Mozilla

Mozilla, Firefox and Google Chrome

September 2nd, 2008

Mozilla exists to build portions of the Internet where individual human benefit, social benefit, and civic benefit are the most important things. We build Firefox explicitly to advance this goal. Mozilla is uniquely suited to doing this. As a non-profit organization we are organized — legally and logistically — to do this, and only this. We build Firefox as a first, critical step in this goal. But Firefox isn’t the end goal. The end goal is to create an Internet where all of us can participate, where all of us have the ability to build, where all of us can earn authority, responsibility and decision-making ability.

Each one of us will live in a world where our online identity and experience is massive and growing. Each one of us should be able to participate in creating and defining that experience. And to participate in the ways we think are important, not just in the ways someone else offers us. Mozilla recognized long ago that an independent browser dedicated only to the public good is a necessary piece for building a healthy Internet. Many people thought this was silly — the browser was generally treated as simply a part of the Windows desktop and not important in its own right. These days we know that’s not true.

Almost 200 million people have spoken by adopting Firefox; demonstrating how much the browser does matter. Yesterday Google announced that it will release its own browser, validating once again the central idea that this tool we call the browser is fundamentally important. Our first great battle — that of relevance and acceptance — has been won.

We build Firefox with an open development process. At Mozilla people earn respect, authority and decision-making ability by demonstrating their abilities. This allows individual people to become full, equal participants, with both authority and responsibility for building a better Internet. The development process for Firefox demonstrates the type of Internet we want to build. (Not perfectly, of course.)

Firefox is our first step in building this Internet. It’s the demonstration of how to make these goals tangible in a product hundreds of millions of people can enjoy. Firefox is a terrific product and it needs to be. Clearly we need to continue to build great products, and to lead in a competitive environment. Mozilla created this competitive environment through the success of Firefox, and I’m as confident as John is about Mozilla’s future. We’ve already got great things ready for our upcoming 3.1 release, and there’s much more to come. Performance, stability, security, ease of use, features — it’s a great time in Firefox and browser development in general.

We’ll continue to compete in the browser world, and we’ll continue to do well. We’ll continue to produce a product that people choose, and trust and understand is theirs. We’ll continue to do this as part of our overall mission — building an Internet where individual, civic and social value are paramount.

Competition is seldom comfortable, but it forces us to do our best. Firefox 3 is a terrific product and there’s much more to come. We’re just beginning to touch the surface of what Mozilla can accomplish. The best is yet to come.

(Note: I’m flying back to California today after a few days of vacation and so unfortunately will be out of touch for parts of the day.)

16 comments for “Mozilla, Firefox and Google Chrome”

  1. 1

    Pingback from unojoenelcielo.com.ar » Comunidad y usuarios

    […] Al ser un proyecto de software libre en el que cualquiera puede participar, el rol del usuario cambia al de comunitario (si me permiten esta expresión los europeos ;). Si Firefox no funcionara nadie lo usaría, pero muchos lo seguirán usando aunque haya mejores funcionalidades en otros navegadores que no compartan la filosofía del trabajo abierto. No todos los usuarios se transforman en comunitarios, es cierto. Pero ese número de comunitarios ha aumentado y lo seguirá haciendo. Y una vez convertidos, la fidelidad es mayor. ¿Qué empresa no quisiera tener esa fidelidad? Es lo que todas pretenden, pero en este caso sólo es posible porque Mozilla no lo busca, si no que genera la posibilidad de su existencia por su apertura y porque su objetivo no es hacer dinero, sino «crear una Internet donde todos podamos participar, tengamos la posibilidad de crear, donde todos p…. […]

  2. 2

    Pingback from » VerChromed Flusensieb

    […] Stellungnahme von Mozilla gibts auch schon. Die grenzen sich natürlich dadurch ab das sie NPO sind und nur das Beste für […]

  3. 3

    Pingback from Summit Reflections: Community, Education and More Mozillians « commonspace

    […] the internet. The people I met at the Summit have made this big idea a reality. And, as Mitchell posted earlier today, this community has a great deal more to contribute to the open internet. The best is […]

  4. 4

    Pingback from Stuff » Blog Archive » Google Chrome: The death of Firefox?

    […] So off I went to see what Mitchell Baker had to say. Not surprisingly, Mitchell seems to skirting the issues in her blog. […]

  5. 5

    maciej said on September 3rd, 2008 at 5:16 am:

    Right now Chrome is not a threat to Mozilla, but when the final version is finished and there will be some decent add-ons – we will see.

    I’ve done a quick review of my first 2h spent with Chrome.
    http://gbckewroad.blogspot.com/

  6. 6

    Pingback from Internet: Google seguirá financiando al mayor rival de Chrome - Bitelia

    […] de hablar del nuevo lanzamiento de Google. De hecho, tras el título, sólo lo menciona una vez en todo el artículo: Casi 200 millones de personas han decidido elegir Firefox, demostrando cuanta importancia tiene un […]

  7. 7

    Pingback from รวมรีวิว-ความเห็นต่อ Google Chrome จากต่างประเทศ — BeGadget

    […] Mozilla ทั้งซีอีโอ John Lilly และประธาน Mitchell Baker ออกมาสยบความเคลื่อนไหวโดยบอกว่า […]

  8. 8

    media buff said on September 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am:

    despite the rumors, i’m finding Chrome to actually be slower than Firefox… it hangs constantly

  9. 9

    Ken Saunders said on September 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm:

    How silly it is to see so many highly intelligent people go running around like Chicken Little yelling “The sky is falling!”
    Are you kidding me?

    Geez, it is so difficult to try and summarize all of the good and bad points of Google Chrome’s impact on Mozilla, Firefox, and on the Internet in general without making people hit their heads on their keyboards as they fall into a deep sleep.

    There’s no doubt that comparisons will need to be made and plans laid out because Google’s actions whatever they are and may be will have a direct affect on nearly every person who uses the Internet with the exception of those who always thought that Google was their browser all along, but even the question of whether or not Google’s Chrome will be the death of Firefox is absolutely absurd.

    Imagine being Mark Surman who’s first official duty it is to declare that Mozilla will be closing up shop and that Google will be accepting applications from all former MoCo and MoFo employees who would like a high paying and rewarding career in maintaining the tire pressure of Google employee’s Segway PTs.

    Have some faith will ya?
    Mozilla will be fine, Firefox will be fine, we’ll all be fine.

    Believe it or not there are enough Internet users to go around and as one company may be a bit more dominant than others, the other competing companies are usually not doing so bad themselves. Just take a look at the cola wars, fast food chains, car companies and so on.

    And finally, and if I remember correctly, Internet Explorer is the one to keep our focus on.
    If anything, the presence of Google’s Chrome is another great example and point for the open source over proprietary argument and movement, and I certainly don’t have any problem with Google dumping a few million dollars into marketing Chrome to IE users.
    It will be highly unlikely that the greater majority of Firefox users will migrate to Chrome and leave Firefox behind. Firefox users, contributors, and volunteers are loyal, passionate, and certainly not afraid of some competition, after all, they’ve been taking IE head on for some time now and I still see IE’s dominance as the target, not Google’s who just entered the game yesterday.

    There, now will you be able to sleep better tonight?

  10. 10

    Pingback from 10 Reasons Firefox won’t be worried about Chrome « Boriss’ Blog

    […] step towards open innovation on the web. For a more on Mozilla’s exciting new challenges, see Mitchell Baker’s and John Lilly’s comments. Posted by jboriss Filed in Chrome, […]

  11. 11

    George Toms said on September 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm:

    Google Chrome is really fast!
    Now I can sort 200,000 records inside of Browser (Chrome) just in 1 sec. (Faster than Microsoft Excel):
    http://www.ardentedge.com/ex_if.htm

  12. 12

    Tristan said on September 5th, 2008 at 10:52 am:

    Mitchell,

    I think your post deserves more visibility, so I have translated into French and posted it on my blog. See http://standblog.org/blog/post/2008/09/05/Mozilla-Firefox-et-Google-Chrome . (I had a hard time translating “where individual human benefit, social benefit, and civic benefit are the most important things” because of the subtlety of nuance between “Social” and “civic”. If you could elaborate on this, please do! 🙂

  13. 13

    jim said on September 6th, 2008 at 8:59 am:

    chrome is new, but may google will make it popular

  14. 14

    Vlad said on September 6th, 2008 at 10:54 am:

    >>>Mozilla, Firefox and Google Chrome

    And what about Chrome, Mitchell? 😀

  15. 15

    mitchell said on September 8th, 2008 at 3:31 pm:

    Tristan:

    Good question. by “civic” i meant the sense of citizenship, participation in the public commons that defines us. By “social” i meant something broader, in the sense that plenty of things that bring economic value don’t bring social value; for example lots of things are bought and sold (thus creating economic value) but cause disease and thus aren’t so good for social values.

    Vlad re Chrome: I expect to see some interesting ideas from Google — it’s full of smart people. Firefox didn’t spread by money or buying distribution channels. It’s hard to get millions of people to want a new browser. Google has some advantages — everyone pays attention to what they do. On the other hand, a lot of people are worried about Google and many not want their browser to come from Google. Once the original excitement over Chrome fades a bit we’ll get more reasoned reviews of things like performance and so on.

  16. 16

    Shahryar said on September 10th, 2008 at 12:52 am:

    Yes Chrome should not be evaluated simply as a new browser it should be studied in Google’s context . I think emerge of new protocols between web clients and servers (as to serve Google applications) , company relations between Google and Mozilla and of course a newly shrinked border for privacy are some of the stories around Chrome. I’ve detailed them more in my blog post here (http://logosoftime.org/char/?p=14).

Skip past the sidebar