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Much like Microsoft, Mozilla missed out on mobile. Even as its open-source desktop web browser Firefox was surging in popularity, smartphones were starting to emerge as the platform that would push PCs to secondary status for everyday computing. A few years ago Mozilla hatched a plan to become a mobile powerhouse by developing an open-source mobile operating system called Firefox OS. Now it's conceding that plan didn't work, and it's trying not to miss the next big thing.
Mozilla said yesterday at its developer conference in Orlando that it will stop selling its Firefox mobile operating system to carriers and cease development of the OS for smartphones. Instead, the company will explore developing Firefox OS for other platforms, such as Internet of Things devices.
"The current Firefox OS team will stay intact and continue to work on the new experiments across connected devices," Mozilla senior vice president of connected devices Ari Jaaksi told WIRED.
Mozilla, a for-profit company owned by a non-profit organization, has struggled to find relevance in the era of social media and the mobile web. Its flagship desktop browser has been losing marketshare for years, and the company recently proposed spinning off its email client Thunderbird, which it de-prioritized back in 2012. Firefox OS was supposed to be its chance to find relevance in the mobile world, but that experiment appears to be winding down even as Mozilla Corp. is working to expand its footprint on other mobile platforms with new products such as the iOS content blocker Focus, which was announced today, and the long-awaited iOS version of Firefox, which was released last month.
Mozilla announced Firefox OS, originally called Boot to Gecko, in 2011 and released the first version in 2013. For Mozilla, it was a way to get Firefox front and center on mobile phones, since Apple and Google bundle their own web browsers by default with their mobile operating systems. But there was little appetite for Firefox OS outside of the company. Mozilla tried to differentiate itself by targeting low-end phones in the developing world. But low-end Android phones were already available for under $50, and plenty of other companies were also muscling their way into emerging markets.
Meanwhile, power users, long the heart of Firefox's user base, had plenty of other free and open source mobile operating system options, from the Android variation Replicant to the Linux Foundation-backed Tizen to SailfishOS.
The same issue may afflict Mozilla's attempted pivot. Several operating systems are already in use in the connected devices market, from Google's Brillo and BlackBerry's QNX to LG's WebOS, Continki and even a free version of Microsoft Windows.
Mozilla may have more luck trying to improve the web experience for people already using other platforms. For years, before relenting last month, Mozilla refused to release an iOS web browser because Apple won't let third party developers build browsers using custom rendering engines. Focus, meanwhile, gives Mozilla a way to improve the browsing experience for iOS users who don't feel compelled to switch to a different browser. And it draws on Mozilla's greatest strengths, which is its emphasis on privacy and security.
Focus uses iOS 9's content-blocking features to try to protect you from tracking scripts that collect information about your web browsing habits. Even though Focus blocks many ads as a side effect of blocking trackers, however, it's not an ad-blocker. Ads that don't include any sort of third-party tracking, such as Yahoo ads that run on Yahoo.com, aren't blocked. And no, Mozilla isn't making an exception for Yahoo just because the web giant is its most important partner in the US—other tracking blockers, including Ghostery and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Privacy Badger don't block Yahoo's ads either.
Focus isn't the only content blocker out there, but unlike many popular iOS ad blockers, it's free. It also allows for more granular permissions than many others, allowing you to select whether to block ad trackers, analytics trackers, social trackers, and trackers included with content such as embedded videos—all while being easier to use than the free Refine. And Focus is completely open source. The app uses the open source block-list from Disconnect, the makers of a popular Chrome and Firefox tracker-blocking add-on. Source code for the iOS app itself is available on the code sharing site GitHub.
Focus doesn't have the ambition or scope of Firefox OS, but it does show that there's room for Mozilla on the mobile web. And perhaps that's where its future lies: instead of creating a defining mobile experience itself, like it did with Firefox for desktop, it can create tools to help make mobile better.
