Mozilla Is Changing Its Look -- and Asking the Internet For Feedback (arstechnica.com) 226
Megan Geuss, writing for ArsTechnica: Mozilla is trying a rebranding. Back in June, the browser developer announced that it would freshen up its logo and enlist the Internet's help in reaching a final decision. The company hired British design company Johnson Banks to come up with seven new "concepts" to illustrate the company's work. The logos rely on vibrant colors, and several of them recall '80s and '90s style. In pure, nearly-unintelligible marketing speak, Mozilla writes that each new design reflects a story about the company. "From paying homage to our paleotechnic origins to rendering us as part of an ever-expanding digital ecosystem, from highlighting our global community ethos to giving us a lift from the quotidian elevator open button, the concepts express ideas about Mozilla in clever and unexpected ways," Mozilla's Creative Director Tim Murray writes in a blog post. Mozilla is soliciting comment and criticism on the seven new designs for the next two weeks, but this is no Boaty McBoatface situation. Mozilla is clear that it's not crowdsourcing a design, asking anyone to work on spec, or holding a vote over which logo the Internet prefers. It's just asking for comments.
Only one of these is even intelligible. (Score:4, Interesting)
Way to hide your brand effectively, Mozilla!
Go with the blue one that actually says "Mozilla" somewhere in a way that most people will be able to recognize.
Re:Only one of these is even intelligible. (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft would like to 'tweak' my Linux system so that it runs Windows 10.
Most of the proposed logos are not legible or immediately intelligible. And certainly not recognizable as the Mozilla brand. If I saw one of these logos, my immediate reaction would be that some clown is trying to capitalize on the Mozilla name recognition, and not doing a very good job.
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There already was a contest for a new Firefox logo. This one [wikimedia.org] was the winner. Why not continue on in that theme and have the mozilla dinosaur head encased in a glacier or something?
You could stare into its dead eyes and relive memories of a once glorious past.
Feedback (Score:5, Funny)
Agreed. My take on the set:
1. In 1985 it would have been cool.
2. So you're hosting the Olympics?
3. Mozilla is a media player?
4. Bland but tolerable
5. Mozilla is a CAD program?
6. In 1995 it still wouldn't have been cool.
7. Wait, that's a Monument Valley map.
I'd suggest a simple but stylized M, with understated modern aesthetics and not the pop art of #6. People aren't looking for whimsy in an app they'll use for banking.
Re:Feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Too much time on his hands
2. Needing to justify his position at the company
I mean, for the average person, what does a "rebranding" actually do?
NOTHING
These great marketing dollars thrown about to come up with a new logo, or new colors, etc..means exactly nothing to the consumer. The consumer isn't going to be dazzled and really get on board with it this time!!
It isn't going to entice anyone that was not he fence about using the product to jump onto the bandwagon.
If anything, like mentioned before, you might lose some customers if the change is too radical and people not following the every marketing move of the company, might lose track of your product.
This, IMHO, isn't just for this Mozilla revamp, but for 99% of companies out there too. These exercises are a waste of money and time....and for what to be gained?
Nobody gives a shit about company mottos, except the poets at the marketing companies.
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It sounds to me like some executive somewhere there, has either:
1. Too much time on his hands
2. Needing to justify his position at the company
Don't blame executives. To come up with this level of crap requires a consultant. The only thing an executive has is 3. Too much spare money.
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It sounds to me like some executive somewhere there, has either:
1. Too much time on her hands
2. Needing to justify her position at the company
Considering what SJWs Mozilla has become I just had to fix that for you.
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"The Eye" - This is creepy and much too reminiscent of Big Brother. And the color scheme screams of Norton AntiVirus.
"The Connector" - This looks like the very long history of very bad Olympics logos. Bad shapes, confusing, weird colors. It would not be immediately associated with a "web browser".
"Open Button" - This is better, but reminds me of the many audio/media players with last track, pause, and next track button. This would be a great logo if Firefox were WinAmp.
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Re:Feedback (Score:5, Insightful)
They can have this one for free. I am not a designer, I spent 5 mins on this and it's shite - still better IMHO than any of the guff they came up with.
http://imgur.com/a/70ReP [imgur.com]
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I very much agree.
#1 (Score:2)
The Eye of Sauron is a good analogy for Pocket and other stupid ideas. Maybe it can sear with flames when it sends your data away.
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Re:Only one of these is even intelligible. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla has been offering free software. Changing its look and feel could be disastrous because it can give the impression that it is something other than what we knew and loved for decades.
Google only tweaked its font a bit.
Microsoft just took the curves out of its logo.
Apple had removed the colors.
Mostly all the changes to the branding for these companies were a simplified version what they had. They didn't get Artistic and fancy. Just flat and dull, but reminiscent of the old logo.
In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
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Funny that you mention sugar water, since Coca-Cola has had essentially the same logo for a hundred years, with the exception of the short lived foray into "Coke" in the 80s/
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but coca-cola contained real cocaine (coca leaves) for its first few decades, that's how it got more than a generation to affirm to their children that "yes this is really good shit!" Logo could have been anything..
in not entirely unrelated matter a big popular cough remedy company used to be able to sell codeine and alcohol mix over the counter with no prescription, so when I was a kid it because massively popular. I suspect we kids stayed home from school "sick" one extra day just to get more fixes of t
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Errr no. Just because they didn't change the name of the company (except for 1985) doesn't mean their logo has remained the same.
Coke has changed it's logo significantly 9 times in the past 100 years, and 12 times overall (for one person's definition of significant. There's over 17 variants of their logo in the last 50years based on what I could find, and that's just the corporate face. The customer facing side of the logo (the can design) has changed 10 times in past 30 years in the USA alone, let alone ch
Re:In other words (Score:4, Informative)
doesn't mean their logo has remained the same.
It doesn't, but still their logo is pretty much the same:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pini... [pinimg.com]
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Calling that pretty much the same just because there's italicised running font would make marketing people cry. No seriously I'm sure Coke spent millions of dollars coming up with subtle logo change between 1905 and 1940s.
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
Marketing people deserve to cry.
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I use Mozilla and was mostly happy with it until they dropped the "decide on the expiry date of cookies at runtime" option a couple of months ago. Now I use ESR and am hoping an alternative - or add-on - turns up. Experimenting with Chrome shows me where the more idiotic of the recent changes arose, at least Firefox has about:config to turn most of them off again.
Who cares about logos? The whole discussion indicates that their priorities have gone south.
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I've been using Palemoon for a while now. It's a fork of Firefox from before they decided to copy Chrome's interface (but make it worse). It added a lot of the customization features back in that Firefox had been deleting. All of the about:config stuff works too. I've heard good things about Vivaldi. Slimjim looks interesting.
Ice cream (Score:4, Funny)
Incredibly strong urge for Baskin-Robbins right now, am I the only one?
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That one looks like a cartoon skull.
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My knee-jerk response to that logo was "Sad robot -- the smile doesn't reach his eyes." Not the sort of upbeat attitude I think Mozilla wants to present.
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Definitely this. Also, it's the logo for an elevator button.
The colors are grating too.
How about you just build a freaking browser? (Score:3, Insightful)
How about you just build a freaking browser?
It takes the style from the window manager, has an address bar and buttons that you deem fit. It is a stupid browers, not a design project where you can compensate you did not go to art school. Big browsing window. Small frame as the window manager offers. Thankyouverymuch.
What for?! (Score:5, Insightful)
You ignored al feedback so far, why ask now, just to ignore us again?
Re:What for?! (Score:5, Funny)
not important (Score:5, Insightful)
So many other more important things they could be doing with their product. I've been frustrated with Chrome's greed lately and would love an alternative. They have an opportunity, but instead are making logos.
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That, or these are completely separate offices in Mozilla and whether or not they change Firefox's logo has absolutely no bearing on its technical progress.
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What made Mozilla think there was something wrong with their highly recognizable current logo?
It's like New Coke, but worse. Some of the logos look like street grafitti. Or the result of an explosion in a neon paint factory.
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Throwing a hundred mediocre programmers at every project is why most Microsoft products suck.
Less header (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as "look", I want to see the non-content part take up less vertical space. It's fine on a 1920X1200 screen, but on smaller screens I have to rock the page up and down to use it effectively. Find a way to offer browser features without taking up space at the top of the frame.
As far as function, I'd like the browser to not consume the entire four cores, please. When I'm doing something else (example, Lightroom) and the response is extremely sluggish, Task Manager will show Firefox consuming most of my memory and nearly pegging all CPUs, reminding me yet again that I forgot to dismiss Firefox before doing, well, pretty much anything else. It's just a browser, for chrissake. Just sitting there it shouldn't take up that much in resources.
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Javascript (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe what we need is Javascript sandboxing that can pause scripts in tabs without focus, limit CPU usage, autokill pages, and so on. I have no idea whether the engine is buggy or the site code is buggy or the frameworks are broken or whatever, but if it hasn't been fixed yet, then we need a drastic solution.
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I had the adblock plugin installed, but not noscript. Experimenting with that now.
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Even less vertical space? On Windows, you can configure it to take up about 1 cm (tabs and address bar visible, everything else hidden). They've already removed the status bar (so now the link/image URL popup overlaps the page instead of being displayed in an empty area), and you can hide the menu bar and the bookmarks bar. Not my cup of tea, I prefer standard windows over hide-all-functionality and hamburger menus. But it's there if you want.
On a Mac you always have the menu bar too and they can't invade t
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What kind of stuff do you have in your header?
I have a row of tabs, the address/search bar, and a bookmarks bar. On Firefox, that's about eight pixels less than on Chrome, because the back button is slightly bigger, but the overall height is only 90 pixels. I'm not running any special extensions to hide things - I have a few addons that add buttons to the main bar, and I've disabled more than a few things, but even those were through easily-discovered menus. If you disable the bookmarks bar, that cuts about
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90 pixels is (lessee, carry the one...) ten percent of a screen that's 900 pixels tall. (Common screen resolution in laptops.) That's pretty significant.
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Okay, so you're on a 1600x900 screen. Or maybe 1200x900, if 4:3 laptops are still around, but horizontal space doesn't seem to be a problem for either of us.
Vertically, that's not all that much more than the 1920x1080 screens I regularly use, and I've not made any special effort to optimize vertical space on my setup.
My current screen has vertical space allocated like so:
46px: Firefox window border and tabs (a bit extra wasted space because I'm not in a maximized window, but rather a 960-wide half-screen wi
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> If you leave a website open that is busy and does busy things, how is the browser supposed to know that you did not, in fact, want it to do those things?
Ok, good point, but an answer that occurs to me is "any time that page is not being displayed".
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Ok, hang on, take a breath. For years, probably decades, it's been possible to turn browser headings on and off in most non-M$ browsers. It's as simple as a check box for most heading add-ons (which I never use, but it's still a good example).
So a reasonable solution would be to make it optional to turn all that junk on or off. I'm *not*, repeat *not* suggesting that Mozilla pull a Windows Eight and force-remove valuable and heavily used gui features. But what I have in the back of my mind is to make op
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Ugh, christ, it's people like you screaming "MUH VERTICAL REAL ESTATE" that killed the status bar and prompted Mozilla to push the URL of autocomplete suggestions off to the right side of the UI, completely unjustified relative to the other URLs making it impossible to scan with the eye.
It's people like you pushing UIs towards the lowest common denominator, the phone.
Please take a long walk off a short pier at your earliest convenience.
The 4:3 monitor isn't a thing anymore, and many monitors don't support tilt, so they're stuck in a wide screen orientation. Suggestions on how to preserve vertical real estate and fix your complaint are probably welcome. Code is even better. You sound like a smart guy, lets see some action.
Ask? (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't need to ask the internet. The internet will let them know regardless.
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They don't need to ask the internet. The internet will let them know regardless.
They don't need to ask especially since they have a history of ignoring the internet's opinion.
Haters (Score:3)
I've been away from Slashdot for a while. Lots of haters on this story, which is normal for Slashdot, but there aren't any insightful or interesting or funny comments. Have the last few nerds left this website or am I just looking at the wrong story?
If they went, where did the nerds go?
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Your ID is 7 digits. Get off our lawn.
Re:Haters (Score:5, Funny)
Your ID is 6 digits. Get off MY lawn!
Re:Haters (Score:5, Funny)
My id is null, I will hide in your hedge.
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What else have we left to do here? :)
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Mozilla have done a lot of things in the last couple years to make nerds angry. This superficial change is so bad even Mozilla's defenders will be left with nothing to say.
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Even if they make Firefox super ugly, I'll just use a custom theme and it won't bother me.
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Yeah, when I get mod points and look for something to mod up, I realize what a wasteland it is. Thank god that doesn't happen very often.
Although I don't recall Slashdot ever being any better in terms of the comments that do get modded up. And usually that's all I care about.
Ouf (Score:5, Insightful)
I miss 3.6 (Score:5, Insightful)
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+1 I miss when it wasn't trying to be a half assed Chrome clone and they had a theme + addon community.
I think mauve has the most RAM (Score:3)
Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:5, Funny)
I think at this point there's been a mutiny: the designers have seized power and are holding all the people who are qualified to actually get on with proper stuff as hosttages.
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Re:Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic (Score:5, Funny)
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Mozilla's problem is not with its logo.
Have you seen the suggested new logos? They aren't just re-arranging the deck chairs, they are throwing them overboard and saying "screw you, you don't need to be comfortable while you drown".
How do they still have money to pay for consultants to come up with that shit given their current market share?
Mozilla better demand a refund! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, there is only 1 that doesn't look atrocious, the "Moz://a". The rest look like what I would expect from what grade schoolers class assignment.
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I agree, Moz://a is the only one that's easily recognizable. The others were done by someone who just discovered the psychedelic artwork styles of the 50's and 60's.
When you run out of ideas.... (Score:3, Insightful)
In the music industry, when a band runs out of ideas, "Greatest Hits" album is released.
In the software industry, when you run out of ideas, you just change the look of your product.
Here is an idea for you: design your product so that it fucking stays on the content the user is looking at, rather than jumping all over the fucking place when graphics/ads load!! If more content needs to come on, simply grow it above or below the content in the window itself, without moving the displayed content.
Work on THAT for a while. Leave the look alone.
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The fact that content jumps all around the place is the fault of the websites, not the browser. If the HTML/CSS doesn't tell the browser how much space the non-background images will take, the browser cannot determine the dimensions in advance and has to download the images first.
And since the dimensions are usually at the beginning of the graphic files, that's why the page rendering keeps jumping all over the place when the images start downloading one after another.
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I have no complaints with slamming the logo changes, however there is often a different reason for a "Greatest Hits" album.
If a band ditches one record company for another, the old record company will often throw together a "Greatest Hits" album with the stuff they have the rights to publish. This lets them squeeze a bit more money out, while simultanously sending the message that it's time to look to other bands for new hits.
Easier solution. (Score:3)
Just do what they've been doing for the product: see what Google is doing for Chrome and copy that.
More seriously, why?
Also, I imagine they're paying someone to do this, along with paying developers to shoehorn in features (basically) no one is asking for, wants, uses and have to figure out how to disable with each new release. How about channeling that money to useful, productive product development - and some of it for Thunderbird -- instead of looking to ditch it.
Re:Easier solution. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still getting security updates, just leave it at that.
Branding and image are not the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Rebranding and image polishing are undertaken only when a company knows that things aren't going too well for them. Many Firefox users would probably agree with that, at least the technical users know it all too clearly.
However, the problems are not caused by the brand being unsavoury or the image tarnished. The brand and image are fine. Where problems have appeared it is because Mozilla developers have been forcing unwanted change on their users, forcing them continually to find remedial fixes to preserve friendly and productive old functionality. Browsers are not kettles, people don't want a completely different look each year.
The fact that Mozilla is now undertaking brand and image refurbishment clearly indicates the nature of the problem. The immense and unbridled ego of Firefox developers has put them in complete denial that Mozilla's problems are caused by them and them alone, and that has left their management with only one alternative, to play with branding and image.
It will achieve nothing of substance.
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Rebranding and image polishing are undertaken only when a company knows that things aren't going too well for them.
Rebranding happens all the time for lots of reason. Yours, it just one of them. One company I work with rebranded because it was growing and the original branding was looking dated. Another I know of rebranded because its portfolio of products had expanded and its current branding didn't reflect it.
The brand and image are fine.
Meh. All they have is the lowercase mozilla; they've already distanced themselves from the big red dino head (which still appears on wikipedia, but doesn't seem to be anywhere else at least not prominently. So su
Better idea (Score:2)
You're welcome and I will be sending my bill, which will be about a tenth of what you've thrown away on these 'Style Maker' wankers, which I bet is easily in the mid to high six-figures.
Non-profit, indeed.
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Mosaic + Godzilla = Moe-zill-uh
I'll take a tenth of your tenth.
My take? Thank you, Mozilla! (Score:2)
I like the lizard eye logo (Score:2)
Reminds me of the eye of Sauron which is fitting for a browser that's constantly calling home.
Voty for Boaty! (Score:2)
OSS has tools with names such as Gnu, Gimp, Postresql, Vuze, Ogg Vorbis, and Troff. I don't see Boaty McBoatface being any worse.
Names that sound like alien medical conditions and bodily fluids actually seem to give OSS tools "street cred", due to being names corporations would typically reject. They are nerdily refreshing after dealing
Look, a squirrel! (Score:2)
That's all.
asking the internet (Score:2)
Two Suggestions (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Stop firing people for bullshit offenses to Social Justice Warrior sensibilities.
2. When you automatically restore multiple windows after crashes, load the freaking close button controls before anything else.
What they need to do (Score:5, Interesting)
1: Put off branding until their have their actual products well defined.
2: Stop shoving their nose so far up Google's nether-sphicter. They want their OWN products, not Google also-rans.
3: Dump the fucking SJW culture. It's toxic and it's negatively impacting your products by making your development every bit as psychotic and MPD as it is.
4: Hire someone who ACTUALLY knows something about branding. Whoever's fourth cousin came up with the shit you have there needs to never be allowed near anything even RESEMBLING product branding ever again...
Obligatory (Score:2, Insightful)
Oblig [viruscomix.com]
This isn't about Firefox... (Score:2)
Since that is the case, who gives a rat's ass?
They shouldn't change much, just iterate. (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I've got a design diploma (with accolades).
The letter-logo is just fine. They should just iterate their branding a little.
Here are my quick points for the website (German layout version) [mozilla.org] alone (a new style-tile incorporating these would also be a neat base for a brand overhaul) ... The current englisch version looks boooooring [mozilla.org] btw. - it's an example of a bad iteration. Just current trendy stuff quickly ripped and remixed without a clear concept, once again half finished. ... Why don't these people just iterate an ok design to make it perfect? Why always a complete overhaul? This is non-sense.
My list: ... get an expert on this) ... Mozilla needs a presentation video of its own. Hero size, professionally done. People want Moooovieezzz! nowadays.
- Letter Logo off to the side a bit, more breathing room (hero image/video backdrop maybe?)
- Letter Logo bolder (is there an extrabold version of the font? They should move to that.)
- less clutter on the screen
- limit the palette and have it follow color theory (looks like an unfinished MS Metro rippoff - not nice)
- one radius for rounded corners and not 5 or so that I'm seeing.
- Justify left, better images, perhaps some hippster hero images (yes I know, we have enough of those already, but well done they *do* work
- 2 to 3 font sizes, not the 6 or 7 I'm seeing (bad layout design!! Together with the various radi on rounded corners the layout is a mess - a little tweaking alone would be a huge improvement)
- Flowtext font thinner.
- Flowtext fontsize smaller
- Double your whitespace. No, really, double your whitespace.
- layout backdrop coloring is so 2010 - should get a redo, limit colorset or remove it all-together and stick to base-color-palette
- We'res the Firefox Ad or the Moz equivalent?
- Nice to have: They should check with some world class webdesigners and see if they can remove or limit the "bootstrappiness" of the entire layout. People are bored of that. Perhaps limiting the use of Icons would already help a bit. Fontawesome and Co. make sense, but they're often overused and out of place. Like postmodern architecture with no sense or meaning... Maybe more to the polymer icons - those are hip, classic and work well with fresh minimalistic designs.
My 2 designer cents.
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>"- We'res the Firefox Ad or the Moz equivalent? ... Mozilla needs a presentation video of its own. Hero size, professionally done. People want Moooovieezzz! nowadays."
Um, please NO. Or if you absolutely MUST, then make DAMN sure it is separate, small (with ability to optionally make it larger), and doesn't autoplay.
waste of money (Score:2)
1. No, simply no. It makes my eyes go funny.
2. No. Cute ways to make graphics spell out a company's name is a first-year student's approach. You can do better. It looks like a QR code FFS.
3. Interesting. But what does it have to do with browsers? Is Mozilla now making robots? Or a chat app?
4. Cute. Will not be cute in about 18 months.
5. No, and see point 2 as to why. It also does not render well at 32x32.
6. Makes my eyes bleed almost as much as #1. Also will not render well at low resolutions. FF
1st world problems: Form over Function (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of wasting time with a crappy new logos (that no one asked for) how about fixing your products instead so they don't suck ?
You know, based on technical merits, like you did back in the FF 2.x and 3.x days.
/sarcasm Because I'm sure a new logo will solve all your problems.
i am wondering about Seamonkey (Score:2)
How about functionality? (Score:3)
Why don't Mozilla change the browser's functionality rather? To be more like Pale Moon?
Or maybe change its name to Bloatey McBloatware...
Moz://a (Score:4, Insightful)
The Moz://a one is the only one that's remotely clever and interesting, and yet... the protocol prefix, including the ://, was one of the things they got rid of (by default) in an earlier update.
So, irony.
Did someone pay for this? (Score:3)
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(I'm on Nightly 51)
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If it used to be good enough for millions of computers world-wide, it's good enough for your walls.
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Yep, these all suck monumentally.
And since Mozilla hasn't made a good decision since Mitchell Baker left, whichever one the internet thinks is ugliest is what Mozilla will pick.