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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday April 13 2016, @07:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-hand-is-doing dept.

Mozilla has sent mixed signals about the future of the Firefox Web browser:

The head of Mozilla's Firefox browser is looking to the future. And, for the moment at least, it seems to lie in rival Chrome. Senior VP Mark Mayo caused a storm by revealing that the Firefox team is working on a next-generation browser that will run on the same technology as Google's Chrome browser.

"Let's jump right in and say yes, the rumors are true, we're working on browser prototypes that look and feel almost nothing like the current Firefox," Mayo wrote in a blog post. "The premise for these experiments couldn't be simpler: what we need a browser to do for us – both on PCs and mobile devices – has changed a lot since Firefox 1.0, and we're long overdue for some fresh approaches."

The biggest surprise, however, was that the project, named Tofino, will not use Firefox's core technology – Gecko – but will instead plumb for Electron, which is built on the technology behind Google's rival Chrome browser, called Chromium.

However, Mayo updated his post to say that "I should have been clearer that Project Tofino is wholly focused on UX explorations and not the technology platform. We are working with the Platform team on technology platform futures too, and we're excited about the Gecko and Servo-based futures being discussed!" Mozilla's CTO also reaffirmed the company's commitment to the Gecko rendering engine:

Just two days after Mayo broke ranks, Mozilla's CTO jumped up and announced another new project – this one called Positron (geddit?) – which will take the Electron API and "wrap it around Gecko." Or, in other words, make it possible to take Mayo's new, better browser and pull it off Chromium and back into the safe hands of Gecko. And so the status quo seeks to reassert itself.

Also at CNET.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday April 13 2016, @11:17AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Wednesday April 13 2016, @11:17AM (#331087)

    Mozilla should stop being "wholly focused on UX explorations" and start focusing on why loyal users are abandoning their browser as fast as they can.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 13 2016, @03:02PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 13 2016, @03:02PM (#331171)

    Its "desktop environment" disease. They suffer from the same problem.

    How do you handle the problem of a non-innovative semi-technical product with way too many innovators? Its similar ecologically to the old fox n hare thing where you have too many foxes. Just too many intensely group thinking UX people for the ecology to survive their presence. In small doses they're OK although occasionally annoying to have to work around, but when you get too many the ecology crashes and burns, just like too many foxes.

    Groupthink is a major secondary problem. An ecology that can survive a diverse, open minded, and creative group of 10000 UX designers will sink under the weight of a mere 100 designers with a severe groupthink infection. As for treatment of a severe groupthink infection, the old quote "better nuke it from orbit just to be sure" applies. There really is no hope for Mozilla. Even downsizing won't save them as the fad/style oriented groupthinky people tend to be very extroverted and have more social connections, so downsizing in an attempt to reduce groupthink paradoxically almost always results in increased concentration of groupthink.

    The only way I know of to save a groupthink infected industry is to convince the parasite to move on. A major PR campaign to "move fast and break things" in the automotive sector would result in unusable cars where you steer with your tongue and they're all painted shades of purple, but at least the parasite might abandon web development or even desktop environments. Yeah... as an emacs user I think the UX people should be all over VIM, yeah thats the ticket...

    • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday April 14 2016, @01:46AM

      by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday April 14 2016, @01:46AM (#331407)

      as an emacs user I think the UX people should be all over VIM

      Wait, you're saying the UX people have been all over emacs so far? I guess that does explain a lot...