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Firefox

New Firefox Mascot 'Kit' Unveiled On New Web Page (firefox.com) 69

Posted by EditorDavid from the brand-opening dept.
"The Firefox brand is getting a refresh and you get the first look," says a new web page at Firefox.com. "Kit's our new mascot and your new companion through an internet that's private, open and actually yours."

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli believes the new mascot "is meant to communicate that message in a warmer, more relatable way."

And Firefox is already selling shirts with Kit over the pocket (as well as stickers)...
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New Firefox Mascot 'Kit' Unveiled On New Web Page More

New Firefox Mascot 'Kit' Unveiled On New Web Page

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  • Sure, do this instead of better tech (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday November 08, 2025 @09:48PM (#65783410)

    Mozilla is really broken.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Mozilla is really broken.

      So, Mozilla is prioritizing graphics designer employment over actual engineers to make the product better. Got it.

    • Re:Sure, do this instead of better tech (Score:5, Informative)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday November 09, 2025 @05:32AM (#65783750)

      And what "tech" do you suggest they do? They've been averaging over 1000 commits per week to their code based for the entire year now. You can't pick on the development graph where they have done this "instead" of anything. In fact the Firefox codebase is so actively worked on several of Github's insight tools don't work on it throwing an error saying there are too many changes to analyse.

      So please do tell us what the fuck you're talking about.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CRC'99 ( 96526 )

        Given I haven't used Firefox for that long now, do they finally have the ability to select input and output devices for audio?

        I use speakers for normal audio, but Teams / Discord etc on a headset only.

        Yet the feature request to be able to select audio streams has been around for at least a decade and never implemented... I gave up caring in waiting for an outbreak of common sense - but you wanted to know what 'tech' is missing...

        • If you REALLY want to you can set this in pavucontrol in about twenty seconds. Should last until the browser restarts.

          Might even work with pipewire if the planets are aligned.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by allo ( 1728082 )

            There are more platforms that just Linux. A button in the Firefox UI for that, like others browsers have, would be useful. Good we have workarounds, bad we need them.

            • There are more platforms that just Linux.

              And they all have the same ability. Just open up the Windows Volume Mixer to redirect an application to a different output device.

              Actually they don't all have this same ability. The "creator's" and "artistic's" OS, the audio engineer's OS of choice, the dominant OS in the music industry in the 90s, ... Mac OS doesn't support this feature. You need a 3rd party app for that.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by allo ( 1728082 )

                Seriously, if I start a video call just give me combox boxes for webcams, microphones and outputs. Of course you can do everything using some other tools. Or the program that wants to record something and output something can ask if it is not absolutely clear which device should be used. Things were easy when browser were just playing audio. You put audio on speakers until a headphone is connected and then on the headphone. With conferencing webapps things aren't that clear anymore, people may need to switc

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by allo ( 1728082 )

        They have like a million open bugreports in their bugtracker. They could use any penny to make their main product better.
        Yeah, it is a large product with a large user base. But that's the point why you spend money on getting 1000 to 10000 commits instead of getting a new mascot nobody needed. If you need a mascot you can let the community do it for itself. Foxkeh was created like 20 years ago and is still cute today.

        • They have like a million open bugreports in their bugtracker. They could use any penny to make their main product better.

          So please go through Mozilla's financial reports and show us where they are underspending on development. Also show the costing of having an artistic team (which exists and represents a fixed cost, and is a necessary component of any company selling a product) is impacting development ability.

          You don't seem to understand how costs or effort is allocated. If you wanted to discuss a development team focusing on item A in the bug tracker instead of item B, then you have a point, that is a zero sum game for fix

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by allo ( 1728082 )

            I want Mozilla do build a browser. They can keep the artwork minimal. And the side projects zero. They had some good ideas and some really bad ideas for side projects, but all of them could have been done by other projects than Mozilla. Why did they buy pocket? It was a perfectly fine extension for the people who wanted it, which did not need to bother people who didn't need it. Then they bought it for a lot of money and pushed it onto everyone, wanting it or not. There are a lot more examples, if you're re

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bjoast ( 1310293 )

        They've been averaging over 1000 commits per week to their code based for the entire year now.

        Cutting that down to 100 per week would probably be a good first step at slowing the deterioration of their product.

        • This is a great example of people's priorities not being aligned. No I think there's a million things they should do instead of this. I already have several PDF renderers on my PCs for various other reasons, I wonder why it has a Save to PDF function in the first place.

      • They've been averaging over 1000 commits per week to their code based for the entire year now.

        And I have noticed no benefit. WTF are they actually committing? More antisocial shit? More rearranging of the UI? More user hostile stuff? It may just be time to leave the fucking Internet forever. Everyone and everything just fucking sucks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nmb3000 ( 741169 )

      > Sure, do this instead of better tech

      Regardless of what you think of the new mascot, do you really think the same people responsible for drawing pretty pictures of foxes are the same ones designing "better tech" and writing code and fixing bugs? Groups of people can do more than one thing at a time.

      And I'd guess this is also an attempt to raise some money and awareness to the browser. At this point it doesn't matter how great Firefox "tech" is, they have lost the popularity context against Chrome and

  • Sorry, but no... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by martiniturbide ( 1203660 ) on Saturday November 08, 2025 @09:59PM (#65783418) Homepage Journal
    There is no new Firefox for OS/2, I will not supporting Kit.

  • This Kit has no Pockets. (Score:5, Funny)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Saturday November 08, 2025 @10:18PM (#65783430)

    And Firefox is already selling shirts with Kit over the pocket (as well as stickers)...

    Those shirts do not appear to have any breast pockets. The decoration is just on the base shirt front panel.
    Mozilla said they were removing Pocket and they have kept their word.

  • it's now Chrome's roadkill. Other than us, almost nobody uses it.

  • No. Why?

  • Clearly, This Was Mozilla's Most Pressing Issue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Saturday November 08, 2025 @11:51PM (#65783492) Homepage Journal

    "Hey, everyone! Don't pay any attention to those Japanese translators who'd been volunteering their time and expertise for the last 20 years that we just insensitively and comprehensively shit on... [slashdot.org] Look! New mascot logo! Giz cash..."

    (Narrator: New revenues did not materialize.)

  • I have a better idea (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here is an idea to make Firefox actually better...allow us to paste multiple files at once.

  • Both Ad companies. Google, "Don't be evil". Scratched their slogan. Mozilla/Firefox, "We're not Google". Becomes Google... though with less focus on tech.

  • Cute (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nicubunu ( 242346 ) on Sunday November 09, 2025 @02:23AM (#65783592) Homepage

    I showed this to my daughter and she went "cuuuuuteee!!!". I also set Kit on my Firefox new tab page.

    Sure, like anyone else here, would like to see some code features in Firefox, but I understand people working on mascots are different from the people working on rendering engine, is not a zero sum game.

    • Re:Cute (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday November 09, 2025 @05:36AM (#65783762)

      Sure, like anyone else here, would like to see some code features in Firefox, but I understand people working on mascots are different from the people working on rendering engine, is not a zero sum game.

      This. Firefox's commit graph on Github has been perfectly stable at over 1000 commits a week for the past year. At no point in the graph can you see where this mascot was developed. It turns out when you have more than one person you can do more than one thing at a time. For some reason this seems to be a shock repeatedly to some Slashdot users.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by bjoast ( 1310293 )
      Yes, because what I've always missed in my browser UI is a cute cartoon animal that does nothing but signal condescension towards the user.

  • who needs this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aRTeeNLCH ( 6256058 ) on Sunday November 09, 2025 @05:00AM (#65783724)
    I don't know who needs this. But I do know that I've been given a powerful browser on my Linux PCs and on Android.

    You can complain all you want about Mozilla and Firefox, and many complaints are surely valid. But Firefox is still the best option, considering the alternative of the full Chrome hegemony.

    So if some graphic designers at Mozilla came up with this because they had the urge, fine. It seems to have some appeal. It's not like those graphics designers would have coded something useful in the same time. And true cynics might argue that at least when designing and prepping Kit for release, they're not spending time to horrify the Firefox UI...

    • I want them to fix the JavaScript related memory leaks in Mobile so I don't have to kill it several times a day. I guess that's too much to ask since this has been going on for literally years.

      • I've not run into that problem, but I concur such things should be fixed. I'll never understand how certain problems arise on mobile yet not on the PC version, do they maintain 2 so very different code bases?

        • Yes, they are very different. But also, I don't know if this problem also exists in Firefox for Linux on ARM. Javascript engines are architecture-specific. This is the main reason why Firefox had to drop PPC support when it did.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nmb3000 ( 741169 )

        I want them to fix the JavaScript related memory leaks in Mobile so I don't have to kill it several times a day. I guess that's too much to ask since this has been going on for literally years.

        I've used Firefox Beta as my primary browser on my Android phones for years and have never encountered this. Maybe there's an issue with some specific features used by sites I don't visit. Doesn't prove anything but I guess one anecdote deserves another.

    • Re:who needs this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eneville ( 745111 ) on Sunday November 09, 2025 @06:21AM (#65783786) Homepage

      Chrome has more a monopoly as a render engine.

      There was a brief spot between IE and Chome where Firefox had the market, but Google put that damn button on their search page that took everyone to a Chrome download and "wow"d people with the URL bar search.

      I personally love Firefox, and for any minor problem it might have, I think the ability to have a reliable ad blocker without much hassle is well worth it.

      • Good points. Regarding the ad blocking, it seems many people don't even realise such things are possible... Firefox and on Android Newpipe are indispensable for that reason alone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        There was a brief spot between IE and Chome where Firefox had the market, but Google put that damn button on their search page that took everyone to a Chrome download and "wow"d people with the URL bar search.

        I personally love Firefox, and for any minor problem it might have, I think the ability to have a reliable ad blocker without much hassle is well worth it.

        Sure, let's ignore all the times during that heyday where Mozilla decided to alienate Firefox users. Sure, maybe they had a good reason to break the

      • but Google put that damn button on their search page that took everyone to a Chrome download

        A lot of people chose Chrome long before this. Back then, the time you were talking about, Firefox while a capable browser ran like absolute dogshit. It was slow to load, slow to render pages, and riddled with memory leaks. That button may have driven a nail into the coffins of the alternatives, but those coffins were built on the back of V8 - a blistering fast Javascript engine which showed the world that it wasn't their modems that were slow, but rather the browsers they were using. It was almost a decade

    • FIREFOX is no longer the best option. Librewolf  installs & works smooth as butter; a slash-dot poster gave me the clue, and I switched a couple weeks ago. Been with MOZ since Netscape, but they have changed; I never looked back.
      • How is Librewolf better, if it's just based on Firefox? In my eyes that's just unnecessary fragmentation...

  • They've been taken over by the marketing machine. They're headed in the direction of the dodo.

  • They are changing the color of the bikeshed, I stopped using Firefox after 20 years after the amount of bugs became unbearable and have not looked back.
  • Devoting time to such irrelevant nonsense, rather than making your browser and email agent truly desirable? You people have strange priorities.

  • Two things.... (Score:3)

    by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529&yahoo,com> on Sunday November 09, 2025 @10:14AM (#65783990)

    First, we need a plushy of Kit. My wife couldn't tell you the difference between Chrome, Edge, or Firefox from a practical standpoint...but she wants a Kit plushy...so, merchandising works.

    Second...Firefox seems to be spending it time making itself more and more annoying. As much as one could appreciate that not everybody knows how to use all the browser features...it's adopted Edge levels of nags, notifications, and "helpful hints". Be less helpful.

  • ... The Firefox brand is getting a refresh ... Kit's our new mascot

    Fuck the mascot, with a chainsaw running at full speed. Seriously - with all the ways in which you've endeavoured to turn your browser into a steaming pile of crap, it's time to stop wasting resources on frivolous things like "mascots" and get back into the real game.

    I still use your browser and your mail client, but I'm damned tired of having to acquire expertise with "about:config" only to end up still tripping over steaming piles of dogshit left behind by baby developers who either have no clue about us

    • I agree on scrollbars and tab design, but not on Thunderbird. Especially after the latest UI changes, and setting the spacing to compact (which is notably not hidden in about:config), it's the best-damn-looking and -usable e-mail client I ever used. And, finally, also the fastest (after many years of issues with large mailboxes).

      Apart from that, I think it boils down to this: development needs resources, justifying resources needs market share, and market share builds, among other things, on good branding a

  • In a desperate bid to reach an audience that at this point know almost nothing about each other and have little in common, who are dumbed down by social media and moronic news stories, not to mention the doofus TV shows, brands are reducing everything to Playskool level kindergarten appeal. The world described by Idiocracy is not far off.

    Consider our increasing polarization [phys.org]:

    Polarization has always existed, but what is happening now goes far beyond historical patterns. Greater connectivity has led to the for

  • A couple of weeks ago, several Microsoft Logos and icons changed, for example, the blue envelope shown while Outlook365 is starting. No purpose to it, not better or worse, just somewhat different. Why?

    So Firefox us going to do the same thing? Again, why? There is zero need for this, and certainly arguments against it.

    UIs and Logos need to be stable, preferably over decades. We need a lot fewer designers.

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