Mozilla News & Articles

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated," says Internet Explorer, as Microsoft's default Windows web browser regains some of the market share previously lost to its major competitors Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.

Word came from Mozilla of a new revenue agreement between Google and Mozilla, makers of the Firefox Search engine. The announcement on the official Mozilla Blog called the deal a "new agreement for default search in Firefox," extending the search relationship with Google for three more years.   

In early December, the web was abuzz with word that the long-standing deal between Google and Mozilla (Firefox) had not been renewed. While the companies were in negotiation throughout November, the hour passed, and the default search engine relationship that started in 2006, practically the Stone Age in web chronology, was dead.

Ever notice how your newly installed Firefox browser would always default to the Google search site? That’s because of a lucrative deal Mozilla, owner of the Firefox brand, cut with Google back in 2006, in the pre-Chrome days. Well, the world has shifted since then and with the November expiration of the Google deal, Mozilla could stand to lose up to 80% of company revenue according to Computerworld. And while the deal has reaped a windfall for Mozilla, it also gave Google time to develop what is now a rising star in the quest for King of the Browser Hill.  

Locked out of developing for a mobile device? Your app isn't available on iOS/Android or another OS? Mozilla (news, site) could have the answer with an all-browser operating system that will run on anything.

Web browsers are often a highly personal choice. You would usually have a preference based on speed, feature set and compatibility. With the recent release of IE9 and Firefox 4 claiming to be faster than ever, tests have been run to determine speed and stability on each.

As in many things having to do with the Internet, there’s a predilection to complicate rather than simplify, exaggerate rather than plainly-speak and obfuscate rather than be transparent…and the current privacy solutions being offered by the Web browser triumvirate -- Microsoft, Mozilla and Google -- are no exception.

It looks like Mozilla isn't the only one pushing back release dates. This week Big G delayed the grand opening of the Chrome Web Store, their open marketplace for Web applications. Meanwhile, the Internet giant is shoving large sums of money at digital journalists, hoping for something magical.

Following a nasty  zero-day flaw exploited in malware downloads, as well as general difficulty around releasing the first full-featured beta, Mozilla's updated Firefox 4 schedule shows that release of the browser has been pushed back from late 2010 to 2011. 

This week, the mobile enterprise gains security, a beloved browser sync and the iPad continues to wreak havoc on e-Readers.

Considering the sh*t storm Facebook's currently weathering for their privacy issues, the emergence of social networking tools with more control comes as no surprise. This week Mozilla Labs introduced their own personal version: sudoSocial.  

Statistically, Flock (news, site) is like the little browser that could, but didn’t. Translate that into numbers and you get 7.5 million people that have downloaded the browser, but only 1.1 million that actively use it.

So, why does Flock keep Flopping? Well, we’re not really sure. Dubbed the social Web browser, Mozilla-powered Flock is made up of all the things we typically love: integrated social networking, micro-blogging, chat, etc. Will the newly released 2.5 version be enough to finally take flight? Let’s take a look at the fresh features:

Mozilla Labs is at it again (aren’t they always?). This time the dream team is aiming to streamline Firefox users’ experiences with extensions.

Say what? We thought the whole extension process was already pretty easy. After all, it doesn’t take much brain power to click an install button and reboot a browser. But…what if you didn’t have to reboot your browser? What if it were as simple as just clicking the install button? Well, now it is. Enter: Mozilla Jetpack. Blast off.

Browser wars time! As they continue to evolve, it’s apparent that the long-standing few all have one goal in common: to become extensions of their users.

That may sound a little hokey, but it’s undeniable that the less thinking we have to do as we trawl the Web, the happier we are. Once again here to help shift the workload from user to browser is Mozilla (news, site), whose lab kicked out a solution called Weave several months ago. Essentially a beefed up password manager, the tool gets users into their preferred sites in one to zero clicks.

Mobile browsing is one of the few boom areas for telcos, but browser competition is stifled as owners traditionally stick with whatever comes with their phone -- Safari on the iPhone, IE for Windows Mobile, Chrome for Android, Opera on everything else and so on.

Attempting to stir up some competition is Fennec, the cunning little fox from Mozilla that has had an extensive Alpha, going back to last October and is now available in beta, hopefully having recovered from last month's abortive pre-beta test.

The mobile browser war has been waging on with recent releases from the likes of Mozilla, Opera and Skyfire. And while each has been keeping up with functionality and developments in their own right, last week the contender likeliest to come out on top stepped onto the battle field and got blown to bits.

What we’re referring to, of course, is Mozilla’s pre-alpha release of Firefox Mobile, a.k.a. Fennec. The early test version was made available to HTC Touch Pro, but to the dismay of many an excited mobile enthusiast, wouldn’t load any Web pages.