Finally! All these years everyone has been complaining about this or that missing feature or lingering bug in Firefox, or how Mozilla has been hostile to users and pulling stupid stunts which only waste money and alienate even their most passionate fans, but by far the number one grievance everyone had was how Firefox was missing a mascot. At last I can make my mother switch to Firefox. I’m messaging all my friends right now, this is exactly what Firefox needed. Mozilla is finally back on track, focusing on the right things. It gives me tremendous hope for the continued bright future of Firefox.
> Indeed if those graphic designers hadn't been wasting time drawing a cute fox they'd have been waste deep in 15 year old code fixing bugs.
That’s not the criticism I’m making.
> Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
Of course they can. But they should also prioritise—allocating money and resources appropriately—and Mozilla has for far too long not prioritised Firefox itself. That’s the issue. If people felt Mozilla were a good steward of Firefox, they wouldn’t mind most of the tangential stuff they do. The issue is that Mozilla has a history of getting distracted with irrelevant side projects that go nowhere and are summarily abandoned (meaning they were a waste) while Firefox doesn’t get as much attention as it could and should.
One sentiment I often see on HN is “I would like to donate to Firefox but Mozilla only lets you donate to the organisation as a whole, and I don’t like the other things they’re doing”. Unlike every other major browser, Firefox is the main product of its parent company. It should be the best at what it’s for, yet far too often I see people saying they use Firefox not because they prefer it but because it’s not from Microsoft/Google/Apple.
In principle this is true. In the concrete case of Firefox, they have proven they focus more on side quests than on making a quality browser.
I lost any hope they'll go for technical excellence instead of virtue signaling and branding after the Brendan Eich disaster. They feel now like a Microsoft, Google, Apple, or any other big corp.
I used Firefox since it was called Firebird and finally gave up and switched to another (non big corp) browser and couldn't be happier.
Maybe the point is that if they were so useless that they could waste time doing that, we could have fired(/not hired) them and instead hired a developer to improve the product...
And at the same time, the dev already paid by Mozilla that could have been fixing the product, was busy updating the source code to update the mascot...
Why is that sarcastic comments like this are always predicated on the idea that its the software engineers doing these marketing activities, and not... you know, a separate marketing team?
Personally, I do want them to increase their installed user base. I'd rather the Mozilla org spend money on marketing Firefox instead of political activism. If this works even a little bit, then great.
This may be a controversial position but I actually enjoy using Firefox. Vertical tabs, better profile management, etc. have all been welcome things I had in other browsers (cough Arc cough) that have made it bearable enough to use Firefox as my daily driver. They may not be as privacy-focused as some of the other derivatives of Firefox but they’re sure not Chromium.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It does have vibes of Mayers and the Yahoo logo. The ship is going down but we have a fresh new look!
Their latest 2023 results, shows Mozilla still has enough revenue to do something [1]:
- Total revenue: $653 million
- Revenue from Google 85% ($555 million)
- Total expenses $496 million (Software Development Expenses $260 million)
But even after spending 1/2 Billion annually I'm not expecting them to regain relevance. They'll likely keep the existing board until the money runs dry, axe more technical talent and promising projects.
TIL that only half of the Firefox expenses are used on software development in a broader sense.
And even that is optimistic, since it probably includes all the side quests not related to the browser core engine that has bugs and performance issues that are not fixed for years.
I love this. It’s good to see Mozilla trying different revenue generating approaches (edit: the merch with Kit), even if they may seem too small compared to what it gets from the default search engine arrangement with Google.
Let's dispense with this notion that all employees and volunteers at Mozilla must be singularly focused on improving the market share of Firefox at all costs.
I pressed the “play animation” button, and the fox disappeared and nothing else happened. If I hadn’t had video autoplay disabled, the fox would just not have been visible in the first place.
> The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look. Kit’s our new mascot and your new companion through an internet that’s private, open and actually yours.
Even with $400M in "revenue" gifted to them by Google, Mozilla can't muster even 4% market share. This project is dead. There is no path to increased market share. They have no viable plan to generate revenue beyond what they get from Google. Outside of features like container tabs, which only appeal to a small niche, they don't have much going on. The browser has dramatically higher power consumption in an age where a substantial portion of internet users are on battery-powered devices, it is noticeably sluggish compared to the competition, it has a dated looking UI, there is an apparent void in leadership and development capabilities at Mozilla. Now we get a silly little mascot? Firefox will never regain the ground they lost. The sooner we realize it, the sooner we can get behind something else.
this is a very dumb take; having an independent browser be at even 4% is great, since it has almost fully stopped the web collapsing down to Webkit/Blink-compatibility fully replacing any actual standards.
Mozilla does seem poorly run overall but this work is very important.
Perhaps an independent browser is important. Mozilla and Firefox are not.
I would argue that a truly open source, easily embedded browser engine that everyone can use is more important than an independent browser. The only problem with Blink is that it's controlled almost entirely by Google. Otherwise, it's an outstanding piece of tech. It would be just about perfect if the project operated more like Linux. We wouldn't need competing engines if development was democratized. The project itself becomes the source of truth as far as standards are concerned. Each browser distro enables what they need and if something becomes popular it's just a matter of other distros enabling a build flag.
>having an independent browser be at even 4% is great
Four percent is a rounding error, and I'm seeing a lot of technical people who no longer prioritize testing on Firefox. I doubt many younger devs have even tried it, and its mobile presence is almost zero.
The criticism of this in the other comments is so strange. If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!
And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox. That's not a real tradeoff. It's an effort that pays for itself and doesn't take away from Firefox development.
> If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!
Agreed, but did they need a new mascot to sell merchandise? It’s not like the old logo wasn’t already cool.
> And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox.
But Mozilla is still spending money and resources on it. The issue isn’t this rebranding specifically, but that this is yet another distraction which won’t produce any real result.
> It's an effort that pays for itself
Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.
> Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.
The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.
And Mozilla already has designers on staff. It's unlikely they had to do any extra hiring for this.
> The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.
None of that addresses the point that the old logo was already very merchandisable.
Furthermore, whatever markup they’re making is not something you can just generalise. It is very possible, likely even, that the bulk of the cost goes to whatever company is making the t-shirts (I haven’t looked but I doubt Mozilla is doing it in-house).
The problem is that every single public money drive using the "Firefox" brand since at least 2018 has been for the exclusive benefit of the Mozilla Foundation NGO, not the Mozilla Corporation entity which develops Firefox. Donations in the About screen of Firefox go to the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation does not appear to fund or even support anything related to Firefox:
> How will my donation be used?
> At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. The Mozilla Foundation programs are supported by grassroots donations and grants. Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
Do Spreadshirt sales benefit the Foundation (not Firefox), or are they revenue for the Corporation (Firefox)? I've looked around for a minute and can't tell.
This is only getting hate because people love to hate on Firefox. Firefox having a name and identity for the little guy in their logo is a no-brainer.
I put my money where my mouth is, I use Firefox everyday for my regular browsing both on my computer and on Android. It works great. So tired of the FUD.
Finally! All these years everyone has been complaining about this or that missing feature or lingering bug in Firefox, or how Mozilla has been hostile to users and pulling stupid stunts which only waste money and alienate even their most passionate fans, but by far the number one grievance everyone had was how Firefox was missing a mascot. At last I can make my mother switch to Firefox. I’m messaging all my friends right now, this is exactly what Firefox needed. Mozilla is finally back on track, focusing on the right things. It gives me tremendous hope for the continued bright future of Firefox.
Indeed if those graphic designers hadn't been wasting time drawing a cute fox they'd have been waist deep in 15 year old code fixing bugs.
Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
> Indeed if those graphic designers hadn't been wasting time drawing a cute fox they'd have been waste deep in 15 year old code fixing bugs.
That’s not the criticism I’m making.
> Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
Of course they can. But they should also prioritise—allocating money and resources appropriately—and Mozilla has for far too long not prioritised Firefox itself. That’s the issue. If people felt Mozilla were a good steward of Firefox, they wouldn’t mind most of the tangential stuff they do. The issue is that Mozilla has a history of getting distracted with irrelevant side projects that go nowhere and are summarily abandoned (meaning they were a waste) while Firefox doesn’t get as much attention as it could and should.
One sentiment I often see on HN is “I would like to donate to Firefox but Mozilla only lets you donate to the organisation as a whole, and I don’t like the other things they’re doing”. Unlike every other major browser, Firefox is the main product of its parent company. It should be the best at what it’s for, yet far too often I see people saying they use Firefox not because they prefer it but because it’s not from Microsoft/Google/Apple.
> Orgs can do multiple things at the same time.
In principle this is true. In the concrete case of Firefox, they have proven they focus more on side quests than on making a quality browser.
I lost any hope they'll go for technical excellence instead of virtue signaling and branding after the Brendan Eich disaster. They feel now like a Microsoft, Google, Apple, or any other big corp.
I used Firefox since it was called Firebird and finally gave up and switched to another (non big corp) browser and couldn't be happier.
Maybe the point is that if they were so useless that they could waste time doing that, we could have fired(/not hired) them and instead hired a developer to improve the product...
And at the same time, the dev already paid by Mozilla that could have been fixing the product, was busy updating the source code to update the mascot...
I always thought Mozilla Firefox does have a mascot, which is well "the FireFox".
Why is that sarcastic comments like this are always predicated on the idea that its the software engineers doing these marketing activities, and not... you know, a separate marketing team?
Personally, I do want them to increase their installed user base. I'd rather the Mozilla org spend money on marketing Firefox instead of political activism. If this works even a little bit, then great.
This but unironically.
This may be a controversial position but I actually enjoy using Firefox. Vertical tabs, better profile management, etc. have all been welcome things I had in other browsers (cough Arc cough) that have made it bearable enough to use Firefox as my daily driver. They may not be as privacy-focused as some of the other derivatives of Firefox but they’re sure not Chromium.
Vertical tabs are still broken. Fullscreen mode (F11) hides all the chrome except for the vertical tabs. Who wants this?
They seem to be actively working on vertical tabs for Chromium right now: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/q/message:+vertical...
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this. It does have vibes of Mayers and the Yahoo logo. The ship is going down but we have a fresh new look!
Their latest 2023 results, shows Mozilla still has enough revenue to do something [1]:
But even after spending 1/2 Billion annually I'm not expecting them to regain relevance. They'll likely keep the existing board until the money runs dry, axe more technical talent and promising projects.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
TIL that only half of the Firefox expenses are used on software development in a broader sense.
And even that is optimistic, since it probably includes all the side quests not related to the browser core engine that has bugs and performance issues that are not fixed for years.
I love this. It’s good to see Mozilla trying different revenue generating approaches (edit: the merch with Kit), even if they may seem too small compared to what it gets from the default search engine arrangement with Google.
Took me a while to realize you're talking about the merch.
IMO, Mozilla should make BDK - the browser development kit, allowing for easy creation of custom browsers.
AI era is ripe for disruption, and Firefox with it's openness can aim to kill the browser mono-cultures, but it's vision-less ATM.
Yes, that will certainly improve the current 3.7% market share [1].
[1]: https://radar.cloudflare.com/adoption-and-usage#top-browsers...
Let's dispense with this notion that all employees and volunteers at Mozilla must be singularly focused on improving the market share of Firefox at all costs.
I pressed the “play animation” button, and the fox disappeared and nothing else happened. If I hadn’t had video autoplay disabled, the fox would just not have been visible in the first place.
> Media resource https://assets.mozilla.net/video/kit/pop-up-800.webm could not be decoded, error: Error Code: NS_ERROR_DOM_MEDIA_FATAL_ERR (0x806e0005)
> Details: auto mozilla::MediaChangeMonitor::CreateDecoderAndInit(MediaRawData *)::(anonymous class)::operator()(const MediaResult &) const: Unable to create decoder
Unfortunate.
(firefox-nightly, Linux.)
Works fine on the mainline version of FF - nightly and firefox are always fun with multimedia on linux/codecs.
I don’t think I’ve had a video fail to play for at least a year or two.
Well at least there's no AI involved. Take your wins where you can
I saw it and immediately thought Clippy. I’m pretty sure this is indeed going to be AI-related somehow.
Yeah there is...
> The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look. Kit’s our new mascot and your new companion through an internet that’s private, open and actually yours.
Your new companion...
That's one cute lil' fella :)
Mozilla makes it really hard to root for them.
Happy to see that Alphabet's $100M/yr. are being wisely spent.
Cute, but I can't help but wonder if the resources used for this could have been better utilized elsewhere.
A rebrand is the most ominous sign of Mozilla’s declining health I could have imagined.
Cure. Ordered a shirt and stickers. Looking forward to being able to rep Firefox!
Even with $400M in "revenue" gifted to them by Google, Mozilla can't muster even 4% market share. This project is dead. There is no path to increased market share. They have no viable plan to generate revenue beyond what they get from Google. Outside of features like container tabs, which only appeal to a small niche, they don't have much going on. The browser has dramatically higher power consumption in an age where a substantial portion of internet users are on battery-powered devices, it is noticeably sluggish compared to the competition, it has a dated looking UI, there is an apparent void in leadership and development capabilities at Mozilla. Now we get a silly little mascot? Firefox will never regain the ground they lost. The sooner we realize it, the sooner we can get behind something else.
this is a very dumb take; having an independent browser be at even 4% is great, since it has almost fully stopped the web collapsing down to Webkit/Blink-compatibility fully replacing any actual standards.
Mozilla does seem poorly run overall but this work is very important.
Perhaps an independent browser is important. Mozilla and Firefox are not.
I would argue that a truly open source, easily embedded browser engine that everyone can use is more important than an independent browser. The only problem with Blink is that it's controlled almost entirely by Google. Otherwise, it's an outstanding piece of tech. It would be just about perfect if the project operated more like Linux. We wouldn't need competing engines if development was democratized. The project itself becomes the source of truth as far as standards are concerned. Each browser distro enables what they need and if something becomes popular it's just a matter of other distros enabling a build flag.
>having an independent browser be at even 4% is great
Four percent is a rounding error, and I'm seeing a lot of technical people who no longer prioritize testing on Firefox. I doubt many younger devs have even tried it, and its mobile presence is almost zero.
It's not that great considering there were times when it was closer to 30% than to 20%
that's what firefox really needed
> The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look.
Nice, glad they're actually adding more fox and not less fox. I remember that foxless rebrand they had to walk back a little, it was lame.
Everyone asks, what does the fox say, no one cares how the fox feels. Thank you Mozilla, now we know the fox feels like open source.
The criticism of this in the other comments is so strange. If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!
And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox. That's not a real tradeoff. It's an effort that pays for itself and doesn't take away from Firefox development.
> If Mozilla can raise some money independently of Google by selling merchandise, all the better!
Agreed, but did they need a new mascot to sell merchandise? It’s not like the old logo wasn’t already cool.
> And it's not like software engineers are spending time on this instead of working on Firefox.
But Mozilla is still spending money and resources on it. The issue isn’t this rebranding specifically, but that this is yet another distraction which won’t produce any real result.
> It's an effort that pays for itself
Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.
> Is it? That’s not a given, and we definitely can’t say either way yet. Considering all of Mozilla’s past efforts, pretty much all of which they abandoned, I’d be very wary of calling this one a success so early on.
The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.
And Mozilla already has designers on staff. It's unlikely they had to do any extra hiring for this.
> The economics of selling branded clothing has been very well understood for 50 years. The markup for slapping a logo on a T-shirt is massive. Plus, it's a form of crowdsourced, word-of-chest advertising.
None of that addresses the point that the old logo was already very merchandisable.
Furthermore, whatever markup they’re making is not something you can just generalise. It is very possible, likely even, that the bulk of the cost goes to whatever company is making the t-shirts (I haven’t looked but I doubt Mozilla is doing it in-house).
The problem is that every single public money drive using the "Firefox" brand since at least 2018 has been for the exclusive benefit of the Mozilla Foundation NGO, not the Mozilla Corporation entity which develops Firefox. Donations in the About screen of Firefox go to the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation does not appear to fund or even support anything related to Firefox:
> How will my donation be used?
> At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. The Mozilla Foundation programs are supported by grassroots donations and grants. Our grassroots donations, from supporters like you, are our most flexible source of funding. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking big tech companies to protect your privacy), research and publications like the Privacy Not Included buyer's guide and Internet Health Report, and covers a portion of our annual MozFest gathering.
(from https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...)
Do Spreadshirt sales benefit the Foundation (not Firefox), or are they revenue for the Corporation (Firefox)? I've looked around for a minute and can't tell.
That's one weird looking red panda.
No plushie in the merch store, literally unusable
If you’d rather do something about resource consumption instead of childish antics.
this is gonna make even more people think firefox is a fox
I know I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion here but I do think it looks kinda nice -- like I might would buy one of the sweatshirts
the sweatshirts are 50% cotton, 50% polyester which is a bit unfortunate.
Not everywhere apparently.
T-Shirts and Sweatshirts are 100% organic cotton (in the UK store at least).
ah, you’re right. I was looking at the north american store :3
Brutal
This is only getting hate because people love to hate on Firefox. Firefox having a name and identity for the little guy in their logo is a no-brainer.
I put my money where my mouth is, I use Firefox everyday for my regular browsing both on my computer and on Android. It works great. So tired of the FUD.
People love to hate on Mozilla because they love Firefox.
Has the vibe of getting a new hair color to start your "new" life. Just to see in a week or two that you actually have to change to change.
the responsive layout is all broken on Safari. I know they make a competing browser, but come on...