Dear Mozilla,

Posted by Fred Oliveira on May 4, 2010 | Comments (2)

It is not the first time I read about how Chrome is beating Firefox in the browser race. Every time it happens, however, I can’t help but think two things: 1) that I’m contributing to the numbers by being one of the Chrome converts, and 2) that the good old days are sadly just that – old days.

I remember Phoenix (I can’t believe it’s been eight years), and how promising it was – it was fast, open, with great standards support. Then you were forced to change name to Firebird – people weren’t very fond of that name either. Then the second and final name change, to Firefox. Things were great for a while, there. Phoenix was built as an alternative to the Mozilla suite, which installed a number of things real users just did not need. Launching the browser was a delightful experience – it was a great combination of simplicity and raw power. It was beautiful.

Now allow me to fast-forward to today: you’re hard at work at version 3.7 of Firefox, with 4.0 on the slate soon. Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt left for Facebook; Dave Hyatt left for Apple. Firefox slowly (but surely) slowed down to the Mozilla Suite-like speeds. Firefox has personas, and themes. I, as I’m sure you’re guessing by now, don’t need themes (just as I don’t need many of the things in the 3.0 cycle). I need the fastest browser I can get, I need it to keep pushing the envelope and complying to standards – why not 100% on the acid 3 test yet, by the way? Chrome, fortunately for me, fills that gap. It is both fast and standards compliant. It feels light even with extensions. I love it almost as much as I loved Phoenix back in the day.

Which brings me full circle to Phoenix (now not the browser but the mythical bird). You guys need to reinvent yourselves and come back from the “ashes” of what Firefox is today. What Hyatt and Ross did one day for the Mozilla Suite, Chrome has done for Firefox and just like you guys slowly bit off IE’s market in the past, so is Chrome slowly biting at your potential share gains, month over month. There’s a ton of really smart people working at Mozilla today. If only you could focus on getting us, your community, a light, fast browser again I would jump onboard again in a second.

Thanks for listening.

Comments on this post

Thank you for writing this, Fred. I’ve been thinking about the same thing lately. Firefox 3.7 seems to be a step in the right direction, but the gecko engine is quite dated and slow. I wish Firefox would release a Webkit edition, to be honest. Webkit has been a much more agile engine and beats Gecko any day.

Oh well, I think I’ve lost hope… :(

PS: I can’t really convert to Chrome. At least not yet. I have too many gripes with it’s UI. Sticking to Safari for now… :)

This is a good point eloquently made Fred. Stepping back from speed/simplicity what else matters?

I believe it matters that we continue to have the choice to use a web browser built by an independent organization (free from shareholders) whose sole purpose is to build a browser and not be influenced by any other commercial constraints.

Lets face it, Google Chrome is built by an ad company. Microsoft IE is tied to a commercial OS and Apple Safari is becoming a walled-gardened-web-client as it moves onto proprietary devices with patented user interactions. I’m not sure I like the direction these other companies are going with their web browsers, no matter how faster they are doing it.

I get you point though and the good thing about Mozilla is that I know they will listen and your voice will make a difference.

For this reason it is important imho that we continue to use Firefox and support Mozilla regardless of any other browser being faster. It is great to see Chrome pushing the envelope and making a ‘challenge’, but lets also be wary that they are the new 800 pound gorilla here, so we don’t want to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. I’m sure none of us want to see any one browser builder have a dominant market share again.

Mozilla was never about Market share dominance. The future of a free and open internet for generations to come will depend upon good people like yourself to help Mozilla get the balance right between mainstream and leading-edge users.

Maybe your letter opens up the bigger question of what Mozilla should do next? Maybe Mozilla should build an additional stripped down browser for bleeding-edge tech users in addition to Firefox. I know plenty of people who’d pay $9.99 for that App and then we’d all have a 100% commercially independent browser!

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