computers but phones and
tablets. According to StatCounter Firefox has a mere 6 percent of the
market. It obviously is not penetrating into the mobile field
successfully.
Mozilla is now developing Firefox 57 a massive overhaul of the browser. As a
cnet article describes the opening of a meeting revealing the new browser the traditional logo is gone:
Gone was the blazing-orange fox snuggling a blue globe, the image
that’s represented Mozilla’s scrappy browser since 2003. Instead,
Firefox Senior Vice President Mark Mayo opened the event with a drawing
of a fox in menacing mecha armor, named Mark 57 — the same way
ever-improving Iron Man suits are named.
The new overhaul is due on November 14th ready for battle it is claimed.
Mozilla hopes the new version will lure back those Firefox users who
switched to Chrome since it came out in 2008. Of course, Microsoft
would like to lure some Chrome users back to its new Edge browser. There
are even
annoying pop-up ads on Windows 10 touting its speed as compared to Chrome.
CEO of Mozilla
Chris Beard claimed:
“It’s going to add up to be a big bang. We’re going to win back a lot
of people.” Yet Firefox 57 will have an uphill battle as Mozilla itself
lost its co-founder, technical leader, and former CEO Brendan Eich who
left Mozilla after a fight over gay marriage
. Eich donated
to a California organization opposed to gay marriage. Eich has a new
browser Brave. The founder of Opera, also launched a new browser Vivaldi
after leaving Opera when it changed hands.
Firefox's innovations and popularity have helped keep other browsers competitive.
Mitchell Baker
Mozilla's executive chair-woman and co-founder said: “There are people
who make hardware, people who make software, people who make websites.
They want to give you an experience that you like enough to pay for and
to keep coming back, but they’re about running their business. They
represent themselves. We like the browser because we can represent you.”
While a non-profit organization Mozilla is considering a possible
membership plan that would make money. It is also counting on software
beyond the browser, and financial growth. Mozilla wants a future where
everyone is not dependent on Apples' app store, Google's search results,
Facebook's news feed, and Amazon's Prime video streaming. Personally, I
only use one of those four.
Some of the technical advances came through a
special project called Quantum:
One
part, Stylo, accelerates formatting operations. Quantum Flow squashes
dozens of small slowdown bugs. Quantum Compositor speeds website
display. And Firefox 57 also will lay the groundwork for WebRender,
which uses a computing device’s graphics chip to draw webpages on the
screen faster.
Developers of Firefox 57 had speed as their top priority. In a browser
test called Speedometer, Firefox performance has already jumped
significantly apparently significantly enough to stem the steady stream
of defections from Firefox to other browsers. The new browser will have a
different look as well.
Nick Nguyen,
vice president of Firefox product said: “If Quantum is how we make
Firefox faster, Photon is how users will know about it... a sleek and
modern user experience, buttery-smooth animations and crisp interface
elements for all resolutions.”
Some are skeptical about Mozilla's ability to take on Chrome. At the job
recruiting service Glassdoor only 42 percent would recommend employment
at Mozilla to their friends. The approval rating for CEO Beard who has
been there for 3 years is just 28 percent. Even Trump fares better.
However, Beard claims that Firefox is stable and poised for growth.
Mozilla has been active on such issues as net neutrality which it
promotes and lobbies for. It has a team of 8 people who spend all their
time lobbying politicians. Mozilla mounted a petition of more than
42,000 signatures defending net neutrality. Mozilla is also lobbying
against government efforts to weaken privacy-protection encryption. It
even spoke out against Trump's immigration ban efforts.
While the new Firefox is aimed at challenging Chrome there are many
other competitors who may also come up with their own challenges to the
leader. Microsoft is vigorously promoting Edge. Safari is still the
browser of choice for Mac users. Opera has been around for ages and
though its usage at present is only a small percentage it is under new
management and has had some good reviews as has the new Vivaldi. As the
appended video shows, the Firefox 57 is a bit behind Chrome 57 already,
at least it is released later.
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