What's Next For Mozilla?

ezberry writes "After releasing version 1.0 of Firefox, what's ahead for the Mozilla Foundation and the venerable Firefox browser? With 6% of the market, and a notable exclusion from Google's desktop search software, PC World states that Mozilla may be thinking about adding desktop searching to the browser. Using plugins from third party vendors (and more), desktop searching may become a regular part of firefox. The article also talks about Mozilla improving firefox's popup blocker and getting OEMs to include firefox on their machines."

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Thats all they need

[tpgp]

getting OEMs to include firefox on their machines.

is all thats needed for world dominance (tm)

LDAP based profiles please

[nick-less]

still missing from ns4...

Pre-installed

[Ender_Stonebender]

Pre-installed Firefox would be oh so sweet.

Especially if it was with a major manufacturer (Dell, Compaq/HP, or Gateway). I bet IE's marketshare would plummet.

--Ender

and dell's incentive would be what, exactly?

[RMH101]

pissing off the company that sells them OEM operating systems at very low prices?

Imperial overstretch

[Anonymous Coward]

Beware of trying to extend a browser into a platform. It may just end up being bloated to the point where people don't like browsing with it. XUL has already made Firefox deathly slow on computers more than 3 years old.

Venerable?

[jazman_777]

Venerable?! "Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position." Who are you kidding? Yourself, mainly.

Re:Pre-installed

[cortana]

Until Microsoft jacked up the price for anyone wishing to distribute a non-IE browser.

Besides, come Windows update time, the user would be presented with the following:

WARNING: Windows Update could not detect a secure browser on your system. Using an insecure browser may make you more vulnerable to hackers and viruses. Would you like to install a secure browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer 6) now? Cancel [OK]

What's next?

[palad1]

Turn sunbird into a really kick-ass iCal / Outlook replacement goddamnnit!

Re:Pre-installed

[cmad_x]

As long as IE was installed as well, the customers (accustomed to IE) would probably use IE again and not even notice Firefox, or try it once and then abandon it. Would be great though, if it really worked.

Re:Rank them by importance

[pbranes]

My in-laws recently bought an emachine from walmart. It came with winxp sp1, ms works, some other stupid software, and **netscape 6.2**! That software is so old and outdated that they are just begging for someone from firefox to come along and show them how much better firefox is than netscape 6.2, and how emachines' customers would be happier and benefit more from firefox being in the default install.

About desktop search, I don't really view it as that important of a feature and not worth too much time. How often do most people search for files on their hard drive - my guess is not that often. I think of it like this - whenever my internet connection goes down either at home or at work, I don't sit there and start browsing my hard drive - that's boring. I turn off my monitor and go do something else. All of my information is tied to the internet - not to my hard drive, so a desktop search feature, for me, is very low on my priority scale.

Re:LDAP based profiles please

[Anonymous Coward]

Integration with LDAP.

Re:Exclusion from Google Desktop search?

[cortana]

Possibly they were referring to how GDS does not index your Firefox cache, history and bookmarks. Unless it does, and I didn't notice :)

An IE icon

[klaasb]

When I install Firefox on a Windows PC, I replace the standard icon with the IE icon. Then put that icon in the place where the real IE icon is.

Marketing problem

[suougibma]

I think Mozilla's biggest problem is their marketing strategy, or lack thereof. Of course us geeks know what it is but we only make up what, about that 6% of the market share they have? Talk to anyone outside the nerd world and they will likely stare blankley at you when you mention FireFox or Mozilla. Marketing and consumer awareness should be their next step.

Most people don't care

[RandoX]

about the browser. They'll just use whatever is easiest. If IE comes with the computer it's what they'll use. John Q Averageuser doesn't care about the politics or rhetoric behind Firefox or the security issues associated with IE. (S)He just wants to buy a new set of hubcaps on eBay. Replacing IE as the default installed browser on new computers is the only way to really get 'the masses' to use it.

Re:LDAP based profiles please

[Anonymous Coward]

What have you against LDAP profiles? It means roaming profiles, with all your bookmarks, account settings, addressbooks, stored on a central server. That's why I moded the grand-parent insightful.

Mistake?

[oddman]

I think Google is going to regret not including Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird in their search features by default. I just don't understand their thinking on this, it's not like Mozilla, et al., use some kind of proprietary/obscure file format. How hard can it be to search what is basically nothing more than a text file?

How long will it take Google to back pedal after Mozilla provides its own solution (or has an extension.)

--Sunbird, the real reason we will all stop running MS somday.

Re:Will IE copy Firefox?

[RandoX]

Nothing stops MSIE from copying. Opera had tabbed browsing at least 5 years ago, and Firefox copied them.

//Disclaimer: I'm not sure Opera was the first browser to have it, my point is that it's not a unique feature...

Re:Exclusion from Google Desktop search?

[SyntaxError]

The point of the parent was that Google Desktop Search had an opportunity to include Firefox (with logo) on their page: http://desktop.google.com/ [google.com], as well as in the indexing portion of the software. Google had a huge opportunity to integrate an amazing project into their beta GDS, but decided to leave it out.

Pre-installed isn't good enough

[Rik Sweeney]

Having FireFox pre-installed isn't good enough, take this example and imagine I'm a Joe Six Pack.

In the UK, if I bought a new PC with FF installed and then wanted to connect to the internet, I'd have to pick an ISP. They'd then send me a CD (or I'd pick it up from a shop) and that would auto install their customised version of Internet Explorer and tell FireFox to push off.

Back to square one again.

What is needed is to encourage ISPs such as AOL and BTInternet to provide FireFox as their browser.

Don't touch my browser

[MicroBerto]

If it makes it bigger, bulkier, or slower, then go away. I want my Firefox to stay FAST. Go make an extension.

The next big step is to continue to market it. Companies will realize how many problems using Firefox can alleviate, and as it gains more users and attention, it will gain more bug reports (you'd hope).

As mentioned in another thread, a vendor might want to include Firefox as the default browser (please include plugins) because they deal with SO many service calls regarding adware/spyware/viruses. I forget the statistic but it's mind-boggling and IE is costing vendors more money than it's worth.

What's next? = I'm worried

[MobyDisk]

1) Feature creep
2) Feature creep
3) Increase market share

This is the point where much software starts to go down hill. It happens with open-source stuff as well as commercial applications. Things that one check box become a whole screen of options. The product goes from 10MB to 100MB. More "non-features" are added that average users don't want.

A better idea at this point is to go back and refactor portions of code that aren't clean. Or to eliminate options by making the browser smarter. Fix security holes.

If they want to add features beyond this point, I believe they should fork the product into some sort of "advanced" version. I don't want desktop searching. I don't want a better popup blocker (AFAIK - It is absolutely perfect as is!). I don't want even one checkbox in the preferences. Mozilla and Firefox do very well with mom & pops, which is very important for gaining market share. For every new feature or option, you alienate them a little more.

Even in a fast-moving field such as software, there is a time to slow down the pace or even stop.

Or...

[Dracolytch]

As a novel idea, they could stick to what they're really good at, and continue to make a browser so good that the buzz gets louder. They're making great inroads and doing the near impossible by taking on MicroSoft and winning. It also means their success is fragile, and should be nurtured with care.

~D

Re:And Microsoft's incentive would be what, exactl

[Tim C]

But what does Dell stand to gain? I don't believe for one second that Firefox comng pre-installed is going to earn then much in the way of extra market share. Meanwhile, pissing MS off enough could be real bad; sure, it might not affect anything *now*, but what about the future? Is there anything to prevent MS from say dropping the price for Longhorn to all major OEMs *except Dell*? It's their product, surely they can sell it to whoever they want at whatever price they see fit? (Serious question - I'm not overly familiar with US anti-trust/monopoly practice law)

Even supposing Dell have nothing to lose, what do they have to gain?

Re:Rank them by importance

[Haeleth]

Why in the world would a browser perform desktop searches?

Because a browser is where most people now go to perform full-text searches on large sets of documents (via Google).

If you think of it as treating 127.0.0.1 as just another part of the internet, it does make a certain amount of sense.

Re:And Microsoft's incentive would be what, exactl

[pebs]

But what does Dell stand to gain?

Decrease in support costs.

Forget search; focus on centralized administration

[hrbrmstr]

Firefox/Mozilla will not make any headway in large organizations without the ability of admins to centrally control settings, features, etc.

There needs to be an easy (pref with GUI) way to define and distribute a policy that, for example, sets and locks proxy settings, sets and locks the default web page, "brands" various portions of the browser and that restricts the ability to load extensions at will. This should work cross-platform in order to make it easier to adopt other desktop operating systems.

It would also make it easer for Windows-based IT shops if patches/updates had an MSI file with just the updated files/settings. If you want widespread adoption, you have to at least make it as easy to deal with as what they have now. Microsoft may issue tons of patches, but they aren't that difficult to get on the boxes.

There may be ways to do some of this via a prefs.js distribution, but that's not going to fly in the hostile corporate IT environments where the sole admin left (due to outsourcing) is forced to find a way to distribute a prefs.js manually across thousands of diverse desktops.

IE settings can be managed by the IEAK and various GPO settings under Windows and that is a big sell. Mozilla/Firefox needs an equivalent.

I'd gladly help but I can barely find the time to work on my own, pathetic, foray in to the open source world [rudis.net], let alone contribute coding time to the best open source browser on the Net today. I'd be glad to share extensive requirements with any folks who have time time/energy to take up this noble effort.

Re:An IE icon

[gooman]

On every machine I build for friends, family and clients I always place the Firefox icon on the desktop, taskbar and start menu and set it as the default browser, I rename the desktop icon as "Internet Browser".
Then I delete the IE icon from the desktop and taskbar leaving it only in the start menu and as a finishing touch I set the default homepage in IE to http://www.stopie.com/ [stopie.com]
Surprisingly, I've gotten very few complaints.

Re:Rank them by importance

[generic-man]

IE already dropped support for URLs with an @ in them [eae.net], and some people accused Microsoft of breaking yet another standard.

K.I.S.S.

[HMV]

Firefox is outstanding in part because it is just a browser that works well.

Why has Firefox rocketed in popularity when Mozilla has been around forever? Partly because they stripped out the mail/news reader and all of the other bloat that was unnecessary for a good web browser. ~4 MB download for an excellent browser. That's all I want and need.

The direction of Firefox specifically should proceed further down that road. Fix the bugs, make sure rendering is perfect according to web standards, and focus on the browsing experience. Continue to refine security and privacy features.

Plug-ins are fine; they leave the choice of including them to the user. But for Mozilla, just leave the browser lightweight and work on the way it does its job.

Re:Don't touch my browser

[Lumpy]

I want the opposite.

I wanyt them to do a complete feature freeze and spend the next year cleaning up code, tweaking and making it more efficient.

too many apps are written the "new way" of "Ohhh! add that feature and ship it!"

I want features removed, and time spent making the thing as good as it can get.

Companies and Programmers just have no pride in their code anymore. It's how fast can we ship it, not how good can we make it.

I bet they can still squeeze a 10-20% speed improvement out of it.

Re:Rank them by importance

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure thing, we'll just submit a new RFC that gets rid of a legitimate, widly used and useful URI scheme to keep idiots from harming themselves. Anything else we can ruin while we're at it?

Re:What's next? = I'm worried

[magefile]

That's what extensions are for.

Boring but

[Mr_Silver]

I'd want the following:

1. Get it included with ISP's software
2. Marketing.
3. Fix all the bugs listed in bugzilla (it's crashed twice on me today - talkbacks are in the post)
4. Resist the urge to include the kitchen sink.
5. Concentrate on getting it running faster and leaner.
6. Fix some more bugs. Make it automatically restart when it crashes - that would be nice.
7. Take out a lot of the options that can only be used by editing a text file and stick them in an "advanced" section on preferences.
8. Make it so the browser reports errors in an html page rather than a pop up window. Pop up windows are so Netscape 4. The option is in the config files, default it to on and stick it on the GUI.
9. Make the browser generated error page look polished, rather than something knocked up by someone in 10 minutes.
10. Change the theme to something that looks nicer. What exactly was wrong with Qute?
11. Bundle some plugins with the installer package - 95% of users don't care about the developer tools being an option. Adblock would be more sensible.
12. Set the default buttons to something a little more than it currently is. I have new tab, back, forwards, stop, reload, home, bookmarks, history, print and downloads.
13. More support for standards? Anything missed out already.

Generally concentrate on making a better browser. If you go for world domination, we'll end up with a half-assed mess that doesn't do everything that people would like it to do. I like Firefox because its a web-browser, nothing more.

Re:Don't touch my browser

[Mant]

Companies take that approach becuase it works. Loose a bit of stability and security (and maybe speed), but get the shiney feature in there. If one app does this, while another freezes ti make everything cleaned up and efficient, the 2nd will get slaughtered commercially (assuming they are roughly equal in other things).

FireFox is open source, so the developers don't have to do this. However, developers often prefer adding new stuff, so on an open source product that is what will get done. Plus a lot of people involved seem keen for it to grab some market share, so it has to compete with other browsers. Back to new features.

As a programmer for a company, I'd like to add it's often not about pride, there is a deadline to meet. The company has to make money, or I won't have a job. I like when I can take the time to do it properly, and be proud of it, but sometimes you just have to hack it to get it to work. You can be proud of the hacks though :) they are often quite ingenious little fixes, even if they aren't elegent or the most efficient.

Re:Rank them by importance

[Anonymous Custard]

Because a browser is where most people now go to perform full-text searches on large sets of documents (via Google).

The way I see it, I go to google to do searches, not a browser. Should the browser implement e-commerce just because people go to amazon.com to shop?

Right in the foot, Ren!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is another great opertunity for the Mozilla guys to loose focus and produce another "do all" browser WE DO NOT WANT!

FireFox is light, tight and focused - That's why it's on my PC. If I wanted a browser that burrowed into my OS I'd use IE. If they want to produce a desktop search engine please let them develop it as a seperate product.

Re:[e-mail]

[hanson_mark]

Rather than adding support for Mozilla Firefox, etc. Google would be much better off adding a way that third party applications can tell Google desktop search about files they understand. Then we can write the Firefox plugin that makes Google desktop seach index pages browsed with Firefox. In fact I am a little surprised that Google released this product without this extensibility already present, maybe they were under pressure to get something out there as fast as possible.

Lack of creativity

[danila]

It's amazing how in the huge world of software everyone keeps talking about the same shit over and over again. Now we are doomed for 2-3 years to listen about desktop search on every occasion from every single company. "Hi, I am Gill Bates, the CEO of Useless Widget Software. We are planning to introduce desktop searching capability into the next version of our product for no apparent reason, just because it looks cool". Shit, I can understand why Google wants to create desktop search - they are a search company, after all, and they have a severe case of money-pocket-burnus. And of course Google is too cheap to create a desktop application using Windows API or even something cross-platform like Java, so they use browser to operate the search, which is just a pathetic hack. But why should Firefox do desktop search? Contrary to what many may think, searching personal computer files has nothing whatsoever to do with browser.

Re:Marketing problem

[NutscrapeSucks]

My problem is with the Microsoft lovers. ...They can't seem to be able to wrap their brains arround the fact that a community developed web browser could ever be better than what the mighty Microsoft has produced.

First, cool your jets. Firefox only went 1.0 yesterday, and before then there hasn't been a free, production-level browser that appealed to IE users. Windows techies have been trying various versions of Mozilla/Netscape for the last 3-4 years, and up to recently they haven't liked them.

Second, wrap your mind around the fact that "IE works just fine..." really is true for most users (except for some corner-cases).

If your attitude is that it is mainfestly obvious that IE sucks, your experience differs from most people's and it is no wonder they won't listen to you. Face it, the sell of FireFox is "Like IE ... but better". (Anyway, you must be a hoot, pushing "bad advocacy" on people and then blaming your victims when they tune you out.)

Finally, I see the exact same attitude almost daily in the Mozilla Lovers community. People complained for years about how bloated the AppSuite is, and the response was basically "Is Not".

Re:Rank them by importance

[urmensch]

Try this [gnome.org] open source search tool.

Re:Rank them by importance

[mrider]

You Can also try my system called POPsearch http://www.popsearch.net/ [popsearch.net]