Firefox, the world's most popular free and open source browser, is evolving into more than just an Internet browser.
Over the next few months, and possibly years, the browser that was first released in 2004 to challenge Internet Explorer's dominance and received over 60 million downloads in less than a year, will be joined by new types of browsers as well as a range of apps and services with the Internet as the platform.
But first, the new apps and services will require readily identifiable icons, and Firefox, or rather the browser's parent company Mozilla, wants to treat this project almost (but not quite) as an open source one.
This was announced in a blog posted this week by Tim Murray, creative director at Mozilla, in which he noted that people require new tools to make the most of the way in which the internet is evolving.
Safer and in control
"From easy screen-shotting and file-sharing, to innovative ways to access the Internet using voice and virtual reality, these (new Firefox) tools will help people be more efficient, safer and in control of their time online."
Firefox has already introduced two new browsers, or variations of the `main' Firefox browser, which is now dubbed Firefox Quantum. Announced last year, Firefox Rocket is essentially a Firefox lite version while Focus is a privacy-driven mobile browser. Firefox Quantum has been positioned as a faster, less memory-hungry alternative to Google Chrome.
Apart from a short period at the end of 2009 when it topped the polls in terms of browser usage (32% of Internet users), Firefox has had to play second fiddle to proprietary browsers Explorer and now Chrome. Although Google Chrome is based off the open source Chromium project, and is thus `powered' by open source, it is not open source itself.
By June this year, according to StatCounter, Chrome, with 66.87% of usage, is by far the world's most dominant Internet browser. Firefox is a distant second, at 11.44%, but remains relatively comfortably ahead of Internet Explorer, Safari, Edge and Opera.
Now, it seems, Mozilla (and Firefox) is pushing back, and hard.
Crowd-sourcing input
At its launch in December 2017, Firefox Quantum got a new icon, which Murray said at the time, was to reflect `all the work we did in making this browser fast under the hood'.
However, with whole lot of new Firefox tools set to be introduced, it seems the eight-month-old Firefox Quantum identifier will probably change too.
Mozilla is `crowd sourcing' input, comments, opinions, and suggestions on initial icon designs, but emphasises that it is not asking for designs themselves.
"No one is being asked to design anything for free," Murray said. "There will be no voting. Living by our open-source values of transparency and participation, we're reaching out to our community to learn what people think."
So far, two design 'systems' have been offered up for comment. There are options provided for what is termed `general purpose icons', which is likely to include an update of the recently revamped Firefox Quantum desktop icon. Then there are choices for browsers with a singular focus, such as the Firefox Reality browser for virtual reality applications, and the Firefox Focus mobile browser. In addition, there will be icons for the as yet unannounced new apps and services.
Murray warned that all the current icon ideas that were offered for comment were far from finalised. Each individual icon was likely to undergo several rounds of refinement, or could be totally changed by the time they were allocated to new products and services.
Share